Instruments: 2 Card Decks, 10 Tokens
Game Description
Bound is a single player setting agnostic game about the connection between two people as they travel to a destination through the destruction of the world on a journey they will most likely not complete.
Game Content Warnings
These are content warnings that are from the game prompts and are present in all playthroughs.Playthrough Content Warnings
These are content warnings specific to this playthrough only.
Word Count: 4,381 Played: Nov 6, 2024
What is it?
A bunch of color-changing winds that infect people and slowly turn them into mist. You can see the faces of those who have succumbed as it travels. Referred usually as "The Winds" or "The Demons"
How long has it been occurring?
Allegedly 2,000 years, but it's only caused societal collapse within the last 50.
Why has no one been able to stop it?
No one knows how. Most believe that it is divine in nature, a Decision made by the Gods, but it seems to infect them as well.
What will happen if it reaches them?
It will consume them.
Name: Ambroise
Being: Human
Age: 27
Gender: He/They
Previous Job : Lived in a commune and did odd-jobs
Objective 1: Simple
Objective 2: Principled
Objective 3. Genuine
Subjective 1: Resourceful
Perspective: Gullible
Core Belief:
I must reach the Whistling Valley or I will have failed my dead partner.
Name: ??? The prophet
Being: Formerly Human (Still might be??)
Age: ???
Gender: Any
Previous Job: Prophet of the Dead God of Value/Currency. Was living in a cave until the time came.
Objective 1: Arrogant
Objective 2: Selfish
Objective 3: Narcissistic
Subjective 1: Proud
Perspective: Fickle
The Prophet joined Ambroise when they decided to flee the Commune to go north in hopes of reaching The Whistling Valley.
Ambroise stole a van after the death of their partner, Gina. The Prophet had previously killed a member of the Commune, claiming it was in self-defense and was hiding in the car. Ambroise offered to take them with him and they accepted. They have blackberry jam, some pine nuts, and a few other preservatives along with some really terrible hazmat suits.
They are using a van that requires gasoline.
What is it?
The Northern most city, Freedom's Run located in the Whistling Valley. Supposedly it's safe from the Winds.
Where is it?
At the very top of the continent.
Who knows about it?
Pretty much everyone? It's just a city but most people don't believe that it's any safer there.
What is found there?
Allegedly a way to stay safe from the winds. Some people even claim they have a working spaceship that will get people off the planet.
Are people there?
Yes, it's a big city.
A: 2 of Clubs
TP: 4 of Hearts
4 of Hearts: You say something that you regret. How long does it take you to realize this?
Do you make amends and do they accept it?
This contraption was hurling down the streets faster than any horse or carriage or any other means by which I've seen previously. It was a horrid thing made only more uncomfortable by the restraints in the chairs he had insisted upon us wearing. The only reason I knew it wasn't to keep only myself restrained was he was wearing one as well.
They were the quiet type, but I had no reason to speak to him and so I said nothing as we shared that long quiet stretch of road. The sights were at least more varied than what the cave had offered.
Everything was so different now. The gold that had once sustained me now sat worthless and empty in my stomach and what is of value now keeps us alive in ways that would be more and more dangerous, more and more inconvenient to consume. The vehicle, the bindings, what little we have in the rear, and of course. Him.
I mentioned this to him, listing off the various things that would sustain me and not him.
"So what, it's just what we need?" Ignorant.
"Value. It must have value," I was more than patient with him.
"Everything's valuable to someone," they won't look at me when they talk. Safety they had said.
"Well, it used to be Decided upon, but now it's more of a collective idea," it was like speaking with a child.
"But anything, it can be anything," he stole a glance.
"The more you care the more it's worth." I had turned to face him now and studied his profile. "If you had managed to recover it, her body could have sustained me for months."
The car slammed suddenly to a halt, the restraints dug deep into my chest and my head nearly smashed into the board in front of me. My heart raced through my ears and I could barely hear him.
