The Dream17 Vending Machine

[Worm Mad]

You receive the mint back and a note: "I don't like mints. Got any Wine Gums?"

You don't so you pop the mint in your mouth and walk away (it tastes kind of oily).

I step up and insert a fake clay coin into the machine.

[Zeor]

You receive a bag of hammers in a rainbow of colors. You predictably find the colors to correspond to a variety of elemental and other unusual physical properties. While handy, you suddenly see every problem as some color of nail, and it also looks like you will need to spend the next several hours using them to subvert a number of diabolical puzzle chambers.

I insert a nail. No a coin! A coin.

[Pooka]

I don't understand.

I insert a coin.

[Zeor]

You receive chutzpah.

It's a short one!

I insert another coin. This machine is obviously a big financial drain on me. Maybe I need an intervention.

[Worm Mad]

You receive AN INTERVENTION.

Your friends, family, work colleagues, enemies, even a few of the neighbourhood drunks, grab you and physically haul you away from the machine. This is unfortunate as the vending machine has chosen this particular moment to start spewing out copious amounts of gold coins, diamonds, and other rare treasures. You try to explain this to your captors but they just pat you on the head and say "You need help, Barry". You try to explain that your name isn't Barry but they just pat you on the head again and say "You need help, Susan"

I walk up to the machine, sift through the gold, and locate a particularly shiny coin. Clink! Into the machine it goes!

[Pooka]

You receive some food. It doesn't actually look like food, on account of the fact that it looks mostly like an assortment of nuts and bolts in a pool of motor oil, but you can tell it's really food. There's no indication of that, but you can sense it.

Before you set to devouring it and discover whether or not it actually is food, I take a massive run-up, jump letting out a Mario-type yell and hurl a coin at maximum thrust at the machine. It goes into the slot on the first try and some people hurry to Enfield in order to paint a postbox gold in my dubious honour.

[Star and Moon]

Suddenly, you find yourself in a colorful world, and your pupils are dilated, so dilated in fact, that it looks like everything is just a mesh of giant colored pixels. After a few minutes, you realize that that's how this world just is, and your eyes are normal.

You walk around for a bit, unarmed, no way of defeating the strange enemies that live in this world, when suddenly you stumble into a cave.

A mesh of pixels appearing to be some kind of person greets you and the words "It is dangerous to go alone, take this with you." spell out on the floor, indicating you to take what appears to be a simple sword.

What? You we're thinking he would be trapped in the mushroom kingdom? What a cliche'd mindset you must have.

I insert a coin that has been bent. Due to the fact that the Vending Machine was able to take almost any kind of whacked out currency, the bent coin fits.

[Zeor]

You receive a briefcase. You open it. It was full of farts. Now the whole room is full of uncompressed farts. You evacuate with the briefcase, but yeah, that thing's pretty much just smelling like fart forever.

I insert a coin.

[Xinos]

You receive an ordinary looking snow globe. At first it does not seem very special, but upon closer inspection you notice that it actually contains a miniature version of the vending machine and a small animated figure. The figure looks oddly familiar, yet it's hard to tell at this scale. But as your eyes adjust you see he him putting in a coin into the vending machine and receives what looks like a model airplane, luckily there are no snakes on it because he has had enough of the mother****ing snaked on the mother****ing plane. How did you know this? You realize that the figure is you, from six years ago! You watch as a miniature version of Pooka arives from behind a tree and shoves you aside, and inserts a coin into the machine...

I arrive from behind a tree, shove you aside to insert a coin into the machine.

[Pooka]

The machine judders for a while and then stops. You are confused; isn't something meant to be dispensed? After a while, though, you realise that the universe is rapidly shrinking, your initial failure to notice being down to the fact that you are inside it.

With no way to escape, you resign yourself to your fate, as the worst has come. With increasing speed, everything collapses, and the universe contracts into one infinitely dense dot...

...and then is REBORN! With a cacophonous sound, a second Big Bang occurs and is sped up exponentially! Insofar as space and time is concerned, things are placed back where they should be, although nothing has happened yet. This thread has never happened, nobody has had any misfortune with this vending machine, which looks pristine, clean and unused (because, in this new timeline, it is).

I enter the room. I am curious about this vending machine, looking as it does pristine, clean and unused. I am wondering what sort of products this machine vends.

And so wondering, I insert a coin.

[Worm Mad]

You receive a perfectly ordinary chocolate bar. It tastes nice but you feel somewhat let down. For some reason, you were expecting something... more.

Hungry for chocolate, I walk past you and insert a shiny new coin.

[Zeor]

You receive a garage door opener. It takes you some time to figure out that it opens and closes literally every garage. Unbeknownst to you, many people have gone utterly insane in this span of time.

I insert a coin.

[Star and Moon]

You receive nothing. You are the unlucky one, the only person to ever not get something after inserting a coin into this vending machine. It's a one-in-a-million chance. You are crushed and haunted by this fact for the rest of your life, so much, that you change your name to Zero (the number of nothing), start wearing a red and white helmet and then you go around posting on the Dream17 forums for lack of anything better to do.

I insert a cheese puff.

[Pooka]

Nothing seems to happen, so you walk away, dejected. The next room you come to has a large stone in the middle, inscribed with the symbols "Y2". A hollow voice says "plugh".

Back in the first room, I've inserted a coin.

[Zeor]

You receive a handwritten sign informing you that the machine is either down for maintenance or out of items, as both of these conditions share an error code for some strange reason. It asks you to try again later.

You wonder who the hell wrote it.

I wait a little while and insert a coin.

[Worm Mad]

Nothing happens.

Annoyed, you track down a nearby vending machine repair person. You feel like you've seen her somewhere before, a long time ago, in a half-remembered dream. Arriving at the machine, she brings a master key out of her pocket and slides it into the shiny lock. The door opens with a sigh.

Inside are a few ordinary looking items. A copy of 'Jerry Springer: The Opera' on DVD, a hammer, and a pineapple. She picks up the hammer and gives it you.
"Oh.." you say meekly "Thanks"
"I'll stay here and restock this" she says.

Ignoring the fact that the machine is clearly open and not in use, I jam a coin into the slot.

[Star and Moon]

Due to the considerable amount of nothing the machine has been giving lately, it dispenses everything. Literally. Random junk you've never even heard of floods the room, from Japanese toys to antique zeppelins to pink gorillas. Every 10th item seems to be another vending machine, and soon, there is enough vending machines for EVERYONE in the entire world. Video Games don't dominate homes anymore, the VENDING MACHINE DOES! It's intereactive! It's tons of fun! It's MYSTERIOUS! Play it with your family and friends! You'll NEVER GUESS what you're going to get! Get yours today!

All that chaos that just happened was some kind of virtual reality commercial that the vending machine somehow dispensed. But you have no idea what's to happen next, for no reason at all, no explainable reason, the most random thing ever happens! I INSERT THE VENDING MACHINE INTO A COIN!

[Zeor]

You receive a copy of the Dream17 Vending Machine home game. It's basically just a box to put coins into, and an extensive deck of cards with wacky items (and descriptions of wacky events) printed on them. There doesn't seem to be a way to empty the box.

While disguised in a trenchcoat and fedora, I insert a coin.

[Pooka]

You get a chocolate bar. You bite into it. It tastes good.

I insert a coin.

[Star and Moon]

You also receive a chocolate bar. Something isn't right here. This thing never dispenses candy! You wanted something STRANGE! You feel ripped off.

After muttering angrily to yourself for a minute you unwrap the chocolate bar and it eats you.

I walk up to the machine and stuff a big fat load of irony down the coin slot.