Prompt 4
The Queen sits on a large throne, books scattered throughout the room. She is regal, and kind looking- quite different than the royalty you've interacted with before on the last planet. As you are all welcomed in, she explains the situation.
For the last year, someone has placed a curse on all of the citizens of the planet, including herself, preventing them from being able to read books. Not only can they not read the books, but they have an insatiable desire to continue to purchase them. She has called this the Collectors Consumption, a curse no one has seen before, and no one knows how to get rid of it.
And she has asked you all, if you are willing, to try and break this curse. You all agree, because again, none of you have negotiation skills, and want to give me a headache. Whatever.
Prompt 5
The Queen and the advisor take you to the royal library to show you what exactly happens when one tries to read a book on this planet. The Queen chooses a novel, and holds it before all of you. Star, eager, and really useless except for the bare minimum of tasks, happily takes the book from the Queen. She opens it in the way a parent would open a book to read a story to a child, and as she does, you all witness a horror. That horror is the letters in the books melting off of the pages, inky droplets puddling. Star drops the book in disgust, but the Queen only gives a pained smile.
"You'll see that if you open to that page again, the letters are still there, but they will simply melt off, again."
Star continues to try to wipe the ooze she can no longer see off her fingers, and you all look on in horror at what is now your fate - a reading slump to such a degree that it's unheard of.
Prompt 6
We are taken to our rooms to rest for the night. We've survived a space ship crash, a very weird city, and a very gross book curse. I think some rest is well deserved. You all pile into rooms together, and Star picks one at random. Ariadne, myself and Strawberry bot, of course, take the best room available. We are to settle in for the night, as we have a lot of curse breaking ahead of us.
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