"Don't talk about her like that," the vehicle was stopped and he stared at me as if willing me dead.
"It was only a joke." Thin-skinned fool.
"Don't. Talk about her. Like. That," his voice louder and his hands were shaking. Was he actually dangerous?
No. But upsetting him would make it a more difficult journey in time wasted placating feelings.
"I apologize," I looked away outside of the window. "I'll only make jokes about eating the corpses of people you don't care about."
He sat there staring at me for a while before moving the vehicle along the road and I heard him call me a bastard under his breath.
A: 6 of Spades
TP: 7 of Cubs
7 of Clubs: The path diverges and none of the equipment nor their memories
indicate which is the correct way. How is the path chosen? Who makes the final call and do both of them agree?
We were stopped once more with the vehicle in a complete standstill. He had gotten out of the car and was examining a signpost (somewhat valuable), consulting a map (extremely valuable), and tinkering with a compass (somewhat valuable).
The hunger pangs twisted their way through my torso and weakened each of my limbs. I needed something to eat soon.
The air here was crisp and delicate. It felt so much cleaner than what was down in the caves and the sun on my skin burned in a pleasant way. I had considered asking him to remove the make-shift gloves from my hands, but then I would need to have him put them on again once we were back in the car.
He turned to me, "Do you have any idea which way it is?"
I told him my lack of expertise. All the world was so different than when I sequestered myself, only the names feel the same.
He shook his head and consulted his map again.
The road we came from was starting to show its wear and tear from both age and negligence, but still it did have some value.
As arbitrary as it was, the one ahead of us was of more value than what was behind, and the middle more so than the sides. He could avoid a few potholes in the road, surely.
I sat myself down in the middle of one of the paths with my back to him, not knowing the route he would choose made both options of equal value to us, and dug my hands into the hard material.
The iron of my predicament was, by my god's grace, I was granted the ability to turn what I touch into gold, something of immense value at the time, now made whatever I touch effectively worthless. Carefully I carved out a section of the rock and .. whatever this new material was and unceremoniously shoved it into my mouth.
It was hard, but my blessed teeth and tongue and all the components of my digestive system allowed me to consume this material with ease. It wasn't much, but it was able to ease my weakness.
"Are you eating the fucking road?" He had looked up from his map and shouted at me, both horrified and baffled.
I looked up at him, gravel and rocks still in my mouth and shrugged.
"Whatever, let's just go," he motioned for us to get back inside the vehicle, and I followed.
A: 9 of Spades
TP: Queen of Clubs
QC: During the night, something has happened that allowed someone or something to go through your camp and supplies. What has been taken, what has been broken, what message has been left for you, and why do you think you are still alive?
"Wake up," he was shaking me. "Get up, get up get up," he shook me harder and I was finally able to understand his words through my sleep.
"What?" I started to rub my eyes but remembered the gloves.
"Something got in the car!"
We had been on the road for about a week now and had taken to sleeping outside of the vehicle for ease. It was still summer and pleasantly warm, and aside from the bugs that crawled around us, more pleasant to sleep completely horizontal than to remain in the chairs for the evening.
Ambroise was pacing around the side of the vehicle, back and forth, back and forth. When I arrived by his side I saw the long scratches in the paint, the broken lock, and the broken jars of jam.
"We need to save what we can," they searched around for anything empty and began to scrape what little jam was left into a previously emptied jar. When he saw that I was watching he turned to me.
"Common! Help me!"
This was a fool's errand, and both of us were fools for I helped him as best as I could. There was little I could do with the gloves except scrape the broken glass out onto the road. Nothing of value here.
"It's going to attract bugs!" They whined, still scraping.
"Bugs you can eat," a clever solution, though not one he shared as the look he gave me indicated he wanted to retch.
"Why didn't we hear it?"
"I don't know!" He was raising his voice again.
"Who could have done this?"
"I don't know!" Louder still.
"What could they have wanted?"
"I don't know! I don't know!" His face was red now and tears were starting to form in his eyes.
