Arazok's Tomb WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM TLDAO18(1120) (4-011866S189)PD 1120 ICS IPMBNGZ CSP 213316681 TDBN 33 07-08 1120A EST NEW GALLOWAY, SCOTLAND MPS MARK TRADE RPT DLY MGM, DLR CARE INTERNATIONAL INQUIRER 7400 E. WILSON LOS ANGELES, CA 90006 UNCLE JASON DIDN'T RETURN FROM THE DIG LAST NIGHT. SAID HE HAD OPENED THE GATE. AM VERY WORRIED. NEED YOUR HELP. PLEASE COME AT ONCE. CAMP SITE AT CAER ARAZOK. I LOVE YOU DAPHNEY NEW GALLOWAY INN NEW GALLOWAY SCOTLAND MG7114 NNNN INTERNATION INQUIRER OFFICE MEMO "Around Here the Only Sacred Cow is Hamburger" TO: Mark Trade FROM: Mudd Slienger SUBJECT: New Galloway Assignment Hey, I just got off the line with the chief. He says you better bring back a dynamite story this time or you're through. That makes 187 times he's told you, but who's counting, right? I think you've bit off more than you can chew on this one but I'm going to help you out. I won't even charge you. Well, maybe a little by-line, but we can talk about that after you get the story. Nobody ever said I couldn't be a pal. Here's the scoop. That telegram you got from Daphney is for real. I talked with the guy they hired to take supplies out to the site. He said two days ago her uncle didn't come back from the dig. She was real worried and got him to send the telegram for her. (I figure you're the only one she knew crazy enough to go down in some godforsaken place looking for that no-account uncle.) He went back yesterday and they were both gone. He says you couldn't pay him enough to go back again. That's because of the kind of place it is. It's called Caer Arazok. You don't know what that is? I hope you're sitting down. I did some research. It seems Caer Arazok is the tomb of this ancient Druid-type priest. It's bad news pal. The locals don't go anywhere near the place. They say it's haunted and everything. Apparently Arazok showed up somewhere about the dawn of time. I mean we're talkin' Dead Sea Scrolls, stone axes, deerskin T-shirts--the works. A sect of the Druid faith split off and started worshipping at Arazok's houses of the unholy. They were into some heavy stuff. The other Druids didn't like it one bit, but they were afraid to do anything because Arazok was said to pack a mean whallop. So they waited. Finally, Arazok went off on one of his journeys into the nether regions of Hell, and the good guys struck. The sect was wiped out and the temple destroyed. Arazok was believed trapped forever on the other side. So that's the tourist stuff anyway. I dug a little deeper but I think they're all crazy. I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. Here are some copies of the wilder stuff for you to look at. WORLD NEWS Where no mannes eye may se Beyonde the veiles, Beyonde the voyden Stande citees old Wher byrthed the wicked Wher felle the goode Two citees two brothers Reulers eche yet hous in tweyne Derke werre with light Grete wer the arms Grete wer the slaynb In the last yvel was caste out And so cam to us acros the voyden Mighty was his hate And thurst for vengence So did he plan ever for a retourn Servants he sought from the Faith And did pull them into yvel Ther fyrst wer the derke plannings Ther the pykepurs And smyler with knyf hidden The nayl driven by night into the heed Colde Deth was y-born With mouth gaping And Maddeness laughing in rage The corpse in the bush With throte cutten The tyrant preyed And all weren destruyed Yet ever his heart shapen for revenge So maad he a crystal For to imprisoun his brother And a plague to slay alle And a gate to breach the voyden From the regioun of gods he cam And so the Faith sought To retourn him When the Wurme nas gonnen On his vile journey The faith did striken And slay his brood And cast doun the temple And clapte the gate to THE FRONT PAGE If you want to get started on this assignment, you've got to turn your Amiga on and put Kickstart 1.2 in the drive. You've already done that? Whoa, I'm impressed. Either someone's been cluing you in on the side or you've done this before. Well hotshot then you're going to need to know what this is: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You are a fearless and greedy reported for a sensationalistic /\ news paper, in search of Arazok's _____ Tomb. It's after twelve o'clock and ! ! your guide has brought you to Caer _!__!