Dalboz (A) / (B)       Pseudo-Dalboz, 1067 (A) / (B)       Dalboz in Lamp, 1067 (A) / (B) / (C)       Dalboz's G.U.E. Tech Card, c. 960

DALBOZ OF GURTH (THE THIRD DUNGEON MASTER)

Dalboz of Gurth was born Frobuary 16, 917 GUE and ruled the Great Underground Empire as the Third Dungeon Master for 101 years, from 966 to 1067.

Truthfully, he was an odd duck. There was an indisputable muchness to his character, an overflowing of his person and nature and, indeed, everything he came in contact with seemed to spring to life. He heard a great clamor of voices where there was none. He was always hungry, and had never, to his knowledge, felt what it was like to be full. And if he were to simply drop a seed in a garden, a full plant would spring up and bear fruit within a matter of seconds. Tales even tell that that grass could be seen springing up in his footsteps as he walked down the street. He was a Natural Mage, of a very simple (if crude) nature. Had he been born in another time, he would have been as great as Megaboz.

In the 960s, Dalboz found himself drawn to GUE Tech for a variety of inexplicable reasons, and one quite explicable one: He had scored so high on the entrance exam. He not only had The Gift, but in fact qualified as Highly Gifted, and could attend free of charge on a Vice Regent’s Scholarship. The Trustees were dumbfounded that the son of a simple miner from Gurth could possess such natural magic. The miner himself was dismissive of the whole affair, and warned his son of involving himself in the useless chicanery of enchantment. The miner himself was “disenchanted.” (It is possible that the father of Dalboz was the same enchanter (or a descendant thereof) who produced a daughter by the name of Lucille Flathead with Lucrezia just before her death in 789.)

Dalboz's attendance at GUE Tech helped form the roots of the eleventh century Inquisition, which began when he met Mir Yannick, who was also a novice first-year at Zork's famed magic university. The good-natured, chubby Dalboz of Gurth, and the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Mir, were unlikely roommates. Mir did not have the Gift, but he and Dalboz (who was by all accounts the talent of the two) grew to be friends all the same. The two students debated many naïve questions, such as: What is magic? Is it a business? Is it a philosophy? A religion? A source of power or equilibrium? Is it to be disturbed or balanced? In the meantime, Mir seemed a bit literal in his interpretation of the Higher Lessonry of Thaumaturgy, and his sneering, bottom line orientation towards the whole business of magic did not win him any favors with the faculty. It did not help that Mir got crammed into his locker many times, forcing Dalboz to jimmy him out.

Although many enchanters in the Great Underground Empire have no natural inclination toward the subject of magic, and would have just as soon become barristers or barkeepers (were there openings available at the more popular guilds) there are some who are altogether immagical. Try as he may, at the end of his first year exams, Mir could no more make a field grow than he could make a platypus fatten. In fact, everything he touched seemed to wither and die. His grades continued to falter, and the same week Dalboz made the Mage’s List as first of his class (with a grade of "A"), Mir was put on probation (with a grade of "Z-". When the Trustees were called to approve Dalboz’s qualifications for the appointment of Mage, they stayed after to vote on Mir’s expulsion. Mir made it by one vote, and had Dalboz not be so good at ZEMDOR (“turn original into triplicate”), he would have been out by two.

Mir never realized what Dalboz had conjured up on his behalf, to cheat the vote and keep him enrolled at GUE Tech. Instead, he recruited a group of popular upperclassmen conjurers to confront Dalboz, and have some fun at his expense. When they tried to stop him on his way to class, Dalboz fled to the Great Underground Subway. Mir and his bullies chased him from car to car as he tried in vain to get away. When Dalboz saw the train stop at the famed Flood Control Dam #3, he leapt off the train and headed for the top of the Dam.

Perhaps he thought that tossing a few VAXUM spells (“make a hostile creature your friend”) behind him would end the matter. Perhaps the slightly flabby freshman was too out of breath to think clearly. In either case, once Dalboz reached the edge of the Dam, he soon found himself surrounded. Mir accused Dalboz of having cast NUMDUM upon him. (NUMDUM is a common stupidity spell that lesser enchanters particularly liked to cast upon one another, as a kind of hazing prank at GUE institutions.) Despite Dalboz’s proclamations of loyalty, Mir attempted to invoke a KULCAD spell (“dispel a magic spell”) in return. But after turning purple and spluttering to such an extent, the conjurers took over for him.

