Start of a transcript of A Pilgrim An Interactive Fiction by Abandoned Pools Release 1 / Serial number 201030 / Inform 7 build 6M62 (I6/v6.34 lib 6/12N) Please type ABOUT to learn more about this IF. Identification number: //D2DA198B-6DC1-46E7-B076-D49EB297129B// Interpreter version 2.1.7 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 080126 Standard Rules version 3/120430 by Graham Nelson >about A Pilgrim was written for ECTOCOMP 2020 in four hours. This version was not tested except by me, Abandoned Pools, who also wrote it. >l Poison Pine This nameless by-way connects Lud Road in the west to Yunp Road in the east. Here it wanders through a grove of poison pine. The sky has grown dim over the pines' shaggy spires. It's time to think about stopping for the night. A low building of pink granite stands a short way off the path to the north, half buried beneath fallen branches. Beside the building, a gap in the boughs heads northeast. >i You are carrying: an indescribable hat (being worn) a Panzitoum cape (being worn) a walking stick a candle >x me You are Absalome Pilcrow, an ancient of Panzitoum. You're exhausted from a long day of walking. >x hat What more can be said about a hat that has known the same head for seven decades? >x cape Your cape is patterned in red and yellow, and flutters at the hem in ragged tassels. >search it You find nothing of interest. >x stick A stout thorn stick cut to the perfect length. >x candle You can always light it if you need to see something in the dark. >take all There are none at all available! >n You step off the path, pausing for just a moment at the building, then duck your head and step inside. Darkness It is pitch dark, and you can't see a thing. >light candle You light the candle. Pilgrim's Station The air of this decrepit pink chamber itches at your nose with the smell of sap. The low stone ceiling demands you bow your head, or duck away south through the door. On the back wall is painted a huge face in profile. Its single eyehole, despite lacking a ball, seems to stare straight at you. Before the west wall lies a stone bench. A person-sized bundle of twigs lies on the bench. >smell You smell nothing unexpected. >x face The painted face points west. Though the paint is peeling, it remains a striking portrait, with pinkish red skin, a sharp chin and nose, hair in jagged radiating locks, and a smile curved up like the blade of a scythe. Where there should perhaps be a painted eye is a dark hole, which manages to stare at you more piercingly than any eye of paint, or of flesh. >x hole The eyehole is empty. >look through hole The eyehole is empty. >put stick in hole The walking stick doesn't fit in there. >i You are carrying: an indescribable hat (being worn) a Panzitoum cape (being worn) a walking stick a candle (providing light) >put candle in hole The candle doesn't fit in there. >x bench Being stone, it won't be the softest bed you've ever known, but should do nonetheless. On the stone bench is a bundle. >x bundle The bundle of twigs is shaped like a person curled into the fetal position. Its branches, like the limbs of a human, are connected by joints to a central column. It has a round head, and ears, and visible teeth. It is wearing a long cloth garment which has decayed with time even more than your own cape. You must admit that this is no bundle of twigs but a person, a pilgrim, perhaps, who died in their sleep long ago, and whose body did not decay but withered up into a mass of sweet-smelling twigs and leathers, like is said to happen with certain saints. >take it You carefully lift the pilgrim. >i You are carrying: a pilgrim an indescribable hat (being worn) a Panzitoum cape (being worn) a walking stick a candle (providing light) >l Pilgrim's Station The air of this decrepit pink chamber itches at your nose with the smell of sap. The low stone ceiling demands you bow your head, or duck away south through the door. On the back wall is painted a huge face in profile. Its single eyehole, despite lacking a ball, seems to stare straight at you. Before the west wall lies a stone bench. >x bench Being stone, it won't be the softest bed you've ever known, but should do nonetheless. >s Poison Pine This nameless by-way connects Lud Road in the west to Yunp Road in the east. Here it wanders through a grove of poison pine. The sky has grown dim over the pines' shaggy spires. It's time to think about stopping for the night. A low building of pink granite stands a short way off the path to the north, half buried beneath fallen branches. Beside the building, a gap in the boughs heads northeast. >ne You lower your head and push your way past the prickly boughs. Bower You are in a dark nest of poison pine boughs. You feel the sap's itch down to your bones. Underfoot are heaps of dead red needles, along with who knows what else. >n You can't go that way. >e You can't go that way. >w You can't go that way. >s You can't go that way. >ne You can't go that way. >nw You can't go that way. >se You can't go that way. >sw Poison Pine This nameless by-way connects Lud Road in the west to Yunp Road in the east. Here it wanders through a grove of poison pine. The sky has grown dim over the pines' shaggy spires. It's time to think about