"And this?" I gestured to the note pinned to the inside of the vehicle door.
He snatched it, nearly ripping it in half and read it outloud to the both of us. "Stay any longer and it will be more than your jars," he crumpled the note and threw it aside. It was of no value to either of us.
"We need to go," he shut the doors of the vehicle, removed the belt from his pants and tied them shut.
"Come on," he placed his hand on my back, it was large and strong, and he gently guided me towards the passenger's seat. He had no time to try to convince me and opted to take me instead.
A: 10 of Clubs
TP: 4 of Spades
10C: You have no means of communicating with whatever people, city, settlement, battalion, that you had left. Was this always the case or has something recently broken or been killed?
The Prophet was sleeping in the passenger seat. It was nice when he was quiet. They were really chatty lately but I didn't understand half of what they said most of the time.
Mostly I had to just keep an eye out in case they decided to stick something in their mouth that we needed. It was a bit like having a toddler.
It had been a week since the jars were broken and we were starting to run low in food. At least he can eat the road again if he wants but I'm fucked if we run out of supplies. I tried convincing him that he'd also be screwed if I died since he didn't know how to drive the car, but they just don't listen to me.
I tried fiddling with the radio again, hoping that maybe we were close enough to a city to pick up any kind of signal but I think most places are down. The only thing it picks up anymore is The Forecast, which at least tells us the way the winds are blowing so I can try avoiding them. Gina and I used to listen to it sometimes in the middle of the night when we couldn't sleep.
Sometimes I think about teaching The Prophet to drive but I really don't wanna risk him wrecking the car. When I think about having to carry everything it just makes me tired to think about. I don't know nothing about repairs either so if he did break it then we'd be fucked.
I decided to turn on the Forecast and listened to it a bit after turning it down when I heard him start to wake up. Sometimes I think he might be pretty underneath all that grime, but showering isn't something we can afford to do and we haven't hit no river yet. What I wouldn't give to be clean.
I wonder if the people back at the Commune were able to get the bodies out of the cave. They were looking for water down there. Maybe they were finally able to get themselves clean for once. Gina always said you feel better after being clean. I never believed her but I think it's true now.
I think about how if I had stayed I could have made a little grave for her. Something simple, she didn't like fancy things. I guess it's good that I can't talk to anyone back there. They'd be really pissed that I stole the car. I don't know if I could stand to hear their voices.
A: Jack of Hearts
TP: 6 of Diamonds
JH: You cannot stand the sight of them like this. How do you make it stop?
He was real good at hiding it because I didn't notice until he started shaking in his sleep. I saw their hands trembling and teeth gnashing and mumbling and pawing at their stomach.
He wouldn't talk about it none when I tried to be subtle. I thought that's how he liked to talk since he was always talking circles around me, so I thought to finally ask directly.
"Are you hungry?" I kept staring ahead at the road ahead. There was fallen debris everywhere so it wasn't like I was avoiding looking at him.
"I'm always hungry," he said in his little haughty attitude.
"No, but like, are you hungry-hungry?" I asked again.
"Yes?" they sounded a bit confused. Maybe he didn't get what I was trying to say since he was old.
"I mean starving. Can you die?" I looked over at him for a brief moment when the road was clear.
He wasn't looking at me.
"I'm not a god yet, of course I can die. But this little… set back," he waved his hand. It was trembling. "This is nothing."
"You don't look good," the words were out of my mouth before I realized it was true. He had been looking more tired, more pale and less talk-ative.
"It sounds as if you care," he said smugly.
"I do!" I slowed the car and looked over at him again. He had a smug little grin across his face and a very apparent look of pity in his eyes.
"Don't you care if I died?" I turned back to the road.
"Your corpse would be exquisite," he crossed his legs and put his feet up on the dashboard. "Perhaps I should kill you now." He wrapped his arms around his torso. "I am feeling a little peckish."