However, since the only spell in operation was the ZEMDOR spell that had kept Mir from being expelled, a Certificate of Expulsion instantly appeared in Mir’s hands. The upperclassmen began to laugh, and Mir, furious with rage and embarrassment, tore the certificate in half and, before anyone could stop him, pitched Dalboz over the side of Flood Control Dam #3. But Dalboz held fast to Mir’s cloak, and when he flopped over the side, he took his roommate with him. All who witnessed the event were certain that the friends were plunging to their deaths. As the two went screaming towards the bottom far below, Dalboz—in probably the most important invocation of his career—cast a long-life spell upon himself and his roommate, and the two bounced up from the rock, as if made of soft Borphean rubber.

Mir was quite ashamed of himself, and Dalboz, to his credit, was equally forgiving. He did everything he could to mend their friendship, which ultimately included expelling everyone in the entire school, to negate the expulsion and, in fact, make it somewhat of a promotion, seeing that Mir was actually the first one to be expelled at all. Mir never apologized, but Dalboz knew that to bear the shame of a public encounter with one’s own honest stupidity, was far worse than any apology he could require. What Dalboz could not have known was the depth of the hatred Mir felt, not just for Dalboz, but for magic itself and the shame and self-loathing it brought him. What Dalboz never saw was the sight of Mir, night after night, slipping into the archive of GUE Tech, burning precious scrolls of High Magic, a few at a time. That much less to learn; that much less shame. Mir Yannick vowed to destroy magic (and Dalboz with it) before it ruined him.

Yet in their own awkward fashion, the two schoolmates remained cordial. Possibly this is because neither Mir nor Dalboz were the run of the mill, ale-swilling, mage-bonding sort of student enchanter that had any friends at all. And Mir always needed Dalboz’s help in order to pass his exams. In return, Mir would ply Dalboz with platypus potpie sent in a picnic basket from home. In fact, the only bit of cruelty Mir ever showed Dalboz after the incident at the Space Needle, was an endless needling about his girth (“Well, they don’t call you Dalboz of Gurth for nothing!”) - about which Dalboz became a bit sensitive, especially considering Mir’s athletic, farm-bred physique.

Throughout the remainder of Mir’s enrollment, he would continue to frequently tack notes to the bulletin board, such as the following (966 GUE):


In 966 GUE, the Second Dungeon Master selected Dalboz of Gurth, a promising student at GUE Tech, to take on the title of Third Dungeon Master. He appeared to Dalboz and bequeathed to him the Dungeon Master’s staff, saying only that destiny had appointed the prodigy Dalboz the Third Dungeon Master of the Empire. Mir was the first to congratulate him. In fact, Mir was the only person to congratulate him at all, because only moments after this supreme honor of Dungeon Master was awarded to Dalboz, word arrived from Borphee that the university was closing immediately and permanently. There had been an accident, a mishandling of magic, and a powerful mage had knocked the cosmic equilibrium out of balance—destroying the entire First Age of Magic in the name of his improving his own power. Magic had disappeared from Quendor. It was obvious why the Second Dungeon Master had been so hasty about dumping that staff and making a quick retreat. Dalboz was fated to become, it seemed, the only Dungeon Master to never hold office. And though the staff made a lovely walking stick, and apparently the Dungeon Master’s Lair was associated with the position, Dalboz fell into a wretched state of despair.

Mir, of course, enjoyed this turn of events immensely. Though he tried to console Dalboz with the rumor around school that all magic had been crammed into the Coconut of Quendor, where it would be watched over until the return of magic itself, he secretly scoffed at the notion. But as the roommates parted ways that evening, at the crossroads of the Great Underground Highway, they pledged to meet again, should that great day ever come. Their lives were woven together in the long life spell; they would certainly meet each other again, under happier circumstances. Or so they thought at the time. And with that, they dragged their bags in separate directions down the Great Underground Highway.

