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.

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DOCS PROVIDED BY -+*+-THE SOUTHERN STAR-+*+- for M.A.A.D.
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