I looked over at him once more. His eyes had large rings around them and he was chewing on his bottom lip. He looked so small.
I almost pulled the car to the side of the road, but remembered there's no one here and simply stopped it in the middle.
"Oh for fuck's sake, I'm fine," he rolled his eyes and snuggled down into the seat more.
I got out of the car, went round the back, untied the belt and rummaged around for it, tore out a page, re-tied the belt and returned to the driver's seat.
"Here," I handed it to him.
He looked at it then back up to me, "what is it?"
"It's.. ah, a journal page, from my journal."
He wrinkled his nose then took it between his two gloved hands. "I suppose that's one way of making value," he scoffed and laughed at a joke before sharing. "You could always become an artist to support me."
"Well, if we find paper, you could become an artist yourself," I started up the car. "We could decorate the inside of the van with your art, and whatever I like the most you can eat."
He laughed before swallowing the page. I don't know if I should be offended or grateful he didn't read it first.
A: 8 of Diamonds
TP: 10 of Diamonds
10D: They want to be alone. You don't. What do you both do?
He was exceptionally quiet that day, which is abnormal even for him. Any attempt I made to converse he simply grunted, or hummed or made any other variation of guttural noises.
He hadn't looked at me either and eventually I resigned myself to simply look at the repeating trees as we continued the road through the forest. We would be leaving it soon and I was none too glad to be someplace more out in the open.
He said that we had been fortunate that no trees nor brush or anything else of the sort had blocked the path and we were able to traverse unimpeded.
But there was still this night in the forest and still the creatures that were abound.
He was silent when he set about making the camp and he had long since forgone asking me to help. As much as I might have wanted to offer my assistance, the gloves rendered me useless and any of these new contraptions were beyond my current knowledge.
He dug, then searched, then made the small campfire, all wordlessly before sitting and staring into it. The jam was running thin and though he would never admit it, I began to hear their stomach rumbling as well.
I would be bold today, I decided, and sat directly next to him, close enough to feel their body heat as well as the fire.
They sighed and tensed but did nothing.
"There should be pinecones here, we… I can eat pine nuts," he looked directly at me. "Do you know what they look like?"
I scoffed, "How ignorant do you think I am?" He only shrugged. He wouldn't remove his vacant stare from the fire.
"The weight of your actions finally caught up to you?" My voice was harsher than I had intended.
He sighed, " I need…" He stood up abruptly. "I should go look for some."
"What?"
"Pinecones," he looked directly down at me. "You can break them apart in the car and I can find the seeds at night."
"I can search with you, I do know what they look like, I'll have you know," I started to stand.
"No!" His own voice started him at how quickly he responded.
"Watch the fire," he turned away, "it's safer."
"We can put it out--"
"No, I… Stay with the car."
"But--"
"Please, someone needs to stay with the car, if… if there's something just shout," he turned his back to me and vanished into the woods without saying anything else.
Leaving me alone with the vehicle. The immensely valuable vehicle. My own hunger twitched inside me, raw and sharp, a needle in every pore.
I swallowed and turned my gaze towards it. They wouldn't know. My hands were untying the belt.
It was only a little. My hands were unscrewing the cap. One small swallow. My mouth was on the canister and the fuel was down my throat.
I needed more. I wanted more. I wanted my palace, my army, my crown. I wanted all that They had promised me. But instead I bit my tongue, shook my head and returned to the fire.
He returned later, arms filled with pinecones and sat across the fire from me. Neither of us could meet each other's gaze.
A: 7 of Hearts
TP: 8 of Clubs
8C: There is a caravan of dead travelers alongside the road. Neither of them can tell if their deaths are by other people or by The Fray. One of them wishes to bury or perform other proper funeral rites, the other wishes to leave. What is the compromise?
It was the smell that made us realize.
Fortune had indeed smiled upon us as the moment we exited the forest we found it--an abandoned vehicle twice the size of our own but rusted though and through. Nothing of value in its shell.
