Oh, the coal mine. Some neat things coming up. Also some less-than-pleasant things. Just try to come in prepared, and don’t blame me if you suddenly start yelling at the game because you’re in another… ah, but that would be telling! (laughs evilly)
Yes, there is something going on with the oddly-similar Mirror Room complexes. It’s not strictly necessary to figure any of it out. (However it can be convenient for experienced adventurers who know what they’re doing.)
Oh, wait, I forgot about the other thing that will cause an…interesting reaction before you get to the area I was thinking of. (Which might cause you to get into said area faster, if I remember how it works if its puzzle isn’t solved.)
The coal mine is an interesting zone. My memory is that it’s not really “hard” per se as much as one that you’ll have to run through several times to get the ultimate outcome successfullyu, but it is fairly logical. (And mostly non-fatal, too, with possibly one nasty surprise.)
We went SW from the large low room, an exit we had not tried yet. We arrived at a bridge on a chasm, where a troll demanded a treasure before letting us cross. But giving away a treasure would cost us points… Aha! The golden eggs. We can give the eggs to the troll, then say the “FEE FIE FOE FOO” magic word to warp them back to the Giant Room.
In one fork of the cave past the bridge, we beheld a breath-taking view and found rare spices (a treasure). In the other fork, we tamed a ferocious cave bear by giving it food, and unlocked the golden chain (another treasure) that held it to the wall. The troll reappeared when we tried to return over the bridge, and demanded another treasure. This time we were forced to give him one that we would not be able to recall.
In the room with the emerald, we discovered the magic word “PLOVER” that warps between there and Y2. The magic word lets us warp into the emerald room while holding the lamp, and from there continue into the Dark Room, where there is a platinum pyramid.
We pried open the clam with the trident. The clam was actually an oyster, with a pearl inside! (I never was very good at identifying bivalves.)
We then took a long tour through the cave to visit all the pieces of treasure we knew about, delivering much of it to the building. You can keep the vase whole when you drop it, if you drop the pillow first. We were experimenting with ways to deal with the dragon when a sepulchral voice intoned:
Cave closing soon. All adventurers exit immediately through main office.
Magic words no longer worked to exit the cave. We were headed for the grate when a flash of light put us in the repository, a mysterious pair of rooms full of game objects. We found a hint written on an oyster there, but decided not to read it just yet. Despite a written warning, we poked a sleeping dwarf, resulting in our death under a hail of nasty knives. But it’s an ending!
New personal best by far: 225/350 points, rank of Junior Master.
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We went over the rainbow, past the top of Aragain Falls, along the east shore of Frigid River, to a sandy cave. We dug up a scarab with a shovel we found on the way. Digging a bit too eagerly, we got buried in the sand and died before we could try the shovel anywhere else.
On a new run we suffered a couple of quick deaths: a combat loss to the troll and forgetting to take the lamp with us underground. Undaunted, we made our way back to the dam. The yellow button alone suffices to activate the control panel. So what’s the brown button for? It’s possible to get down to Reservoir South while the reservoir is still draining, before it’s actually passable. (And we wondered: is there any reason to re-flood the reservoir?)
We returned to the Slide Room (stopping on the way to break the second mirror and further ponder the “Granite Wall”). Beyond the Slide Room is the Coal Mine, a mini-maze where a vampire bat dropped us into random rooms. There’s a bracelet in the Gas Room, which explodes when you light a match (or, presumably, carry a torch or lit candles). Down a ladder there’s a pile of coal, a broken timber, and a narrow passage into a dark room, reminiscent of the alcove and plover room in Adventure. The only thing we had that was small enough to fit through the narrow passage was the matchbook, but it’s too drafty inside to light a match.
We took the magic boat out on the stream west of the drained reservoir, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much there. The boat breaks if you’re holding something sharp, but you can use the gunk to fix it. We then launched the boat from the base of the dam, and began a merry voyage down the Frigid River. The boat moves downstream automatically when you WAIT or pass turns doing other things. The river took us past the beaches at the base of the canyon that were accessible from the initial overworld. It connected to the sandy beach and cave on the eastern side, above the waterfall. Just before the waterfall, we grabbed a red buoy that contained an emerald. Sailing over the waterfall had the predictable outcome.
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The bat is indeed, straight out of Hunt the Wumpus. IIRC, early versions explicitly mentioned Wumpus specifically, but they dropped the text later on. I believe it’s another case of them dropping a reference which less people playing this at home would get.