stopping for the night. A low building of pink granite stands a short way off the path to the north, half buried beneath fallen branches. Beside the building, a gap in the boughs heads northeast. >ne Bower You are in a dark nest of poison pine boughs. You feel the sap's itch down to your bones. Underfoot are heaps of dead red needles, along with who knows what else. >x needles The needles are tousled, as if from the digging of squirrels. >dig That's not a verb I recognize. >search needles You scuffle around in the pine needles and find a small stone sphere about the size of an eyeball, which you take. >sw Poison Pine This nameless by-way connects Lud Road in the west to Yunp Road in the east. Here it wanders through a grove of poison pine. The sky has grown dim over the pines' shaggy spires. It's time to think about stopping for the night. A low building of pink granite stands a short way off the path to the north, half buried beneath fallen branches. Beside the building, a gap in the boughs heads northeast. >n Pilgrim's Station The air of this decrepit pink chamber itches at your nose with the smell of sap. The low stone ceiling demands you bow your head, or duck away south through the door. On the back wall is painted a huge face in profile. Its single eyehole, despite lacking a ball, seems to stare straight at you. Before the west wall lies a stone bench. >i You are carrying: a small stone sphere a pilgrim an indescribable hat (being worn) a Panzitoum cape (being worn) a walking stick a candle (providing light) >x sphere A ball of polished stone, quite small, carved to look like a white flower. >put sphere in hole The sphere fits perfectly into the empty eyehole. For a moment the painting stares at you more strangely than before with its floral eye. A mechanism starts to move behind the wall; something grinds and snaps. The painted portrait starts to slide sideways, before halting and cracking apart. With a tremendous thud the whole wall crashes down in pieces, leaving a ragged hole in the north wall. >n Stepping over chunks of shattered stone, you are swallowed by cool, bad air. Tunnel A stone tunnel leads downward, turning slightly to the northwest. There is a smell here of spoiled resin. Behind you, to the south, is the more open space of the pink chamber. >nw Rootshrine The walls of this underground cell are more root than stone. A tunnel leads up to the southeast. Down a carved mouth of stone, like a well-head, is a thicker, older darkness. >x mouth The mouth, or well-head, is carved with masses of round eyeflowers. >d What a horrifying thought! To think of it makes your skin crawl. Though yes, you would probably have dared to climb down the well once, long ago, in your youth. >d What a horrifying thought! To think of it makes your skin crawl. Though yes, you would probably have dared to climb down the well once, long ago, in your youth. >search mouth The carved mouth is empty. >put pilgrim in mouth The pilgrim falls away out of your grasp, out of sight, out of this place and into who knows what other. "Fare thee well, pilgrim." You are startled by the sound of your own voice. >listen You hear nothing unexpected. >l Rootshrine The walls of this underground cell are more root than stone. A tunnel leads up to the southeast. Down a carved mouth of stone, like a well-head, is a thicker, older darkness. >d What a horrifying thought! To think of it makes your skin crawl. Though yes, you would probably have dared to climb down the well once, long ago, in your youth. >se Tunnel A stone tunnel leads downward, turning slightly to the northwest. There is a smell here of spoiled resin. Behind you, to the south, is the more open space of the pink chamber. >s Pilgrim's Station The air of this decrepit pink chamber itches at your nose with the smell of sap. The low stone ceiling demands you bow your head, or duck away south through the door or north over the crumbled fragments of the wall. Before the west wall lies a stone bench. >x fragments You can't see any such thing. >x wall You can't see any such thing. >x face You can't see any such thing. >x bench Being stone, it won't be the softest bed you've ever known, but should do nonetheless. >sleep You're tired enough to sleep for the night, but these old bones prefer a couch or bed or some furniture to sleep on, if at all possible. >lie on bench That's not a verb I recognize. >sit on bench You get onto the stone bench. >sleep You'll never fall asleep with that flickery candle light dancing against the walls and ceiling. >extinguish candle "Poh." You blow out the candle. It is now pitch dark in here! >sleep The smell of sap rises as your consciousness falls. The aches and pains of travel fade, and a great light gleams like a bonfire inside a skull and you realize that you must be dreaming. Vault Yellowish walls of bone surround a hermetic vault of your dreams. As ever, there is only one exit from such a place. A mnemonic shade stands contrapposto at the vault's center. >x shade The shade looks a little like you did in your youth, though you doubt your eyes were ever this glassy, or your expression so blank. The shade opens its mouth and two long curls of parchment unwind from its throat, there to hang in midair like extravagant