Dalboz, the Dungeon Master of a magicless land and butt of a cruel practical joke, retired in depression to his country estate—a cottage in the underground near Port Foozle. It was the only perk of the office of Dungeon Master, considering that the Dungeon Master is responsible for magically paying his own pension via the QUELBO spell (“turn ripe coconuts into gold”). Without magic, coconuts were just coconuts, and Dalboz was destitute, horribly depressed, agonizingly bored, and utterly lacking in appetite. The Third Dungeon Master faded into obscurity.

As a recluse, he became a Thaumaturge, a Philosopher of Theories Magical & Hypothetical. Excepting a seven year period in which he did absolutely nothing at all except play Single Fanucci (the solitary version) and drink Accardian Ale, he spent a good 35 years working out the answer to the freshman conundrum posed by the Bozbar spell: “If you cause an animal to sprout wings somewhere in the universe, somewhere else in the universe, does another animal lose its wings?” (The answer being, “Yes.”) Depressed and alone, he would devote the next 70 years to studies of a more pressing issue; that being, could a fundamentally magic land be suppressed of magic forever?

While the Dungeon Master knows all the knowable magic (which does not include all of the High Magic) and can weave any spell from any of the three classes of magic. However, Dalboz seemed most comfortable in his day-to-day life with a kind of lesser Old Magic; Dalboz was a Natural Mage who seemed to sprout magic wherever he went. Still, he practiced some of the seeing that a Diviner does, and knew much of the Deep Magic that would come naturally to an underground creature like a brogmoid. Most Wizards in Zork are like lawyers; they are specialists of magic who have become so not because of any natural inclinations, but because they studied at it. Dalboz, apart from the pack, was, like some of the great wizards before him, a Natural Mage; he was born of the High Magic. But he was also quite fond of the arcane philosophizing recited by all wizards, who have spent too long pursuing advanced degrees. The Dungeon Master also carried with him a formidable body of magical knowledge, including Astral (astrology) and Elemental, Old Magic and New.

Due to the absence of magic, Dalboz of Gurth’s garden outside the Dungeon Master’s House finally died completely about 996 GUE.

By the time the reclusive Dalboz had formulated the answer to his Bozbar Postulate (circa 1000 GUE), Mir had ascended to the calling of First Archbishop in High Office of the Grand Inquisitor of Zork. He no longer had time to return Dalboz’s rambling, boring, letters, filled with useless packets of rare and newly cultivated seeds, which the Archbishop promptly threw into the fire. Mir was no longer interested in magic. He was interested in power. And he was interested in something more than talk.

Although signs of magic beginning its slow return were spotted in 1033, the Dungeon Master, bored and destitute, had not yet been made aware of the isolated instances of its reemergence (in fact, he would not be made aware of it for several years). In the meantime (1034), he began researching methods of returning magic to Zork. Dalboz eventually discovered that its restoration might be possible by using the time tunnels, so that the three items necessary to bring magic back to Quendor (the Coconut of Quendor, a Cube of Foundation, and the Skull of Yoruk) could be retrieved—but the locations of these portals were unknown to him. For each of these objects carried with it a part of a lost Rune of Abjuration, a sort of master magic spell wove in Old Tongue between the three magical objects or artifacts. If they could be recovered, their essences would be freed and magic would return to the Empire. He invented the YASTARD spell in order to send spirits through the time tunnels. Dalboz recruited the griff to help locate the tunnels for him, but this creature was soon captured by the Inquisition and totemized.

Still blinded to the signs elsewhere in the Empire, in 1047 GUE, the Dungeon Master told Syovar III of the impending reemergence of magic. Accepting advice from Dalboz, the Vice Regent began making efforts to end the Second Inquisition.

Returning to his cottage, Dalboz was growing bitterly depressed. Although warm, cozy and secure, he was alone, bored, and miserable, waiting for hour after sluggish hour to tick by. His house was cluttered with Fanucci pieces from a final, solitary game of 3-D Single Fanucci that he had been playing for several years now; and as a result, he could barely walk through his kitchen, without knocking over the markers of his Fanucci Hand—a Lobster and a Snail. Ears and Lamps were littered across the table top, and Bugs, Plungers, and Inkblots lay in every other square of the black and white parquet of his kitchen floor. An excerpt from the journal of Dalboz of Gurth dated 104X-02-03 (Undergroundhog’s Day) details his feelings:

    Sweet Yoruk! Another Undergroundhog’s day came and went today, but what hope of a spring have I? 

