(Continued from my last post.)
From a review by Brian Murphy (Creative Computing, May 1983) he writes that:
I was unable to wrest any hints from ISM. Are the keys more than one hundred miles apart? Five hundred? No comment. Are the clues in the pictures only, in the pictures and inscriptions, or in the text, pictures and inscriptions? No comment. The only help I got, which I pass on to you, is that the keys are in the 48 contiguous states… somewhere.
I did think it possible, given the office in England, that this might be a cross-continental game (enabled by having three keys!) Apparently not.
My commenters last time (ern2150, Voltgloss, Gus Brasil, arcanetrivia, matt w) noted that two of the graphics screens seem to involve anagrams; the letters of PRISM in the first and CLEAR in the second. The third, mystifyingly, seems to have no equivalent (I even checked the rest of the story in case of a proper name that matched).
I’ve added connections to the letters in case the idea is to make a shape that spells something out or keep an eye on what parts of the picture the “lines meet” at. In addition to this being open to interpretation, if the line idea is right, it isn’t clear what point each vertex should be touching (the center of a letter? right on the edge of the frame?) Perhaps the third non-anagram page is supposed to be more of a code?
One other major point to mention is that the three keys are given as Blue, Red, and Yellow, yet the colors of the screens are Red, Blue, and Green. Colors after are Red, Blue, Purple, Green, Red, Red, Orange, Blue, Purple, and Multicolor. While I’m not officially up to Multicolor yet, I wanted to share that screen early just because it is so notable.
The colors have their usual Apple II muddy effects going on so I can’t be certain, but I think the “A” on the page bottom is the only place a letter is colored yellow. (The anagram here, by the way, is Uanna, the name of the dog. The name is so unusual surely it is a significant clue? The review I mentioned earlier thought the dog’s name was Vanna, but cross checking a word starting with “V” later indicates the game definitely meant Uanna.)
In addition to maybe suggesting “up”, “advance”, “north”, “north”, “advance”, the presence of UAANNA here is notable in that it means this hunt is not exactly like Masquerade. (Again, no solution was published 1982, so there’s no way ISM could have copied the solution part, just the words and colored letters on the border.) The text in Masquerade was completely a red herring. (There were some riddles, but they led nowhere.) Here, the text seems to have at least a little relation to one of the images.
I’m going to pick up the story now all the way up to where Hubert enters the “other world” and the player is requested to swap disks.
Suddenly, Hubert found that he was standing in a vaulted cavern bathed in an eerie, muted light. Bewildered, Hubert glanced about for a familiar sign or friendly face. As his vision cleared, he beheld the figure who had brought him to this strange place, standing alongside a similarly dressed companion.
‘Why have I been brought here? Where am I, and who are you?’, asked Hubert of the steadfast guardians. Nothing met Hubert’s ears but the most profound silence. Then, suddenly. . .
‘You are the True Protector of the PRISM,’ pronounced a voice from the vastness. ‘You alone can retrieve the Keys and restore the powers of the PRISM to your world.
Even as the voice reverberated, the last vestiges of color were draining from sight. Boldly, the lad raised his eyes to the space above and asked again, ‘Where is this place, and why am I here?’.
From the void came the reply, ‘The location is of no matter. Only the fact that you are here, and you are the chosen Protector. Unto you has been given the task of restoring the keys to their hallowed resting place. Only then will color return to the world. Behold the PRISM, Lad, and see its despair.
As though his sight were guided, Hubert looked upon a pedestal in the center of the cavern. On it lay a translucent object of great beauty, as colorless as a tear. Above it on a shelf were three empty keyholes.
Animated rays like the sun was animated.
‘Find the keys, my boy, and return them to the Cavern of Color. Only then can the joy and beauty of color be restored.
Accepting the disembodied voice, brave Hubert asked, ‘Where have the Keys gone, and why am I chosen to search for them?’.
‘You are the chosen of the PRISM, for only the small and pure of heart can pass through the portal. Among your people, age brings wisdom of a sort, but with it a loss of the magic born into every child. No one of full growth, therefore, can slip through the walls of the world and bring back the beauty that has been taken from you. Ask no more questions, for even now the access narrows and further delay would mean all would be lost.
Red, White, and Blue are the colors mentioned here. White = yellow somehow?
‘You must summon all of your courage for this journey’, the voice continued. ‘Dark forces of great power will be arrayed against you. Grane, prince of Yolvsa, has breached the portal and stolen the keys to add color to his evil wastelands. Yet, he foolishly left the prism behind, not knowing its power of focus. Take the PRISM, Hubert. Go and be swift! For even as I speak, your moment is quickly departing. Behold, the portal!’
Piercing the darkness, Hubert beheld an aperture of odd configuration, rapidly diminishing, even as he stared. Clutching the PRISM tightly, he plunged into the darkness.
The anagrams HUES and PORTAL are there; other than that I’m going to keep any analysis for now in the comments.
Renga in Blue 
one quick side comment – given the PORTAL anagram – since P and O are on the same side, and of course the ONE all together, I’m pretty sure we’re not dealing with some sort of “make lines connecting letters” pattern
I’m worried (maybe 30% chance?) that’s the “make one solving thing obvious but that’s the red herring” trick but given the mysterious third picture I still think there’s something important there
I’m guessing we’re dismissing all the words that could be taken for up, down, forward and out as obvious red herrings too, right? Seems like there are a lot of those. Coat and cane sound like a subtle way of mentioning where you go next, for instance. In which case, owing to the passage of time, some of these things may be a lot more difficult than intended.
That said, things I’ve noticed that seem unmentioned:
The colored letters have different kinds of colors. Maybe instead of one word per page, it’s one sentence from all the differently colored letters. All the purple, blue, green, etc. This could be for each key, maybe this connects to the words on-screen?
Since there are three keys, they probably hid them in three places. Syracuse, wherever the British HQ is, and somewhere else are my guesses.
There are some pictures in real world locations, perhaps this is intended to be a clue? Is there a building that looks like the two pillar building in Syracuse?
Based on the 83 article (where he talked with the ISM folks) we know explicitly all three keys are in the continental US
33 letters? 3 keys, is that enough to spell city/state abbreviations?