Greetings! The following is part of an interactive fiction project we’re running on Meh for April Fools Day. Feel free to join in, or, if you’re just shopping, ignore all this and scroll down to the features.
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The goat farmer grows very very old. On his deathbed he tells you what you’ve expected for a long time now, but it shocks you and fills you with a melancholy pride nonetheless.
“I’d like you to take the herd,” he says. He’s so weak his voice is barely audible.
You assure him that it will always be his herd, and that you will raise it just as he had. But he shakes his head. “It’s yours now,” he said. “You are a goat farming master. You must do things your way.” And with that his eyes empty and you are alone.
You mourn for two weeks and then emerge, ready to make your teacher proud even in death. You do as you were taught, but you find inefficiencies and you fix these. Over time, you establish a radical new method of goat farming that is informed by what you’ve learned and yet entirely your own.
Your goats are so well trained that others cease coming to you for lessons. Instead, they offer large sums of money for a single goat, to be used as show goats or for work, their introduction into unruly herds having shown great results, entire farms reformed in less than 2 weeks. You start an auction where you sell one goat each day.
You experience great prosperity and satisfaction, just as the goat farmer promised.
