Looks like this is my first story here on THP. I've been lurking and voting for a few months now, and I hope that I picked up enough of the little things that are necessary to get along out here. I have tried writing before, but mostly short stories and definitely not in CYOA form. Kick my ass, so I keep writing, would you?
Some of you might know me from other forums or from the IRC. I'm not about to spill the beans on that just now.
Apologies to anyone who knows the real-life locations mentioned, they will be thoroughly twisted for this story.
Well, let intros be intros. Onwards with the writefaggotry.

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It was a cold and windy winter night. The fresh and still falling snow outside was just enough to dampen the sound in that special way only snow and thick mist can. Most of the people in the little city of Reutlingen, Germany spent the evening doing what many others were doing all over the globe: huddling together, keeping each other warm and enjoying the company of their loved ones. Others were surfing the web and, while maybe not keeping each other warm -but most certainly flamed-, were at least sharing thoughts and getting together with friends and people who thought alike. Cars were rushing along the center of the city and the many larger roads, white cones of light and red specks of glow hovering through the night, but in the thick of the housing districts, a calm silence enveloped all.

It was on this fateful January night that a young boy, or better, young man was given a present that would change his life- although nobody ever expected it.

Who that young man was?

Well, YOU, of course!

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Snow falls silently into the alley I stand in. Shadows are everywhere, creeping, crawling, wrapping themselves around everything they can hold onto, to pull you into the nothing. I stand under a lamppost, one of the few safe havens in this, a lighthouse in the storm of darkness. My “date”is late. The rhyme hurts me, too. I couldn't think of anything better on short notice.

As the snow continues to fall, I can't help but look around. I see the cheerf

[x] NOBODY CALLS ME CHICKEN! NOBODY! (spin the wheel)

(When I asked for a tie-breaker, I meant the very next post will decide what to do. Sorry for not being very clear about that.)


You grab the very top of the wheel and pull down hard to make it spin (and spin fast).
You’re about to make this wheel your bitch!

Creepy carnival music beings playing from the wheel and it spins and spins and spins and spins and spins before coming to a halt. Aaaaand…

26- Gain a new trait

Sweet! You played with fate and won! You rolled that motherfucker like a new whip and came out on top! Fuck yeah!

“Very good sah! You have now gained a new ability of which to fight crime or evil or whatnot, enjoy your new power!” The silly man cries out triumphantly as if to proclaim that the wheel was a huge success and a crowd begins forming around you, the man, the wheel, Yuugi, and an oblivious Flandre still hugging the plushie.

Wait, what’s different?

“Well…I’m not quite sure, sah! This IS my grand unveiling of the Wheel of Fate, so I assume the participant would feel any new abilities once they rolled for it. It was all very clear in the instruction manual I procured from a good from of mine (mumble grumble)” The silly man starts to wring his hands in contemplation and starts to mumble and grumble to himself like an old British butler would do when encountering a frustrating situation.
You don’t believe he’s British or a butler.

You inspect yourself further and wait for this awesome new trait you were guaranteed. Predictably, nothing happens, so either you got your money’s worth or this new trait isn’t very flashy. A cacophony of gossip begins to swell throughout the crowd, and the unsatisfied onlookers starts to disperse when they see nothing happening to you. Panicked, the silly man twizzles his mustache in deep concentration, and with a bellowing, “WAIT!” the crowd turns back around to see what this man has to say.

“Don’t forget! Every participant gets ONE FREE SNACK for rolling the wheel of fate! You can choose either a bag of chips or a healthy apple!” He holds out bo

"Fuck Gensokyo"

It's the only thing that has been going through your mind for the past several hours. You sit with a miserable scowl on your face as you try to think beyond your hate and remember exactly how you ended in this horrible situation; kneeling behind a group of elderly old hags as they natter and rabbit on about gossip and other equally inane garbage, waiting for one of them to call for you and demand another sake. You would appreciate the polite tones and the manners some of the less plastered women offer you, but you seem to be a little too busy being bitter over being called a drinks monkey by the violet haired cow in the red dress. Embittered and more irritated then usual, you reluctantly take her order, muttering something about how stupid the snake rope... thing on her back looks as you leave the drinking hall to get her request.

