"Hello?" you call, fumbling toward where you think the door is. "Stray? Dwayne?"

"Right here!" the octopus booms cheerfully. You can just see his huge red head in the light filtering through the kitchen window. "Your songs were so rockin' that I just had to build a fog machine for proper atmosphere!"

You suppose that's a positive review.

You make your way outside, where the fog is just as thick. "Careful," comes Runner's voice as winding tendrils form a fence to guide you. "Don't step in the golems."

Avoiding the mud, you nearly stumble over the wheelbarrow. "Oh, hello!" calls Professor Zzt, his sparks winking and glimmering faintly. "You found some wonderful things! These scrolls make it clear that French fry plants came to this continent hundreds of years earlier than previously supposed!"

"That's great," you wheeze. "Do you know how to send us home?"

"Home? What do you mean?"

"We're not supposed to be in this game," you explain. "Some kind of goblin machinery dropped us into it. We want to get back out."

"Goblins! Fascinating!" The tiny professor alights on your hand. Fortunately the occasional spark that lands on your skin only stings a little. "Tell me more."

So you tell him all of it, how you went from simple seafaring to serious adventuring, first as opponents and then as companions and friends.

Zzt listens intently. He pulls an ancient scroll from the wheelbarrow, licks the end of a French fry, and starts writing, muttering to himself. When you finish your tale, he frowns down at his notes. Then he peers at the scroll itself and brightens. "That's it!" he cries. "Look!"

"I can't see it," you tell him.

"It's a diagram for just the sort of machine that might do the trick!" A shower of sparks falls as he flutters his wings in excitement. "It might even be buried here!"

You really should have seen that coming. But with this fog, Dwayne and all his cousins could be stampeding towards you and you wouldn't see them coming.

Anyway, if this machine can send you home, you're much more excited to go looking for it. There's a noisy clatter and someone shouts that they found the shovels. "Pass me one!" you call. "Let's get digging!"

Strawberry Board 3 Grid and List of Goals

Strawberry Collection | Prompt Collection (AO3) | Prompt Collection (Automagic App)

The first team to uncover every machine component will win the 2025 round of Battleship Exchange! The remaining teams will continue competing until one claims second place.

“Oh great. The octopus built a fog machine,” the Manager says.

Perhaps teaching it how to tinker with machinery wasn’t the best idea. You stay incredibly quiet.

“I guess it’ll have to be part of the ambience,” the Manager sighs and walks off.

You take this opportunity to sneak out back to the grounds. The fog is incredibly thick here as well, and you can barely even see where the plot is, let alone what’s in it, but all those bones and machinery pieces have you invested. There’s something in the ground here, and you have a burning urge to discover what it is.

“Ooh,” Professor Fuzang says over your previously excavated pile of bones and machinery. When you walk closer, you can see that he, too, now has a wiggling pear mashed onto his head. He somehow makes it look dignified. “You know, I think I recognize this culture. The Dirt Empire reigned here long ago, and left behind several kinds of artifact, usually attested only as fragments. I believe that these objects usually accompany a much larger object, in roughly this shape.” He sketches a shape on the ground with a talon. “We haven’t ever found the full object, and extant samples are so weathered it’s hard to do more than speculate on the function, but all the other objects you’ve excavated are incredibly well-preserved, so we might be able to discover something new! My colleagues have speculated it is an object for ‘ritual purposes,’ so I would be thrilled to be able to discover the actual function.”

You look at the sketch. Of course, there’s no telling how many pieces it will be in, nor the size, but you’re in too deep now. You must discover what this relic of the Dirt Empire is, and what it is for; and for that, you shall dig down. Long live dirt! Long live the Dirt Empire!

Pear Board 3 Grid and List of Goals

Pear Collection | Prompt Collection (AO3) | Prompt Collection (Automagic App)

The first team to uncover every machine component will win the 2025 round of Battleship Exchange! The remaining teams will continue competing until one claims second place.