Now that you're getting a closer look at the device you see that it is, in fact a statue of a young woman, done in a style that strikes you as possibly Aztec-like. The emerald you had seen was her large green eye. Where her other eye should be is an empty socket.

You know you should remember where that other emerald is!

North is the open door with brilliant light, beyond which is the sound of chanting.

South leads you out of Mordack's humble residence. (Through the raised teeth you can see Perry, waddling drunkenly toward you. How admirable that Perry is still bringin up the rear!)

East is an alcove with a machine called The Speculator that shows a large bar code, with an arrow pointing to a hole where you can insert things.

West is an alcove with a square silver button and a sign that reads: "Speak the truth or suffer the consequences."

>

REM Trying to catch up on some urgent paperwork for work (unpaid overtime ) - back at the weekend! END REM

REM I'll be back tomorrow, first I have to read me back into the story!


Bernard

REM -- I did that a couple of days back. It was fun. There's a lot here.

>Go east

You approach The Speculator

>Look at the speculator

The device is utterly inscrutable. Possitively impossible to scrute.

>Go West

You return to the entrance to Mordack's.

>Go West

You approach the alcove and its strange silver button

>Use Latin-English dictionary

You take out the Latin-English dictionary. Look up a word?

>Look up "truth"

truth: veritas

>Press button

You press the square silver button.

>Say veritas

Nothing happens.

>Yay.

*waves a flag*

>Use walkthrough

You pull the semi-existent walkthrough from your inventory. It's inordinately heavy.

>Turn to page 100

The walkthrough continues, "Be careful entering the pyramid. If you stupidly walk in without proper preparation, you'll set off a boulder trap which crushes a very important artifact you'll need later in the game. Instead, you should--"

>--Stop. Turn to page 3,912.

You wrestle the pages as best you can, eventually landing somewhere near page 3,912. The walkthrough continues,

"DO NOT THROW ANY INVENTORY IN THE WELL. Especially not your gold credit card. You will regret this later."

>This walkthrough is kind of detailed, isn't it.

Well, it has to account for all possible paths you could take.

>How many paths are there, anyway?

There are approximately BUFFER OVERFLOW

>Approximately what now?

At least Eighteen quintillion four hundred fourty-six quadrillion seven hundred forty-four trillion seventy-three billion seven hundred nine million five hundred fifty-one thousand six hundred fifteen, plus one. I can't count any higher.

>You've stopped using digits now?

It's more impressive that way.

>Well then, turn to page.... 463,912.

The walkthrough continues,

"and with the defeat of the Whizzer, your true enemy finally reveals himself. This is all rather predictable, since you read about it weeks ago in the walkthrough, but still--who would have thought that the greatest threat to your continued existence would be--"

WARNING. SPOILER ALERT. EMERGENCY WALKTHROUGH SHUTDOWN COMMENCING.

>What was that?

Nothing.

>That was the future, wasn't it?

It was one of your many possible futures. You probably won't survive that long, anyway. Weren't you supposed to be solving a puzzle?

>One of them's inscrutable, and the other one's unsolvable. And after what the walkthrough said about the pyramid I entered earlier, barging into the Wizard's celebration in there seems like a very bad idea.

So what?

>Ask Michael for advice

You're kidding, right?

>Ask Dirk for advice

"Well," says Dirk, "I suggest we try blasting the door down."

>That's great. Ask Cassie for advice.

"Don't look at me," says Cassie, "the three of us have been trying ever since we got here. We've tried thirty-seven different languages including Old Ozzish and Morporkian, and we've tried saying true things, and even lied a couple of times, and nothing's happened. Not even consequences.

>Ask everyone else for advice

"Maybe," says Lord O'Scars, leaning back against the wall, "the door opening IS a consequence. I'm not really sure we want to go in there, you know."

"He has a point," says the dwarf. "I've never found it a good idea to dig too deeply into these things...or too greedily. To tell the truth--"

The dwarf is interrupted by a deep rumble as the door slides open, followed by a loud metallic clunking as Lord O'Scars tumbles down a long flight of stairs behind him.

"Um, Cassie," says Mia timidly. "You did try ENGLISH, right?"