You welcome the chance to get away from the rabble of wenches and their mind-numbingly dull chatter and bitchy gossip, if only for a brief period of time. Glancing around the kitchen you see that you are very much alone, and not even that younger girl in the green seems to be around. You silently thank your choice of deity for this moment of peace as you make your way over to the drinks and start to pour yourself something strong after shrugging off your favourite jacket onto the back of the chair.

"Hrm... come to think of it, I don't have a chosen god do I?" the thought ponders in your mind as you take a sip from the cup and welcome the ice cold beverage. "Maybe I should have someone, something to pray to when I get caught up in this crap..." you think to yourself as your earliest memories of this Gensokyo shit hole and the exact reason about your being here come to mind. You relieve those horrible mental images and repeatedly curse yourself and your frankly pretty shitty luck for your current predicament. As you finish your glass off, you scowl to yourself again and repeat your earlier thought train from before; "Fuck Gensokyo"

"Please mind your language" speaks a polite and quiet, yet noticeably annoyed voice from behind you. "And please stop drinking all of

Hello everyone. I have decided to finally try my hands at a Touhou CYOA. In doing so, I hope to entertain you all with an idea I tried to realize as a fanfic. If you have heard of the unfinished fanfic called "Rebirth", you may know what this CYOA will be:

"Saigyou Ayakashi escapes his tree prison and becomes a human-like sakura youkai."

I am by no means a fast typer, and I can be rather busy at times. Still, do you wish for me to tell my story?

[]Yes!
[]No!

[x] Seek out Youmu's advice
-[x] Ask if she knows any self-training exercise.

You had some better success with Youmu. You want to keep trying with Ran, but maybe you're getting ahead of yourself just a tad as she said. You decide though that wondering whether or not you made the right choice is not an important matter right at this second. Clearance for now is what you need, so you go and look for Youmu and see if she can enlighten you just a bit further. While you feel you might be able to surpass Youmu easily with a little effort, you never got to talk much with her. Then again, this feeling is just based on how well you performed against her hand to hand. It could be totally different when actual weapons are involved. Though, you're not sure if you really want to find out.

The mansion feels eerily empty. The kind of emptiness you would expect from a broken heart. You hope you didn't let anyone down. You can't say you're too worried about Yukari, you think she'll live, but everyone else seems to be depending on you too. For what, you don't know, but you feel it's important that you don't be discouraged in light of this and try and prove yourself to everyone else.

Look at you...you feel like you're some grade schooler again, showing up his peers in some silly playground game. Despite all this, it could turn out to have very real involvement with death here.

You eventually find your way around after much random stumbling through the mansion. You come out an unknown entrance and into a vast garden, filled to the brim with the many cherry blossom trees you've become familiar with, along with a wide variety of flowers, including spider lilies. It's all very morbid, yet astonishingly beautiful all at the same time. While staring in awe of the magnificent flora before you, you spy Youmu tending to one of the plants at the far side. She's trimming it with a pair of large cutters, rather nimbly at that. She must've been a gardener for a very long time. It isn't until she turns around enough while tending to the foliage that he happens to see you, resulting in stopping your awkward staring at her.

A gray night pierces the sky and horizon with looming clouds above the world. So untouchable, so unreachable. You cannot touch the sky, only the realms of reaching within your grasp is within your possibility.

A mysterious calling beckons for you. In this sullen, gray night. You take 'it' and go. The woods are a maze, trees sprouting at random places, here and there. You take your sweet time, breathing in the surrounding air. You wish to fly, but there's only one thing preventing you from doing so.

