Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

Since last time I have focused on trying to map everything out, before deciding what items / people / events go together to form solutions. I managed to stumble across a few solutions anyway.

Postcard that came with the Topologika version of Avon. Clockwise from the upper left: Hall’s Croft, Mary Arden’s House, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare’s Birthplace.

First, a zoomed-out view showing everything I’ve seen so far:

The center, as mentioned last time, is a stage, immediately adjacent to a scene with three witches. (You incidentally get a second choice of item returning at the change in season, so I’m now 99.9% sure an eye of newt is the correct starting choice. Still not sure on the second, where the choices are toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog.)

Going east from the stage arrives at what I’ll call the forest area:

There’s a dagger and a laundry basket hanging out in the open that are easy to obtain.

You are on an east-west path, with a side passage to the north.
Is this a dagger you see before you? Yes, I believe so.

The laundry basket, curiously, prompts you to put items inside or to go inside yourself. You can then hide while inside and then repeatedly get prompted if you want to leave yet or not. I tried the laundry basket hiding on the nearby bear and it didn’t work. No luck with the dagger either:

You are on a bare and hostile moor. There is more moor to the south, a path to the west and a large building to the east.
There is a ferocious bear pursuing you!
> throw dagger
You fumble, and the dagger falls at your feet.
The bear pursues you, catches you and tears out your shoulder bone.

The “large building” is the Ides of March place I mentioned last time (although I’ve only visited in spring); to the south there’s a moor I’ve also only visited in spring, with a meat pie and a curious hovel.

You are on a moor. The ground is black here, as though scorched. The only path leads to the north, but there is a hovel to the southeast.
There is a nourishing meat pie here.
> se
You attempt to enter the hovel, which is gloomy and sinister-looking, but you run out in terror when you hear maniacal laughter and the words
“Bless thy five wits! Tom’s a cold. O! do de, do de, do de.

There’s also an enchanted forest with a mysterious pine, but I suspect we might need to warp to midsummer for something to happen.

You are in a magical wood. It feels as though spirits do wander here, swifter than the moon’s sphere. There are paths to the east and southeast.
> e
You are in another part of the forest. There is music in the air, marvellous sweet music. There are paths off to the west and southwest.
There is a pine tree here, from which a continuous melancholy howling emanates.

Finally, there’s a battlefield (see the winter of our discontent comment from last time) and a graveyard with a worm and a fellow of infinite jest. (“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.”)

You encounter the king’s jester, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, alas greatly aged. He entertains you awhile and then totters away, wheezing “Don’t forget: the password is Golesida!”
You are in a walled graveyard. For those making a return journey, the way out is to the west, as the eastern exit is blocked by impenetrable grass.

Going back to the stage hub and going south arrives at what I’ll call the river area:

There’s a river you jump in (and die going over a waterfall) if you feel so inclined, and a bearded Scotsman.

You are on the bank of the river, which flows towards you down an unclimbable gorge and continues eastwards.
There is a large bearded Scotsman here, carrying a shield.
> swim
You leap into the angry flood.
Unfortunately the current is too strong for you and you are swept under and drowned.

For a less suicidal but more homicidal route, you can just try killing the Scotsman using the dagger from the forest area.

> kill scotsman
Confusion now hath made its masterpiece! With a gasp of “O, treachery!” the Scotsman dies. Thou hast played most foully.
You are on the river bank by the gorge.
There is a large bearded Scotsman here, brutally slain.
There is a shield here.

You can pick up the shield, which I haven’t found a use for. I’d expect some stronger reaction otherwise (like a group of angry Scotsmen gets revenge a few turns later) but maybe it is a much-delayed sort of thing.

Other than that, there’s the Undiscovered Country, which starts out seeming like it might be a maze.

> se
You are in the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns. There are paths in various directions.

If you check the map, you’ll see all four cardinal directions (N/S/E/W) lead back to the previous room. If you take all four, you’ll land in a new “Undiscovered Country” with no exits.

With this regard your currents turn awry and lose the name of action…
You are at the bourn of the undiscovered country, from which no traveller returns!