   Magic is still gone and I remain the Dungeon master who will be remembered by history as he who was master over nothing. Haven’t practiced a moment of magic in over eighty years. My magic garden’s been dead for fifty years. Were it not for that ill-timed long life spell, I should have died of boredom long ago. Damn spell. And damn that idiot Yannick and his damn Inquisition! 

    How many hands of Solitary Single Fanucci can a fellow be expected to play in a lifetime?

To cope with the magic-barren world, the Dungeon Master attempted suicide many times. In one instance, he dangled from a noose until he was purple and bruised from the rope. But it was of no use. Sighing, he cut himself free and stabbed the dagger repeatedly into his chest, with all the inattention of a bored child. Not even a drop of blood appeared on the blade. How desperately he wished he had never cast that long life spell; for he would kill himself a thousand times, before he could bare another day of the monotony of a life without magic. A later excerpt from Dalboz of Gurth’s journal, dated 104X-04-05 tells of one another of the many suicide attempts:

Swallowed poison. Tasted bitter, but did nothing—except give me a terrible case of the Trots. Damn spell.

Another excerpt, dated 104X-05-01 (Mage Day), tells of yet another futile instance:

Plunged an elvish sword into my heart. Might as well have been a plunger. Got a bit of heart burn. Curse this long life spell!

Having failed at yet another attempt to hang himself, the Dungeon Master quickly dragged a large sack of non-magical combustible gunpowder out to the garden, in hopes of exploding himself in the garden tool shed. Just as he did so, he stopped dead in his tracks. He dropped to the garden ground, and stared in disbelief as a magical seedling pushed it way through the soil. In a matter of seconds, it bloomed into the strangest, most fabulous looking flower. A moment later, and the Dungeon Master’s magic flower and vegetable garden had sprung into life, bursting into all sorts of egg-plants and auto-plants and office-plants and parts-plants and trans-plants once again. The Dungeon Master was exultant; his second postulate, the oft-disparaged “Treatise on the Insupressability of Magic in a Fundamentally Magic Land” had been correct after all. The Great Underground Empire would, eventually, begin to right itself. The balance of things magical and otherwise could not be held, unreckoned, for eternity. The time had finally come for magic to begin its slow return to Zork. And so, on 104X-08-20, Dalboz of Gurth wrote down his jubilation in his journal:

    The most extraordinary thing happened today! I was working in the garden-hanging myself from a branch, actually, with some sturdy rope, which broke (blast that spell!) and left me flat in the mud. 

    Which is when I saw it—my eggplant cracked a yolk and began to sizzle! Sunny side up! My snapdragons snapping—baby’s breath hot in my face! My magic garden grows to life, again and I can feel my powers creeping back! The Enchanters were right—magic may yet return!

    I must speak with Yannick.

Dalboz determined to pay a visit to his long-lost friend, Mir Yannick. They had not spoken in many years now, but Dalboz knew they still shared the bond of the long life spell. In its weaving he had linked their destinies, and their paths had to yet be resolved. Maybe things would go better between them, he reasoned, now that magic was on its way back to the Empire. But first he snipped a couple of hard-boiled eggs off the vine for supper.

At first, the Dungeon Master had tried to teleport to the Steppinthrax Monastery, Headquarters of the Grand Inquisitor. But, as there was still insufficient magic in the atmosphere, he could get only the most part of one foot to prematurely disappear.
An excerpt from Dalboz of Gurth’s journal, dated 104X-11-14 (Curse Day) details his thoughts:

    Damn Yannick won’t return my letters. Tried to conjure myself into Foozle, but could only make one shoe disappear, and even then, can’t be certain where I disappeared it to.

    Will have to go the old fashioned way—by foot, with staff and lamp. And one shoe at that. Hope Yannick is receptive to my warning. He always was thick.