No, that is wrong. It is precisely what keeps yourself from doing it in the first place. The only thing you wouldn't give up. But still, you long for the air that feels light, brushing your cheeks softly. Noises are made nearby in the forest, but you go on. The chatter of small youkai and the incessant scampering of young ones make a melody to your ears.

You pass upon a traveling bard. He nods your way, but you choose to ignore his recognition. Rather out of spite, you feel a small sense of pity to him. Music was perhaps his choice, a way of living you can say. But you chose to be, and that is how it came to existence. Music was your last thread, hanging onto dear life. It was you. You were the music. But you trade glances with the bard anyways. He smiles a smile, a weak one, yet all knowing. He probably has lived a tenth of yours, but that gaze of his showed a wisdom far greater than yours. Probably.

You part ways, both of you not stopping for anything but a glance between you and him. The gray night darkens to a sheer black, only the moon and stars guiding you to the place where you must go. And you have no idea of where you are going to, but you are sure you have to go there anyways. A calling, or maybe an urge.

…

A naive man once told you that talent was meaningless, if there wasn't a musical discipline to them. He also said the musical notations and sheets were the heart of the compositions. Out of spite, you lashed out of him. These emotions that you conveyed then are the emotions that convey music. Staves, bars, chords...they were all nothing to you. Music is whatever the hell it wants to be. So it will be what it will be. The

(Not actually a CYOA, nevertheless I just thought the world needs more pic related.)

The television crackled as she idly flicked through the many, many channels. They spill forth; Fragments of chatter, both mindless and intellectual and everywhere in between.
"Not a trace of the rift remains-" vwip "-ree quarters of humanity are still recovering from what we now know to be the mental assaul-" vwip "-to Earth, descending now to give gracious thanks-" vwip vwip vwip "-Return their hearts and let us sleep, she said-" vwip

"-A demon, twice and thrice named sent from Hell itself to lure us from the true path!" This seemed to catch her attention, holding back from tapping the remote.
"But Father, why did she save us all, then? Should we not feel grateful?"
The priest on-screen puffed up like an angry blowfish, readying a bellow.
"If we have been saved by her it is only so she can trap us in her nefarious plans, so that our souls are forfi-"
A thrown soda can interrupts the priest, who shys away from the badly aimed missile as the camera swung round to see where it came from. There they were, three or four young men and women taking off their jumpers and clothing to reveal their emblazoned t-shirts - the audience cheered as they saw the stylised purple slash with red ribbons at either end.
"Get bent, old man! She saved us all and I'd rather she had my soul and be in her plans rather than some stuffy old god! We all love Yukar-" vwip vwip vwip vwip vwip

No entertainment programs seemed to be running; not that unusual while the Great Emptiness had seized the world; but that was long past, nearly a month now. Had they forgotten how to make good TV shows?

vwip

"-and Ellis' singin

With a heave you threw yourself against the mass of people, gesturing for Tokiko to follow as you forced your way in the direction of the stage area. If there was one thing you had learned in this goddamn game it was that one-on-one fights were far too hard to control for your liking. An alliance, even if just a temporary one, would swing this fight hard against the flying maid and frankly after she took a pot shot at Flandre you were in no mood to give her anything resembling a 'fair' fight. Hell, if you didn't think she would dodge or block it somehow you would have happily shot her in the back - or gone to hunt down her partner were it not for the fact that whoever it was could be hiding anywhere in the crowd and thus be almost impossible to find until it dispersed some more.

You snorted in annoyance. Given how more than a few of your opponents had played you wouldn't be too surprised if the maid's partner would be hiding out as far from the battleground as possible simply so they wouldn't be targeted. While you couldn't exactly fault the strategy you knew it wasn't one you could use yourself - you cared for Tokiko too much to leave her face an enemy alone. Flandre on the other hand... you needed to find somewhere for her to hide, somewhere close by but far enough away that she had could escape if things went badly. Had your sister been here you would have sent Flandre off to escape with her, but since you couldn't find her right now that wasn't an option.

