CYOA: Dark Woods

(e)b

2.

Hey, Mal, you want to be the dealer and cheat? got it, cool.

d. I'm not trying to sit and worry about my love whilst roleplaying
2. my initial reaction is 4. but there's a chance someone else noticed and is waiting to see what we do so I think humor is the best balance

...what are you talking about? You can lose your own hands without cheating. Fold when it's good, bet high when it isn't, etc. This isn't hard.

I'm gonna go (a), 2.

After a bit of a delay, the patrol continues!

4. Patrol, April 8, 1968

You call Rabbit out for his inventive style of shuffling the cards, giving him a slight pause as he cuts them. He looks up at you, but you make a point of continuing to banter with the others so attention doesn’t fall too squarely on your comment. He grimaces and shuffles normally, evoking a slight smirk from you. He’s almost certainly going to find a different way to cheat, but at least he respects you enough to change his tactics.

As you hit the sack, you think back to the last letter you wrote to Rebecca. The men could mock-recite Shakespeare to you all they liked, but the fact was that you could tell (or at least you think you could tell) some of them were jealous, and they had a right to be. You had met her at synagogue, and as you had both grown into adolescence had developed an attraction to each other. You had dated other girls a bit in high school, but when you had gotten your driver’s license and the option for more serious dating opened up, you had gone to her first.

Both sets of parents were pleased that their children had found such a match, although her parents were not fond of your decision to join the marines. While they were not against the war by any means, they had hoped their daughter would be marrying a business man or at least an intellectual, not a soldier. Still, they had been reluctantly supportive as he left for basic training, and then for the field. Rebecca’s last letter though had been concerning and concerned. Apparently the news programs had shown the Tet Offensive more or less as it was, and people like Rebecca’s parents were shocked by the realities of the war. Their support for the war and for you was apparently eroding. Rebecca too seemed anxious not only for your well-being but for your ability to stay good in a war that seemed so bad.

You had tried to explain some of what you thought they had seen in the letter you had sent just before being sent on this patrol. While war is always a murky terrain for morality to traverse, you had tried to assure her that you had thus far not been asked to choose between duty and morality. You had gone into battle against the enemy, and tried to do your utmost. And while you had not been ordered to do anything objectionable yet, you had tried to prepare yourself for if you were. In all your assurances though, you did have to wonder if you might return to Rebecca a changed man, perhaps even a man she would not want to marry.

As dawn breaks, the squad breaks camp and moves out. Thankfully the terrain is still open and relatively easy. That will likely change tomorrow, but for today you appreciate another easy march. Conversation is light through the early morning, both in frequency and in topic. The men are settling into patrol now which means stretches of silence with occasional bursts of conversation or joking. You and your men are more alert the further you get from the base, and the closer you get to the mountainous jungles to the west.

Just before midday, your squad comes into contact with a couple of farmers leading a water buffalo along the trail. Your grasp of Vietnamese is very basic, but between you, Frankie, and exaggerated hand gestures, you should know enough to be able to ask for some basic information from the farmers. You hail them with hands off your weapons to keep from frightening them too much and stumble through some basic questions like, “Are there Viet COng here?” moving your hands in a wide arc to indicate the larger area, and “What is the best past into the mountains?” The farmers, both older men, look at each other and shrug, and the shorter one answers with a torrent of Vietnamese that is both too fast for you to understand all of, and a dialect that makes it hard to recognize words. You consult with Frankie.

“I think he said that Charlie came through a month ago and hasn’t been back, but I could be wrong about that,” Frankie offers.

“No I think you’re right, and I’m pretty sure that he was pointing us off the main road and said we should head north to the lake and something about supply caches, but I didn’t catch the distances.”

Iceman comes in and joins the conversation. “I don’t like it, I think these old g---s are setting us up. I say we ask them again but let them know we’re serious. Just show them our guns and let them know we need them to take this seriously.”

Frankie frowned. “I don’t know Sarge. That may be going a bit far, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask them again for more details.”

You’re skeptical. Unfortunately you don’t have a translator with you, and you’re not sure how much good can be done by detaining these men further. But locals were also known to be unreliable, and if these men had family in the Viet Cong or simply resented the American presence, it was not at all unheard of for locals to send soldiers into a trap. Do you:

a) Ask them for more details and to speak more slowly.
b) Ask them for more details aggressively, as Iceman suggests.
c) Let them go on their way and take their advice, cutting north toward the lake, thus arriving in the jungle sooner in the hopes of finding Viet Cong supply caches.
d) Let them go on their way and continue on your planned patrol path.

a)

a). seems right although maybe we should just do d.)

Yeah, I agree with your inclination to D. I think A is kinda pointless. Not sure what we're gonna get on a second go-round. We should either go into the trap side quest because Story or else continue with the Main Quest because we haven't levelled up enough yet to go off the main path.

Concur with Nigel and MM, let's go with (d).

By my count that's either a 3-1 vote or a 2-2 vote depending on where Nigel falls. I'm going to treat it like a 1.5-2.5 vote and go with (d) unless something changes before I post next (which will likely be later tonight).

Me, turning 80 "later tonight"