Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Chapter 11: Madman Across the Water (Elton John, 1971)


Check yourself! You need the torch, lamp and the egg (unless you already gave it to the Thief). Use the inventory command to see what you are carrying and then take accordingly.

>down

Cellar

>east

Troll Room

 
>north

East-West Passage

>east

Round Room

>east

[Grail Room] You are standing in a small circular room with a pedestal. A set of stairs leads up, and passages leave to the east and west. There is an extremely valuable (perhaps original) grail here.

Don't panic if the grail is no longer here. If you stopped in the Grail Room while trying to get to the Engravings Cave, the Thief likely beat you to it. Again, let him do the work for you.

>take grail

Taken

 
>west

Round Room

>nw

[Deep Canyon] You are on the south edge of a deep canyon. Passages lead off to the east, south, and northwest. You can hear the sound of flowing water below.

 
>east

[Dam] You are standing on the top of Flood Control Dam #3, which was quite a tourist attraction in times far distant. There are paths to the north, south, east, and down.

The sluice gates on the dam are closed. Behind the dam, there can be seen a wide lake. A small stream is formed by the runoff from the lake.

There is a control panel here. There is a large metal bolt on the panel. Above the bolt is a small green plastic bubble.


Aha…the dam we saw earlier! There must be tools somewhere for the bolt.

>north

[Dam Lobby] This room appears to have been the waiting room for groups touring the dam. There are exits here to the north and east marked "Private", though the doors are open, and an exit to the south. A guidebook entitled "Flood Control Dam #3" is on the reception desk. There is a matchbook whose cover says "Visit Beautiful FCD #3" here.

No tools here...keep moving.

>north

[Maintenance Room] This is what appears to have been the maintenance room for Flood Control Dam #3, judging by the assortment of tool chests around the room. Apparently, this room has been ransacked recently, for most of the valuable equipment is gone. On the wall in front of you is a panel of buttons, which are labeled in EBCDIC. However, they are of different colors: blue, yellow, brown, and red. The doors to this room are in the west and south ends. There is an object which looks like a tube of toothpaste here. There is a wrench here. There is a screwdriver here.

Looks like useful stuff...better take it.

>take all

>read tube

---> Frobozz Magic Gunk Company <--- All-Purpose Gunk
 
Cool...All Purpose Gunk...never know when you will need Gunk.

>push yellow button 


Click.

Pushing the yellow button illuminates the green bubble back at the Dam, which is really all we need to do.

For the persistent, pushing the red button will cause the lights in the room to come on, and pushing it again will turn the lights off. Pushing the brown button makes a nifty click sound. Pushing the blue button will result in a rumbling sound and a stream of water bursting in from the east wall of the room (apparently a leak has occurred in a pipe). Pushing the blue button again jams the button and the room continues to fill with water. It will take a while, but the water level will rise from your ankles to over your head and you will drown...not a good thing. Fortunately you have All-Purpose Gunk with you, which by some miracle of elven technology manages to stop the leak in the dam.

Our work is done here.

>south

Dam Lobby

A guidebook entitled "Flood Control Dam #3" is on the reception desk. There is a matchbook whose cover says "Visit Beautiful FCD #3" here.


>read guidebook

Taken.

Guide Book to Flood Control Dam #3

Flood Control Dam #3 (FCD#3) was constructed in year 783 of the Great Underground Empire to harness the destructive power of the Frigid River. This work was supported by a grant of 37 million zorkmids from the Central Bureaucracy and your omnipotent local tyrant Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive. This impressive structure is composed of 3.7 cubic feet of concrete, is 256 feet tall at the center, and 193 feet wide at the top. The reservoir created behind the dam has a volume of 37 billion cubic feet, an area of 12 million square feet, and a shore line of 36 thousand feet.

The construction of FCD#3 took 112 days from ground breaking to the dedication. It required a work force of 384 slaves, 34 slave drivers, 12 engineers, 2 turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. The work was managed by a command team composed of 2345 bureaucrats, 2347 secretaries (at least two of whom can type), 12,256 paper shufflers, 52,469 rubber stampers, 245,193 red tape processors, and nearly one million dead trees.

We will now point out some of the more interesting features of FCD#3 as we conduct you on a guided tour of the facilities:

1) You start your tour here in the Dam Lobby. You will notice on your right that .........

 
>read matchbook

Taken.

[Close cover before striking BKD]

You too can make BIG MONEY in the exciting field of

PAPER SHUFFLING!

Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel really important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."

Mr. MARC had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and make really big Zorkmids."

MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter.

Send for our free brochure today!


Mamma always said to avail yourself of all learning opportunities.

>send for free brochure

Ok, but you know the postal service...
 

Geez, they even hate on the postal service down here.

>south

Dam

There is a control panel here. There is a large metal bolt on the panel. Above the bolt is a small green plastic bubble. The green bubble is glowing.

 
>turn bolt with wrench

The sluice gates open, and water pours through the dam.

Pushing the yellow button in the Control Room illuminated the green bubble and allowed for the bolt to turn. You could have spent the rest of your unnatural life trying to turn the bolt with little success if the light was out.


>drop wrench

Dropped.

>save.

Saved.


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