In this short story, you play as Leti, a rich woman and a patron of the arts, who travels from Hawaii to Mars, as told by an angry and bitter male poet who knew her. What you did in the most ugly chapter of your life cannot be changed, but it can now be relived yet again by everyone thanks to this seventeenth edition.
An unsettling story, told in an emotion-packed and provocative narrative voice. What exactly the story is about, alas, is kept obscure via numerous references to events and things we know nothing about. And then, the story concludes abruptly with what appears to be an intentional crash of the TADS interpreter. Highly unusual.
> x me. i. x letter. read letter. g. x ship.
> enter ship. drop letter. take letter. enter ship.
I had a difficult time figuring out who was who in this story since a lot of the story avoids directly spelling anything out. But here's how I've untangled it:
Kekor Langside, a poet and author, was originally famed for his Ten Views of Molokai, despite being a pleb. He is the author of this interactive work and the voice of its narrator. The letter that he wrote and mentioned in this story was so significant, it defined the start of a new era of literature. And this story, that does not even include the contents of the letter, is in its seventeenth printing. He himself appears in the flashback scene in Repbas House.
Leti Rethorne Akaru is the player character, a rich oldhaus patron of the arts who was born in the High City. She travels from Hawaii to Mars without reading a word of Langside's letter, then suffers some epic tragedy soon after arrival. She survived, so was she disfigured? Is that the meaning behind the title, that Leti became ugly?
Lieutenant Lotak is on the bridge of Leti's ship, Abyssinian. Langside thinks that Lotak is an oldhaus piece-of-shit that floated to the top. Langside complains that Leti treats scum like Lotak with respect yet treats Langside as unfit to be even looked at.
Juten, one of Leti's earlier beaus, is at Repbas House. He is, of course, oldhaus.
Significant mentions:
Hukas is mentioned as someone who blathered on at length about Leti's ship's paintwork. I strongly suspect he is also Langside's contact mentioned earlier, who was able to witness the ship's launch directly and was able to recover the letter that Leti discarded.
Psiri Oni Akaru and his parser are mentioned the preface. Leti is Psiri's niece and his sole inheritor.
Inventory
a letter. You're carrying it. You never read it. And you didn't take it onto the ship. Drop it.
Thank You to my Patreon supporters
This walkthrough is provided free of charge since I wrote this walkthrough prior to January 2015 when I began my Patreon account. I've since reformatted this walkthrough to use my currently preferred style. I hope you enjoy it!
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