The Dungeon Master begrudgingly settled for riding a lumbering hungus, which he absolutely detested, partly because it was slow and uncomfortable when one knew one had the option of instantaneous travel, and also because he never knew exactly what to do with his hands. Dungeon Masters, like most wizards, are terrible at accomplishing everyday menial tasks without the use of magic. This Dungeon Master was no exception to the rule. There was at least enough magic for the reigns to hold themselves, so the Dungeon Master could carry with him the rapidly growing hard-boiled eggplant; a token of friendship for his skeptical friend. Magic had begun its slow reassertion. Of that, the Dungeon Master was certain.

When the Dungeon Master finally reached the Steppinthrax Monastery Headquarters and Museum (1048 GUE), he was told the Grand Inquisitor could not be disturbed. He waited in the lobby for quite some time. Just as he was staring up at the massive propaganda posters of his old schoolmate, and wondering at what strange goings-on he had missed while in his deep seclusion, he heard anguished screams from the Grand Inquisitor’s office—the sounds of a violent struggle. The Dungeon Master tried to dematerialize, and then, giving up, fumbled with the door for some time, before he remembered about the knob, and pushed inside only to find the Grand Inquisitor himself standing over the slain body of Syovar III, whose head was neatly cleft in twain by a maidenhead, and lying in a growing puddle of blood.

The Dungeon Master seemed strangely steeled by the discovery, as if some part of him had been waiting for the Grand Inquisitor to reveal his true colors for a very long time. Then, circling the body, the two old friends began to argue bitterly over the ramifications of both the assassination and the return of magic. The Dungeon Master argued that Zork was an enchanted land that could not be ruled except by magic, or by its consent. The Grand Inquisitor knew, however, that he himself could not rule (as per his designs) if magic were allowed back into the Empire… he would be impotent next to the reunited, reinvigorated Enchanter’s Guild. He begged the Dungeon Master to help him put down magic and reclaim the Empire. The Dungeon Master refused. He looked down at the magical plant in his hands, and it curled in on itself instantly withering into a dead stalk. The Dungeon Master looked up at his old friend sadly, suddenly understanding what was about to happen. He turned to go, disgusted. He said only two words. “Tell them.” This was a cryptic message which was sent to Lucy Flathead, one which showed scenes proving the that Mir had murdered Syovar III.

The battle that began between them was fierce and well-matched. While spraying a can of Frobozz Electric Wizard Repellent, the Grand Inquisitor sprung open the Maidenhead, which clamped itself to the Dungeon Master just as his clothes fell to the ground, empty. When the smoke cleared, Dalboz was dead and Yannick bald. Though he appeared dead—his body had, after all, disappeared in a cloud of gray smoke—the Grand Inquisitor was left to suspect that he had pronounced some kind of protective spell on himself, the moment before he was struck. This was because the Long Life spell the Dungeon Master had cast over himself just before the closing of magic in 966 prevented him from being killed or destroyed.

What had happened, was that Dalboz, having been sprayed with the Wizard Repellent was torn from his body the moment before the Maidenhead could have been clasped upon his head. Floating helplessly, his spirit was kept alive and ascended into the Ethereal Plane of Atrii, where it was he shared a walk-up with the Enchantress Y’Gael. With Syovar III out of the way, the Grand Inquisitor soon became the recognized leader of the Theocracy of Quendor and the Chairman of the Frobozz Magic Company, which he renamed Frobozz Electric. It seems that in the meantime, the remainder of the population was unaware of the death of the Dungeon Master, and the Grand Inquisitor employed someone to impersonate Dalboz. This imposter held many speeches on behalf of Mir Yannick, most of which were relayed to Zork via propaganda newsreels.

Dalboz would have been happy staying in the Ethereal Plane of Atrii, but Y’Gael, wanting the extra room for an office, kicked him out in 1052. Dalboz’s spirit found its way into a rusty old lamp, stored in a crate beneath a dock in Port Foozle. There Dalboz would remain until 1067, his lamp emanating a blue glow beneath the wharf. Enchanted and bodiless, there was not a great deal of magic the Dungeon Master could practice, except perhaps to recollect certain spells when his memory had been prompted. Certainly, much of what comprises his magic could not be taken away from him with the absence of his body. For example, he always knew when danger was near.

