Aw Fuck, Dinosaurs!

Prologue (Chewbot)

Thirty years. Thirty years. Thirty years of sweeping dirt and cleaning toilets. No,
make that “thirty years without missing a single day of work”. That’s what is
repeating in your head as you sit uncomfortably in a cheap lobby chair in front of
a door labeled “Dick Waverley,” and directly beneath that “General Manager”.
You read the slip of paper in your hand for the hundredth time: “Waverley
Corporation greatly values your continued dedication to Waverley Corporation,
the Leader in Private Sector Technologies. On this, your thirtieth year of service,
we’re honored to present you with a token of our appreciation! We look forward
to working with you for many fruitful years to come.” Below that, a printed
signature reads “Dick Waverley” with a time and date to meet the man himself.

Your curiosity has been building since you first got the note. Hopefully it’s a fat
bonus check. A raise? Maybe a promotion? Don’t get too excited, you tell
yourself, don’t get your hopes up. They’ve never really appreciated the “manual
labor” sort around here. The door clicks open and a man in a pinstripe business
suit glides past without a second look.

As the door swings shut you can tell there’s no one else in the room. “Uh…” you
murmur, “Er, Mr. Waverley?” The man turns his head and squints but keeps
walking. “I was supposed to meet you?” You’re now walking in step with him.
“Sorry, a little busy…” he grunts and turns a corner.

You follow him down a flight of stairs to a parking garage and jog to catch up.
“Hold on, I have a note about an award?” Waverley has popped the trunk on his
M6 and is laying down the briefcases from each hand. “Hmm? Let me see that…”
skimming the note briefly. “Oh, right. Uhhh… here” he fishes a full-sized swiss
army knife out of his trunk and tosses it in your direction. “Congrats.” Before it
had fully registered, Dick Waverley had backed his car up into your leg, honking.
You step aside and watch dumbfounded as he pulls away down the spiral parking
ramp.

At this point his car violently explodes.

“AW, FUCK!” you shout, stunned. From the level below you spot a black van
streaking up the ramp. You dash back up the stairs into the building! Apparently,
all hell is in the process of breaking loose. A man in a shiny, fire-retardant suit
with a flamethrower is busy laying Dick’s office to waste. You freeze. He stops,
and looks at you through a reflective visor. Then he goes back to torching the
office. You race down a side hallway as scientists run screaming around you,
tripping over each other and generally demonstrating a lack of basic physical
coordination. A group of men in black suits bust through a nearby office door.
One starts spraying bullets from an automatic rifle, peppering some shrieking
scientists across the room.

Think! Think! You’ve cleaned this building a thousand times. Think! One thing
pops into your head: basement lab. You remember it’s been reinforced for
whatever weird machine they’re building down there. Run!

You gallop down the stairwell two steps at a time, alarm lights bathing the walls
red and sirens blaring. The fire sprinklers have sprung into action and you slip on
the last step, wrenching at the door handle for balance. The lab’s usually locked
up tight but the fire alarm tripped the emergency auto-open mechanism! You
fling yourself into the room and slam the door behind you.

“What the..?” A man in a lab coat cranes his neck over some piece of electronics.
“Hey, aren't you a janitor? What’s going on up there? Someone knock over a
burner?” “Shut the hell up!” you hiss. He seems to be the only person in here.
“Help me barricade the door!” You frantically scan the room for furniture and
realize this is the first time you’ve ever been inside the room. Not only is there no
furniture, there’s no… anything. Except for an enormous ring of metal covered in
flashing diodes.

“Oh no, no no oh no…” starts the scientist. “They’re coming here. This is why
they’re here.” He looks at the enormous hexagonal ring. “I was just taking some
readings! I shouldn’t be here!” You walk over to the giant machine where the
scientist is frantically hitting buttons. “What? What is why they’re here…” the
door bursts open behind you and more men in black suits pile in. The scientist,
his head on a swivel, screams and bashes a few keys, and then the room goes
white.

As your sight returns you shout “What did you do?!” “I don’t know,” he screams,
“I panicked!” In the middle of the hexagonal ring a shimmering field appears and
an image begins to materialize. It looks like some ferns, maybe some trees in the
distance? It’s kind of like looking into a three-dimensional painting, and utterly
hypnotizing. A dozen or so men in black have now pushed through the door,
some are cautiously stepping toward the machine. One holds a finger to his ear;
“Yes sir, affirmative. It’s been activated. I don’t know. It looks like…” and just
then the confusion in the room multiplies exponentially.

An enormous snout pushes through the image on the machine, nostrils flaring,
sniffing around the room, producing an undeniable sort of… moisture. With some
considerably effort, the head of a full-sized tyrannosaurus wiggles inconceivably
into the science lab. Visible shaken, the government spooks start to back up. One
whispers “Aw fuck, dinosaurs,” prompting the T-rex lets out an ear-shattering
roar like a cross between a lion and a tornado. Then shit gets crazy.

The spooks open fire. “NO!” screams the scientist, “DON’T SHOOT THE
MACHINE!” The T-rex, understandably, goes ballistic, thrashing around as much
as a giant dinosaur with his head stuck in a collar can thrash. One man becomes
instantly pulverized against the lab wall, leaving nothing but a red smear! Three
more are crushed under its jaw! Smoke and electricity is starting to arc from the
metal frame! “Run!” shouts one man, but most have already scattered. The
portal is starting to flash impossible colors and even the scientist has decided to
make a break for it, with you right behind! Suddenly your sight goes haywire, the
landscape and the T-rex’s head start to fuse together and the room itself begins
to rotate… diagonally. The dinosaur shrieks. The last thing you see is a couple
12-foot teeth closing over your head. And everything goes black.

Turn to page 312.

Page 312 (Chewbot)

The good news is that you’re not dead. The bad news is that you’re still alive.
You’re sitting on a patch of red dirt, dark clouds churning overhead. Is that a
volcano? Oh hey, there’s the scientist. Aces. He seems strangely calm for a man
staring at a velociraptor who curiously paces nearby.

“Don’t move,” squeaks the scientist. “Maybe we can still make it out of here.”

“WHAT THE FUCK?” you shout. Tact will have to sit this one out. The scientist
hisses “I’ll explain later, but here’s the quick version. I think the Tyrannosaurus’
head merged with the recurve field generated by the time machine…” “TIME
MACHINE?! you screech,” “…and the space-time portal fused his mouth with his
period of origin. And then he ate us.”

“So we’re inside the T-rex’s mouth which is also in the past and he can chew
holes in the fabric of time?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you.”

“Listen very carefully,” the man continues, as the raptor shifts dangerously out of
the long grass, onto the dry dirt nearby. If we’re lucky, the T-rex is in our time
period and when he opens his mouth again it’ll make another portal somewhere
around here. When you see it, jump.”

“I think something else is going to jump first,” you choke out, as two more raptor
heads pop up over the grass. You can’t remember how you knew that raptors
hunt in packs. Oh yeah, Jurassic Park, which reminds you that mixing scientists
with velociraptors usually ends poorly. The scientist steps slowly backwards
towards you, and against all odds the air wobbles and the world in front of you
rips opens up like a burlap sack being torn in half.

“JUMP!” yells the scientist, and you do, but something doesn’t look quite right on
the other side. Maybe it’s the horse, or the guy in full plate armor.
“AH, SHIT!” you shout, as you plummet twenty feet onto rain-slick mud, next to a
battered kite shield, and scramble to your feet. A freshly-halved raptor drops like
a pile of bricks to your right. Instead of running in terror you make the mistake of
looking around. About an hour ago the sight would have put you on the fast bus
to crazy town but at this point it’s just “extremely overwhelming”.

The T-rex towers above you, growling, chewing on a knight it just picked off a
horse. In front of you, about five hundred men in armor are retreating up a
muddy hill toward the walls of a massive fortress, in a downpour, horrified. Piles
of bodies and dead horses scatter the open field. A few mounted knights keep
their distance, unsure of what to do. You chance a glance behind you. An entire
army, thousand of armed men, stand stone still, mouths agape. Their red and
gold banners flap in the gale. Great, you've fallen into the middle of a siege.
Fantastic. For some reason, you’re feeling safest standing under the T-rex. A
shout goes up from the fortress walls and you whip back around.

“Wow,” says the scientist, appearing next to you. “I was not expecting this. By
the way, my name is Isaac Brun…” THUNK. THUNK, THUNK! A shower of arrows
spray the ground in front of you, behind you, up the side of the T-rex, and across
Isaac who drops to the ground like a wet sack, pierced through the head.

“FUUUUUUUUCK!” you scream. The Tyrannosaurus also bellows in rage toward

the castle, from whence arrows continue to pelt him. Suddenly there’s a bright
shimmer from its mouth and two pterodactyls spring out, swooping into the
heavy sky! A third rockets forth, disoriented, and smashes headlong into the
fortress walls, mortar and debris flying as men tumble to their death. The T-rex,
clearly fed up with the whole situation, promptly begins lumbering away from the
castle toward a dense forest not far to the east, shaking the ground as it goes.
You suddenly realize you’ve lost your cover.

Before you can react, men on horses wearing red and gold have galloped up on
you. They encircle you and point their spears menacingly.

“Hold, warlock!” bellows the nearest knight in thick english. “Who are you that
can summon dragons? Answer quickly!”
Shit. This is bad. You haven’t had a moment to think since your boss’ car
exploded after he gave you that stupid… swiss army knife? You dig into your
pocket and whip out the army knife, extend the allen wrench like a wand and
wave it around menacingly. “Back off! I’ll zap all your shit!” “Zap all your shit?”
you ponder. Nevermind, it sort of worked. The nervous knights have temporarily
given you a wide berth, and a moment to think.

Will you back away slowly, making a break for the hole in the castle walls,
presumably finding shelter and food? Turn to 118.

Try to bluff your way through conversation? Turn to 43.

Reluctantly follow after the T-rex into the forest alone; realizing it’s your only
ticket out of here? Turn to 12.

Page 12 (Bobbin Threadbare)

You quickly realize that nothing the knights could possibly say or do would help
your situation in any way. On the other hand, keeping track of that T-rex would at
least leave you with a chance of getting home, albeit in the company of a very
angry and very large carnivore.

Thinking quickly, you point off into the sky and scream, “Look out! A solar
eclipse!” You’re not sure if the knights understood you, but they must have
noticed the panic in your voice, because they all quickly turn to see what has you
scared. You take the moment to run for the forest where you last saw the Time
Tyrannosaur, your would-be captors unaware of your retreat until you are already
halfway to the forest’s cover. While several knights quickly turn their mounts and
gallop towards you, fear has given your legs wings, and you reach the safety of
the forest before they can catch you. The knights are forced to dismount in order
to pursue you, and their heavy armor prevents them from keeping up. Soon
enough, you outdistance them and slow down to catch your breath.
That’s when it occurs to you that a forest too dense for horses would definitely
not hold something as big as the T-rex. Dreading that you might wind up
stranded here, you start trying to retrace your steps, when you suddenly come
across the unexpected.