Going back to the stage and heading west to what I’ll call the Portia section…

…there is, first off, that calendar and potion of sleep which changes the season to spring. There’s a building to the west that is closed off in winter but can be entered in spring, but with an unfortunate demise shortly afer:

You open the door and enter the house.
The door slams behind you and you hear sounds of a key turning in the lock.
You are in the kitchen of a small house. There are several doors leading from it, all of which appear to be locked.
There is a letter here, addressed to Mistress Legosind and signed
          ‘Thine own true knight,
          By day or night,
          Or any kind of light
          With all his might,
          For thee to fight,
          John Falstaff.
> e
You can’t go in that direction!
Suddenly the door opens and several knights armed with swords rush in. They brand you as an intruder and promptly slay you.

To the northwest there is a larger building including a “very realistic life-sized statue of a woman” (I have not been able to get any verbs to do anything) and an encounter with Lady Portia.

You are in a spaciously furnished chamber, which is clearly the boudoir of some elegant lady. Luxurious tapestries line the walls, the pile on the carpet is even deeper than that in most Adventure games, and there is a four-poster bed in one corner.
There are exits to the east and north.
There are three caskets here: one of gold, one of silver and one of lead!
The elegant lady who owns the apartment invites you to open a casket.
> open lead
The casket is empty. Shielded from your view, the Lady Portia performs a rearrangement of the contents of the caskets and invites you to open a second casket.
Choose again. Which casket will ye open now?
gold
You open the second casket, which contains a piece of smoothed ice.
The lady Portia picks up her caskets and leaves, murmuring “Sweet, adieu.”

Portia’s from The Merchant of Venice. She is bound by a curious will from her father where suitors who want to win her hand in marriage try to pick a casket (gold, silver, or lead); picking the correct one yields Portia’s portrait.

RANDOM PERSONAL TRIVIA: The first time I ever saw The Merchant of Venice was in 2004, the Al Pacino version (full video here). I was completely unfamiliar with the play, so much so I had no idea if it was categorized as comedy or tragedy. In the court scene where Shylock tries to get his pound of flesh I didn’t know if it was going to end in a bloodbath or not.

Heading back to the stage once more, and going north with a slight northwest turn, is a small area which I’ll call the Birnham wood.

Nothing much here at all, just a “milestone” in one of the locations.

You are in Birnham wood. There are paths in various directions.
There is an old milestone here.

My suspicion is this will only become important at season number 3, but I may just have the wrong verb to get the milestone to do something.

Heading northeast from the witches goes past an ice flow (which melts, remember, in spring), into the town of Eastcheap. Since the ice floe is a chasm in spring I haven’t seen the town in spring.

You are at the southern edge of a thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice – an ice floe, no less. There is a path back to the SW and a track north over the ice.

Note that you also have an odd encounter here:

A rather dull-looking constable appears, cries “HAVOC”, and lets slip the dogs of war. In fact, a small chihuahua appears and stands barking at you.
“Drug squad,” says the constable. “I must search you for certain substances.”
In fact he finds nothing prohibited and he and the dog slope off.

If you try to bring the season-changing potion in, that gets confiscated. So this prevents you from jumping over the chasm the easy way to check the town in spring. This means either

a.) the town just can’t be visited in spring at all

b.) the chasm can be jumped over, or there’s some alternate route to the town

c.) the drug squad can be outwitted, you can go to the town in spring, and then make it back to the stage by some other means

The most immediate encounter in town is with Falstaff, who is having a drinking contest.

You are in the Boar’s Head Inn, a place of great merriment. A large fat man called Sir John Falstaff is challenging all-comers to a drinking contest.
Do you wish to join the drinking bout with Falstaff?
yes
You are not able to compete with such a seasoned campaigner as Sir John Falstaff, and are soon thrown out of the tavern into the street, where you awake to see that…

There’s a side door you can try to enter the tavern but you get bonked on the head by a wine casket and die.

Nearby there’s also a Moorish gentlemen who kills you (“thou art to die”), unless you are wearing a clerical collar you find lying around the town:

A wild-eyed Moorish gentleman jumps at you from the shadows with a cry of “Thou art to die!” Fortunately the clerical collar you are wearing protects you from being strangled and you are able to break free.

