Jordan-
Sorry it took me so long to get to this. You've got another very good interactive story here. Once again, the local crowd doesn't have much to say... many of them want "games" in the strictest sense and get bent out of shape when asked to do any reading. To me, a quality work is a quality work, whether it involves reading or shooting spaceships.
All the little touches are quite nice. I like how we can study our surroundings and experience more of the world in which the character resides. The sound effects are very good, too... I wish there had been more. Once again, your approach to the story... real human interest framed in a slightly surreal world... is very effective. There are so many little touches in here that people probably failed to notice; I'm not sure how deep you really went, but I don't know how many people who played this understand the significance of the name "Ishmael."
I only have a few points: The cultural flavor was decidedly Middle Eastern, yet you went for "Pine Nut Valley." I'm interest in why.
Second, people who this sort of engine often put the descriptive options up in the main text, while the option to continue the story are below, in the "choices" section. I found your reverse setup a little counter-intuitive. I missed a handful of the early descriptive options because I was under the impression the the links in the main text were for flavor.
I really like the line, "Where there are ruins, there is the hope for treasure." It's very similar to a theme I explored in a blog I just wrote about the Holocaust.
Keep turning these out. You're a good storyteller!