“Fuck,” you mutter, “Is this shit getting worse?” Seemingly embedded in two
separate trees are a pair of time portals. On your left, you can see a large, open
building full of futuristic curves and glass walls. The skyline beyond it is like none
you have ever seen, and you could swear you saw a flying car move past the
window. In the right portal, you see an empty, black landscape of bare rock and
overcast skies. You think you can hear a low rumbling, but that might just be the
nearby siege.

Will you try the left-hand portal? Turn to 215.

The right-hand portal? Turn to 3.

Or do you wish to press your luck and keep searching the forest? Turn to 166.

Page 166 (Azzur)

Yeah, it's probably better to not go gallivanting through time just because you
can. I mean, you just barely managed to escape those knights back there. You
press on past the portals, hopefully getting to some clearer territory in the forest.
The ominous rumbling above has gotten louder, however, and it's making
concentrating incredibly difficult.

"Didn't I just pass that tree?" you wonder aloud. The forest has grown dark and
the rumbling intensified to the point that you have to cover your ears as you run.
There's a break in the treeline ahead and you dash through to a sparse meadow.
The ground here has been recently upturned with a massive claw mark imprinted
in the ground. How the hell the Timeasaurus Rex got here is beyond you, but
you're not one to look a gift horse in the eye.
You don't get much of an opportunity to follow the claw prints before the sky
suddenly opens up with a massive bolt of lightning rupturing the ground before
you. You fly head over heels as the world becomes very loud and bright in an
instant. You're sure you can feel yourself swearing but you can't hear it through
the ringing in your ears. As your vision adjusts, you see a wizened old man
standing before you clad in dirty white and gold robes.

"Dragon summoner! I have come to challenge your powers!" he shouts as a globe

of fire extends from the tip of the crooked wooden staff held at his side. You're
not one-hundred percent on your history here, but you're pretty damn sure that
wizards and magic have never existed, so what the hell is going on here?

"I haven't got all day, sorcerer!" the man shouts, voice cracking with age. You
reach into your pocket to feel the cool touch of the swiss army knife. It may just
come in handy.

Will you accept the wizard's challenge? Turn to page 47.

Or perhaps try and talk things out? Turn to page 99.

Or maybe you can make a run for it and chase after that dinosaur? Turn to page
108.

Page 47 (Erenthal)

Push a man too far, and you’re responsible for what happens next. Since this
morning, you’ve had to put up with government goons, time-travelling dinosaurs
and medieval goddamn knights. And now magicians. You fucking hate magicians,
ever since your mother once took you to see David Copperfield and he wouldn’t
sign an autograph after the show. It would have taken him twenty seconds, but
noooooo. A fireball impacts near your head, scorching the leaves of a nearby
tree. Right, time to go McGyver on this guy’s ass.

“Feel the true power of magic!” the old man shouts, and the staff begins to
charge once more, the tip radiating with barely contained power. Every muscle in
your body tenses up, ready to dodge. With a broad smile, he points the staff at
you. Then, just as you expect the kiss of fire to reach out towards you, the staff
fizzles out with a dejected moaning noise.

“What’s this? Battery dry? Cheap piece of crap!” the man cries out, shaking the
staff vigorously as to coax it back to life.

“Knife, or nail-file?” you ask, grinning, as you flick through the blades on the
army knife.

“Look, erm, there’s been a terrible misunderstanding here… you wouldn’t hurt
me, would you?” the ‘wizard’ pleads with you. Just as you are about to respond,
you hear loud voices coming from the woods behind you. It’s the knights, and
they’ve tracked you down! You turn back to the old man, only to see his feet
disappearing into a shimmering portal that slowly begins to close behind him.
Then a glint of metal catches your eye, just below the shrinking portal. On closer
look, you find a small square technological device of some sort. At the top “TIME-
EX 3.0” is etched into the casing and below that are three buttons. At the lower
left corner, what looks like a battery-indicator displays a “1”. You assume that
this means that the device has one, and only one, charge left.

The voices are closing in.

Do you leap into the now rapidly closing portal? Turn to page 5.

Press the buttons on the device at random, hoping for the best? Turn to page
160.

Or take your chances with the knights? Page 303.

Page 160 (Nick Buntline)

Furious at the faux-wizard's shenanigans, you sweep up his stupid device and
begin mashing buttons randomly on it. The display begins to flicker wildly and
sparks begin to shoot off the battery, and overall you feel quite satisfied with the
destruction of his valuable belongings. The knights surrounding you seem less
satisfied with your continued suspicious actions, and are beginning to express
their displeasure when-

there is a flash of light, a load roar, and the smell of fresh oranges

-when suddenly you find yourself in a technicolor wonderland. The ground is

covered in a hazy purple mist, the sky is an ever-changing panoply of colors, and
the forest has been replaced by an endless field showing glimpses of a million
different times, interspersed with the occasional car, plane, or phone booth flying
between them. You gaze in amazement at it all, trying to figure out where to
begin, and quickly settle on two things as being particularly and immediately
relevant. First, you appear to have brought along the knights, who seem to be
evenly divided between trying to get on their horses (having fallen off in transit)
and trying to get off their horses (having stayed on in transit and been terrified
by the process). Second, you also seem to have somehow brought along the
elderly, and now quite angry, "magician".

"You damned fool!" he yells, as he runs towards you from among the hysterical
knights. "Don't you have any idea what you're doing?!? Opening a portal with no
destination - you've trapped us all in the Time Stream! And without a functioning
controller at that! Now our only way out is to find a stable portal, and it's not like
one's going to just fall from the sk-"

He is interrupted by a second load roar, one which you now recognize as the
destructive dinosaur you've been following! The T-Rex must have been dragged
in here too! The old man seems to come to the same conclusion, and dashes off
towards the roar at a surprising speed for his frail body. And from what he said, it
seems like you'd better catch up with him and the T-Rex if you're to have any
hope of getting out of here! But how to do so?

Will you borrow one of the knight's horses? Turn to page 8.

Or will you try to hitch a ride with one of the passing phone booths? Turn to page
63.

Or is the risk of the old man gaining a lead too great, and so will you immediately
start running after him on foot? Turn to page 72.

Page 63 (Green Intern)

After quickly assessing your options, you realize that theres no way that you'd
be able to catch up with the Chronosaur and the Wizard Time Traveler on foot,
and that the knight's horses, while unattended, are more likely to kick you in the
head in their frantic state. It looks like your only option is to try and hitch a ride
on one of the dozens of flying phone booths that are apparently a common
fixture of the time stream. Taking quick stock (something that you are quite good
at doing, being a janitor) of their trajectories, you begin to run alongside the rows
of booths as they rise and fall to some unknowable rhythm.

Making a mighty leap into the air, you successfully grab the bottom lip of a rather
serviceable-looking red booth, and clamber inside. As you do so, however, you
hear a thunk, and then see an arrow sticking inches from your head. It appears
that the knights have regained their composure, and have taken it upon
themselves to slay you, the apparent cause of this whole situation. You scramble
to gain some degree of cover, and in doing so, accidentally flip the booth so that
the door is facing upward. At this upsetting of its trajectory, the booth lurches
forward at a troubling speed, ramming aside slower police boxes, payphones, and
Deloreans, and passing by a multitude of portals, each leading to an unknown
time.

Giving a triumphant yell with the realization that the knights have been left
behind for the moment, and a horrified scream with the realization that you can't
really control your new ride, you quickly catch up with the Chronosaur.
Unfortunately, it noticed your screams, and has turned to face you roaring
defiantly. As you come closer, you notice something very odd about the portal
that now makes up the majority of its mouth.
It's full of dinosaurs, and you're looking up at them. The portal is below a cliff.

As the Rex roars, the the pressure imbalance draws the curious dinosaurs down,
and then ejects them sideways. A Raptor rockets past you, barely missing the
phonebooth. Another flies far over your head, and you can hear the screams of
the knights as the first Raptor crashes into them. The "Wizard," the only man you
know who understands time travel, is screaming for help. You only have a few
moments before you crash directly into the roaring jaws of the T-Rex, and there's
no telling if that time portal leads back to the prehistoric time, or if the
timestream as a whole is now infested with dinosaurs. It might not even be the
same portal the next time the Rex opens its jaws to roar.

At this point, you realize you must make a decision, if you're going to get out of
here alive.

If you attempt to Save the Wizard, turn to Page 100.

If you try to Duck and Cover, and then Thread the T-Rex, turn to Page 2.

If you want to bail out and try to land in a random - possibly safer - portal, go to
Page 111.

Page 100 (CannibalK9)

While the wizard may just be one more on the list of things trying to kill you, his
gasping cries for help and apparent knowledge of time travel wrench your body
in his direction before you can fully process the situation. As a pack of
Deinonychus whip past and scatter themselves through the eras, you shift your
weight to one side bringing the phone booth around in a wide arc, allowing you to
reach out with one hand and haul the scrawny man off his commandeered
mount. You pull him close and his whimperings subside.

The T-Rex is snapping its jaws furiously, trying to catch the prehysteria as they
appear tantalisingly close to its snout. Though you managed to change your
course, the extra weight swings you back round towards the Rex, and in your
struggle to avoid the flailing head you only succeed in losing your grip. Dropping
to the ground in an uncontrollable dive, the old man's screams cause you to
glance around, and you find yourself staring directly into the mouth rushing
towards you. Your rescue attempt has caused you to fall directly across the path
of the Rex and it has no trouble snatching you from your simple trajectory.