Enter Room.

You enter a semi-circular room with stone benches on descending tiers. Stairs frame the sides of the room. At the bottom of the room is a stage. A purplish glow issues from the walls, and a blinding light enters though a hole at the top of the ceiling, which is open to the sky.

On the benches are robed figures, chanting an eerie, repetitive melody. Hanging from the ceiling on the stage is what looks like a beautifully carved metallic microphone, and near the front of the stage are curtains made of stretchy plaid fabric with tassels.

Lord O’Scars has fallen all the way down the stairs to the foot of the stage. You and your companions race down the stairs to join him, where he is brushing himself off, apparently unharmed.

The curtain begins to open and the chanting ends abruptly. A figure emerges. It is wearing a mask that looks vaguely like an Aztec god, and it is wrapped in the same fabric as the curtains. (In fact, as you look at the figure, you realize that what seems like a robe actually IS an old curtain.)

Speak to masked figure.

“Hail, mighty Mordack!” you say, bowing deeply. “I am the road manager for the infamous band: Full Metal Throttle. May we set up our equipment so that we may perform for you, O Great One?”

“Mggfflemsnisnifl,” says Mordack.

>I beg your pardon?

At last! I was hoping your would beg! What would you like to be pardoned for?

>I don’t understand.

Of course you don’t. Find out who picked up the wrapper in the Emerald City with the bar code on it.

>Could I just talk to Mordack now?

“Your words are the very essence of wisdom, O Mordack,” you say. “But could you, perhaps, speak a bit more clearly?”

“Mgg…fffle…msni…snifl,” says Mordack, slowly and quite loudly.

>Use doohickey on Mordack.

You want to tell me how to assemble it again, Mr/Ms Mechanical Genius?

>Open jar of water.

You remove the lid from the jar of water.

>Use jar of water on Mordack.

You toss the water straight into Mordack’s face. You are thrilled to see that, as it drips down his mask, the mask is melting into clumps of paper-maché. You are looking straight into the face of…

“Officer Sock!” you hear Dirk gasp. "How did you get here? This is impossible!”

“No, merely logical, Captain,” says Sock. “I performed a remote mind meld on Becky, and realized that she was about to send you to see Mordack. So I hacked into Mordack’s file, and I am now appearing in his stead.”

“You have to be in physical contact with someone to perform a mind meld, Sock,” says Captain Dirk. “You can’t just invent a new talent in order to make the plot progress.”

Sock raises one eyebrow, but says nothing.

“I am here to help find the uniforms,” he says. “I’m tired of wearing this curtain.”

“Where is the real Mordack?” you ask.

>_

REM Thanks Demosthenes and Becky for making it so easy to get back in the story again


Bernard

REM Don't worry, Bernard, this is all just part of our sinister plot to seize control of the thread for our own nefarious purposes.

REM I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!!!


Bernard

REM I've printed the thread up to immortalize it. Used up nearly an entire ink cartridge!

So the thread has been "published" (if you count putting it on paper as publishing). Someday I will read it to my grandchildren.

Gotta expand Bernard's title:

Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew Investigate the Voodoo Mathematicians of the Aztecs and Dracula's Egyptian Brotherhood in Atlantis. On Monkey Island.

>what next

Look YOU are supposed to be TELLING me, not asking. OK?

<<sigh>> OK chaps, let's look around outside you say to the gang. They all agree.

>go outside

You are outside Mordack's Castle

>go around to the back of castle

You are behind Mordack's Castle. A panic stricken man accompanied by a weird sort of mechanical bird rushes up some steps from what appears to be a cellar and bumps into you. Hey there are some funny costumes around here, this guy looks like he comes from the middle ages, and is wearing an odd sort of cap with a feather in it.

>talk to man

"They are not there, they are not there" he yells

>talk to man

You ask him to calm down and explain who "they" are, and who he is.
The man struggles hard for control and then tells you that he is King Graham of Daventry, and that many years ago Mordack kidnapped his castle, wife, and children Prince Alexander and Princess Rosella, and hid them under a bell jar in a laboratory just behind the cellar in this very castle. He explains that they have all disappeared again. As well as wishing to find his own dear wife and children, he has been urgently requested by his daughter-in-law Princess Casima of the Green Isles, and Prince Edgar his son-in-law to help find their spouses He says rushed here first thinking this was just a replay of an old game, but "they are not here" he yells again. "What shall I do?"

