The intriguing narrative style of Kentucky Route Zero gave me the idea of a game where the plot is broadly linear but the backstory is determined by the player’s choices. You choose a companion, an adversary, and an outcome, leading to 3^3=27 possible backstories, of which 16 are notably distinct. This scene, where you awaken in an unfamiliar place after being injured, marks the first backstory choice.
The Wolf of Derevnya is a horror mystery choose your own adventure set in Kievan Rus’. As with all my script excerpts, it is presented as a sample script demonstrating one possible pathway, with the chosen options in boldface. You can play the first chapter here, or play a stand-alone build of only this scene here.
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Scene: Awakening
Voices awaken you, a man and a woman. You’re somewhere womb-dark, lying in a pile of blankets on a masonry surface warm as a horse’s flank. The rich aroma of stewing meat permeates the room.
“…by the pond, completely senseless. A few more minutes and he would have bled to death.”
“Well, God bless you for bringing him.”
Light spills briefly into the room as the door opens and closes.
- Look around
- Pretend you’re still asleep
You raise yourself onto one elbow. You’re in the inn, lying on top of the stove.
Below you, a woman in an apron is mincing herbs and humming to herself. She’s middle-aged, with a kind but careworn face, chestnut-brown hair slipping from under her cap.
You touch your leg and feel unfamiliar thread running through the rent skin. Someone stitched you up and bandaged you. A weight is missing from your hip. Your sword.
The woman looks up. “I cooked up that venison you had in your rucksack. You must be famished. It’ll take you a few days to recover your strength. I’m Mila, by the way.”
- “You helped me. Why?”
- “I can’t pay you.”
- “Where’s my sword?”
“Why help an injured traveler in desperate need of assistance? What a world are we in that you need to ask such a question?”
She pauses with the knife in her hand, looking at nothing. “What a world indeed. Do you know there was a time when man would help his fellow man merely because it was the godly thing to do?”
- “Those were the days.”
- “Bullshit. It was never like that. Men have always been as they are now, selfish and greedy.”
Mila shrugs. “If that’s so, I’m glad I’m not a man.”
You climb down from the stove, take a seat at the table, and accept the wooden bowl she offers you. The broth is thick and brown, and steam rises off it.
It scalds your tongue, but still you drink it like a starving animal, ignoring the spoon. Salt and herbs. You can’t remember the last time someone cooked for you.
Mila sits opposite you. You now realize she isn’t as old as you thought, not nearly. Looking past her work-roughened hands, she can’t be more than thirty. Those eyes, though. There’s something in those distant eyes, like an elder who has seen empires rise and fall.
“So where are you from?” asks Mila.
- “Novgorod.”
- “North.”
- “None of your business.”
She looks up, her interest piqued. “Novgorod the Great! Where the knyaz lives?”
“The very same.”
But the grandeur of the court is not what you remember of Novgorod. To you, Novgorod was mud and ice, the clamor of the market square, the smoke of the forges, the stink of the fishmongers, the clamor of hooves and feet on the slick wood-paved streets.
“Did you serve him? The knyaz?”
“Yes, I fought in his wars. But that was all a long time ago.”
She says, “You’ve been out here on your own for all this time?”
- “Yes, all alone.”
- “No. I had a companion.”
- “I am now, but I wasn’t always.”
“I used to travel with…”
- “…my grandfather.”
- “…my little sister.”
- “…my first love.”
“What was he like?”
- “He was kind.”
- “She was valiant.”
- “They were steadfast.”
“He was kind. When children wanted to hold his sword or pet his horse, he always let them. Strange for a warrior, perhaps. But under it all, he was gentle.”
The memories flood in unbidden.
“We were inseparable. We rode side by side on two great warhorses, fought back to back on the lake of ice, saved each other’s lives I don’t know how many times. I thought that, as long as we were together, nothing could stop us.”
Mila looks at you keenly through those thousand-mile eyes. “Not your first,” she says. “Your only.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s written all over your face. There was never another, was there?”
You shake your head. “There couldn’t be. Not after…”
“After what?”
“You ask too many questions!” you snap. You slam the empty bowl onto the table and stalk toward the door, or try to, for you’ve forgotten your injury. A blaze of pain streams up your leg as you try to put your weight on it.
“Don’t make me hide your shoes,” says Mila. “You’ll be up and about by tomorrow, but it’ll be at least a week before you can go tramping through the woods again.”
You sit back down in resignation.
Mila says, “The fire in the stove is out. I could draw you a bath.”
- “That would be lovely, actually.”
- “I’m fine.”
She gives you a pointed look. “With all due respect, you are not.”
- “All right, then.”
- “Leave me alone!”
You can take a hint.
Mila hauls a cast-iron tub out from the corner, places it inside the stove, and fills it with water. She hangs a blanket over the stove’s mouth for privacy.
You slip inside. It’s hazy with steam and easily roomy enough for a grown man.
It takes time to strip your clothes off, layer upon layer of skins and furs basted together or tied with thongs, all plastered together with old mud and sweat.
You slip into the tub with a sigh. The warm water is soon cloudy and brown. Parasites float to the surface, wriggling in their death throes.
You scrub yourself, trying to get the black grime out from under your nails and in the creases of your palms, but even when your skin is clean, you can’t shake the feeling that something is still clinging to you, like a shadow.
When you emerge, Mila isn’t there. She’s laid out a fresh kaftan, tunic, and trousers. There’s even a pair of newly-woven birchbark shoes.
- Put on the fresh clothes.
- Your old clothes are fine.
The kaftan is berry-red, with patterns of leaves embroidered around the sleeves and the lower hem. It’s a little too large for you. There are faint stains under the arms.
You wonder who wore it before you. You wonder if Mila made it herself, who she spent all those hours embroidering leaves for.
Mila reenters the inn a few hours later, a basket of marsh peppers on her arm. “You’re looking a bit more human. How are you feeling?”
- “Better.”
- “What are you, my mother?”
“Your color is back, anyway.” She presses her hand to your forehead. “And no sign of fever. You are one lucky man.”
You are startled by an unexpected burst of light and cold air. A young woman stands in the doorway, eyes like a startled deer.
“Come quick,” she cries. “There was a wolf. Broda’s dead.”