tongues. The parchment strips are covered with dreamscript, and each bears a label indicating its subject. >take strips You can't see any such thing. >read strip Which do you mean, the parchment strip about twelve sickles or the parchment strip about the people of Zocep? >twelve The shade thought it important that you remember this, apparently: two decades ago you loaned your friend Boam twelves sickles and then both of you forgot and he never paid you back. Boam died last year. Why is this important now? Perhaps one day in Yunp you will speak to him again. >read people You can't use multiple objects with that verb. >read zocep The shade thought it important that you remember this: you once heard that the people of Zocep, far to the southwest of Panzitoum, are accustomed from birth to chew the tendrils of the Urbalsam tree, which grows in ubiquity throughout their city. When they die, the bodies of the people of Zocep are so saturated with Urbalsam sap that they do not rot, instead drying out until they come to resemble bundled twigs. >l Vault Yellowish walls of bone surround a hermetic vault of your dreams. As ever, there is only one exit from such a place. A mnemonic shade stands contrapposto at the vault's center. Two long strips of parchment have curled from the shade's mouth and bob about in the vault's dreambreeze. >take strip Which do you mean, the parchment strip about twelve sickles or the parchment strip about the people of Zocep? >all parchment strip about twelve sickles: That seems to be a part of the mnemonic shade. parchment strip about the people of Zocep: That seems to be a part of the mnemonic shade. >talk to shade That's not a verb I recognize. >ask shade What do you want to ask the mnemonic shade for? >strip Which do you mean, the parchment strip about twelve sickles or the parchment strip about the people of Zocep? >all Sorry, you can only have one item here. Which exactly? >zocep (the mnemonic shade first taking the parchment strip about the people of Zocep) The mnemonic shade has better things to do. >ask shade about zocep There is no reply. >x center You can't see any such thing. >wake You wake up. Morning light seeps at some strange indirect angle through the doorway. Your back is stiff as wood. Your mouth feels dry and fuzzy. Pilgrim's Station (on the stone bench) The air of this decrepit pink chamber itches at your nose with the smell of sap. The low stone ceiling demands you bow your head, or duck away south through the door or north over the crumbled fragments of the wall. Before the west wall lies a stone bench. >i You are carrying: an indescribable hat (being worn) a Panzitoum cape (being worn) a walking stick a candle >n (first getting off the stone bench) Darkness It is pitch dark, and you can't see a thing. >light candle You light the candle. Tunnel A stone tunnel leads downward, turning slightly to the northwest. There is a smell here of spoiled resin. Behind you, to the south, is the more open space of the pink chamber. >nw Rootshrine The walls of this underground cell are more root than stone. A tunnel leads up to the southeast. Down a carved mouth of stone, like a well-head, is a thicker, older darkness. >d What a horrifying thought! To think of it makes your skin crawl. Though yes, you would probably have dared to climb down the well once, long ago, in your youth. >se Tunnel A stone tunnel leads downward, turning slightly to the northwest. There is a smell here of spoiled resin. Behind you, to the south, is the more open space of the pink chamber. >s Pilgrim's Station The air of this decrepit pink chamber itches at your nose with the smell of sap. The low stone ceiling demands you bow your head, or duck away south through the door or north over the crumbled fragments of the wall. Before the west wall lies a stone bench. >s Poison Pine This nameless by-way connects Lud Road in the west to Yunp Road in the east. Here it wanders through a grove of poison pine. The sky has grown dim over the pines' shaggy spires. It's time to think about stopping for the night. A low building of pink granite stands a short way off the path to the north, half buried beneath fallen branches. Beside the building, a gap in the boughs heads northeast. >ne Bower You are in a dark nest of poison pine boughs. You feel the sap's itch down to your bones. Underfoot are heaps of dead red needles, along with who knows what else. >sw Poison Pine This nameless by-way connects Lud Road in the west to Yunp Road in the east. Here it wanders through a grove of poison pine. The sky has grown dim over the pines' shaggy spires. It's time to think about stopping for the night. A low building of pink granite stands a short way off the path to the north, half buried beneath fallen branches. Beside the building, a gap in the boughs heads northeast. >e You pump your old knees, walking stick swinging, and breathe deep once you have left the pine grove behind. Quiet Yunp lies ahead, city of gravestones. A tear forms in the corner of your eye when you start to remember all the old travelers you've met over the years, who may well already be waiting there to remake your acquaintance. *** The End *** Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, or UNDO the last command? >