============ Spellbreaker ============ Infocom 1985 by Dave Lebling Solution by David Tanguay dat@thinkage.on.ca ------- General ------- I'll assume you're able to do the mapping yourself (or use the map that came with some versions of the game). This means I won't usually tell you which directions to take; I'll just give the problem, its general area, and how to solve it. I'll also mention objects that you should pick up in general areas. Spellbreaker relies heavily on spells. There are two ways to cast a spell. Long, complicated spells can only be cast off a scroll, and they disappear when you do the casting. The other, simpler spells can be copied into you spell book by casting gnusto on them. For example, suppose you find a green scroll. Pick it up and read it. It will say something like "yomin: mind probe". To enter it into your spell book, "cast gnusto on yomin", or, more simply, "gnusto yomin". To later cast the yomin spell you first have to learn it. E.g., "learn yomin" then "yomin ". Once you cast a spell, it is no longer in your head and you must learn it again when you want to cast it again. You have to have the spell book in hand to learn a spell, and you can only have five or so spells learned at one time. The exceptions are a few simple spells that you can cast at any time: gnusto, frotz, and rezrov. Every time you find a scroll, I'll expect you to read it (to see what it is) and gnusto it if it's not complicated. You find a number of white cubes in the game. They will all look alike, but you can distinguish them by writing on them with your burin: write "foo" on cube Note the quotes. Thereafter you can refer to the cube simple as "foo" (with the quotes). You can rename it, too. In this solution, I'll name the cubes after the description given of the cube when you're inside it. When describing a new cube, I'll just say this label; you'll have to remember to write the label on it at the earliest opportunity. The cubes are an important part of travel in the game. You must learn the blorple spell, then, with cube "x" in hand, blorple "x". You will end up inside the cube, but there will be exits in various directions to other locations. When you exit the cube, the cube will reappear in your hands. You will ocasionally get tired and have to sleep. As you get tired, you will have an increasingly difficult time learning and casting spells. When you sleep, you will forget all the spells you had learned the day before. This is the only way to clear your head of spells. You can cast espnis on yourself if you're not sleepy but want to clear you head. ---------- Guild Hall ---------- There's nothing to do until the shadowy figure shows up and turns the council into various animals. You can use this time to check your spell book and inventory. Once he does show up, follow him south. Pick up the fish and bread along the way. When faced with the cloud of orange smoke, learn lesoch and use it on the cloud. Check your spell book now and you'll see that an important new spell has appeared. If you learn and cast jindak, you'll see that the "earth" cube the shadowy figure left behind is magic. ------------ Packed Earth -- blorple "earth" ------------ Go down, into midair. You'll balk the first time, so just go again. You'll find yourself falling to the earth, but a roc will pass by to grab you and take you to her nest. If she doesn't, well, restore and try again. Pay attention to where she's taking you. In the nest you'll find the caskly scroll. You can also see another cube here, but you can't get it now. Blorple "earth" and exit the cube to the east. In the Ruins Room you'll find a zipper. Open it and look inside. Reach inside, then look again and you'll see a scroll. It's girgol, but it's too complicated for you to gnusto. The zipper can hold any number of things, and anything in it does not count towards your carrying capacity. You will need this. Blorple "earth" and exit south. Get the throck scroll. --------- Cliff Top -- south out of "earth" --------- Don't attempt to go past here until you have girgol and caskly. Just being here will eventually trigger a rock slide, and you can start one by pushing a rock. When you're told that you're about to die, cast girgol. You can then climb up the rocks to the mountain top. There you'll find a 500 zorkmid coin. The rocks will soon start falling again. You can blorple out safely, but if you don't get everything that's up here then you won't be able to come back later, and you won't be able to complete the game. --------- Stone Hut -- beyond the cliff top --------- Look at the hut and ask the hermit about the cube. Caskly the hut. You can now take the "soft" cube. ------------- The Ogre Cave -- west out of "earth" ------------- If you cast yomin on the ogre, you'll learn that he has an allergy to plants. Blorple "soft" and exit south, to find a weed. Don't cut it, since that will kill it. Instead, pull it, and pull it again. Blorple "earth" and exit west to get back to the ogre. Plant the weed, then cast throck on it. This will take care of the ogre for a few turns, but he will recover so you can't waste turns here -- it's a good idea to learn blorple in advance. In the ogre's lair you'll find the espnis scroll and a gold box with the "water" cube in it. -------------- The Water Room -- blorple "water" -------------- If you go south, you end up in the ocean. Your spell book will get soaked (and effectively end the game). Anything with you will be dropped. So before you go south, learn blorple and whatever other spells you will need, and drop everything except the "water" cube and whatever else you will need for the task at hand. ----------- The Grouper -- south out of "water" ----------- The grouper will swallow anything floating around after a turn. To combat this, have some food with you (fish or bread) and drop it as soon as you're in the water. This will get rid of the grouper until you return. Then get the "water" cube before it sinks to the bottom, stranding you. Finally, get the bottle. Don't open the bottle since that ruins the scroll inside. You can now blorple "water". Retrieve your inventory. Open the bottle and get the liskon scroll. --------- The Snake -- east out of "earth" --------- For fun, cast yomin on it. For profit, cast liskon on it. This will open the passage for a short time. You can liskon it again later if you have to. -------- The Idol -- beyond the snake -------- Climb the idol and look into its mouth: you'll see another cube. You can't just grab it. Climb down and learn malyon and espnis. The timing is important here (but you can always try again). First cast malyon on the idol. Wait one turn, then cast espnis on it. It should revert to stone in the middle of a yawn. Now you can climb the idol and grab the "air" cube. While you're up there, note that the eye is a big opal. You can pry it out with your knife. You don't really need it, but it can be used later in place of your coin. ------------ The Air Room -- blorple "air" ------------ Exit north to find the tinsot scroll. If you stay here too long, you will freeze. ------------ The Merchant -- west of "air" ------------ Examine the rugs. You want the blue one. You start with "buy carpet". The merchant will haggle with you. He'll give you a price, and then you'll reply with, e.g., "offer 200". Start with at least 100, and increase by at least 50 each time. Starting at 200 and increasing by 100 works well. When he finally settles on 500, give him the coin. If you goof and he settles on more, you can pay him with the opal. Check your inventory: he gave you the red carpet. Give him back the red carpet to get the blue carpet. If you do anything offensive here, the merchant will kick you out and close his door. You won't be able to get the blue carpet and finish the game. Once outside, drop the carpet and cast jindak. The carpet is magic. If you sit on it, you can go up and fly around. You don't want to go anywhere now, though. -------- The Pipe -- north of "water" -------- You can fit into the pipe by casting liskon on yourself. You're going into that little pipe, and the water there will destroy any paper items in your inventory. Put your spell book and any scrolls into the zipper, then close the zipper. You can now enter the pipe and go west until the crack. Get the "change" cube. You can go west then up into the Ruins Room, or blorple out. ------------- The Oubliette -- north of "water" ------------- In the Oubliette, examine the opening. You can now rezrov the trap door open. To get up there, you cast tinsot on the outflow pipe twice, then cast tinsot again on the water to create an ice floe. Climb on the floe and wait for the water to fill the room. Since you'll be in the water, you'll have to protect your scrolls and spell book by putting them in the zipper and closing the zipper before the castings. ----------- The Dungeon -- beyond the Oubliette ----------- Get the "bone" cube. ----------- The Cabinet -- in the Dungeon ----------- You can open the cabinet with rezrov. Cast caskly on the book inside to find the snavig spell. You can gnusto it just like a scroll. ------------------------ The Roc's Nest Revisited -- beyond the dungeon ------------------------ Go up the guard tower, drop the rug, and sit on it. You can now go up. Fly west until you get to the roc's nest, then down into