The Moor is very apologetic, and mutters about someone called Des the moaner who once beat him at Reversi by cheating. “Go and see my agent, who lives near here,” he says. “The name is written in code on this paper. You’ll be recompensed.”

He runs off, shouting “Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!”
You are in a particularly dark cul-de-sac at the end of Eastcheap. The only way out is back to the east.
There is a piece of paper here bearing the word “ASTHMA”.

There’s a gaol (which you can land in by trying to leave town with a bread from a baker, no idea if this is a trap or needed to win)…

The guards arrest you as you attempt to leave the town, claiming that you stole a loaf of bread from somebody. You are sent directly to gaol (& do not collect 200 pounds.)
You are in a cell in the town gaol. Somebody is whistling “Rule Britannia” outside. There are NO exits right now.

…and a series of five houses all which have deathtraps. I’m not understanding this section at all.

You are in Illyria Court. The main street is back to the west, but there are directions to various residences, as follows:
North: Olivia
Northeast: (Sir Andrew) Aguecheek
East: Fabian
Southeast: (Count) Orsino
South: Malvolio.
> n
The occupant of that particular dwelling is not at home. However they have left some mantraps for unwelcome visitors; a hit, a very palpable hit!

Still going! Lots and lots of scenes and everything non-linear! There’s a scene with the king and the daughters (as mentioned last time), and across from that is a farmer who has lost his chickens.

You are at the remains of a chicken farm. A fox has clearly visited this place and killed half the stock. The only way the farmhands will let you go is back to the west.
A farmer is standing here bemoaning the loss of his livestock.

“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?” he mutters. “I asked my keeper, Puck, to get the fox’s earth seen to, but he went away saying that he’d put a hurdle round the earth in forty minutes (and that was hours ago.)”

This he repeats, over and over again, trying to understand the tragedy.

Finally, there’s a curious maze of sorts. It’s not really a maze in the normal sense; it acts like the haunted house in Murdac (I think) where you have to take a path north between NE and NW choices, and sometimes the choice is deadly, and when the choice is deadly you get a cryptic warning:

You are in a maze of mountain paths. There are exits to the northeast, northwest and south.
Is this a dagger you see before you? Yes, I believe so.
> NE
Cassandra runs past you, raving:
“Lend me ten thousand eyes, and I will fill them with prophetic tears!”

A death scene for good measure:

Cassandra runs past you, raving:
“Behold, distraction, frenzy, and amazement, Like witless anticks, one another meet.”
You are in a maze of mountain paths. There are exits to the northeast, northwest and south.
> NW
Some loose rubble falls on you, and you die with the words of Cassandra in your ears:
  “Look! how thou diest; look how thy eye turns pale;
  Look! how thy wounds do bleed at many vents…”

Head to the north enough times in a row safely and you can pick up a copy of the Iliad, which counts as a treasure with a ! mark. I got to it randomly without really figuring out the puzzle entirely, so that might be that. (Going south is always safe, so you can skedaddle to the exit once you make it north.)

From the play Troilus and Cressida, as drawn by Michael Goodman. Cassandra received the divine gift of truthful prophecy but also the divine curse she would never be believed.

One more encounter: a lake with a fisherman. I was already holding a worm when I entered, so I inadvertently solved a puzzle.

There is an angler fishing here. He seems to be having little success.
The angler looks up as you enter, seizes the worm from you with a cry of glee and starts to fish. In no time he has hooked a massive trout. In gratitude he decides to share the fish with you and promptly grills it over a fire that he lights. You have taken your first bite when…

The ghost of some dead king (possibly Hamlet’s father) appears.
“A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm,” he declaims reproachfully. “A king may go progress through the guts of a beggar.”

The angler flees in terror. The ghost melts away, saying:
“From me you will inherit spiritual powers. The word that will prove effective to you in these matters is BRANDY.”
You are by a small lake. Moonlight shines down encouragingly. The town itself is to the north.

That’s a hefty chunk and even if I could keep going I decided I needed to report in. I haven’t used any of the magic words I’ve been racking up (golesida, brandy, asthma) so I expect I can make headway elsewhere.