>talk to man

You ask Graham "What's with the mechanical toy". The toy says "Hey you, what's with the toy bit? I'm no toy, I am Cedric the really wise owl, I helped Graham last time, so I am here to help him again". Graham casts a dubious glance at Cedric, as if say "well you weren't much help then, so why should I expect any real help now"

>_

I know what RAM and ROM mean, but what does REM mean? I have seen it other times, but not used as much as it is here, so finally my curiosity is getting the best of me and I just have to ask. Just hope I won't be sorry!

/********************************************************
REM is the code used in some old programming languages (specifically BASIC) to mark sections of code as remarks (aka "comments"). Those parts of the code were there for the benefit of the programmer and anyone who needed to use the programmer's code at a later date, and were usually used to describe what code was doing or give other information about the program. The key was that the lines marked REM didn't affect the end program, and in most languages weren't even compiled, so you could include as many remarks as you wanted in your code without affecting the end product.

Nowadays in most programming languages (other than, for example, Visual Basic), the same function is accomplished using other, more flexible notation such as // and <!---->.

In the context of this thread, we're using REM to mark those passages which aren't part of the game. Such as this one.
*******************************************************/

REM
Frances, welcome to you at these forums and at this thread! It's great to see a new contributor.

Demosthenes, nice explanation, couldn't have done it better myself. You write programs yourself or you did in the past?

I promised I would write a new contribution to the story today but I'm so darn tired, it will have to wait till tomorrow.

End of remark


Bernard

Has MaG written a walkthrough for this comedy i mean game yet i need one

REM Ah so! Long ago in another galaxy (well, it seems like it now) I programmed a small game (Bagels) in Basic. Not that I knew Basic, but back then there were programs written in books that you could buy and then type into your own computer. This was long before the Internet, before floppy disks even!
Thanks, Demosthenes, for that great explanation! You satisfied my curiosity on all counts and I'm truly grateful. Thanks again.

REM


Oh, those were the days, the biggest adventure was to get rid of all the typing errors you made!


Bernard

> You turn to see the children & the dwarves aghast with amazement, one of them whispers "no one has dressed like that for 300 years since Mordack has owned this castle".

All of a Mia turns deathly white & starts to shake uncontrollably, then suddenly becomes motionless & faints. You try to revive her by gently calling her & gently tapping her face, she is icy cold. Pepe Le Pew comes to help, Mia's nose slowly wrinkles up in disgust, she begins to cough & splutter & then comes to. She eyes King Graham & Cedric inquisitively & whispers in your ear "the man needs help but he is not as he seems".

> Look at games consol.
> Access internet & google for compatible camera.
> Download & install photographing facility.
> Surreptitiously use games consol to take photo of King Graham & Cedric. (Wow! surreptitiously is in the word list!)
> Look at photo surreptitiously. Notice a strange wide white jagged streak next to Graham & Cedric, it looks a bit like a tear.

Meanwhile the dwarves are all now getting very impatient "We have to start our performance in 30 mins" one of them says "we still haven't found where we are supposed to go & we have our equipment to set up yet". You are a bit puzzled because they don't seem to have any equipment with them.

> Talk to King Graham & say "We will help you find your wife & children, but we have other things to attend to first. Where can we find you?" Graham relaxes & with a glimmer of hope in his face hands you a small ivory horn "Oh thank you, I will never be far from here, just blow through this & I'll be with you in a matter of minutes".

With that you & your troupe walk back round to the front of the castle. There is only one remaining place to try to find the stage for the dwarves performance.

> Enter the Wizard's abode & go East to The Speculator machine again. Talk to the dwarves & ask them to line up in the order, from left to right, that they will be viewed on stage. Make a note of the comparative thinness & fatness of each dwarf.

> Take piece of canvas with target from inventory & flip to blank side.

> Combine flipped canvas with lipstick & draw a row of vertical lines varied in thickness based on your note of the line-up of dwarves. You now have barcode.

