The Story So Far

It was the crime of the century. Nobody quite knew how they had done it, but done they had! The Elves had stolen the gift of music from the Humans...

Leopold stood at the bottom of the Thousand Steps, in the Lord Bard's Tower. Old Sam leaned against a nearby pillar, sucking on a pipe, and calmly filling the air with dense noxious fumes. "... haven't heard from them since," the Lord Bard was saying. Apparently they had sent a group of twenty or so Minstrels to recover the lost "Essence of Musik", but they had all failed to return. Of course, poor Leopold had been on holiday at the time. After all, he had just been pronounced a Bard and what else did Bards do, except take long holidays? Though at this precise moment in time it would appear that they also had to undertake the odd perilous mission - and on their own at that!

"They are going to perform some sort of religious rite, to forever destroy our music," said the Lord Bard. "You have to stop them. You have to penetrate their most secretive stronghold, where the "Cleric of Musik" lives, and recover the 'Essence'."

"Why me?" asked Leopold, a slight feeling of foreboding running down his spine. "Old Sam said you'd do it, that's why," intoned the Lord Bard. Old Sam grinned, and winked at his pal Leopold. Leopold sighed audibly.

"Of course, you won't be on your own. We've enlisted some help for you. Our "agent" in those parts has discovered the whereabouts of the secret stronghold - he found a "Gateway" right slap bang next to it - and he will guide you to the exact location," continued the Lord Bard.

"Marvellous," thought Leopold. "It would be just my luck for the "help" to be somebody like... like... Smidgin' the Olde. The craziest Bard ever to walk the face of the land." Course, Smidgin was bound to be retired by now. Or dead. Or both. It couldn't possibly be him - "So, who's helping me then?" asked Leopold.

"Smidgin' the Olde," replied the Lord Bard. "He will be waiting near the 'Gate' for you. He says he knows how to get inside. So, you shouldn't have any problems, should you?"

"What happens if I refuse?" asked Leopold. "Not much," replied the Lord Bad. "We will just hang you up by your toes for several weeks." - "I'll do it!" yelped Leopold.

"Good lad," said the Lord Bard. "We just knew you would volunteer in the end. New then, you had better take your sword along with you. No telling what you might need it for on the way - Good Luck!!!"

Leopold stepped in the "Choral Gate" and vanished...

Notes

This game will recognise all the standard commands, as well as some more obscure ones such as WRAP, REFLECT, SHEATH, DRAW, BLOCK, WIND, WAVE and SHAKE. However, in most cases a simple "verb/noun" input should suffice. In order to converse with any characters you may encounter, simply adopt the following approach ... SAY TO ELF "JUMP INTO THE BARREL" and, with a bit of luck, your instructions will be carried out.

Use RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD to store a position in memory but always use the standard SAVE and LOAD routines to make a more permanent record on tape or disk.

Hints

The sword can come in useful in more ways than one - try talking to it instead of wielding it in battle - though make sure you remove it from its "container" before you do anything.