Unfortunately there really wasn't many good hiding places that were not on or behind the stage itself so you had little choice but to let Flandre follow behind as you shoved your way through the crowd. Behind her came Tokiko who was making sure that the little blond girl wasn't swept away or knocked down by the panicking people heading in the opposite direction to your group. Despite the screaming and yelling filling the air you were more than able to pick out screams of a... different... kind. Screams of pain rather than fear, of people hit by the stray shots of the knife-like projectiles the maid was firing at the stage with almost reckless abandon. Hell, it was pretty obvious

[x] "Eh, sure go right ahead"
[x] "Do you know where the Garden is?"

Yeah, it would be best to ask the maid on where to go, you have your doubts that you'll be able to find any place of interest to hang out at, let alone find your way back all on your own. You would question on how Luize would be able to find you, but then you realiz that not only does she have a better sense of direction but she also has the maids to let her know of where you went. In any case, you think the Garden would be a good place to head to at the moment, if Luize and Shinki took longer then you'd find some place else to go. "Eh, sure go right ahead." You reply casually with a slight shrug of your shoulders. "Do you know where the Garden is?"

"That I do," The maid replies, turning to the doorway below the right side of the stairway before she motions you to follow. "Come, this way." She instrsucts, now taking her leave with you right behind. The hallway down through this passage was a little less lavishly decorated as the main area was, you can spot several scenic paintings hanging on the walls but there was less funiture through this way, only the occasional table or two could count for such a thing and there really weren't that many. The inital walk is rather silent as you spend most of your time looking around the hallway.

It isn't until you pass north through a four-way in the hall that your attention is drawn to the maid as she suddenly speaks up. "So is this your first time in a castle?" The maid asks, perhaps as a way to break the silence between the two of you. "You seem quite interested in the scenery here."

"You can say that I guess, I've only been in a castle a few times in the past but most of the time I was out doing in the frontlines." You answer with your eyes still on the scenery which was now out of the hallway and into what seemed to be the Audience Room of the castle. There are also large windows on the west side of the wall, to which the sunlight of the evening sun bathes the room in it's warmth. The floor also looks exceptionally clean, so much so that you

[x] Ran

"Ran, is it?" Yukari asks you a final time. You nod your head and she turns back to her shikigami. "Looks like you were chosen. Don't let me down~" Ran bows her head and steps forward.

"As you wish, Lady Yukari. Let's get started right away." You give Ran your own nod too and soon, places are taken. In front of the porch to the mansion, you and Ran put a great distance between each other, creating a large clearing. Yukari stands further off to the side of Ran, while Yuyuko and Youmu sit on the porch closer to your side, spectating.

"Here Ran, you will be using this." Yukari says, before calling forth a border under her hands to spit out a slow moving but peculiar white sphere. "Catch." She then tosses it gently over to Ran, who fumbles a bit before realizing the slow speed of the orb, which travels along it's course to Ran as if unhindered by gravity, not budging an inch downward and not slowing it's constant pace. Ran catches it and curiously looks back at her master.

"Lady Yukari, what is this?"

"You could say I picked it up from my many travels across boundaries. It is an interesting ball of matter that is completely inert, having no weight and no friction, thus it is unaffected by gravity." Ran lets go of it and to her surprise, the ball sits there floating in mid-air, unmoving. She pushes down lightly on it and it slowly moves towards the ground before bouncing lightly off it and back into her hands.

"So, if I were to throw this ball up, then..."

"It would never come back down~ Don't lose it now." Yukari then turns over to you, shouting at you. "Right, Satoya?!" Your focus is broken when Yukari calls attention to you.

"Uhh, yeah!" That was weird. You were completely able to hear everything they said clear as day, despite being a great length away from you. You were focusing on this before Yukari called out to you. How did she know about your sudden increase in hearing? A better question would be how did you get such an increase in hearing, but it feels like new things about you can all be blamed