You're so close that you can see past the portal and down the throat, the smell of
decay and searing meat envelops you as a fiery blast from the wizard immolates
a Sinosauropteryx that jumps in front of his shot. Shutting your eyes has little
effect as the Rex lurches forward and the teeth close around you with a
nauseating crunch.

~~~

You land hard on a smooth surface, skidding several meters as you try to swivel
onto your back. Two people topple over you, reacting with furious accusations
until they look to see where you came from, at which point they run frantically in
the opposite direction. The ground is moving along with you, and as soon as you
can stop sliding you pull yourself upright and jump off the disorientating
conveyor. A few steps away is the Chronosaur, its mouth wrapped around a tree
and blood spray dripping down its neck. It quickly disengages itself and looks
around, eyes hovering briefly on you, before it notices a morsel by its feet and
lowers its head to feed.

You recognise the battered heap it's tearing into as the wizard, the top half of
him at least. Where his body is from the waist down you cannot say, but you
conclude that he was bitten in half as you dragged him along, leaving the rest
back in the time stream. You look away, sickened by the sight and by your own
sense of morbid pleasure at the magic-wielders demise. As for the current time
period... all you can guess is that the Rex managed to bite into one of the portals,
fusing two separate times together. Aside from the moving walkways decking the
huge enclosed area, and the bright storefronts layered with an inconceivable
quantity of garish technology, there are trees and muddy paths strewn about,
with well-dressed citizens and dirty peasants somehow mingling naturally.
Will you keep an eye on the dinosaur in case anyone reacts to it with hostility?
Turn to page 171.

Will you head into the nearest shop; a gadget warehouse that is somehow
conjoined with a thatched cottage? Turn to page 51.

Or will you jump back on the nearest conveyor belt and see where it takes you?
Turn to page 37.

Page 51 (Rhinoceraptor)

You've decided you've gone on this horrible adventure long enough without any
supplies, and hearing the crunches and smacks of the Chronosaur eating what
could have been the easy way out of this mess is starting to wear on your sanity,
so you make your way to the nearest building, which looks like some sort of
combination of a warehouse and a cottage.

Upon further observation, you infer from the building's name, "Cybersmithe"
(with "Cyber" and "smithe" in completely different lettering) that this is a hybrid
of some futuristic electronics emporium and an old-timey blacksmith's shop. Sure
enough, as you walk in, you find the walls are lined with strange looking devices.
Most of them are shaped like medieval weaponry, but with screens and blinking
lights in odd places. In the far corner, a man is working on something with a
hammer.

"Welcome!" says a cheerful voice from directly ahead, you turn and see a man
dressed in a customer service uniform standing behind a desk. "May I help you?"
"Yes please." you reply, dumping all your money onto the desk, "I'd like to buy a
weapon."
"Heard about the dragons popping up, have you? You've come to the right place!
These three, in fact, happen to be on sale!"

The clerk gestures toward three weapons on the wall behind him: a sword with a
keypad displaying unfamiliar symbols on the flat of the blade, an axe with a head
that glows and hums like a fluorescent light, and a mace with what looks like two
hinges on its handle.

"All of our weapons have auxiliary functions in addition to combat." The man
continues "For example, the sword--"

He stops as his eyes fall upon the small pile of money for the first time. "What the
devil is this supposed to be?" He asks, clearly under the impression that you're
playing a joke on him. You wonder what the problem is for a moment before it
dawns on you; of course your money won't work! Not only are you in a different
time, you're in a dinosaur-induced futurepast supertime. Who knows what kind of
mixed up money they use here? Feeling disappointed in your fruitless venture,
you apologize, gather up your money, and turn to leave the store.

CRASH! BLAM! SMASH! An allosaur and five velociraptors burst into the building.
It looks like the Chronosaur has coughed up some more creatures from its own
time; probably not just its time either, you realize as a sabretooth tiger and a
grotesque thing that could only have come from outer space slink in as well.
Glancing behind you, you see the three weapons hanging on the wall. The clerk is
nowhere to be seen. Considering the circumstances, it wouldn't be that big of a
deal if you took one of them, right?

Will you take the sword? Turn to page 632.

The axe? Turn to page 91.

The mace? Turn to page 39.

Page 632 (Gummy Joe)

Acting in desperation, you grab the sword off of its perch on the wall. As you
grasp the hilt, the keypad begins to glow with a strange energy, and you can't
help but smile. You turn to face the swarming terrible lizards and friends.
"Alright motherfuckers, you're about to become extinct...uh, again."

A quick slash lops off two raptor heads. A lunge pierces the sabretooth tiger even
as it leaps towards your jugular. "These are some stains I'm gonna be happy to
leave in!" you shout to the presumptive location of the clerk as you're showered
with fresh gore and viscera. "This is for you Billy Mays, wherever you are!"

But the other animals are less than impressed with your fancy swordsmanship
and biting wit, and they start to surround you. You swing a few desperate
strokes, but it's clear the dinosaurs/blob have learned their lesson and are
keeping their distance, waiting to strike as soon as they see an opening.

Suddenly, you remember: this sword has a keypad! Glancing briefly at it, you can
see there are three main groups of keys. One group glows blue and are made up
of symbols that almost look like directional arrows. The second group glows
yellow and are made up of symbols that look like a bunch of sunbursts. The third
group glows red and is made up symbols that...that look like Hebrew? Yes, you
remember seeing these sorts of symbols at your friend Harmon's Bar Mitzvah!
What's Hebrew doing on this space-sword?!

A burp from the ooze monster snaps you out of your contemplation. You're all out
of other ideas, so it's key mashing time!

Will you mash the blue keys? Turn to page 217.

The yellow keys? Turn to page 149.

The red keys? Turn to page 89.

Page 89 (Chewbot)

If you remember correctly – and things are a little blurry right now – there are two
raptors to the left, another one pacing at about five o’clock on your right and a
space thing directly ahead. Despite three ex-carnivores lying in pieces nearby
you’re still surrounded and GAH! The raptor on the right snaps like a bear trap,
missing your arm by inches as you spin from one foe to the next, brandishing
your cybersword.

“This thing must do something!” you shout as you frantically mash on the
sword’s keypad, not even looking at the keys. A dinky speaker on the keyboard
suddenly barks “Yitgaddal veyitqaddash shmeh rabba… Be’alma di vra
khir'uteh…” The nearest raptor hisses, agitated by the loud noise. “WORTHLESS
PIECE OF…” you shriek!

Behind you cracks the splintering of wood and a door flies open – as your head
spins you see Old Man Shopkeeper emerge wielding a copper-tubed
crossbow/shotgun hybrid and a raptor’s head explodes nearby. “Good choice!”
he shouts as the chant continues to blare from your sword, and you take the
opportunity to chop a filet out of the startled raptor nearby, which goes down
with a groan. The third dinosaur, sensing the tables had turned, makes a break
for the door, tripping over the sabertooth corpse and stumbling into the space
goo, which absorbs it slowly as you watch flesh and bone bubble and dissolve.
The blob, having turned from a deep purple roil to a swirl of pastel paisley thanks
you with a British accent and exits through the front door, hanging ajar.

The shopkeeper and you stand slack-jawed for a moment, and the sword-
recording finally ends. “Well,” he says, eyeing the sword, “That Kvetchtana there,
that’s used merchandise now. Comes out to thirteen-hundred kilopex.” “What?”
you respond, indignantly, “I would have died! What the hell was it saying,
anyway?” “Uh, just the Kaddish…” he says, as if he were talking to a five-year-
old. “Brilliant feature,” he continues, “for the Jewish gladiators who don’t have
time to recite their own death prayer in the middle of a battle. You can only use it
once, though, so now it's used. Thirteen-hundred kilopex.”

"Wait a second, Jewish gladiators?" you wonder aloud. "Yeah," he remarks,

confused, "What'd you think, Christianity was going to catch on?" He chuckles to
himself. "I’m just glad you didn’t dial up the ‘Wrath of God’ function with the
yellow keys, probably would’a burned the whole place down."
As if on cue, a rocket-propelled missile flies through the open front door, blowing
bits of the shopkeeper onto nearby surfaces. Rocket fuel scattered around in the
combustion goes up like a Christmas tr-er, Menorah? As the wooden interior is
engulfed in flames you leap for the entrance and stumble outside, patting out the
flittering flames down your left sleeve. You catch your breath a moment before
the sight in front of you takes it away again.

If you’ve met a wizard and he met an unfortunate demise, turn to page 70.

Otherwise, turn to page 614.

Page 70 (Chewbot)

You pat down the last licks of flame on your cindered sleeve and look up.

The man in front of you is covered in cybernetics, sporting glowing goggles and
an extraordinarily complex jetpack. He stares you down as he reloads his arm-
grafted multi-threaded rocket cannon. Around him lies an unprecedented pile of
dinosaur bodies from Anklyosaurs to Ceratosaurus, and… uh oh. The Time-rex
lies in a smouldering heap nearby, motionless. “I’m here for you, you know,” the
man casually mentions.

Your mind races a mile a minute. Who? Why?! All you can manage to stutter is
“Then you… shouldn’t have killed the shopkeeper…”

“He deserved it,” replies the man, lifting the goggles off his face. “Thinks he can
sell people faulty fire staffs.”

Then it hits you… the mage… no, wait, the scientist? They're all the same person!
“Isaac Brun-uhhh?” you stammer. “What’s the matter,” he spits, “Can’t
remember my last name because I died too quick? Did you know you’ve been
responsible for my death about oh, I don’t know, twenty-seven times now? Did
you know I’ve been chasing you for eighteen years? Finally had to fight my way
out of this bastards mouth to find you. Ironic, huh? But that’s about to come to
end, right now, finally.”

Eyeing your sword, Isaac keeps his distance as his arm-launcher beeps and whirs,
warming up. He levels his rocket arm at your head. Panicking, you fumble with
your cybersword, almost dropping it on your foot. Suddenly the metal blade flies
forward, having stretched suddenly from about 4 feet long to about 20. When you
look up, you find it firmly imbedded in the scientist/mage/cyborg’s chest. You
look down at the keypad, where your thumb is holding down the blue “UP”
button. Oh, THAT’S what those do, you think.

“NOT… AGAIN…” gasps Isaac, slumping forward. You hit the down button and the
blade retracts. In his dying breath you hear a POP, as though a firework went off
near your head and suddenly the field of exploded dinosaur bodies is full of quite
alive dinos, except now they seem to be covered in advanced technology, turrets
and metal armor. The Chronosaur roars in confusion, simultaneously firing a
salvo of lasers from the harness on his head, and all hell breaks loose in an
eruption of dino-on-dino laser destruction. You can hear shrieks behind you as
terrified townspeople, who now appear to be half-bear, run up the hill toward
what used to be a technocastle but is now a zeppelin made from what looks like
snakeskin. You get the feeling you’ve been seriously fucking things up lately.

A laser bolt sears the ground and the dino melee is getting out of control nearby!

Do you fight your way toward the Timerannosaurus in hopes of escaping this
batshit abortion of a time period? Turn to 33.

Quickly search Cyber-Isaac’s body for potential clues and loot? Turn to 363.

Or book it with the townspeople toward the zeppelin? Turn to 482.

Page 363 (Black Wombat)

Deciding that you need to act quickly, you promptly push the retract button on
your sword, and, very quickly, nothing happens. It seems that stabbing the
cyborg-wizard-scientist has shorted out the blade's power supply! The showers of
sparks emerging from the robo-man's chest confirm that idea. "Fuck, even in the
dinosaur-infested future-past, nothing works right."

As the chaos rages around you, you are starting to feel very uncomfortable
knowing that, while most of the creatures in this era ((eras?)) are armed with
laser-crossbows or therma-swords, you currently have a swiss army knife.
