Up in the Hippo Room
You go out and around the back of the Rogue Windmill, hoping to find the legendary Hippo Room. Once you get to the courtyard, it's not hard to see where it is -- it's the room in the mouth of the giant, extraordinarily lifelike hippo sculpture outside. You climb the ladder up to the room itself, feeling vaguely like one of those symbiotic teeth-cleaning birds. Of course, that's a feeling you frequently get; at least here, it's justified.
Inside the Hippo Room, there're a couple of different groups of people engaging in a couple of different forms of "recreation." Looks like you can pick your poison:
| Chat with the smokers |
- Without Good with the Ladies
You walk over to a couple of can-can dancers who are resting their can-cans and smoking between sets. You notice one of them has a series of colored petticoats under her skirt, making a little rainbow every time she crosses her legs.
"Hey," you say to her, "I like what you've got under your skirt, there." As the color starts to rise in her face, you stammer "that is -- I meant -- it's just really pretty; I couldn't help but notices when you uncrossed and crossed your legs -- uh -- that is --"
But it's too late. You've dug a hole, and she's gonna bury you in it.
can-can dancer  -- (edit metadata)
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- With Good with the Ladies
You walk over to a couple of can-can dancers who are resting their can-cans and smoking between sets. You notice one of them has a series of colored petticoats under her skirt, making a little rainbow every time she crosses her legs.
"Hey," you say to her, "I like what you've got under your skirt, there."
She giggles and says, in a throaty, French-accented voice "what, the petticoats? Oui, aren't zey extraordinary? It is a shame zat ze skirt covers zem, mais non?" She reaches behind her back and unzips the skirt. "Here, you take it from me. No longer will I hide zese pretty petit petticoats."
 | You acquire an item: Can-Can skirt |
| Chat with the jokers |
- Without Feelin' Philosophical
You follow the sound of raucous laughter to a group of absurdists who are sitting around telling jokes.
"Come, join us, my friend" one says. "We're having a joke-telling contest. There's a prize for the best one. For example, what's the difference between a hand grenade and a vampire?"
"I don't know, what?" you ask.
"A brightly colored bicycle!" he replies, to laughter and applause from his fellow artists.
"I don't get it," you say. "But here's a really funny one. So this guy walks into a bar, and he pulls a tiny piano out of his pocket and sets it up on the bar. Then he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a tiny little man! The little man sits at the little piano and plays it beautifully. The bartender says, 'where did you find that guy?' and the man says, 'well, the other day I was on the beach, and I found a bottle, and it had a genie in it who said he'd grant me one wish.' And the bartender says, 'so you wished for a nine-inch pianist?' And the man says, 'not exactly.'"
Crickets chirp in the ensuing silence.
"You know, 'cause 'pianist' sounds like --"
A pin drops with a resounding crash.
"Ah, screw you guys." You decide to take your underappreciated sense of humor elsewhere.
You follow the sound of raucous laughter to a group of absurdists who are sitting around telling jokes.
"Come, join us, my friend" one says. "We're having a joke-telling contest. There's a prize for the best one. For example, what's the difference between a hand grenade and a vampire?"
"I don't know, what?" you ask.
"A brightly colored bicycle!" he replies, to laughter and applause from his fellow artists.
"Ha, that's great!" you say, immediately identifying with the joke-teller's allegorical assertion that life is a series of meaningless, yet hopelessly interconnected, encounters, and that any attempt to impose order on it is bound to be ridiculous. "Check it out, I've got one. Pete and Repete were crossing a bridge. Pete fell off. Who was left?"
"Repete," an artist says, arching an eyebrow under his beret.
"Pete and Repete were crossing a bridge. Pete fell off. Who was left?"
"I told you, Repete."
After a couple of hours, the absurdists finally catch on, and applaud your fine observations on the arbitrary nature of communication and the repetitive grind of daily existence. They announce that you're the winner of the joke competition and give you a very strange prize.
 | You acquire an item: not-a-pipe |
| Chat with the midnight tokers |
You follow a trail of sweet-smelling smoke over to a corner where people are lounging on stacks of pillows, smoking absurdly long pipes. You figure they're probably getting inspiration for romantic, deeply symbolic works of poetry, music, and art, so you listen into their conversation.
"Dude," a scruffy-looking guy says, leaning back and blowing smoke rings, "I am, like, so baked."
"No way, man," a girl answers. "No way you're as baked as I am."
"Yeah," the guy says, "you're pretty baked, dude! That's so awesome. Did I tell you how baked I am, though?"
"Hey, have you guys looked at, like, pointillist paintings?" Another young Bohemian says, taking his turn at the pipe. "I mean, we've all looked at them, but have you ever looked at them while you're baked? It's so awesome. I wish we had some to look at, because I am so baked right now."
The conversation goes on like that for as long as you sit and listen. Fortunately, sitting in that cloud of smoke did broaden your mind a little. You're not, like, so baked, dude, but you do feel a little more in touch with the mystic otherness that lies beyond the veil of reality.
| You gain ? Wizardliness. |
Occurs at The Rogue Windmill.
References
- In Baz Luhrman's movie Moulin Rouge!, the "legendary" room was built into a giant statue of an elephant.
- The symbiotic birds refer to the relationship between the Egyptian Plover and the Nile crocodile.
- The three choices of who to speak to are a reference to the Steve Miller Band song "The Joker": "I'm a joker / I'm a smoker / I'm a midnight toker".
- The young Bohemian who asks "have you ever looked at them while you're baked?" refers to the enhancement smoker in the movie Half Baked.
- The result "Absurd is the Word" may be a reference to the The Trashmen's song "Surfin' Bird", which repeats the phrase "the bird is the word" many times.
