I have filled in most of the map, although I haven’t thoroughly checked everything yet.
You might notice there’s the missing room in the upper left. I haven’t figured out what’s going on there yet. There is one clue right on the wall next to it
which may have been intentionally placed; perhaps there’s some obscure navigation trick I need to get into that spot.
There definitely is some intentionality to the clue-placing — maybe not a lot, but some — because one dead-end had three messages that clearly linked together.
I’m guessing this is a meta-clue, essentially telling what the result will be when all the clues are put together; ex: “The First is Where I Live” giving a general location, “The Second Will Be Upon” being more specific. “And When I Get There I Will Watch Them Play” suggests the stone is hidden in a park, also suggested by this image:
I found John F Kennedy a third time
suggesting it either a number is repeated three times or it’s a very important clue. I’m going with the latter theory for the moment. If we combine with the “Look to Albert for Help” from the very start, I think Albert may be the one in Washington D.C.
The podium and microphone (from my last post) suggest there may be a public speaking spot involved, perhaps a famous Kennedy speech location?
Here are the remainder of the clues I’ve found:
I’m ballparking based on clue density in places I’ve searched well that I have about half the clues in the game.
Renga in Blue 
I like your map for this game, is there any reason, why you are not finished?
I guess I should say “mostly-finished”, but for any room that doesn’t have the mark in the corner, I haven’t searched thoroughly for secrets yet, and there may be some missing connections off those (I’ve been adding rooms without entering all of them; that is, if I step in a four-way junction, I’ve added rooms all the directions, but it may be the room to the south has some extra passage I won’t see until I enter).
Oh, okay each block is a room. You mentioned a four way junction. Is that conjunctive four ways?
If you take the animation from my last post, the first intersection I go in is three-way — the scenario where it also has a corridor going forward (rather than just a wall there) would make it a four-way intersection.
Ok, what do you mean by a four way intersection?
I’ll talk about this more in my next post, but notice that the Capital (where Kennedy gave his famous inauguration speech), the Natural History museum (via the Holocene message) the Albert Einstein statue, and the Kennedy center all line up (the center extends north-south a bit from the star).
Still might be a coincidence. I’m trying to research Zachary Taylor, who was named in a clue in my last post. The “follow your nose / where taylor goes” seems particularly important but there aren’t obvious places in DC dedicated to him, so it might be the site of something.
“My first is sixth
My second is content
Followed by the rest
Finally a child could play”
I notice 6th Street on that map, leading south to the area east of the Smithsonian. It’s not shown at this level of zoom, but where that street is heading is the National Gallery of Art.
“follow your nose
where taylor goes
but not too far
you’ll find a scar”
The day Taylor fell ill with cholera (or whatever it was) that would claim his life a few days later, he attended the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Washington Monument.
As for a “scar,” Googling “vietnam veterans memorial scar” shows a multitude of hits describing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a “scar on the earth,” which apparently was its designer’s intent. The Memorial in question is less than 250 feet from the Albert Einstein statue.
That really sounds like DC is it.
I am guessing there are also angles indicated by the zodiac references.
Mmm, clarification: digging deeper I learned that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wasn’t built until 1982. Its *design* was selected in 1981, and a controversy brewed over its “scar”-like nature thereafter. So that controversy was ongoing when Alkemstone was published – but the Memorial itself didn’t yet exist.
I like DC as a location as much as the next person, and several clues so far seem to fit, but we should remain ever mindful of confirmation bias.
Do you suppose “temporate” is intentional and not just a misspelling of “temperate”?
Leaning 90/10 to it being a misspelling, but you never know with this kind of puzzle.
I did some searching for statues, sculptures, or plaques in the D.C. area that might include “tempor” as part of a Latin inscription, but haven’t had any hits.
The first two on the “three linked clues” you give feels a lot like it’s cluing to “Home on the Range” (so “them” would be deer and antelope, I suppose). “Home” is “Where I Live”, of course. “On” is another word for “Upon”. “Range” is (in the sense of a travel range) indeed “How Far I May Go”. I have no idea how “A Thought of You” would become “The”, but a clue for a definite article might be opaque in ways I don’t understand (is “You” somehow connected to the letter “U”, and some sort of character-level transformation from “A Thought of” gets us to the three letters “the”? This is mostly trying to back-solve a justification because the other three clues really fit the answer well).
Maybe “you” = “thee”? Nice work.
Oo, that matches pretty well.
Probably not posting until at least tomorrow or Wednesday but I’m going to drop the images I’ve found since last time in the comments.
Oh, interesting, so “thought” → “thou”?
These will be in my next post, but that won’t be until later this week.
“Coat of Blue” sure reminds me of the Civil War poem/song “Faded Coat of Blue.” Which I would associate with Arlington National Cemetery if we’re talking places in the DC area, but that’s probably not on the line in question. Though some senior Civil War officers are also buried in the Congressional Cemetery.
I think the line is just coincidence from a lot of the important spots being oriented east-west anyway. I added two more than are close but not right on it.
I immediately thought of “They Call The Wind Maria” from Paint Your Wagon when I saw Tess and Maria mentioned. No Name City in California if memory serves me correctly.
MARIA is directly north of TESS which is directly north of JOB. Either JOB is an typo for JOE (they may even just been going by ear) or that’s one heck of a coincidence.
Nearby are two of the “fence” images, also next to each other. (Most clues are not next to each other.)
I think it’s Jo (the female moniker) rather than Joe as this would complete the feminine triumvirate of Tess, Jo and Maria. Apparently hurricanes were only given female names back in 1951 as well. Having said that, some song books list “Maria” as “Mariah” and “Jo” as Joe which muddies the waters somewhat.
Pingback: Alkemstone: I Was Born Under a Wandering Star | Renga in Blue
Have you approached the lawyer about revealing the location ? The manual implies he had enough knowledge to determine the eligibility of a claim.
There is a scathing review in The Space Gamer (as referenced in Wikipedia) which incorrectly states that the maze is about the same scale as Wizardry, but this map is huge.
Actually, I’m incorrect. It looks huge, but the number of rooms (16×32-1) is actually only ~1.3x one level in Wizardry (20×20)
It certainly “felt” larger than Wizardry 1; even the more monotonous levels of Wizardry (5-9ish if I remember right, I’m guessing when they ran out of room for special encounters) had random encounters to break them up.