WARNING: THIS LET’S PLAY SPOILS THE STORY AND PUZZLES OF SPELLBREAKER. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ SPOILER CONTENT
Note: just to begin, I will show solutions to the opening area and the first major puzzle of Spellbreaker right out of the gate. In the future I’ll try to give people a chance to push through puzzles and problems themselves (between posts), but it seems best to get everyone off to a good start. If you are playing, this transcript ends with a successful encounter with the hermit.
On the basic gameplay loop: in the Enchanter series of games, the primary play loop consists of casting spells to solve problems, finding new spells, then using those spells to solve other problems. Spells in the book must be memorized (this was likely inspired by D&D, which Dave Lebling played at MIT and perhaps after), then cast. Most problems are solved (or solved in part) by casting spells. If you’re ever stuck in an Enchanter game, look at your spellbook.
Spellbreaker begins quite dramatically. The enchanter (that’s what I call the protagonist) meteoric rise to power has continued, as they have replaced Belboz as the GuildMaster of the Accardi-by-the-Sea Circle of Enchanters. While each Circle is independent, the Accardi guild has always held a special place of esteem.
As the story commences, GuildMasters from throughout Quendor have traveled to the Accardi guildhall in Borphee to hear the concerns of the trade guilds, whose magical tools and processes have begun to fail:
Sneffle of the Guild of Bakers is addressing the gathering. “Do you know what this is doing to our business? Do you know how difficult it is to make those yummy butter pastries by hand? When a simple ‘gloth’ spell would fold the dough 83 times it was possible to make a profit, but now ‘gloth’ hardly works, and when it does, it usually folds the dough too often and the butter melts, or it doesn’t come out the right size, or…” He stops, apparently overwhelmed by the prospect of a world where the pastries have to be hand-made. “Can’t you do anything about this? You’re supposed to know all about magic!”
It seems that the spells used by the various trade guilds no longer work reliably, which is jeopardizing their businesses. Moreover, it seems that the guilds are holding the ten Circles of Enchanters responsible. In fact, the meeting may end in violence:
You can hear rumblings from the back concerning Enchanters. The word “traitors” rises out of nowhere. Your fellow Enchanters are looking at one another nervously.
Dave Lebling’s Zorkian humor, which is just a tad drier than that of Meretzky’s zany Sorcerer blends the ominous implications of violence and humourous characterization of a society that is entirely dependent on magic. Even the poets are in on it. Surely it is not my MFA that leads me to laugh out loud, even if that laugh is cut short:
As the huntsman’s accusations are being absorbed and discussed, Ardis of the Guild of Poets takes the floor. He begins to talk about magic rhyming and spelling aids, and their lack.
In the midst of his splendid peroration, just as he was sketching out an insulting mythological allusion in iambic hexameter, the poet turns even greener than usual. His chin elongates and his skin begins to look sort of slimy. In the blink of an eye there stands at the podium, not the orator, but rather a large orange newt. “Breek! Co-ax! Co-ax!” it protests.
Soon, everyone–angry GuildMaster’s, leaders of the other ten(ish) Circles, and random attendees–has been transformed into amphibians! Well, not everyone. It seems that the enchanter and a mysterious, shadowy figure remain unchanged. When that shadow flees the guild, the enchanter gives chase. However, the shadow disappears in a puff or orange smoke!
->s
Belwit Square
This is Belwit Square. To the north is the ancient Guild Hall. A wide cobblestone street runs east and west. To the south is the storied Manse, home of the Mayors of Borphee for generations.
A shadowy figure in a dark cloak flees across the square.
The sinister figure, its face hidden in the shadows of a dark cowl, turns to face you. It nonchalantly jumps into the air, where it is engulfed in a huge explosion. A thick and acrid cloud of orange smoke fills the square. There is no sign of the figure.
->examine smoke
This is a fairly standard cloud of orange smoke, a side effect of a certain class of teleportation spells. These spells are favored by those of a less than honest nature, as the cloud of orange smoke serves to conceal their usually hasty departures.
->smell it
It smells vaguely of orange peels, but the predominant motif is less pleasant and more acrid.
It would seem that the game is afoot! But what about that smoke? For those new to this series of games, a good first step in confronting any puzzle or problem is to check out the enchanter’s current spell inventory. For the most part, that inventory is found in the spell book, though more powerful spells are limited to single-use scrolls. Let’s crack open the book:
->read book
My Spell Book
The blorple spell (explore an object’s mystic connections).
The yomin spell (mind probe).
The rezrov spell (open even locked or enchanted objects).
The frotz spell (cause something to give off light).
The gnusto spell (write a magic spell into a spell book).