When Port Foozle was liberated on the Thirty-Fourth of Frobuary, 1067 GUE, the Inquisition claimed that the magic wars were finally over. “Shun magic and shun the appearance of magic! Shun everything - and then shun shunning!” said the Grand Inquisitor from atop Flathead Mesa, where the grateful masses thronged to welcome Inquisition Troops to newly-occupied Port Foozle. A region-wide evening curfew initiated by the Grand Inquisition. On that day, the imposter Third Dungeon Master read a brief but impassioned statement in support of the transitional Inquisition government, before he “accepted the Inquisition’s generous offer of a permanent vacation” in prison. This was of course not true, as the Dungeon Master had been defeated for quite some time, but it prevented Mir Yannick from having to upkeep the pseudo-Dalboz and risk the discovery of the false identity. Although rumors that the Dungeon Master was leading a Magic Resistance abounded, the Inquisition assured the populace that these were entirely false. In addition to the occupation of Port Foozle, the Grand Inquisitor had completed his technological wonder, a powerful mind-control device, Inquizivision. It had to be stopped.

AFGNCAAP, an unknown Perma-Suck salesperson who wandered into Port Foozle in violation of the newly instated curefew, fished a crate marked "Infocom" out of the sea. Within was found the battered brass lantern containing the spirit of Dalboz. When the adventurer returned with the lantern, Jack brought him into the shop. When he attempted to repair the broken device (which had a lot of carbon scoring), it sparked and effused the scent of spenseweed, before the spirit of Dalboz cried out from within it. After swatting it several times with a racket, Jack, fearing the Inquisition, seized the lantern and shoved AFGNCAAP out of his shop. After Jack was framed for arson, AFGNCAAP retrieved the lantern containing the banished spirit of Dalboz. Under his urgings, the adventurer descended into the Great Underground Empire via a Secret Entrance disguised as a simple well in the forested outskirts of Port Foozle. AFGNCAAP discovered that magic had not dispersed, but had been forced underground. A glimmer of hope remained in the Dungeon Master, who became a powerful ally on the quest. In fact, being stuck inside the lantern, he had no choice but to become the adventurer’s ally.

Though the Dungeon Master could no longer practice magic, he helped AFGNCAAP advance in the knowledge of the supernatural acts. Together they contacted the enchantress Y’Gael from the Ethereal Plane of Atrii. She informed them that if the Coconut of Quendor could be recovered, along with two other powerful artifacts in Zork’s magic treasury—a Cube of Foundation and the Skull of Yoruk—magic would again flow through Zork. To help with the quest, Y’Gael presented AFGNCAAP with a spell book to fill with contraband magic that had been hidden throughout the Empire, in hopes of spiriting some magic away from the Inquisition.

The adventurer soon met up with three other traveling companions who wished to join the quest. All three were one-time magical creatures who had been stripped of their magical faculties and imprisoned within totems. The three were none other than the beautiful and telepath Lucy Flathead (within the Steppinthrax Monastery), the thick-fitted, all-brawn no-brain brogmoid Brog (within the gates of Hades), and the whiny, neurotic griff (at the Secret Entrance to the Underground), who suffered a dragon inferiority complex and wanted desperately to avoid physical pain. Together, they formed an unlikely band of adventurers who joined forced to recover the three lost relics, destroy the Grand Inquisitor, and finally return magic to its rightful place in the Empire.

The group dynamic was interesting, to say the least; Dalboz was hungry and bitter and betrayed, skeptical as to whether the Grand Inquisitor could even be stopped, and in as foul a mood as any fellow stuffed in a lantern of that size was likely to be. Dalboz oversaw the posse with what limited respect a bodiless voice could command.  Lucy, for herself, was not accustomed to taking orders from a man, and found the arcane nature of Dalboz’s magical knowledge, when combined with the insane nature of his utilitarian uselessness, somewhat aggravating. The griff liked nothing better than to order about Brog, duping him into performing his own share of the work and more, and then blaming Brog when these suggestions backfired. Brog did not mind; he simply liked to talk with the twittering birds and the chirping insects, and instinctively find his way throughout the Underground, as he had since he was a pup. He was content just to look at Lucy, though more than anything he wished he could touch her.