the nest. Stand up. You can get your rug and the "string" cube. Don't dally, since the egg will soon hatch and the young roc will eat you. --------------- The Ocean Floor -- south of "water" --------------- First learn blorple and snavig, then drop all your inventory in the Water Room. Go south into the ocean and grab your "water" cube before the grouper gets it. Cast snavig on the grouper and you turn into a fish, dropping the cube. Go down to the grouper's nest. Wait until you're a human again, then grab the "water" cube and the "light" cube in the nest. Go up to the suface quickly, before you drown. You can now blorple back to "water" to retrieve your stuff. ----------------- The Changing Room -- blorple "change" ----------------- Exit north to get the compass. ----------------------------------------- The Carving Room and Octagonal Rooms Maze -- west of "change" ----------------------------------------- Put the compass into the carving. This opens a passage into the maze. It also recharges the compass (see below). To move in the maze, touch the compass to a rune, a passage will open in that direction, then move in that direction. However, this only works if the compass needle for that direction is silver (not lead), and each silver needle turns into lead upon use. I.e., you only get to go in a particular direction once while in the maze, and you use up north getting into the maze at the start. One path through the maze is west, northwest, northeast. This brings you to a room with an alabastre plug, which you can rezrov through. You'll then go west to find the "no" cube. ----------------- The Lava Fragment -- west of "light" ----------------- Wait or waste a turn, and a clump of lava will narrowly miss you. Cool it with tinsot, then you can pick it up. Alternatively, you can pour water on it (fill the bottle with water at the oubliette). ------------------- The Green-eyed Rock -- south of "no" ------------------- The plain is too slippery for you to move about on. If you examine the rock, you'll see that it's alive, so to move on the plain you'll have to ride it. The only magic that works here is blorple, so you'll have to be diplomatic. Say hello, and try to climb up onto the rock. It's hungry, so give it the lava fragment. You can now climb up onto the rock. You can move along the lines by commanding the rock, e.g., "rock, east". ------------------- The Brown-eyed Rock -- south of "no", riding the green-eyed rock ------------------- The key is to gain a tempo by traversing the northeast/southwest line once (it's in the northest corner of the plain). After doing that, just chase down the brown-eyed rock and you'll easily catch it. Once you've caught up to the brown-eyed rock, jump over to it and get the "dark" cube. --------- The Grues -- down from "dark" --------- If you go into the grue cave with a light source, they will kill you. If you extinguish your light source in the cave above the grues, they will kill you. So frotz an expendable item (e.g., the bottle or shears), and drop it. Extinguish your light source and learn snavig and blorple. Go down into the grue cave and quickly snavig a grue. Go down into the light pool, then climb the pillar. Wait until you return to human form, then get the "fire" cube. --------------- The Outcropping -- north of "fire" --------------- To get the cube on the outcropping, you have to figure out how to use that gold box you found way back in the ogre's lair. The key is that extra exit from all the cubes that you can never seem to go through. When you put a cube into the box, the figures on the box change. You then remove the cube. You then place the box somewhere then blorple to that cube and exit via the normally barred exit. I.e., put the "fire" cube into the box, remove it, throw the box onto the outcropping, blorple "fire", go east, and you'll find yourself standing on the outcropping, next to the box. Get the "magic" cube. Notice the surge of magical energy going through you. ------ Belboz -- south of "string" ------ Say hello to Belboz and ask him about the cubes. He'll ask you the copy protection question, which you must answer correctly (see the materials that came with the game). He'll give you an iron key. -------------- The Vault Door -- east of "no" -------------- With the "magic" cube in hand, you can just rezrov it open. Don't take the treasure. You get three spells before the vault alarm goes off, and taking the treasure counts as using a spell. You'll need all three. -------------- The Fake Cubes -- beyond the inner vault -------------- There are twelve cubes in two piles. One is a real magic cube, and the others are fakes. You must determine