The malyon spell (animate).
The jindak spell (detect magic).
The lesoch spell (gust of wind).
Oddly enough, you have never before seen or heard of the blorple spell which now graces (or defaces?) your book.
Interesting! A new “BLORPLE” spell. Who put that there, I wonder? We’ll get back to that. For now, it’s safe to assume that the lesoch spell could dispell the orange smoke.
->learn lesoch
Using your best study habits, you learn the lesoch spell.
->lesoch smoke
A small gust of wind begins to roil the cloud. The cloud is unimpressed. The wind builds, slowly but inexorably, to hurricane force. The cloud starts to unravel at the edges, and then gives up and dissipates. Left behind on the ground is a small featureless white cube.
Hm. A white cube. How did that get there?
->examine cube
This is a featureless white cube.
->jindak cube
This spell detects magic in a large area, so directing it at a specific object
is unnecessarily precise.
The cube is glowing with a faint blue glow.
How delightfully mysterious! It’s magic. We have a magical, mystery object, and a quite mysterious spell. What to do?
Before proceeding, some things to ponder:
- Do the various trade guilds do any work? It sounds like they mostly cast spells.
- Why does the enchanter have a strange spell in their book? Why did the shadow leave behind a cube?
OK, let’s try out our new toys:
->learn blorple
Using your best study habits, you learn the blorple spell.
->blorple cube
Abruptly, your surroundings shift.
It is pitch black.
->frotz bread
There is an almost blinding flash of light as the chunk of rye bread begins to glow! It slowly fades to a less painful level, but the chunk of rye bread is now a serviceable light source.
Packed Earth
This is a small room crudely constructed of packed earth, mud, and sod. Crudely framed openings of wood tied with leather thongs lead off in each of the four cardinal directions, and a muddy hole leads down.
Hm, a new area. What’s this all about? The frotz spell, one of the original spells from Enchanter, is so familiar that the enchanter does not need to memorize it. But just to satisfy our curiousity, let’s wander in the dark:
Oh, no! Something lurking nearby snuck up and devoured you!
**** You have died ****
What a shame.
Some observations about this Packed Earth area:
- Only three of the cardinal exits are functional at this time. The north exit seems blocked by a mysterious power (“Oddly, although there appears to be an exit there, you can’t seem to force your way through it.”)
- When the enchanter is in Packed Earth, they are no longer carrying the cube. It will return to their inventory when they exit the room.
- As we will soon see, each exit is a one-way trip. The only way to return here is to blorple the cube again.
- The muddy hole certainly seems dangerous (“You see clouds!”).
Ok, well it’s time to explore! Heading east, we find ourselves in a “Hall of Stone.” To the north is a enormous snake eating its tail. It’s blocking three exits, so this must be a puzzle. This is the first of many fantastic environments in Spellbreaker that we’ve discovered. Check out this descriptive text, plus a YOMIN (mind probe) for good measure.
The scaly wall begins to move, undulating back and forth in the confined space. A musty odor permeates the air, and you hear scales scraping on stone. Finally, an enormous head slides into view from the east and stops with one monstrous eye staring coldly at you. You notice something unusual about the huge serpent: the tail, which trails out of the western hole, disappears into the gaping maw of the creature. You realize that the monster must be huge enough to make a complete loop!
followed by
->examine serpent
It is huge, filling the entire corridor it occupies. It stares at you balefully, hissing like a small steam engine. It appears completely unconcerned that it has swallowed its own tail.
then
->yomin serpent
The serpent is bored, constricted, and caged. It’s in a surly mood, thinking of its past. It was once a simple temple snake, well fed on sacrifices. It was too well fed, for it grew great, and its pride grew as well. For declaring itself the greatest of snakes, it was prisoned here, forced to swallow its own tail in mimicry of the true master of serpents. That was an age ago.
Lebling has said that his original goal for Spellbreaker was to explore the mythology of the Zork/Enchanter universe, and this scene is in the spirit of that goal. However, the snake seems unfazed by our magic, so we will have to return later.
To the south of the Hall of Stone, we find a little curiousity. A zipper! It seems like a bag of holding, as there is more space inside than there is zipper outside. There’s an object of some sort inside the zipper, but it is too dark (and spacious) in there to see. That’s pretty straightforward; let’s put a frotzed object inside of it! Inside is a powerful scroll. Such scrolls cannot be copied into our spell book, so we can only use them once. Enchanter had multiple ways to misuse powerful scrolls (KULCAD and GUNCHO), making the game unwinnable. We’ll have to be smart about this.
The scroll reads “girgol spell: stop time.” The spell is long and complicated.