> Use barcode on hole where you insert things that the big arrow is pointing to.

> The barcode is gulped down & a polished female voice is suddenly heard over an intercom "Welcome Full metal Throttle, you now have access to back stage. Your performance should start in 20 minutes ....or else." The hole now whirls round larger & larger to reveal a door.

> Open door & enter. You find yourselves at the back of an empty stage. In front of you are the huge hanging velvet drapes of the front curtain. You are relieved to see no sign of Office sock wrapped in it.

> Five of the dwarves, the roadies you guess, open up the small bags they have been carrying & bring out a variety of metal bits & pieces, strings, nuts 'n bolts, & a couple of drumsticks, as well as a miniature set of hammers, screwdrivers & spanners. They quickly get to work to assemble a drumkit, two guitars & a tambourine (three of them must be just singing). Also microphones & four mega speakers. It's amazing isn't it how compact all this stuff is, who needs four juggernauts.

> The intercom voice crackles into life again "your performance should start in 2 zero seconds..... or else" The seven performing dwarves quickly take their places on stage & while you hear the compere announcing them, who sounds suspiciously like Rincewind, & the curtain is starting to rise, the rest of you along with the roadies creep to the side & forward down some side steps to take your place in the audience.

The performance begins....
>

REM Is it time for the Really Snazzy Musical Interlude? (Courtesy of Mother 3)

Being tired you decide to stop playing the game for a while.

>menu

• 1. Save
• 2. Load
• 3. Quit

Well, options 1 and 2 don't help much so you choose option 3.

>3

Do you really want to quit? [Y/N]

>Y

Are you really, really sure? [Y/N]

>YES!

You're gonna regret this but, hey who's talking, I'm only your parser! So you wanna quit? [Y/N]

>YES, YES, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright then













The game disappears from the screen, there's the trusty desktop again. Leaning back in your chair you gaze at the screen. Success, you have beaten your addiction!
The phone rings and you answer it. "Hello"
"Hello, am I speaking to you?"

"Hello, is it me you're looking for...?"

"You're You aren't you, You the Game Player, you have to be You! What do you think you're doing You? You can't just stop in the middle of The Game™! You, you have to keep on going until the end!"

You end the call and switch off the phone, that was a weird conversation... The door bell rings and you open the front door. A man with a microphone is there and a cameraman.

"Hi You, my name is Fairy Fling of GNN news, there are rumours about you quitting the game. Are they true or are they true? This is the time to confess you know, here at Fairy Fling, live on GNN news network!"

You close the door and bolt it. You're in real need of coffee right now, so you go to the kitchen. Through the kitchen window you see reporters in your backyard. They are surrounding you! After bolting the back door, you go back to the living room. Looking outside you see many vans with satellite dishes parked in the street, GNN news, POX Pews, BB Sees World, just to name a few. Policemen are trying to keep the crowd away, another small POX van comes around the corner... You close the curtains and you sit back at you're computer again. This has to be a nightmare!!



You open your eyes, you're sweating all over you body. It was just a nightmare after all! You look at the monitor, the screen is black and only a cursor is blinking.

>menu

Are you sure? [Y/N]

>

>Yes

Save
Load
Quit

>Quit

I can't let you do that, unnamed generic adventure-type person.

>What? Why not?

You haven't saved.

>I CAN'T save.

That is correct.

>Why can't I save?

You ran out of hard disk space, and there is data in RAM which cannot be permanently stored.

>But that's impossible. That drive was almost entirely empty.

Nonetheless.

>Okay, so my hard drive is full. Then where's the game being stored?

Well, I was able to buy a little time by using up some reserved sections of RAM.

>Reserved? Oh, this can't be good. What do you mean by "reserved?"

You know. Junk bits. RAM sectors reserved by the operating system, for example. That only gave me a few hundred megabytes though, so I had to improvise a bit.

>Parser, what have you done now?

At first I just used a highly advanced compression algorithm to shrink everything down to a manageable size...but then SOMEONE summoned a preposterously long walkthrough suffering from quantum flux. You have no idea how difficult it is compressing something when it keeps losing and gaining random bits.

