Two Paths Diverged in a Prehistoric Wood

Two Paths Diverged in a Prehistoric Wood The path you're following through the park takes you into a pleasant grassy clearing, complete with gently rippling stream and, oddly, a little wooden sign that reads "Please stay off the grass." You pause to admire the grass you're not supposed to walk on, and notice a rustling from across the clearing. Out steps a creature you thought had been lost to the mists of time, but there it is ... a dodo! You realize that in a park full of pre-dinosaurs it shouldn't be surprising to see something as recently extinct as a dodo, but somehow a thing made extinct by humans and brought back by humans seems more poignant. All too soon the dodo ducks back into the grass.

semi-rarely, 1am-6am game time:

Before you can act, you notice against the utter blackness of the late night sky a faintly luminous shape drift down from the heavens and glide behind some trees somewhere back the way you came.

Options:

• Stay the path, it's the right thing to do
  
• Damn the sign and follow that bird!
  
• Split the difference and wade down the stream
  
• Go back to investigate the glowing thing (semi-rare, 1am-6am game time)
  

What do you do?

Results

If you chose Stay the path, it's the right thing to do:

Combat!
You are fighting a sphinx

Moves your reputation to be more Honorable.

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If you chose Damn the sign and follow that bird!:

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign
You decide you don't care what the sign says--it was probably put up by a villain anyway. Without giving it any thought you stride across the dewy grass and creep into the woods, trying to catch up with the dodo. Thankfully the bird lives up to its reputation and seems spectacularly unconcerned when you stumble upon it a minute later. In fact, it ignores you completely as it finds its way through the trees to a small brick building. There's a feeding trough there, and the dodo begins pecking avidly at the shiny metal of the trough, completely ignoring the birdseed and fruit inside.

While the dodo fails to find a midnight snack, you wander around the outside of the building and realize it's a small museum of sorts, dedicated to the dodo. You find a phamphlet, written in rhyming verse, describing the nature of the dodo. It's poignant stuff, so you decide to keep the pamphlet.

You got an item: verse of the dodo

Moves your reputation to be less Honorable.

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If you chose Split the difference and wade down the stream:

A Fishy Medal
You slip off your boots, roll up your pants, and step into the creek. The cool water is pleasantly refreshing after all of the hard crime-fighting work you've gone through. As you wander down the stream, you notice the moonlight glinting off of shapes of silvery fish that are swimming along with you. Something about their shape is a little odd, or a little ancient, you're not sure. As you watch them swim around, a different type of glint catches your eye. You reach into the water and pull up a silver disk, or medal. You decide to take it with you.

You got an item: seal o' canth

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If you chose Go back to investigate the glowing thing (semi-rare, 1am-6am game time):

A Horse of a Different Feather
You creep back along the path, slowly and silently. In a few minutes you come upon the source of the glow, a winged horse. There must be more going on here than just genetic engineering, because no amount of genetics should be able to make a horse fly, but you saw this one do it.

It dawns on you that the pegasus is already aware of you standing there. Slowly you dig a carrot out of your backpack and offer it out. The pegasus quickly trots over and gobbles up the snack, then nuzzles you in an attempt to find more. Guess this guy is pretty friendly.

You got an item: pegasus

Location(s)

• Triassic Park and Bestiary
  

Notes

• If you manage to access the 4th option illegitimately, you'll get:

You attempt to go back the way you came, even though you should know that you can't go back again. All it brings you is heartbreak. You lose All HP.

References

• The adventure's name is a reference to the first line in Robert Frost's poem "The Road not Taken".
• The title for the second choice is a reference to the song "Signs" by the Five Man Electrical Band.
• The dodo is an extinct flightless bird. The part about how it "lives up to its reputation" refers to the fact that the birds were tame and easy to catch, hence the name (Portuguese doudo, meaning 'simpleton').
• The image for A Fishy Medal is that of a Coelacanth, the oldest living fish, hence it being "odd, or a little ancient".