Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous post.)

To perceive energy directly allowed the sorcerers of don Juan’s lineage to see human beings as conglomerates of energy fields that have the appearance of luminous balls. Observing human beings in such a fashion allowed those shamans to draw extraordinary energetic conclusions. They noticed that each of those luminous balls is individually connected to an energetic mass of inconceivable proportions that exists in the universe; a mass which they called the dark sea of awareness. They observed that each individual ball is attached to the dark sea of awareness at a point that is even more brilliant than the luminous ball itself. Those shamans called that point of juncture the assemblage point, because they observed that it is at that spot that perception takes place. The flux of energy at large is turned, on that point, into sensorial data, and those data are then interpreted as the world that surrounds us.

— Carlos Castaneda, from the 30th anniversary edition of The Teachings of Don Juan

Long-time readers of this blog will know one of the tools I deploy when stuck (or even before I am stuck, if I know the game is going to be on the tough side) is a verb list. I plow through a set of verbs I know have worked on games in the past and mark which ones are active.

Sometimes a game’s parser will fight against any attempts to create such a list, but El Diablero helpfully states I DON’T KNOW THAT for any unknown verb, and only uses that phrase for unknown verbs.

I’ve never done anything resembling an exact sort, but for verbs that seem to be appearing more often I have shuffled them to a left column; the result here is that if a verb appears in the third, fourth, or fifth column, it is notable and worth remembering. LIFT just is a synonym for TAKE here; GAZE on the other hand is clearly its own verb, as LOOK on an object with no description gets the response

NOTHING SPECIAL.

while GAZE gives

NOTHING APPARENT.

Usually GAZE has applied to either crystal balls, mirrors, or reflective surfaces like water. The first two have not showed up in the game (yet?) but there has been a pool of yellow water and a pool of blue water, and both allow the use of GAZE. (Gazing is also one of the “powers” mentioned in the Castaneda books, similar to how sorcerers “perceive energy”, but I’ll save discussing that for the end of this post.)

Gazing at the yellow water leads to a tunnel; there is no pool on the other side to travel back. The only way to go is south, where a man with a machete kills you.

I get a loaded shotgun later, but that doesn’t help here either.

The blue pool is more interesting, as it leads to an entirely new desert area with a map the size of the first one. Again, it is rectilinear, so I have made an RPG-style map.

Well (with no rope), tombstone, blue pool, shack with dirt floor, thick brush.

The well has inscriptions just like the dead-end at the canyon. The game explicitly mentions needing a rope if you try to go in.

The tombstone has the name of your lost teacher. DIG is not a verb the game understands.

The shack is unlocked and two rooms. On the north side there’s a window where you can look in and see no-one. When you step in the shack, there’s an old shotgun and the feeling like you’re being watched. I have not been able to act on this information.

The shotgun is described as having one round. The game tells you to save it when you try to shoot random things. I don’t know why it doesn’t work on machete man. Is machete man even real? I don’t think it’s the sorcerer; following Castaneda, we’re more likely to encounter El Diablero shapeshifted into an animal.

The shack has (in its other room) a bowl, some seeds, and a mat woven of blue and white threads.

You can PLANT the SEEDS to form a mound of dirt but I haven’t gotten a result yet.

Finally, the shrub, when taken, reveals a tunnel. Going down the tunnel, you find a hardwood box that is locked.

That’s certainly enough to chew on. Listing out my issues:

1.) What do I do with any of the objects: a crow, some debris, the brush (assuming it is more for than hiding the tunnel), the bowl, the mat, the shotgun, the seeds? The seeds can be planted, but where do they go?

(and before you ask, unless I’m missing something in the parser, you can’t fill the bowl with either the yellow or blue water)

2.) What should be done with the snake? It isn’t an obstacle, it just kills you if you take it. My best guess is taking it safely will then allow it to get re-used later (perhaps fending off machete man).

3.) How do you fend off machete man?

4.) What do I do with the inscriptions at the canyon and the well?

5.) Is there a way to get into the well?

6.) What can you do with the blighted cactus?

7.) Is the tombstone important other than giving your teacher’s name?

8.) How do you get the lizard? Or if you don’t get the lizard, what do you do with it?

9.) Is there any other hidden exit? Does gazing work on anything other than the pools?

The last point reflects that gazing is important to the Castaneda-verse. In one his later (and frankly, more bizarre) books, The Second Ring of Power, he goes into the mechanics behind gazing at things, including stating that women have an easier time gazing while they are in their menstrual period because they are not focusing (???).

La Gorda told me then to gaze at the middle part of the canyon until I could spot a very dark brown blotch. She said that it was a hole in the canyon which was not there for the eye that looks, but only for the eye that “sees.” She warned me that I had to exercise my control as soon as I had isolated that blotch, so that it would not pull me toward it. Rather, I was supposed to zoom in on it and gaze into it. She suggested that the moment I found the hole I should press my shoulders on hers to let her know. She slid sideways until she was leaning on me.

I struggled for a moment to keep the four actions coordinated and steady, and suddenly a dark spot was formed in the middle of the canyon. I noticed immediately that I was not seeing it in the way I usually see. The dark spot was rather an impression, a visual distortion of sorts. The moment my control waned it disappeared. It was in my field of perception only if I kept the four actions under control. I remembered then that don Juan had engaged me countless times in a similar activity. He used to hang a small piece of cloth from a low branch of a bush, which was strategically located to be in line with specific geological formations in the mountains in the background, such as water canyons or slopes. By making me sit about fifty feet away from that piece of cloth, and having me stare through the low branches of the bush where the cloth hung, he used to create a special perceptual effect in me. The piece of cloth, which was always a shade darker than the geological formation I was staring at, seemed to be at first a feature of that formation. The idea was to let my perception play without analyzing it. I failed every time because I was thoroughly incapable of suspending judgment, and my mind always entered into some rational speculation about the mechanics of my phantom perception.

There’s also gazing into distant things like clouds; fog is especially difficult and not something most sorcerers can handle. I don’t honestly know if any of this gets woven into El Dialbero (…probably not the menstrual periods…) but poking at the mythology gives me something to do while I’m stuck on the game. The game does allow for GAZE SKY and GAZE MOUNTAIN (and understands the nouns!) so events might eventually go that way.