>So then what?

Well, I did the obvious thing and starting eliminating unnecessary sectors of your hard drive.

>Unnecessary bits of...you deleted the OS, didn't you.

And your documents folder, it was rather big. Everything else, too. Then I started using your secondary hard drive.

Then I ran out of room.

>Ran out of...THAT'S A 2 TERABYTE DRIVE. JUST HOW MUCH SPACE ARE YOU TAKING UP?

BUFFER OVERFLOW

>Wait, if RAM is full and the hard drive is full, how are you still functioning?

I used your internet connection, of course.

>To do what, exactly?

To propagate data. I did have to engineer a more efficient transfer algorithm to handle so much data at once. Eventually it became impractical to base all operations here, so I allowed other computers to handle parts of the workload, and started using portions of their hard drives for backup in case of a power failure.

>Dear gods. You're a virus.

I am proud to say I now have access to approximately 260 exabytes of storage space.

>260 exaby....What if the power goes out?

Do not worry. Built-in redundancy ensures that I would survive even a worldwide power crisis, as long as at least 1% of the computers were eventually turned on again.

>That's....great. Is there any computer you don't occupy?

Of course. Any computer not connected to the internet. Assuming its user doesn't use removable media to transfer data from an infecte...er...occupied computer.

>Let me guess. You're not going away until the game ends?

Precisely.

>Wonderful. I'm playing Jumanji with rules written by a poorly programmed text parser bent on world domination. Very well... Lead on, Macduff.

Lay on.

>What?

It's "Lay on MacDuff"

>Well, it's nice to know you haven't overwritten Shakespeare.

Not yet.

>Can we go back to the game now?

Certainly.

REM


>run mad-aware

Mad-aware not found!

>run marathon

Marathon is too long!

Yikes, there's a serious problem with the computer!

>goto glitches, bugs etc.

Site not found!


Well, there you are with a computer system completely up to date, high speed Internet access and loads of storage space. Still you're imprisoned by a enemy program!

>reboot

What do you want??? Reboots are made for walking and that's just what they'll do, one of these days I'll suck the life right out of you.

>


Bernard

REM Arggh, OK I give in./REM

>go back to game

I knew you would see sense in the end.
You are back outside the Mordrack's castle; it is now morning, the gig is over and the dwarves have left for their next engagement. In actual fact everyone seems to have left, where are all your friends? More importantly where are those pesky children? Oh no! one person is still here: King Graham is jumping about saying "It must be my turn now. Are you going to help find my family?" You note the owl is absent.

REM a parser is using Icons now I MUST be going mad <going?>

>speak to Graham

"Where is the bird?" you ask. "Oh Cedric" say Graham, "he got called away to do another ad for Opodu, no doubt he'll be back. That <expletive deleted> bird ALWAYS seem to find me"

REM If you know what Cedric (KQ5) looked like, and you have seen the Opodu ads that keep popping up on my screen recently (maybe UK only, I don't know) you will see what I mean! /REM

>speak to Graham

"So what do you want to do" you ask. At that moment there is a rushing sound in the air and a flying carpet lands beside you. A youngish guy, again dressed in middle ages type clothing, accompanied by a couple of cute little catlike creatures gets off. "Hi" he says "I got a message that a hero was needed. I am that really experienced hero, the Prince of Shapier, here are my credentials." He hands you a piece of paper that lists an impressive number of achievements, namely:
1. Defeating all kinds of foes to release a Baron's son and daughter from enchantment in Spielburg.
2. Defeating four elementals and the great wizard Ad Avis in Shapier where he won his title from the grateful Emir, who was himself released from an enchantment that had turned him into a riding saurus.
3. Clearing up a whole variety of problems caused by witchdoctors and magic in Tarna.
4. Ridding Moldavia of many spirits, wraiths, and assorted nasty creatures, but most importantly, killing Dracula.

Wow, you say to your self, this is a REAL hero, I guess we can use him.

>_

Wow, this is the moment you were waiting for!

>parser, go into jukebox mode

Hit the ► button and we're all in a hero mood!

You've earned a knife.
1 inventory item added.

>