Deciding that you might be able to get some kind of weapon from Mr. Been-
Killed-twenty-eight-times-now, you move to his body, and look for something
useful.

Unfortunately, the majority of his equipment, such as his bazooka arm, his
jetpack, his force-field generator, and his laser nipples all seem to be tied into his
main power generator, which your kosher sword has skewered.

Just before you turn away in disgust, you notice that he's wearing a headset that
isn't connected, and is still glowing with energy! It's labeled 'Babelasaur' You
place it on your head, and your world gets far more confusing.

It seems that these dinosaurs aren't just screaming at one another with
animalistic fury; They're talking! Talking future dinosaurs! You hear a titanium-
plated Triceratops with nuclear-powered horns charge into a group of laser-
headed raptors with a cry of "Dinotopia foreveeeer!", while a squad of
pterodactyl flying over head drop bombs in a strafing run in front of you, reducing
a missile-launcher-bearing ankylosaurus((An artilleryosaurus?)) to kibble and bits
with high-pitched shrieks of "Death to Queen Dinopolous!" It is increasingly clear
that this isn't a random expression of fury, but a two-sided military encounter.

This becomes even more clear as you suddenly feel things rushing about your
legs. With a scream like a little girl and a lunge, you bail out of the way as a
swarm of several dozen compys, each with a beeping device strapped to their
chest, surge forwards, screaming in unison "Sic semper Tyrannosaurus!" They
charge across the laser-charred and cratered battlefield, directly towards the
Epochasaur, who seems to be leading the pro-Dinotopia forces, although it's hard
to tell because its enraged screams always translate as "I WILL DEVOUR YOU
ALL.",
You land roughly in a crater besides what used to be some kind of horse-drawn
hover-volvo ((which implies flying horses, a thought you decide to entertain
later)). Before you have a chance to decide on a course of action, a small
Archaeopteryx lands on the wrecked car's hood ornament ((a sea urchin?)) and
speaks; "Hey! Human! Your have a Babelasaur on! Good!" You stare at the
pigeon-sized dinosaur. "Rebel command wants to talk to you. Hurry, come with
me before those compys go off!" It says, and starts fluttering away from the
battle, towards a rip in time-space

If you want to trust the little dinosaur, you can follow it into another place,
another time, by turning to page 112.

Alternately, you can ignore him and try to change the tide of the battle by
grabbing a weapon from a fallen dino and helping:

The royalists. Turn to page 21.

Or the revolutionaries. Turn to page 222.

Page 112 (Trick Question)

You follow the small feathery creature into the portal. You emerge into some sort
of techno-cathedral, from the look of things. Masses of haphazard wiring slither
through the room. The archaeopteryx warns you not to trip. Groups of men
dressed in medieval armor and dinosaurs outfitted more technologically move
through the area.

The cathedral seems to be shaking. "Looks like the bombing is still going on. I'd
better get you to our leaders right away." It leads you through a small passage
near a corner of the room, which leads down several flights of stairs. It's dark,
and all that lights the way are a few LED lights embedded into the walls.

When you're about fifty feet down, you estimate, the archaeopteryx leads you
through a doorway into a hallway, leading three directions. "You go that way, it's
the big door, you can't miss it. I've gotta go get some grub, I ain't et in days." It
flies off down one of the hallways. You head down the hallway it pointed out.

The hallway twists and turns, and you pass many doors, although none of them
seem particularly big. You realize this must be a huge base. After you walk for a
while, suddenly all of the lights go out. You hear a large explosion overhead, and
lots of shouting. The lights come back on, and they're blaring red. "Warning, the
base has been breached. Warning. Warning." The base vibrates more violently. A
velociraptor runs from the same direction whence you came, but you notice it's
bleeding rather badly. It slows down, stops, and falls over, blood leaking all over
the floor. You're pretty sure it's dead.

Clutched in his hand is some sort of lazer handgun. Checking it, you notice the
display on the side has a big "1" written on it. You really, really hope that's not
the remaining ammo. A patch on his vest says "Chekov". Huh.

You look around, and notice an open doorway a few more feet down the hall.
Your janitorial instincts tell you it's some sort of broom closet, but you can't be
sure from here. Another large vibration shakes one of the ceiling tiles loose. It
clangs heavily right next to you, and you jump in fear. However, looking up, you
see an open duct where it came down. You could probably climb in there, if you
jumped. You could probably follow it outside - it might be a good idea to escape.
Of course, it's possible you could still meet with the leadership of the rebellion by
following this hallway.

Will you enter the duct? Turn to page 727.

Continue down the hallway? Turn to page 48.

Or duck into the doorway? Turn to page 533.

Page 48 (General Ironicus)

You came for an audience and an audience you shall have. Unfortunately the
ceiling has different ideas. One more chunk of tile falls and hits you square in the
Babelsaur. A small metallic voice chirps "X-POSITOR Activated".

With an exasperated shout of "What the HELL is going on here!" you continue
down the hallway, only slightly shaken by the blow. The headset's built-in
dinopedia function you accidentally switched on takes this as an instruction and
begins filling in a few details.

Eighty Million years ago all of Dinodom was united under a monarchy that has
lasted to this day, shifting from one dynasty to the next. It supported itself
through the use of the metal magics cared for by a secretive priestly order. That
all changed roughly ten years ago when a radical scientist declared that the
magics were actually technology, and further that it could not have been Sauren
in origin.

Obviously the monarchy denounced and exiled him, but others followed.
Eventually they coalesced into a federation of anti-government rebels more
threatened by internal division than hostile action. That changed three years ago
when a radical faction started firing on monarchial outposts. Hostilities swiftly
escalated into the chaos you have found yourself in.

"Christ that was a long hallway" you think as the X-POSITOR concludes. You have
entered a large chamber illuminated by torches and floating orbs of light. Every
species of giant lizard you remember from that trip to the Field Museum in fourth
grade and several others are represented in a cajoling mass. On a raised dais a
scarred Stegosaurus reclines, wrapped in the tattered remains of a lab coat. He
beckons to you, silencing the crowd.

"You, human. Step forward. We have waited for one like you. Not many survive
the journey." He may be an herbivore but the guards moving toward you aren't.
You comply. "We have found a great boon out in no-Dino's-land. This is one of
your greatest machines. The Queen says it is an oracle, but we know it is a tool.
You will show us how to use it properly that we may have the victory".

"Please let me recognize it" you think as the crowd parts before you. As you
ascend the dais your heart falls because you actually do recognize the "oracle".
It’s a part of the machinery in the lab, back when things in your life almost made
sense. Specifically a part of the console with one giant red button. They do have
walnut-sized brains after all.

If you try to blunder your way through with the device, turn to page 84.

If you decide honesty is the best policy and tell them you have no idea what to
do, turn to page 314.

If you try to make a break for it, turn to page 110.

Page 84 (The Saurus)

"Sure." you reply "I actually helped to design this machine. What you do is..." You
slam your fist down on the red button like a man trying to fire mashed potato
across the room slams his fork, and turn to run through the still-parted crowd.
You have no idea what the button does, but you know you don't want to be close
when it happens.

You make it about ten meters before an Anklyosaurus sweeps his tail at you,
trying to knock you off your feet. Without thinking, you perform a mighty forward
somersault and land on your feet to continue running "FUCK" you think "How did I
do that?!", but soon you have your answer, gravity is weakening and you can feel
a force slowing down everything around you. "Is this bullet time" you wonder,
"Have I become 50 cent?"

You hazard a look backwards and see dinosaurs scraping the floor with their
talons as they're sucked towards a newly formed vortex around the console, truly
you have doomed this dinorevolution before it had a chance to begin. Before you
too are dragged in, you throw your arms around the heaviest thing you can find,
the tail of a diplodocus - a creature, you hope, too stupid to register any
complaints - but it is a futile action and soon the two of you are falling through
the timestream to God knows where.
Turn to page 56.

Page 56 (The Saurus)

The diplodocus lands with a heavy thump on the dirt below, as you graze your
face against his tail. You close your eyes for a few moments, dreading where you
have been brung this time. Eventually you summon the courage and look around,
and see nothing of interest on the edge of this forest. Until that is, your newfound
friend moves, and you espy, among the flattened reptile corpses, the
Stegosaurus who spoke to you in the chamber. Yes, his lab coat is new and
unragged, and he is in two dimensions, but it is most definitely him. Pondering
how you have affected the course of the futurepast with this action, you decide it
is time to take some action.

Will you search the flattened reptile corpses for any clue of how you can get back
home? Turn to page 107.

Enter the dense forest to your right? Turn to page 6.

Or try to befriend the diplodocus (who has been happily chewing leaves off trees
since you landed) so that you might use him as a form of transport in this
unknown land? Turn to page 213.

Page 213 (Teddybear)

You decide that the terrain is far too much to cover by foot. You try to judge how
far you've walked today, how tired you feel, and how much faster the diplodocus
may be than yourself. You immediately disregard any fact or reason, because
let's be honest, you grew up wanting to be a dinosaur-- or, failing that, a dinosaur
jockey.
With a solemn pat to his waferized head, you bid farewell to your scientific
compatriot and turn your attention to the behemoth in front of you. He stands at
least a hundred feet long, approximately the length of the urinal trough back in
lab 5A. He looks like he would be much nicer to put your feet on, too.

You mull disturbing him from his leaves. A creature this massive needs to be
handled with care. How do you even ride one of these things? You decide to call
out.

"Hello!"

Because as it turns out, you have to start somewhere. Hearing the noise, the
diplodocus turns his head away from the leaves with a confused and inquisitive
"mrrrhh?"

Shit. Shit. Big dinosaur. Staring at you. Shit.

"How, um, how are those leaves? The weather is lovely? What are your hobbies?
Do you like baseball?" Whenever you get nervous, you ask too many questions.
Nothing living around except you and the diplodocus, no magical time portal to
save you if you botch this. Focus.

"Of course you don't, nobody likes baseball, I'm not sure why baseball exists, it's
just a sport with running and sticks and hitting things and--"

You realize that you're rambling, and to the diplodocus you're probably making
nothing but sounds. You swallow hard, then try again. You picture the diplodocus
as a cuddly pet. A big, cuddly pet. A big, hundred foot long, extinct, cuddly pet.
Breathe.

"Hi Mister Diplodocus... Are the leaves yummy?"

The diplodocus makes what you could swear was an affirmative moan.

You realize in a flash that you're still wearing the Babelsaur. This thing actually
understands you, and you it.

And judging by its behavior, you've managed to grab a... special diplodocus. This
bolsters your confidence somewhat.

"Can you understand me?" He nods. "Can I call you Dippy?" He nods. "Can I get
on your back?" He vomits.

Bits of leaves marinating in stomach acid splatter on the ground between the two
of you, nearly getting on your pants. You recoil back. After turning off the
fountain, Dippy looks up to you and nods again, a smidgen of drool dripping from
his mouth. He turns back to the leaves to refill his tank.

Well, you've lived your life up until today believing that three nods is consent
enough to get on someone's backside, and you're sure as shit not going to stop
now. Maneuvering around the pile of sick, you gently place a hand on Dippy's tail,
then climb onto it. You gradually shimmy up his back.

Finally, with one last pull, you made it. Congratulations; you've mounted the