_ Arazok and fled. \/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It's the Text Window. It's like a book you talk to. Right now it's telling you where you are and how you got there. That little box and the arrows on the side are for scrolling in the text. The last line is your Command Line: ------------------------------------------------------------------ GO NORTH ----------------------------------------------------------------- If you want to do something you type it in here. I'll give you the full scoop on this after the grand tour. The next thing you got to know about is this: See the picture? That's where you are. The Text Window tells you all about it is you want to know more than you see. There're two other gizmos on the screen you're going to want to know about: The first one's a clock and the other's a compass---yeah, a real compass just like the Boy Scouts. Say you want to go north from where you're at right now 9that ain't a clue or nothin'). You just click your left mouse button where you put your little cursor on the big N and away you go. See those two buttons above the compass? You guessed it. You just click on those if you want to climb up or down. What's the clock for? Well, what do you think a clock is for? I'm not going to tell you everything (not for just a lousy by-line, anyway). Ok, so that's the big picture on the screen (excuse the pun). The only things left are the Menus--that's them little pull-down thingies at the top of the screen (just put the cursor at the top and hold down the right mouse button). MENU EXPOSE' The first menu on the left is the PROJECT. By picking the commands under here you can do things like start a new game (NEW), save a current position in the game (SAVE), or QUIT. Use SAVE AS when you want to save your position under a different name. To start a game you've already saved used OPEN. It'll present you with a list of games to pick from. If you want a printed copy of everything in the Text Window, choose PRINT. Be sure your printer's turned on when you do, though. You got to figure a sticky situation's bound to come along where you don't want to make a lot of noise. No problem. I got this all figured out. Just pull down OPTIONS. You got two choices for sound. One is SPEECH which lets you hear any conversation that shows up in the Text Window, and the other is SOUND EFFECTS which controls things like the ticking of the clock. If there's a check-mark beside the command, it's turned on. The next thing down the line is ACTIONS. These are some of the things you might type into the Command Window a lot. All the commands you can issue with the compass can also be entered from here. Below those are some common verbs like READ and GET. If a command is followed by an ellipsis (those three little dots) then you can type in stuff after the command's been put in the window. Otherwise it'll happen right away. To use the menu just pick the command you want and it's pasted onto the Command Line. Saves a lot of typing. Now, if it could only type your story for you, right? Since you're a nosey-type reported you probably already pulled down INVENTORY and saw it was empty. Of course it's empty--you haven't picked anything up yet. When you do it'll show up on the Command Line. So if you wanted to get rid of a washing machine you were carrying around, you'd just enter the action DROP and then select the WASHING MACHINE from the INVENTORY menu. Done, no more washing machine. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I told you I'd give you the scoop on the Command Window, didn't I? It's like this: if you want to go somewhere or do something, you have to type it on the Command Line. you already know about traveling--to go north you type GO NORTH or N, or use the compass or menu. But, sometimes things might not be obvious. You might want to LOOK or EXAMINE something to get a better view. The program always sees each sentence you enter as if it started with "I want to....," though you don't type that in. To get a better look at a wall you might enter EXAMINE THE WALL. You'd then get a description of the wall. Say you wanted to use a device or read a piece of paper. You've got to GET the object before you can use it. If you were to try to read the paper without picking it up first, the computer might respond with: YOU STRAIN YOUR EYES AS HARD AS YOU CAN, BUT IT'S TOO FAR AWAY TO READ. That's a clue for you to pick up the paper. The program's always dropping clues like that. It complains too. If you type in something it doesn't understand, it'll tell you so. If you entered something like: FIND MY JELLYBEAN, it would respond I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT, or something similar. Of course, few of us would understand why you wanted to find your jellybean; but, you get the drift. Try entering a request a different way. Remember, it's a puzzle you're trying to solve. Well, my time's up here. I guess you're on your own. Good luck, Pal, and don't forget, I want that by-line--if you survive of course. ============================================================================ DOCS PROVIDED BY -+*+-THE SOUTHERN STAR-+*+- for M.A.A.D. ============================================================================