OK. If you like to keep things tidy–I do–this might be a good time to put some objects in the zipper. Since we need to be holding the spell book and cube in order to use them, let’s leave those out. Hm, I guess we should put the burin in there. What is a burin, anyway?
->examine burin
This is a magical burin, used for inscribing objects with words or runes of magical import. Such a burin also gives you the ability to write spell scrolls.
There is also a channel of water flowing here, but none of our spells seem productive. Maybe we have to return here, too. That seems to be everything for this stone temple. We’ll return to Packed Earth. This time, we can try south or west.
Let’s try south, first. We find ourselves halfway up a cliff on a nearby ledge. There’s a scroll here, just lying on the ground!
The scroll reads “throck spell: cause plants to grow.”
Hm, well we haven’t seen any plants worth growing (I think), but getting a new spell is always great! We’ll add it to our spell book and keep exploring. Going up proves to be dangerous:
Cliff Top
This is the upper end of a narrow, winding path up a sheer cliff. From here you
can see that any further extension of the path was destroyed by a rock slide at
some relatively recent time. There are many rocks precariously balanced above
you. It looks like the slightest disturbance could bring them down on you.
Frustratingly, you can see the remains of a small building just beyond the
dangerous area, but there is no way to get there from here.
Something you’ve done has disturbed the rocks above! Dirt and small stones are
trickling down. It looks like the whole dike is about to give way!
->u
The pile of rocks looks so unsteady that attempting to climb over it could set off an avalanche.
Huge rocks and boulders are tumbling down, making an almost continuous curtain above you. If you don’t do something soon, you will die!
->u
I don’t think that you can climb up an avalanche.
You are swept away down the cliff face by thousands of tons of rock. A huge cloud of dust blowing away down the valley is your only memorial.
**** You have died ****
YIkes! The GIRGOL spell ought to work on it, but to what end? Just to climb back down? Hm, no, it might have something to do with the small building. But should we use the GIRGOL now? No, it would be better to explore more first. What if we use it at the wrong time? Let’s try the west exit from Packed Earth.
Now we are at a “Cave Entrance.” The narrator states that a nearby cave smells “mephitic.” It seems to me that Lebling might have the most impressive vocabulary. I would guess that, of all the original implementors, he was the most concerned with the craft of writing. He really shines in Spellbreaker. I think he may well be at his best here, as there are many striking passages. Anyway, let’s head into the dangerous-smelling cave.
Cave
This is a natural fissure in the rock which was enlarged with crude skill into a
spacious and comfortable room, at least if you’re fond of caves. The floor is
dirt, hard packed in some parts, loose in others. A low passage leads down. A
large ogre bars the passage.
->examine ogre
This is a fairly typical mountain ogre. His carbuncles are a brilliant purple,
and his hair is matted down with something slick and unpleasant-smelling. His
eyes are watering and his nose is running, which doesn’t make him any more
attractive. His whole body is covered by dirty brown fur. He looks like a
particularly ill-favored bear.
->ogre, hello
The ogre grunts nastily at you.
The ogre sneezes.
An ogre is probably bad news, and he isn’t very friendly. Let’s do a little mind probe on him. This seems like a good time to point out that our spells fail often. So we have to cast, fail, rememorize, and so on. Sometimes these failures can happen consecutively; it’s random. In this case, the results are disastrous.
->learn yomin
Using your best study habits, you learn the yomin spell.
The ogre sneezes.
->yomin ogre
The casting feels wrong, and sure enough, your fingers grow numb.
->learn yomin
Using your best study habits, you learn the yomin spell.
->yomin ogre
The casting feels wrong, and sure enough, a huge ball of green light appears,
then dissipates.
->learn yomin
Using your best study habits, you learn the yomin spell.
The ogre sneezes.
->yomin ogre
The casting feels wrong, and sure enough, your whole body feels as if your funny
bone has been struck.
The ogre sneezes.
->learn yomin
Using your best study habits, you learn the yomin spell.
->yomin ogre
You get the impression of discomfort and annoyance. This is apparently not just
for the usual ogreish reasons (general nastiness, bad temper, and lice) but
because the ogre is suffering from hay fever.
The ogre, impatient with your presence and your impudent intrusion, tramples you
to a pulp.
**** You have died ****
Wow. What can we do for an Ogre with hay fever? Looking over our spells, the GIRGOL spell would stop him long enough for us to head down, but that seems like a bad use for a powerful scroll. Why give him hay fever if the solution is not related to it?
It seems like we’re at a dead end, now. Perhaps we should try the GIRGOL spell on the avalanche?
Let’s give it a go.
Huge rocks and boulders are tumbling down, making an almost continuous curtain
above you. If you don’t do something soon, you will die!