downsisaur. It may not be exactly what you thought it would be when you were a
kid, but goddammit, you're riding a dinosaur.

You survey the situation. From your new vantage point, you can see along the
tree tops, and around the horizon. In the middle of the forest, one tree is
unusually higher than the rest, jutting out from the natural canopy. In the other
direction, there is open field, and what looks to be some light coming from a
point in the distance. Looking up and down the tree line, you notice there's a
strict, almost unnatural delineation between plains and forest-- as if the
outermost trees formed a deliberate fence separating the two.

If you want to go into the forest and investigate the tree, turn to page 267.

If you want to go across the plains towards the point of light, turn to page 178.

If you want to follow along the boundary of the forest and investigate the border,
turn to page 385.
Page 267 (Chewbot)

Standing on tiptoes by Dippy's head, you try to figure out what this latest world
you've fallen into could be. It looks a lot like the time-space you were just in,
minus the future tech, airships, people and, suspiciously, dinosaurs. If you
remember correctly, you should be surrounded by the revolution leaders, but
aside from the leader accidentally smooshed by Dippy, they seem to have gone
MIA. Wait a second, you think, glancing back at the puddle of ex-dino… wearing a
lab coat? Isaac…? No, couldn’t be.

In the far distance a monolithic oak breaks far above the surrounding treetops
and you nudge Dippy in its general direction, constantly adjusting as the
diplodocus gets distracted by everything in its path. Wading through the woods
gets dicey, but eventually you find yourself passing enormous tree roots and you
enter a tidy and well-manicured clearing.

“Haw, another defeat, I’m afraid!” bellows the character before you, moving his
bishop to a definitive checkmate. You can’t help but notice the two dapper
gentlemen in front of you, decked out in top hats and tailcoats are in fact a pair
of raptors.

“STOP! STOP! LOOK OUT, IDIOT DINOSAUR!” you shout as they casually step
aside and Dippy comes to a slow stop, with one last stomp crushing the raptor’s
chess board with a crunch at the base of the enormous tree. Well, this is it, you
think. We’ve smashed some vicious carnivore’s game table and now we’re done
for.

“I say, third time this week, Mr. Catterwaul. I do believe we’re starting to see a
pattern here.” “Regrettably so, my friend!” he responds. “No matter, I’m off.
Shall we re-match again tomorrow, Mr. Farrington?” “Indubitably!” Mr. Catterwaul
gallops away, and you relax slightly. On your revised weirdness scale, this is only
rating around a six-point-five.

“Mr. Farrington” wanders around to Dippy’s side and takes off his monocle,
tucking it into his vest pocket. “Well, then, welcome to the Tree of Time.” He
gestures up the tall branches and you noticed for the first time that at each
branch a hole entering the tree’s trunk contains a time portal not unlike the ones
you’ve been hopping through. There must be thousands of them… hundreds of
thousands! A myriad of other raptors of all sizes in various outfits shuffle across
the legion limbs, going about their business. Some look down at you with
curiosity.

“This is the hub for all reasonable time travel,” he states. “Quite convenient,
don’t you agree? Certainly beats the chaos zone.” Your mouth hangs agape and
you stutter “Could… Could you take me back to my own time?”

The raptor shrugs. “Of course, good sir, or at least somewhere similar I
presume.” Dippy makes a happy grunt, which sounds something like GONK. Mr.
Farrington leads you on a path around the tree tower when an impact suddenly
rocks the earth. “Ah, nevermind that, sir, just the meteors!” He sees your
confused expression and continues, “We are ever besieged by meteors, my
friend! Fortunately, the Time Tree reverses the impacts nearest us, but leaves
the rest of the planet in a dreadful mess. Lucky for you, you didn’t wander out
into the open or walk right off the edge of the world, but I suppose only an utter
buffoon would do such a thing. Haw!” You approach a massive opening at the
base of the tree.

“Aha, here we are,” he says, as you pass through an ornate gate reading “Time
Ever Branching” and up a ramp heading into the boughs. “Now, if you’ll kindly
dismount your companion, we’ll get those testicles removed in a jiffy!” Your
mood shifts unexpectedly from elated to confused to cautiously panicked. The
weirdness scale has just been elevated to at least nine.

“My, uh… wait a second…” A small crowd of raptors are starting to gather. “Just a
small matter or two, my friend!" he guffaws at his own joke. "Quite the deal,
wouldn't you agree?” He looks around, and you start to wonder if these are even
the original stewards of the time tree. “There you are!” Mr. Farrington shouts,
beckoning to a raptor that has shown up in a white smock and a stethoscope.
“Dr. Everett Canklethorpe here will get you squared away! Best velocidoctor in
the land, you won't feel a thing. Pip pip!”. You’re quite suddenly finding yourself
surrounded, and even Dippy is smart enough to look nervous.
From Dippy’s back you think you can scramble up a nearby branch, away from
the ever-growing pack of raptors.

Do you make a break for it up the tree and leave Dippy as a diversion, dashing
into the best-looking portal, maybe even back home? Turn to page 345.

Trust in Dippy and your Swiss Army Knife to try to fight your way out of Raptor
Land? Turn to page 121.

Or go balls-out and try to reason your way through this? Turn to page 410.

Page 121 (Feinne)

You’ve faced down dinosaurs, cyborgs, and all manner of bullshit today and
there’s one thing you’re damn sure of: You’re not going to take it lying down
while a bunch of dinosaurs are trying to eat your balls. And to make matters
worse, the knife blade on your Swiss Army Knife seems to be stuck! Cursing, you
withdraw the corkscrew and shout the most intimidating battle-cry you can
muster on such short notice.

“You little raptor bitches better run, or I’m gonna corkscrew the FUCK outta you!
I’m a fuckin’ WIZARD with this thing!”

You leap off of Dippy’s back, sweeping the curly instrument back and forth in a
menacing arc. The raptors seem taken aback by this madcap display, and
hesitate. Thinking fast, you take advantage of their confusion and charge at Mr.
Farrington, who you’re hoping is some sort of leader among the raptors. You
seize the dinosaur in a crude headlock, the corkscrew to its throat.

“I say my dear chap, this is a bit much for something so minor, yes? I mean to
look at you, it’s not like you were doing much with those testicles.”

You’ll be damned if you’re going to take shit like that from a dinosaur, and jam
the corkscrew into its neck. The raptor reels and flops as dark blood flows from
the wound. It staggers away into the group of raptors, slurring.

“I seem… to be… in a bit of bad sorts…”

Mr. Farrington collapses to the ground, twitching and sputtering. The other
raptors seem to be entirely demoralized by the brutal corkscrewing and you
remount Dippy unopposed. Dippy, for his part, makes a break for the upper
boughs as soon as you climb on his back. After what feels like an eternity, you
reach a peculiar sort of intersection. To the left, a crude wooden sign labeled
‘Your Past’. In the middle, a rather shabby corrugated metal sign reads ‘Your
Present’. On the right, an ostentatious sign bears the legend ‘Your Future’.

You can hear scrambling up the tree that suggests the raptors have come to a
consensus about you, and it’s probably not good. But which path to take?

Do you take the left path of The Past? Turn to page 291.

The middle path of The Present? Turn to page 6.

The right path of The Future? Turn to page 406.

Page 6 (Rianeva)

All you ever wanted was to go home, and what could be more like home than the
present? You point Dippy at the middle portal and ride him into it, narrowly
escaping the pack of velociraptors behind you.

The first thing you notice on the other side is the stench of excrement. The
second thing is that Dippy is no longer with you -- hopefully, he's in a better place
now. You peel yourself off the floor to find yourself in the ladies' room at
Waverley Corporation headquarters.

The only other person here is your coworker Chet, scrubbing out a stall in which
unspeakable things have happened. He turns awkwardly, somewhat constricted
by the stall. "Hey buddy! Boss was lookin' for you. Looked 'bout ready to blow his
top. Somethin' about three days without callin' or somethin', I dunno... say,
wanna take over here?" Oddly enough, he seems completely unconcerned about
the Babelasaur still sitting on your head. Chet was never the brightest janitor
around here, though.

Three days?! There goes that perfect attendance award, and your $300 bonus...
You say something along the lines of "No, I don't want to clean that shit up" to
Chet, and step out into the hall to get away from the smell.

A Deinonychus scurries past, a stack of papers clutched in its arms and its claws
scraping the concrete floor. Wait, what? You rub your eyes, but it doesn't help;
that was clearly a dinosaur. And it looks like it works here!

Clearly all is not well, what with dinosaurs roaming the halls and your boss
probably one misplaced broom away from firing you. There has to be a way to
get back to your real home... if you feel up to the challenge.

You could head down to the lab to see if they're still working on time portals.
Turn to page 224.

Or sneak into the CEO's office to look for more and easier to understand
information. Turn to page 203.

Or you could take a break from all this time traveling and go home for tonight.
Turn to page 357.

Page 203 (Factorialite)

You decide to sneak into your CEO’s office and try to find out what the fuck is
going on. As you walk down the corridor that will take you there, you look out the
window to see that more or less everything is the way you left it: the only real
noticeable difference is the different cars in the parking lot. You see the random
recognizable Civic or Impala here or there but you also see something called a
“Jurassa,” which appears large enough to carry that Deinonychus you passed
earlier. You think it must be his. Your trusty Chevy Vega is still there, though, so
that gives you a relief.

You finally reach the office of your boss, Dick Waverley. You find that his office is
locked. How are you supposed to get in?

The Swiss Army Knife! It’s stuck in the corkscrew position, but lo and behold it’s a
perfect fit and the door turns easily.

As you step into his office, you immediately notice that your boss looks more or
less identical than he did before, but where there once was a picture of him and
his wife on the wall there lies a picture of him and Isaac shaking hands. Isaac
looks a lot older than he did in your past-present. Interesting…

You decide to sit at the computer and see if you can get some idea about what’s
going on. You expect that there will be a password, but as you turn the PC on a
simple [S.A.K. No. 328 Detected] comes up on the screen, and you have access!
This Swiss Army Knife is a curious tool indeed…

You search the computer but find nothing of real interest to you until you come
across a document simply titled “Janitor.” As you start to read it, you realize that
there must be more to Dick Waverley than you originally thought. It’s almost as if
he wanted you to have that knife for a reason…

All of a sudden, you hear a thunderous crash! A look out the window confirms
your greatest fear: the men in black that shot at you in the past-present are here!
This time, not only are there men equipped with flamethrowers and
Peacemakers, but they count a Leptoceratops and a Stegosaurus amongst their
number as well! They must be after the machine again, and [alert: pun]time is
now of the essence. Do you stay in the office and read this document addressed
to you? Or perhaps attempt to head the men off at the laboratory? Maybe you
opt for flight instead of fight and run for your Chevy Vega. WHAT WILL YOU DO?

To read the document, turn to page 34.

To fight off the intruders, turn to page 114.

To attempt to escape, turn to page 217.

Page 34 (bbcisdabomb)

As the men (and other species) in black crash their way into the building, you
figure you have around five minutes to read before you must find a way out. You
turn your attention to janitor.txt:

From: The Administrator (administrator@gx*%#.com)

To: Dick Waverly (dick@waverly.org), Agent Smith (smith@smyth.smith), King

Stegosaurus (stegoluvver2443@hotmail.com) David Copperfield
(admin@dcopperfield.com)
Subject: Superb Work

I believe congratulations are in order for the masterful handling of our unwitting
puppet. Even after the first portal opened in the mouth of a dinosaur you all have
managed to keep him unaware of our plans and travelling through the time
stream, establishing his nature as a paradox.

I feel I should mention Waverly’s excellent start to the plan. Firstly, managing to
