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Text Adventure Playthrough #7: Christminster
Ahhhhh!! great!
We have search pilalethes in the library!
Cool, let’s look up Philalethes in the library and try the key on the manhole
> x flag, wisteria, gargoyle
> down the wisteria (save first 
)
LOL! Poor Oscar, three different commands from three participants.
Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! - Agent A
I don’t want to do too much back-and-forthing, so I’ll just go from where we are right now.
>x flag
The flag flutters in the breeze, and you can make out the college coat of arms: three lions rampant and a silver cup.
>x wistaria
The wistaria has embedded its roots into the fabric of the college for decades, and its gnarled branches are thicker than your arms.
>x gargoyle
It’s an ugly creature, its face perhaps a caricature of a past Fellow of the college. The initials “JF” have been carved neatly into its hindquarters.
>save
Ok.
>climb wistaria
First Court
The elegant clock tower above the college chapel dominates the skyline to the northeast.
The gate is closed, but a little wicket gate stands open.
Yeah, the story from Anchorhead is much better and leads the player so we weren’t aimless or lost like here. The puzzles of Anchorhead were also less adventury but, I feel that the puzzles from this game do make sense in hindsight and don’t seem that unfair. That said, it’s easy to say for me when I just read your play through so far and didn’t actually solve any of the puzzles
Bearing in ming that Anchorhead came after, I would have to say that it’s becoming fairly clear that Gentry borrowed a lot of things from this game (and Mr. Lovecraft). The conspiratorial atmosphere and the way the NPCs behave, to name a few.
Okay, nothing interesting. Except perhaps the initials JF? Who is that supposed to be.
Let’s go back up the wisteria and go south twice.
Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! - Agent A
Poor Christabel, first making her go punting and now climbing wistarias!
>climb wistaria
The wistaria is sturdy and certainly capable of supporting your weight, but before you can get more than two feet off the ground, the porter emerges from his lodge and shouts at you: “Come down off there!” Reluctantly, you obey, and the porter goes back inside.
Let’s look up that name since we have to go through the library again
>s
Library Archway
A notice is pinned to the door.
>s
Library
>look up pilalethes in card index
You can’t find what you want in the card index. The college librarians seem to have exercised a peculiar choice in building up the library over the centuries.
>look up philalethes in card index
You find the shelf and fetch down the copy of “Introitus Apertus”.
You’re having trouble hanging onto all your possessions. You put the voltmeter into the handbag.
[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
>read introitus apertus
The book, by Eugenius Philalethes and dated 1662, is a long treatise on alchemy (the art of turning base metals into gold and silver by the action of a mysterious substance called the “Philosopher’s Stone”) and how the author intends to produce vast quantities of gold and destroy the evil system of money, so that “this prop and stay of the anti-Christ may come to naught”.
The bulk of the text is a long series of recipes, in which strange allegorical names like “Philosophic Mercury”, “the Dew of Hermes” and so on substitute for real chemicals.
Near the end of the book you discover the following passage:
“At the close of three years labour, performed with diligence, patience and good will, you will have a small quantity of a reddish powder, of a splendid vermillion, a deeper and fuller hue than cinnabar. Glorify God and be thankful!
“To form the Virgin’s Milk, which is the cause of prophetic dreams and mystic visions, dissolve the powder in a bottle of good wine, which you may give to your cellarer to put away so that it may mature in darkness over a space of at least five years.
“Afterwards, uncork the bottle carefully, and treat the Milk by the recipe described elsewhere, to possess the Elixir of Life. It is possible to further transform the Elixir into the Powder of Projection, but I will say no more herein.”
What a load of nonsense!
That’s it, we need that Virgin’s Milk, but that doesn’t really describe the bottle, does it?
>look up Spittle of Lune in Introitus Apertus
>look up spittle of lune in introitus apertus
You discover nothing of interest in “Introitus Apertus”.
Maybe the year is enough but now it’s time to check that manhole
>unlock manhole with key
>open manhole
>look up hawksmoor in card index
You find the relevant place in the library: hidden deep in the farthest recesses of the book-stacks, over against the east side, on the lowest shelf. You tug on William Hawksmoor’s “Physiponomachia” and it pulls forward like a lever. With an ugly grinding sound a section of the wall swings aside, revealing a hole leading out of the library to the east. Without hesitating, you crawl through the hole, arriving in…
Small Courtyard
A small space enclosed on all sides: a college staircase to the north, the kitchens to the east, the library to the west, and a tall brick wall to the south. A rickety metal ladder ascends the building to the north, and ugly weeds grow all around.
A secret entrance to the library leads west.
There is a closed manhole in the centre of the courtyard.
>unlock manhole with rusty key
You unlock the manhole.
>open manhole
You open the manhole.
>d
Tunnel
You are standing on uneven wooden floorboards in a dark tunnel. A little light enters from a hole in the roof and the tunnel leads into darkness to the east.
Now that match would be of use
>e
>e
The tunnel goes on for a long way, perhaps fifty yards, and you grope your way carefully through the gloom.
>e (until we find something)
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