->girgol
As you cast the spell, the flimsy scroll vanishes!
At first, nothing happens. Then you notice that the rocks are no longer falling.
Dust hangs suspended in the air. Rocks appear wired in place. The mountainside
that threatened to bury you floats serenely in midair.
->u
Boulder
You are clinging to a boulder that is floating in midair. There are many other
boulders around, also floating, and lots of dust and dirt, also not moving. One
particularly large boulder with good handholds is above you. Below you is the
cliff face.
What a great, dramatic scene! We climb from boulder to boulder, finally reaching the top. Soon after, the rockslide resumes with a crash. A 500 zorkmid coin is just lying there on the ground. How strange. A stone hut to the west is the only available exit.
Inside, we find a suspicious hermit, a pile of shabby furs, and… another white cube! Perhaps it would open more areas for us. Unfortunately, the hermit won’t let us take it, and we have no magic to disable or convince him (though that seems unsporting, anyway). We should ask him about the cube:
“I’ve been living up here for many years. Wanted to get away from people. Too much noise, too much talk, too much jabber-jabber all the time. I’ve been building this hut for years, too. Couldn’t find the right keystone. It would always collapse after a while, so I never moved into it. I kept hoping to get it right some day; no training in stonemasonry. One day there was a presence on the mountain, like a cloud had come over. Then there was smoke, orange smoke, I think. The next day I found that stone sitting on top of a rock not five minutes’ walk from here. It was perfect.”
Orange smoke, eh? That sounds familiar. The shadowy figure must have been here! How odd that he left behind another cube. His other cube, the one we have, led us right to it! This new cube must be important. Let’s hit him with a mind probe:
The hermit is worried that you will rob him. He is very suspicious. He’s been up here on the mountain for so long that his brains are slightly curdled.
We obviously do want the cube, but robbery is beneath we hero types. Unfortunately, there’s no apparent way to convince him. None of our spells do anything worthwhile. He won’t even take the coin we found (so perhaps it’s not so odd to have found it lying on the ground). It isn’t obvious how or why, but we either misused the GIRGOL spell or else we weren’t ready to come up here. Our first zombie game!
OK, but where haven’t we gone? My map (courtesy of trizbort) seems quite complete. There’s only down from the ogre cave and north from Packed Earth and… down from Packed Earth. The muddy hole above the clouds? Well, we haven’t found anything to help us push through that north exit, so we might as well try down. That’s why we save our game, after all.
->d
You pull back at the edge, noticing just in time that the hole in the floor opens into thin air which goes a long way down before anything solid is reached.
Hm. That sounds pretty bad. But let’s push our luck.
->d
As you leave, the cube reappears in your hand.
Midair
You are in midair. You are dizzyingly high above a trackless wilderness to the
east of a range of jagged mountains.
You have begun to fall.
Suddenly, from above, you are hit by a crashing blow! You twist and see that a
huge bird has taken you in its talons. The bird is nearly the size of an
elephant. It closes its huge claws gently around you, squawks (nearly
suffocating you with its fetid breath), and takes off towards the west.
How cool is that? Since we have nothing to do at the moment, let’s make sure we have a quick escape route. Sometimes it’s best to just BLORPLE away!
->learn blorple
Using your best study habits, you learn the blorple spell.
The roc gains height and heads west towards the distant Flathead Mountains.
After a moment or two, we are deposited in the roc’s nest.
In Roc Nest
This nest is made from skillfully woven tree trunks, small bushes, and large
amounts of mud and roc guano for glue. Giant black feathers are everywhere. In
the center of the nest is an egg the size of a small wagon. Nestled beneath the
egg is a featureless white cube.
The roc perches on the side of the nest, watching you intently.
There is a stained scroll here.
->get scroll, cube
stained scroll: Taken.
cube: The roc, convinced you are threatening its precious egg, drives you away
before you can snatch the cube.
It seems that we can take the scroll but not the cube. That’s two additional cubes we’ve discovered, each gated behind a puzzle. Let’s get out of here for now before something bad happens (a roc ate us in Zork III, remember? Or at least it might have at random).
Back in the safety of Packed Earth, we read the scroll:
The scroll reads “caskly spell: cause perfection.”
“Perfection?” Why does that sound familiar? Ah, yes. The hermit said that the cube (left by the shadow, no doubt) was “perfect.” We probably have what we need now.
We’ll resume at the hermit’s hut. Hopefully, we can CASKLY it! Stay tuned.
Attachments:
Save game
Play transcript
PNG of map
Save for sharing day one.sav (818 Bytes)
LP Spellbreaker Script Day 1.txt (39.2 KB)