Ambroise had stopped our vehicle and initially asked for me to wait in the car. I did no such thing and approached the opposing one with him.
The moment we had exited our own we knew: inside were corpses. The smell meant they were putrid. Their hand was on the door when I shouted at the fool.
"Wait!" He jumped out of his skin when turning to me.
"The suits, let's put on the suits."
He nodded to me and helped me into mine, and I attempted to help him into his. The gloves are a nuisance and although I have been thinking of better solutions, I have yet to come up with one for the moment.
When we were inside and sealed we could no longer smell the stench. But still I feared that the sight might be too much for him and so I set about the task of searching through the bodies for anything useful.
I was the best one for the task after all, who better to determine what is valuable? Though it is a pity, any jewelry, rings, and such that would have made for a fine addition are all now valuable in sentiment only and those who care are corpses.
Ambroise had taken the liberty of relieving the car of any remaining fuel, though he said there was hardly any left in the tank. At least it should recover what I…. the fuel that had gone missing.
It was then that I realized that I had no earthly way of knowing what exactly we needed for the trip and I was merely making guesswork as to what we would need. Things I determined were valuable were, indeed, a potential to statiate myself, until of course Ambroise told me they were useless, in which they were useless to my stomach as well.
As such, I simply removed all the items from the vehicle and placed them around it waiting for his assessment only to realize that he was gone from my sight.
He wasn't hard to find, they had wandered a few paces away and had sought about digging a pit, no doubt for the bodies.
In this moment of distraction I took my own assessment of the items I had found, determined a small complex machine, square in nature with a radial groove pattern, a single antenna, and a dial was the thing of most value, and squirreled it away into our own vehicle underneath my seat.
And then upon reflection decided that its exact twin would also make for a good meal and took that as well.
After this I needed to correct the fool before he created a monster.
"What do you think you are doing?" I moved directly in front of him and placed my foot on his hand.
"Stop it! I can't just leave them!" He swatted me away.
"By putting them in an unmarked grave? A body pit?!"
Idiot idiot idiot! I shoved him slightly and he gently fell over onto the ground.
"Are you really so ignorant!?" The look on his face was nothing short of utter confusion.
" You are going to create a Shadow!"
He looked dumbfounded.
"Like the labyrinth! Do they teach you nothing anymore?!"
"That's just a fairy tale!" Ambroise stood up again. "That's not real, you're just superstitious!"
"Superstitious!?" I shoved him harder. "Do you know how many Aspects have been lost to shadows?! At least three! I won't be another!" I kicked his leg a little harder than I had meant to but not enough to hurt more than the message.
"The what? Aspects?" He shook his head and kicked me back.
"Ow!" He returned the kick. "Yes!" I shoved him down on the ground and placed my knee on his chest. He barely looked perturbed by my weight. It was a sick realization he was only in this position because he let himself be.
"Aspects of my God, Value Incarnate, spread across the land so that they may flourish with Their blessing, etc etc etc," he scoffed from under me.
"That's what did Them in, right?" He squinted at me.
"Yes…" I looked away, thinking, I couldn't let him think that Value Incarnate was weak, or stupid. It was a clever plan, as any plans go, and like any plan, any determined person can undo it. "But that's not what's important, what's important is that corpses in a mass grave grow a Shadow and it will Hunt Me."
"You don't know that!" He placed his large hands on my shoulders, and shoved me off. "You're just afraid." He stood up, brushed himself off and prepared to start digging again.
"Yes!"
At that he paused and looked down at me, right into my eyes, and I made myself as small and pathetic as would make him listen.
"Aren't we supposed to help each other feel safe?"
The wind began to blow between us as we held each other's gaze.
He broke first, turning back to look at the caravan. "What do we do then? We can't just leave them?"
"They've returned to nature, this is natural," the lie spilled faster from my mouth than my mind and made it.
"This is natural," he repeated, brows furrowed. "This is natural," he repeated again and again, attempting to convince himself as he held down his hand to help me to my feet.