give him knife 832 without allowing him to examine it was a stroke of genius.
Secondly, faking your own death to your company’s own private military is hard
enough, but faking the deaths of the entire company to the same is a step
above. The King sacrificing several hundred of his closest retainers to a vortex
also deserves recognition, I think.

Do not let the success go to your head, however. The man who would be the key
to our success is still an ordinary man at this point, and must be carefully
controlled. Failure to continue the plan could spell not only our doom, but the
doom of every man, dino, and sentient being on this plane of existence.
As we draw closer to tonight, the night of the Universal Equilibrium, do not lose
sight of our goals. Remember, if we complete the Ritual tonight we shall all
become powerful as gods!

Addendum: Don’t let that idiot Isaac near our subject again. He has clearly lost
his mind.

There is also a link to a picture file in the email. It contains a photocopy of an

ancient piece of some sort of parchment written in what looks like claw
scratches. The Babelsaur whispers in your ear as it translates:

And they will become as of gods upon the sacrifice of a sufficient Paradox: One
who has travelled through Time, but returns to his true Home. One who Serves,
but Decides for himself. One who Vanquishes his enemies, but Saves his own
kind. One who Thinks before he acts, but will Rush to carry a decision out. One
who has Died, but remains in Life. One who Believes, but accepts the Blessings of
others. Only this Paradox carries sufficient power to sustain the Ritual.

You’re not certain if the parchment was written in a pompous language or if the
Babelsaur is on the fritz again, but as you sit back to contemplate what you’ve
read and thank the good Lord that Dick Waverly is slightly dyslexic, it all makes
sense. The men in black coming for you. The dinosaurs. The crazy man who is
trying to kill you. The time portals!

. . . On second thought, you still don’t understand the time portals.

You can hear boots on the floor outside the office. All you can really be certain of
is you REALLY don’t want to be caught by them.

If you Attempt to climb out the window, turn to page 123.

If you want to Fight your way out with whatever you still have after your
adventures, turn to page 255.

If you want to Hide in the office, turn to page 300.

If you just want to Go home by any route possible, turn to page 357.

Page 255 (Vicas)

You're feeling a bit claustrophobic in here. You look over to the window, as the
doors will surely be busted down any moment. But... no, you're tired of all this
bullshit. You've seen enough today- err, these days- or maybe, this timeline, that
you're just getting tired. If you run now you might get your wife involved in this, if
she even exists in this timeline. If they want you now for some voodoo ritual or
whatever, they're gonna fight for you.

You pull out that swiss army knife. If it's special for some reason, maybe you can
use it to defend yourself from hoards of armed men and dinosaurs... you hope.
You play around with it, trying to get something other than the corkscrew to
come out, but it seems it's stuck! Looks like when they decided to make this
thing all special for whatever reason they had to take out a lot of tools, and they
didn't even replace it with a laser gun or something. Looks like it's you and the
screw, together until the end.

You can hear frantic moving around in the building. It can only be a matter of
time before they find you here. You brace yourself by the door, listening for
passersby. You hear footsteps, fast and purposeful. Twisting the door handle
quietly, you tense yourself for a surprise attack, and just as a shadow passes the
translucent glass of the door, you push it open and jab at the figure repeatedly,
knocking him to the floor. Unfortunately, whatever the man is wearing is tougher
than your poor corkscrew, which is all bent out of shape. Suddenly, you realize
something about the man. It's Isaac, dressed up in the same suit and tie that all
the government agents are, and and looking very surprised. "Aha! I've found you
first!"

You know what's coming next, and really, you don't want to stomach that shit
any longer. "I know, I know, I've killed you so many times, now it's your turn to
kill me, or something like that, can we just skip that part?"
He looks up at you, confused. "Killed me? I'm not sure- oh, right, time travel." He
seems okay with that explanation, and you realize that this must be an Isaac
from before all the times you happened to cause his death. But he was a
scientist, wasn't he? You guess that this alternate timeline must have a lot of
changes. Maybe now you can actually learn something from him before he dies a
horrible death or tries to kill you in much the same way. He looks you over before
talking again. "Anyway, whatever you've done to other me’s in the past or future
or whatever, it doesn't matter, I'm here to help you." He stands up. "Listen,
they're gonna find you. Just give up when it happens, they won't kill you yet.
You're really important to them, so you'll still have a chance to-"

He cuts himself off quickly as a Leptoceratops turns the corner and spots you. It
lets out a yell, "I've found him!" and suddenly it's as if everyone in the building is
converging on you. Footsteps pound everywhere as several men and dinosaurs
surround you. Isaac pushes something into your hand quickly before melting
back into the crowd. You can't tell what it is, but you slip it into your pocket
quickly before someone notices it in the chaos.

Pretty soon every gun in the room is pointed at you, and several dinosaurs look
ready to pounce. This looks pretty bad.

Will you give yourself up, like Isaac suggested? Turn to page 27.

Fiddle with that stupid swiss army knife some more in hopes that it really does
have some sort of death laser? Turn to page 263.

See what Isaac gave you and pray that it'll get you out of this sticky situation?
Turn to page 58.

Page 27 (Magnetic North

Issac's never lead you astray... well, in this timeline anyway, and its hard to
argue with dinosaurs and guns. You raise your arms slowly above your head,
looking to the ravenous Leptocerati and Dilophosauri, knowing they understand
you as you say, "I surrender." The dinosaurs snarl, and lower their heads. Two
suited humans look at one another, nod in unison and team up to promptly
handcuff you and put a black cloth bag over your head.

Over the next fifteen minutes, you're hurriedly lead down numerous flights of
stairs, and sense elevator motion and your ears popping, though you aren't sure
if you're going up or down. Throughout the whole trip, you're trying to move your
arms from behind you to feel what it is Issac put in your pocket. You're trusting
Issac's plan, whatever it is, but it must have involved this thing...

The bag is whipped off of your head suddenly, and as your eyes adjust to the
light, you appear to be standing in a large and magnificently appointed executive
suite. There are no windows, but rows and rows of televisions screens behind a
15 foot tall chair, itself behind an equally over-sized desk. You can't make sense
of what's on the screens, as your eyes are still adjusting to the room.

Slowly and silently, the occupant turns to face you. He is a Tyrannosaurus,

wearing a maroon smoking jacket, with a cigarette in a long, obsidian holder in
one claw, and a snifter of dark red liquor in the other. He leans forward
ominously, placing the cigarette to rest as he exhales the final puff of the fine,
Iranian tobacco.

"Welcome, my friend. I'm Recksth. Thso glad you could join me tonight." The
tryannosaurus seems to have a bit of a lisp. He looks you over momentarily, then
commands with a dismissive, mincing motion of his free claw. "Oh, let him out of
thosth thingsth. He'sth not an animal." One of two men who had been standing
behind you reached to unlock your handcuffs. "You may go, you big sthilliesth."

The two suited humans turn and leave, leaving the exit to the room guarded only
by the two dinosaur sentries previously posted. They appear to be
Montanoceratopi, or Udanoceratopses or maybe, oh for fuck's sake, how are you
supposed to know all these very specific dinosaur phylums and families? You're a
fucking janitor, not a goddamn dinosaur scientists. You don't even know what a
dinosaur scientist would be called! Dinocologyist, maybe? God, you're dumb.
"Now, letsth get down to buisthnessth." Rex soliloquizes. "I'm quite thsorry to
thse all the trouble you've been through, all becausth of a little
mithunderthtanding." He flippantly gestures with his open claw with each
sentence. "But don't worry your sthilly little head for another sthecond; I think I
can get you back to your home timeline. Asth you may have sthurmisthed, I'm
the adminithtrator of this fathility. But don't misthtake that for sthomeone
who'sth got histh clawth on all the sthrtingsth. I, asth well, am a victim of
sthercumsthance. You've met that... other Tryannothauruth. I had sthimilar
misthfortunesth. Sthtolen away from my native timeline, I sthought your
sthoverign government'sth assthisthansthe in resthoring the stherene sthanctity
of sthpace and time."

"But I need your help." He leans further forward. "But firstht... would you mind?"
With his weak little claw, he indicates a corked bottle of wine, seated in a bucket
of ice before him. "I'd do it mysthelf, but... opposthable thumbsth and all."

You approach slowly, and retrieve the trusty swiss army knife in from your
pocket, brushing against the object Issac gave you, having momentarily forgotten
it was there. You pull out both, carefully peeking at the object as you look
sheepishly at the bent corkscrew to hide what your doing.

The thing Isaac's given you is a tiny opaque metal canister of something. You can
tell there used to be a label, but it's worn off. You can make out a B, or maybe it's
an R. There's a neck to the device, but no apparent mechanism to release its
contents.

You walk up in front of the bottle. Only now do you notice the scorched portion of
the otherwise immaculate carpet right beside the bottle, and a large, ovular
device with a point aimed straight down, suspended in an hidden alcove in the
ceiling directly above you. You smell ozone, and dinosaur shit, but you're used to
the latter.

Do you comply with Rex's request and attempt to open that bottle of wine with
the mangled corkscrew? Turn to page 40,000,000,000,000,000, formerly
Page 3 AKA Alabama Pi.
Attack him with the contents of the canister? Turn to page 201.

Attempt to use the contents of the canister on yourself? Turn to page 70.

Page 70 (ultra-inquisitor)

Pulling out the canister, you quickly feel it over, looking for some hint to using it.
Your thumb rubs against a slight groove, and you quickly make out a slightly
inset area at the opposite end to the neck. Holding it up in front of you, you focus
on it, Recksth's impassive outline dissipating in a gentle blur. Your fore finger
presses hard against the button.

A large blast of tear gas hits you square in the face. Choking and half-blinded,
you drop to the floor. Instinct, of an animal kind honed over millions of years,
forces to back to your feet. You stumble, trampling the canister, which releases
another blast of gas. As the fumes envelop you, you turn and career wildly
towards the door. Through the stinging water in your eyes, you briefly see the
shadows of the guards as they move in on you, but the gas is thick, and hides
your escape.

Out in the corridor, you do not pause for breath, but blunder on. The softly-
carpetted executive halls are unfamiliar to you, but even they are victim to
health and safety requirements, and the sight of a fire escape renews your
determination. Swinging open the fire door, you hurry down the metal staircase
as fast as you dare. Pausing at a window, you see several guards rush past,
presumably on their way up to intercept you, but you have given them the slip
and reach the ground unnoticed.

You quickly survey your options. Going back in the building would be far too
dangerous. Two thoughts occur. The police station is just down the block.

If you wish to seek sanctuary there, and report your experiences to the police,
turn to 113.

Otherwise, you can head to the carpark and attempt to make your way home.
Turn to 264.

Page 113 (Snipee)

You are sick of it. You are sick of zany time-traveling scientists, of hilariously
retarded dinosaurs, of castrating gentleman raptors, of lisping seven ton
executives. You are sick of all of it. It is time to go to the proper authorities and to
get your life back on track. You walk purposefully to the intersection and take a
left.

As you are walking down the street, you inevitably start reflecting on your
experiences. Wait a second, just how exactly did the dinosaurs fit in the building
earlier? I could have sworn your average lizard tyrant was over three stories tall,
and you were talking to one just minutes earlier on a room that was just under
ten feet. For that matter, how did the building withstand all that weight? You
