In reading 6.13, I see it mention “something which can be seen by Helen”. So I tried this out with the following:
Corinth is a room.
There is a woman called the Enchantress.
The Enchantress is in Corinth.
A mirror is scenery in Corinth.
A supporter called the pedestal is in Corinth.
Instead of searching the mirror:
say "You see [something which can be seen by the Enchantress] reflected back at you."
When I compile this I get:
It’s not clear why that is an error given what 6.13 says you can talk about.
In that context “something” is too vague. You’ll need to be more specific what it should pick. If you want to print any one thing seen by the character, then it’s “[the random thing which can be seen by the Enchantress]”.
Hmm. But just to be sure the manual specifically says this is allowed, if I’m reading it correctly. The text on 6.13 even says "“something which can be seen” will not be allowed whereas “something which can be seen by Helen” will.
Replace “Helen” with “Enchantress” and the code seems to be identical.
It’s allowed, but in a context that doesn’t require the phrase to resolve into one specific thing. It’s legal to say e.g.
if something which can be seen by the Enchantress is magical: ...
The Royal Wedding is a scene. The Royal Wedding begins when something which can be seen by the Enchantress is cursed.
Specifically, Inform reads “something” as equivalent to “anything”. It makes sense to ask if “anything which can be seen by the Enchantress is cursed”, as in Juhana’s example.
But Inform isn’t smart enough to resolve “anything”, or “something”, to one specific object. If you want the Enchantress to try examining something she can see, you’d have to “try the Enchantress examining a random thing which can be seen by the Enchantress”. The “a random” tells Inform to pick a specific thing from the assortment.