To retrieve the three artifacts, it was necessary to send the spirits of the three totemized victims through three time tunnels, which had been erected back in the days of Dimwit Flathead for the very purpose of restoring magic to Zork. The griff went back in time and recovered the Coconut of Quendor straight from the mouth of the Watchdragon. Brog returned to the White House shortly before 966 GUE, where he descended into the grue breeding ground to retrieve the Skull of Yoruk. Lucy Flathead was sent to Port Foozle in the year 931 GUE, where she won one of the Cubes of Foundation from Antharia Jack in a game of Strip Grue, Fire, and Water.

Riots began in the city streets as people were excited over an alleged magic rebellion and rumors of an adventurer carting the Dungeon Master around in a magic lamp. Hoping to cheer Yannick up, Antharia Jack revealed the location of the adventurer to him. The Grand Inquisition along with Wartle proceeded to apprehend AFGNCAAP and the totems just as they emerged from the Steppinthrax Monastery time tunnel. Wartle had the adventurer stripped of his belongings and locked up in the Port Foozle jail in a cell adjacent to Antharia Jack.

On the morning of the 35th of Frobuary, Antharia Jack and AFGNCAAP broke out of prision, reuniting with Dalboz and the totems. They rode the walking castle to the Flathead Mesa. The entire population of Port Foozle and the surrounding regions gathered at the long-expected ceremony, where the Grand Inquisition started to announce the radical new mind-numbing technology that would implement his visionary “One Point of Light” program.

AGFNCAAP headed to the radio tower to cut the cable, bringing Dalboz and the totems in tow. In order to bind the high, middle, and deep artifacts together and return magic to the land, each of the three had to be placed in the correct order along the tower. The Skull of Yoruk, being the receptacle of deep magic, went in the glass dome at the bottom. The Cube of Foundation, being the container for middle magic, went in the nook halfway up the tower. The Coconut of Quendor, being the symbol for high magic, went in one of the balls of the wind gauge thingy at the top of the tower. Unfortunately, when it was placed inside, the wind gauge thingy became unbalanced. The Dungeon Master instructed AFGNCAAP to hang his lantern on the opposite side to balance it out. The MAXOV spell, to bind the energies of the different magics, could not yet be cast as the interference of Yannick’s babbling broadcasted over the tower was clouding the spell’s effect. AFGNCAAP cut the wire dangling above with the sword. It was then that Antharia Jack kicked in which his part of the plan, which was to create a distraction. To the adventurer’s dismay, his clever distraction was to point AFGNCAAP’s presence on the tower to the Grand Inquisition himself in the middle of his speech. Despite the cheering crowds and their support, the Grand Inquisitor’s broadcast was cut off and he immediately came up the tower.

AFGNCAAP quickly cast MAXOV upon the tower to bind the energies. In the process Yannick was thrown from the tower (and may have been salvaged from death by the Long Life spell), while Dalboz ascended back to the Ethereal Planes, where he shouted that he would drop a line from. Dalboz was succeeded by AFGNCAAP as the Fourth Dungeon Master of Zork.


TRIVIA AND OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT DALBOZ
Dalboz invented the Frobozzian Magic Cocoa of Concentration sometime before 1034 GUE. Although this drink was rejected by Gurth Publishing in their "Gluttonous Recipes of the Fat and Unemployed" (Flatheadia Fudge is illegal contraband, not to mention a tard hard to come by. Almost no one dares to draw near to a Quelbee's nest. A bar of glazed hungus lard is disgusting. Hotbugs are a very rare insect. Moss of Mareilon is dirty to obtain. If they could not reproduce the recipe, they could not expect anyone else to), it became a success after his term of Dungeon Master had passed. 

The DM's Lair was installed with Harry the house security system to protect his belongings. Dalboz created an organic fire escape to his bedroom by planting a bed of trampoline plants outside the window. He also thought that the house could have used a conversation pit.

THROCK and a shovel were the Dungeon Master's gardening tools.

Dalboz used the BEBURTT spell ("create the illusion of inclement weather") for family reunions.

He never entered his pet walking castle until AFGNCAAP carried him inside in 1067.

Dalboz casted the "turn embarrassing photo invisible" spell on his GUE Tech student ID card.