were walking down a staircase for God's sake. Man, your life sucks. You look up
from the ground to see a thirty story building. Now that's more like it.

You step inside the brick building. It is a brightly lighted room with industrial air
conditioning. Fully uniformed Deinonychuses are chomping on donuts alongside
their human counterparts, and you start wondering about the health effects of
deep fried dough on dinosaurs. Now that you are actually here, you are at a loss
for words. You walk up to the receptionist. “Um. Hello. Er, I want to report a crime
scene and -”

While the police officers turn around to notice you, you glance at the poster on
the far right. There is an unflattering drawing of your face and the text reads as
followed: “The time traveling janitor is still at large. Wanted for thirty-eight
counts of murder, fifteen counts of armed assault, and three counts of theft. If
you see this man, please contact the police immediately.” Fucking Issac. The
silence is now suffocating.
Before you even managed to work out the words to save yourself, one of the
Deinonychuses managed to tackle you from behind and pin you to the floor. “You
have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against
you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to -.”

You rack your brain for a way out of this mess. You do not want to go to prison,
and you are terrified of the prospect of dropping the soap in front of a giant
monster.

If you have a pillow with you, turn to page 10.

If you have a dent corkscrew, turn to page 280.

If you do not have any of the items or do not wish to use it, continue on to
dinosaur court in page 301.

Page 301 (JosephWongKS)

Setting aside the fact that the Deinonychus pinning you down could rip you to
pieces in moments with his fangs and claws; there were at least 50 other police-
men and police-dinos in the vicinity, each one of them was armed with the
standard issue Glock 22 (the Deinonychus' guns being specially remolded to fit
the talons of the police-dinos), and you could hear the police sergeant radioing
the police and army HQs to put them on alert about your location in the event of
your escape. You were tagged as a dangerous felon of the highest degree and it
was most unlikely that any law enforcer would shoot to capture or wound.

Between the certain death of escape and the almost-certain death at the end of
whatever judicial procedures existed in this time-stream, you chose near-certain
death, as was rational and wise.

And thus you were hand-cuffed and shackled, strip-searched, photographed from
24 angles, and thrown into solitary detention while the wheels of justice slowly
turned. Strangely, you are allowed to retain your Swiss Army Knife - the police
officers' eyes seem to glaze over every time they look in the direction of the
Knife, and none of them appear even to be aware of its presence. The Knife does
you a fat lot of good, with only the corkscrew available and singularly useless in a
prison environment.

As a janitor you could barely afford rent, let alone the services of a top-notch
defence lawyer, but the police are true to their words and a public defender is
assigned to you. As you wait in the spartan meeting room for your first meeting
with your attorney, your hopes briefly soar as you consider the possibility of
actually getting out of this mess as a free man, alive, with all your limbs and
sanity intact.

Your morale rapidly sinks, though, when the door opens and in staggers a
slouching, pallid man with a bright red face and a shaggy beard, wearing a
rumpled jacket and a half-done tie, thoroughly reeking of alcohol.

"Oh, how wonderful," you groan, "they got me an attorney all right - the worst
one they could possibly find."

"Mooood gorning, cur," your attorney greets you as he misses the chair and
collapses on to the floor, your police guards sniggering openly at the sight.
"Cweased to neat chu. I am Caasi."

"Caasi?" you consider, looking more closely at the shambling wreck before you as
he clumsily pulls himself up into the chair. "Is... is that Isaac? It is! What the hell
happened to him?"

Before you can call out to your old buddy-nemesis, "Caasi" pulls a card from his
jacket and slides it across the table to you. "Hair's muh naaarm-gard," he slurs,
"dankyewwurrymush."

You take the card proferred to you and suddenly Isaac's voice rings resoundingly
in your mind. "Do not respond. Do not show any emotion on your face. You will
only hear this message once. I have destroyed my mind with alcohol and drugs to
get past their identity detectors and bring this to you. You will be safe until the
trial for they have plans for you. Bring the SAK to the trial - you will know what to
do with it. Farewell - we will never see each other again."

"Caasi" is snoring loudly on the table by now, and remains asleep for the
remainder of the one hour set aside for your meeting. Laughing openly, your
police guards drag "Caasi" out of the meeting room as you ponder Isaac's cryptic
message.

-----------------

"Caasi" does not contact you again. You ask for another public defender and are
told that you are only entitled to one. The day of the trial arrives and you are
dressed in your smartest prison uniform and marched off to the court-house.

The place is packed full of curious spectators and news crews - you have become
a notorious "mass-murderer" since your arrest and the crowd is eager to see
"justice" done. They remain silent, though, in awe of the majesty of the law
represented by the court-room. And also probably the sheer size of the court-
room - ten storeys tall and 100 feet in length and in breadth.

"All stand!" the bailiff announces. "All stand for His Honour His Excellency His
Highness His Reverence His Majesty King Eternalsaurus!"

The judge enters the court-room as the assembled stands to attention, their
faces glowing with love and utmost respect. The judge enters the court-room,
wearing an ermine robe and a white wig, and bearing all the terrible stature of an
arbiter of law who is also a 50-foot tall, 10-tonne dinosaur. For the judge is the
very Tyrant Lizard which sent you on this long adventure in the first place.

"Surprised?" King Eternalsaurus winks at you. "Don't be. In fact, I must thank you
for my present position. I have seen much, done much, eaten much, since you
brought me into this time-stream and we parted in the forests of Avalon."

"I have witnessed the birth and death of planets; devoured dying stars and
consumed blackholes; guided primitive single-celled amoeba along the path of
evolution into space-travelling civilizations; founded kingdoms and nations and
led them into self-destruction and extinction. I have become as unto God."

"Oh, them?" King Eternalsaurus smiles as he notices you glancing at the crowd to
see their reactions to the King's revelations. "Don't mind them - they only hear
what I want them to hear. To them, I am - and have always been - the revered
founder of the nation, the unifier of the world, the King, Prime Minister and
President, the Cabinet and Privy Council, the Pope, Chief Rabbi and Ayatollah...
and also Judge, Jury and Executioner."

King Eternalsaurus grins as he finishes his speech, cruelly flashing you his
mouthful of densely packed, razor-sharp teeth. From his gigantic mouth shines
the swirling glow of galaxies, and you think you spot the disembodied heads of
Dick Waverly as well as that of a stegosaurus wearing a crown.

He steps off the judge's podium and starts walking towards you, and as this clear
and present danger approaches ever closer, you suddenly recall the memory of
the photocopied parchment you saw in your ex-boss's office:

And they will become as of gods upon the sacrifice of a sufficient Paradox: One
who has travelled through Time, but returns to his true Home. One who Serves,
but Decides for himself. One who Vanquishes his enemies, but Saves his own
kind. One who Thinks before he acts, but will Rush to carry a decision out. One
who has Died, but remains in Life. One who Believes, but accepts the Blessings of
others. Only this Paradox carries sufficient power to sustain the Ritual.

It is all clear to you now. King Eternalsaurus is "as unto a God", having somehow
achieved sentience and super-intelligence and consumed the instigators of the
conspiracy that had inadvertently set him on his original journey. But he is not
yet an actual god, and you are the last remaining piece he needs (to eat) to
achieve true godhood.

You take out the Swiss Army Knife that has been your constant companion since
the chaos began, and you realise what it is you have to do.
During your journeys, did you:

Cure the plague afflicting the peasants of Castle Entreeax? If so, add 2 Spirit
Points.

Leave a Wizard to die in a rain of Raptors? If so, deduct 2 Spirit Points.

Give a Wizard a ride in a phone booth? If so, add 2 Spirit Points.

Assassinate Queen Dinopolous? If so, deduct 3 Spirit Points.

Destroy the dinosaur rebel command? If so, deduct 3 Spirit Points.

Organise a peace treaty between Queen Dinopolous and the dinosaur rebels? If
so, add 3 Spirit Points.

Abandon a diplodocus to the tender mercies of Dr Everett Canklethorpe? If so,

deduct 1 Spirit Point.

Save a diplodocus from losing his chance at fatherhood? If so, add 1 Spirit Point.

Blind Recksth with the contents of a canister? If so, deduct 2 Spirit Points.

If you have less than 5 Spirit Points, turn to 410.

If you have 5 or more Spirit Points, turn to 420.

Page 410 (JosephWongKS)

"‫גארראן לאגאן‬, SPIN ON!" you shout, and the corkscrew of the SAK spirals out
towards the jaws of the unsuspecting King Eternalsaurus. " ‫מקדח‬... ‫מפסק‬... ‫"!ג'יגה‬

King Eternalsaurus screams in pain and shock when the tip of the corkscrew
punctures the time portal in his mouth, unleashing waves of energy which spiral
along the corkscrew towards you.

As the gathered crowds break out into mass panic and horror, you calmly unlock
the USB from the SAK...

... and coolly jam it into your eye, absorbing the collected knowledge and power
of the billions of galaxies and trillions of souls that King Eternalsaurus had
consumed in all his jaunts through time and space, uniting them within yourself.

"And thus did it come to pass that in A.D. (After Dino) 1 that Our Lord Janitorus
did shed His humble mortal coils and take His destined and rightful place on the
Golden Throne.

His first dictat was to purge the timestream of all heretics, all who bore
knowledge that could threaten the bountiful peace that Our Lord Janitorus would
herald. Thus did it come to pass that all 150,489 copies of the curiously
ubiquitous being known as Ei-Zeck were cleansed from the multi-verse, its pagan
mastery of time manipulation and reincarnation wiped out before it could muster
a challenge to the authority of Our Lord Janitorus.

Thereafter did Our Lord Janitorus rally His Crusadinos to inform the multiverse of
his beneficent presence. Foremost among them were the Knights of the Wing -
brave T-Rexes mounted on stalwart Quetzalcoatlus equipped with the finest in
kinetic technology. World after world happily and voluntarily agreed to be united
under the reign of Our Lord Janitorus, gratefully accepting the blessings that He
so generously proferred to one and all.

And thus did it come to pass in A.D. 1,297 that Our Lord Janitorus united all the
worlds of all tributaries of the timestream under His Glorious Realm. All peoples
and all dinos have enjoyed and will enjoy unending joy and prosperity ever since,
and it is with a joyous heart and cheerful smile that each month 10,000,000 of
our brightest youths and hatchlings do enter the Golden Chamber to accompany
Our Lord Janitorus as He meditates on the nature of the multiverse and the best
way to bring ever more peace and harmony to the faithful and glad-hearted
masses."

--- The Ascension of Our Lord Janitorus, by Herodinos (A.D. 12,586,093 - A.D.
12,586,193)

Assorted deaths

Page 91 (Roar)

Your eyes scan frantically across the weaponry available to you. All of them
seemed adequate for fucking up dinos. The fluorescent glow of the axe, however,
stood out among the others. You leap over the desk and snatch it off of the wall,
finding it unusually light for its size. The metal seemed to be humming softly in
your eardrums.

The intruding dinosaurs, however, had decided not to wait for you to prepare
yourself. Three of the velocirapters darted past you in the direction of the metal
worker in the corner, who had begun screaming in terror at their arrival. Another
velocirapter had attacked the saber-toothed tiger, and you could barely even
comprehend the nature of that space asshole.

The fifth velocirapter, however, was crouched down and prepared to jump at you.
Before you even had a chance to raise the axe, there was a whirring sound and
the dinosaur’s head was pierced with a wooden dart. Blood surged from the
wound as both you and the now enraged dino turn in the direction that the dart
had come from. The clerk is standing in the doorway now with the strangest
crossbow you’d ever seen – it was a mishmash of metal and wood.

