. . .

Primary excuse: Bad time management.

>

316 - Spill TEA onto the PINK ELEPHANT's GREEN SHORTS

The PINK ELEPHANT is nonplussed by this turn of events.

He regains his COMPOSURE and proffers you another CUP of TEA.

WILL THIS TORMENT NEVER CEASE???

>Reluctantly imbibe TEA

315 - Look at PIRATE on DOCK

You hop up onto a BARREL (on your third try) and check out the PIRATES on the DOCK. None of them appear to be CAPTAIN MANBEARD, the only previously-mentioned NAMED PIRATE you've yet to meet. Oh man. It was harder to get up here and run through your MENTAL PIRATE MUGSHOT DATABASE than you expected. It could be that you're drun--- buzzed. It could be that you're buzzed.

You try to remember the way of figuring out your STUFFING-ALCOHOL LEVEL.  It involves... something about... your WEIGHT and the amount of ALCOHOL you've drunk. You've drank. You've drunken?

Oh goodness. According to this... your STUFFING-ALCOHOL LEVEL is about... 227%. That can't be good.

That...

can't...

be...

goooooo---

---d.

>Spill TEA

314 - Explore PASSAGE

You troop blithely down the SECRET PASSAGE and down the SECRET STAIRS it contains. You may or may not have fallen down STAIRS several times due to your high degree of INEBRIATION and the accompanying INEBRIATED HAZE. No one can say....

You emerge into a LARGE UNDERGROUND CAVE. There are several BARRELS OF RUM on the LEDGE where you are, and a PATH leads down to a DOCK, where several PIRATES lurk. Their SHIP, adorned with their INSIGNIA (a SKULL on a CLOCK), is docked nearby.

There may or may not also be a PINK ELEPHANT offering you TEA. That... is probably just a hallucination. The TEA smells delicious, though.

>Look at PIRATE on DOCK

313 - Pick up the PACE

You don't find any PACES lying around, so you get on with your backlog of THINGS TO DO.

1. Check BISON ARMY FIELD MANUAL for TIPS on how to go about rescuing CAPTURED COMRADES.

2. Lament that it doesn't give any TIPS on the SUBJECT. Well, it is just a MANUAL, not a freaking DEUS EX MANUALA, after all.

3. Set up the TRAFFIC CONES outside so that nobody walks in on your INVESTIGATION.

4. Remain as focused as possible.

5. Wonder absently where the RED VELVET ROPE WENT.

6. Wonder absently what Corporal Walter Eugene "Radar" O'Reilly would do in this situation. This leads directly into

7. Wonder absently what Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce would do.

8. Drink absinthely some ALCOHOL.

9. Oh, remember you made the RED VELVET ROPE into a RED VELVET BELT to hold your PISTOLS.

10. Wonder about that small RED THING that dropped when you KO'd the BUREAUCRAT.

11. Notice that it is a small red pressable BUTTON.

12. Press the BUTTON.

13. Recoil (briefly) in SHOCK as the RED FILING CABINET slides up the WALL to reveal a HIDDEN PASSAGEWAY!

14. Wonder what's down SAID PASSAGEWAY.

15. Drink some ALCOHOL.

16. Straighten some WIG.

17. Go back to wondering about that PASSAGEWAY....

(What is down the PASSAGEWAY?)

>Explore PASSAGE