which is real. If you cast jindak, all the cubes will glow, but the real cube will glow differently -- either brighter or dimmer, you don't know which. You'll be told which pile glows brighter. You can't save the game in the vault, and each time you enter a random cube is chosen as the real cube, as well as whether it glows brighter or dimmer. In other words, you must solve the puzzle. You'll need most of your hand space, so put everything into your zipper, first. When you've cast your third spell, the alarm will go off and the guards will arrive in a few turns: it's a good idea to have blorple learned in advance. Here's how to find the real cube: 1) learn blorple and jindak and jindak and jindak get x1,x2,x7,x8 cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: go to step 2; Otherwise note which pile glowed brighter and go to step 5. 2) get x3,x4 put x1, x2 into the first pile cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: go to step 3; Otherwise go to step 4. 3) get x1 put x7 on the first pile cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: x8 is the real cube; Otherwise x7 is the real cube. 4) get x1 put x7 on the first pile cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: x1 is the real cube; Otherwise x2 is the real cube. 5) put x1,x2,x7 on the second pile get x9,x10,x11,x12 put x9 on the first pile get x6 then put x6 on the second pile cast jindak If both piles glow evenly: go to step 6; Otherwise, If the piles differ in the same way as step 1, go to step 7; Otherwise go to step 8. 6) put x10 on the first pile put x11 on the second pile cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: x12 is the real cube; If the piles differ in the same way as step 1: x11 is the real cube; Otherwise, x10 is the real cube. 7) put x8,x10,x11 on the first pile get x4,x5 put x4 on the second pile cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: x5 is the real cube; If the piles differ in the same way as step 1: x3 is the real cube; Otherwise, x4 is the real cube. 8) put x8,x10 on the first pile put x11 on the second pile get x9 cast jindak If the piles glow evenly: x9 if the real cube; Otherwise, x6 is the real cube. Get the real "sand" cube, if it's not already in hand, then blorple it (or any other real cube, just get out). ------------- The Sand Room -- blorple "sand" ------------- This room represents an hour glass. The locations off of it are two other locations that you have seen -- the dungeon cell and the Ruins Room -- but when you go to them via the Sand room you'll be going to them in the past. You will be unable to leave those rooms (you'll die if you do) unless you leave the rooms in a state that is consistent with how you found those rooms earlier (which is in the future when you're visiting them here). ---------------- The Dungeon Cell -- down from "sand" ---------------- Open the cabinet with the iron key. Get the blank scroll. Since you found the cabinet with a spell book inside, you'll have to place your own in it. Before you do so, learn blorple as often as you can, since you won't be able to learn it later. If you're close to the end of the day, you might want to wait and sleep, so you won't forget the blorples when you're forced to sleep, later. Put the spell book in the cabinet, close it, and lock it with the key. The cell door was also blasted open when you found it, so rezrov it now. The guards will rush in, so you'll have to quickly blorple out. -------------- The Ruins Room -- up from "sand" -------------- This room will fill with water, which will ruin your scroll, so you mustn't waste any turns. When you were in this room previously, you found the girgol scroll in a closed zipper. Get the sack and open it, to find the flimsy scroll containing the girgol spell. You have a blank scroll, so copy the girgol spell onto it ("write girgol onto vellum scroll"). Then empty your zipper into the sack. Put the girgol scroll into the zipper, close the zipper, then drop it. You can now blorple out. ---------- The Castle -- east of "magic" ---------- Timing is important here. Wait one turn until the shadowy figure appears. Attack him, and he will freeze you. He'll then take your cubes and start building a tesseract. Since you attacked early, you'll thaw out in time to do something, but if you do it too soon, he'll stop you again. Wait until he is about to jump into the cube, then cast girgol. You only have a few turns before time restarts. Get the "magic" cube from the centre of the tesseract, and replace it with any object in your inventory, e.g., "put knife into tesseract". When time restarts, your shadow self will leap into the corrupted tesseract and be defeated.