“No!” the clerk shouts in your direction. “Don’t use that axe, it's just a display
model! The one that actually works is in the back! That one's just kind of fucked
up!”

The velocirapter leaps at the clerk, screeching violently. You barely had time to
notice, however, as the allosaur was headed straight for you. Ignoring the clerks
warning, you heft the axe and raise it above your head. So what if it didn't work?
The large dino was almost on you now; you could even smell its rancid breath.
There wasn't enough time to worry about whether shit worked or not.

“Take this, you toothy fucker!” you scream as you swing the weapon against the
side of its head.

There was a bright flash, and you felt as though you should have been knocked
back. In reality, though, you had hardly even moved – though something was
obviously different. There seemed to be a mirror there now, and you see yourself
from a sort of odd angle, as if you were looking down onto yourself.

Dread fills you as you realize that you – somehow – weren’t yourself anymore,
but the allosaur! A sick, animalistic urge fills you as you no longer see your own
body anymore, but simply prey. Your body looks just as confused as you feel, and
a fleeting thought in your head wonders whether the allosaur is just as horrified
as you are.

Disregarding your own fleeting resistance, your dinosaur body reaches down and
snaps your old body in half, right above the waist. Your last horrified sentient
moment before the animal in you takes over is the realization that you taste
really, really good.

You died.
Page 93 (Joel De Bunchastu)

As you look over the weapons on display, your eyes rest on the mace; it would
seem this is the least complicated looking of them, and right now you don't need
MORE technological dickery fucking things up more severely. As you grab for it,
you could swear you see the shopkeeper wince, but the mace itself feels nice and
heavy in your grip, but as you pick it up the mace's hinges creak slightly and
almost causes the mace's head to crush your foot, as it falls towards the floor. It
begins to feel warm in your grip, and some kind of odd steam escapes from the
top of the mace.

The shopkeep looks a bit wary as he sees you grab the weapon, and as he
attempts to aim at the eye of the dino, says to you, "That one there is armed! For
fuck's sake, be careful!"

You eye the C-Rex, as it stares you down, occasionally having some bit of
historical detritus leak out of its mouth, unfortunately... more moist than it had
been previously.

It's then that the shopkeeper fires a bolt... directly into the C-Rex's nostril. It roars
in anger and looks to see . Seeing that this might be your only chance to get
close without using yourself as bait, you circle to the side of the enraged
dinosaur, and raise the mace directly above your head, bellowing "GET AWAY
FROM HIM YOU BI-"

Your battlecry, pithy as it may have been, has been tragically cut short. You fall
to the ground, the back of your skull given a terrifyingly powerful strike; as you
lay on the ground, watching as the shopkeep is rent in two by the C-Rex's
powerful jaws. You look away, by chance to where the mace was, and are startled
to see bloodied fragments of bone and small pieces of tissue sticking to it,
sizzling on the now red-hot surface of the mace... and then you notice the small
brass bar that would have locked the pieces of the handle into place.

"Aw, fuck..." you whisper, as the dino reaches down and, mercifully at this point,
gives you a permanent headache cure; The last thing you see is a startled Isaac
Newton as your head falls into his lap.
YOU DIED

Page 178 (Mouser..)

Proudly sitting atop your new dinosaur friend, you are eager to continue on your
quest to find a way out of this mess. Spying a light that appears in the distance,
you quickly act to intercept the light before, you fear, it might disappear.

“Dippy”, you yell “Head towards that light in the horizon!” Dippy makes a sound
that can only be translated as absolute confusion at your directions. You change
your tactics in speaking to your new special friend, “Ugh, Dippy, go get shiny
thing in the sky!”

Dippy faces the light, and is transfixed by the sight. You begin hearing him moan
in a slow manner, your Babelsaur translates it as “Shiinnnyyy.” Dippy begins
lumbering through the plain in the direction of the light, loud booms echoing
through the air with every step that he takes. You smile in triumph as you have
bested your Downsisaur's handicap, allowing yourself to daydream for a moment
about the thrill of the events that have previously occurred in your adventure,
you hope that the odds will continue to turn in your favor..

As you turn your eyes back to the light in the sky, you realize that it seems to be
getting larger in size. At first, you believe this is because you have covered great
strides upon your dinosaur during your brief daydream but when you look back,
you find that Dippy has only covered about 100 yards from where you began.
Looking forward again, you now see that there is a shape inside of the light. A
large, rocky shape, and your heart sinks….”No, Dippy! Turn around! Don’t go
towards the light anymore! No light! No shiny!” Dippy’s only response is to
continue on a direct path towards the light, moaning “Shiiiinny.” The rocky light
begins to grow in size, and is heading directly towards you as if attracted by
magnetism. You panic, and begin trying to think of ways to scramble down from
Dippy, but you are far too high up to safely get down while he is in motion. You
speak in a hurried and panicked tone, “Dippy! Let me down, we’re in danger,
don’t you know what that is?! I can’t get down unless you lower your tail! Lower
your tail, God damn it! We’re going to die if you don’t stop!” You come to the
realization that you are doomed when despite all of your pleading, and protests,
Dippy still only responds with “Shiiiinnyy”

With the large rock that you now note is on fire, seconds away from you. You
accept that there is no escape and sigh defeated “Aw fuck, Dippy….Meteors.”
You feel the incredible heat from the meteor light your skin on fire and have but
an instant to scream in pain before the meteor impacts, resulting in a
tremendous explosion, which obliterates Dippy, and yourself.

You Died.

Page 21 (AutistTree)

You and your trusty steed carefully make your way to the edge of the forest. An
icy mist envelops everything here, freezing the few scraggly bushes that manage
to grow on the rocky ground.
You can't see far, and Dippy begins to get uneasy, wailing mournfully. Yet you
decide to edge him on.
The fog gets incredibly thick and cold here - you can't even see your hand in
front of you, despite the warm orange glow of the sun shining dimly from above.
Bravely, you trudge on, hearing a rumble somewhere - a volcano erupting? You
press forward...

A poor choice, for you have not only reached the border of the forest, but the end
of the world. As you and Dippy plunge to your death, past a stoned out Druid
soaring by on his slab, your scream literally freezes in your throat as you float for
a few seconds in space, finally succumbing to decompression.

You DIED.
Page 291 (100 HOGS AGREE)

Making a split decision, you take a running leap and dive into the portal that
allegedly leads to your own past. The last thing you hear before the whirring,
rushing sound of time travel overwhelms your ears is a chorus of highbrow curses
from the raptors you narrowly avoided.

You tumble head over heels as you are flung through time, a strange feeling of
calm washing over you as everything suddenly goes black and you pass out.

Groggily, you awaken to darkness and the sound of muffled screaming. You feel
closed in, like the walls around you are pressing down against your body. The
pressure is overwhelming, but at the same time, oddly comforting.

Suddenly, you feel the need for more space and violently push out at your
surroundings. Your arms free themselves, then your legs, and you tumble
outward onto something warm and soft. Your eyes slowly adjust to the light and
you see several gigantic shadows standing over you.

One of the shadows lifts you into the air.

"It's the first one, a beautiful baby boy! Let's get him wrapped up and ready for
his parents."

Another shadow responds, "Right away, doctor."

As you're swaddled in a plush blanket and put into a covered bassinet it slowly
dawns on you that you're literally in your own past. Your life has started over, yet
you're cognizant and pretty sure you've retained all the memories of your former
life.

Maybe this time you'll get shit right and not end up as a janitor in a terrible dead-
end career.

Exhausted from the all the time-based shenanigans of the past several hours,
coupled with the stress of your own birth, you begin to fall asleep, the potential
of a new, unspoiled life dancing through your mind.

As your eyes close, you swear you notice a scaly green figure wearing scrubs
walk past the door to the room you are in.

THE END...?

Page 357 (Bellmaker)

You've been bounced around through several time periods and chased by both
man and beast. You've been shot at, snapped at, and on one occasion nearly
castrated. Now you're under the distinct impression that your coworker is a
dinosaur. You need a freaking nap.

You stumble out of your workplace. The first thing you notice that everything
appears to be as you left it. People are scurrying from place to place on the
sidewalks, too absorbed in their personal problems to pay any attention to you.
You do hear some teenager make a comment along the lines of "Nice hat!", but
you are in too much of a hurry to get home to pay any attention to him.

You live close enough nearby that you can walk home. As you start walking you
notice that you feel out of breath and exhausted, as if you ran a marathon with a
bunch of dinosaurs chasing you. Oh wait, you did. Your hands and feet feel like
they are asleep, but that's probably because they're trying to get a head start on
the rest of your body.

As you enter your place you notice that none of the lights are on. You decide to
check upstairs to see if your wife is home. You see her looking out the window in
your bedroom wearing her favorite dress.

"Honey, I'm-" you start to say, but the image you see when she turns around is
nothing like you were expecting.

Mostly because it's a man.

"Do you know how hard it's been to track you down? You've only killed me about
forty-nine times already!"

Crap, it's that wizard/bounty hunter/scientist nutjob again.

"Listen Ian-"

"It's Issac! Isaac Brunhildar! We go through this every time, and yet every single
time you fail to remember and then manage to kill me! I've been chasing you for
over thirty years! The damage you've caused to time and space can only be fixed
by your FAILURE TO EXIST!" He's practically screaming at this point. He pulls a
bizarre gun-like weapon out of his dress and aims it at you. It has a variety of
spinning gadgets on it, including one that looks like a tiny satellite dish and
another that looks like a drill bit. You can't even begin to comprehend what their
functions are.

"Now wait a second-"

Isaac gives you a sinister smirk. "I'm not falling for that one again. That's how you
got me the thirtieth time!" He then pulls the trigger. Time and space distort
around you as you cease to exist.

At least your moderately noble yet involuntary sacrifice prevents Tyrannosatan

from existing as well.

THE END

Page 40 quadrillion (XavierGenisi)

Shrugging, you take out the Swiss Army Knife, and attempt to remove the cork
with the mangled corkscrew. You seem to have some problems trying to get the
corkscrew to stick in there, given how it's covered in blood and bent out of shape.
Rex stares at you impatiently, rapping his claws against his desk. Finally, the
corkscrew is in there, albeit at an odd angle, and the cork itself a bit mangled on
the top.

You begin to pull at the cork with a large amount of force, but it seems really
wedged in there, surprisingly enough. "Isth there a problem?" Rex asks with an
annoyed tone to the fact that you are currently unable to do something so simple
as to open a bottle of wine.

"No, no, no! It's all fine, I just need to apply a little stren-"

POP!

You tug at the bottle one last time, and you are interrupted with the sound of the
bottle of wine blasting out of your arms and up towards the ceiling Before you
can take action, the wine bottle smashes on the strange device hidden above
you. It sparks alive, and a blast of energy fires down, hitting you. You try to
move, but your body is frozen in place by some force.

Rex frowns. "How unfortunate." He removes a corkscrew from a desk drawer,

showing it to you. "You sthould have asthked to usthe mine."

Your body slowly begins to melt into a pile on the floor, leaving the smell of shit.
You can hear Rex giving commands as you fade from consciousness:

"Get another team into the lab and bring me another versthion of him.

And get a janitor in here! I don't want a pile of histh corpsthesth to gather in
here!"

The End