GLADYS

Gladys is the evil sorceress responsible for the magical transformation of the Antharian village of Festeron into the dismal nightmare known as Witchville. In those days, she was a sinister old lady with dark terrible eyes seen in Festeron dresed in a flower print granny dressed; but the Witchville curse put her beneath either flowing robes of the deepest black, or saw her fit in a flannel shirt, rumpled jeans, and work boots.

Like her sisters, Gladys had a talent to read another person’s mind only when their thoughts were particularly transparent. She also had powers to transform one into a newt, furry toilet seat cover, or giant army boot (which is perhaps the origin of the Boot Patrol). She was also able to use magic to assume both the appearance and voice of another. When the first postal worker found Chaos at the Festeron Library's museum and was about to place Wishbringer into the sculpture's head, Gladys appeared in the guise of Y'Gael to deceive into giving Wishbringer to her.

Along with her henchmen, Gladys oversaw all Witchville activity via the means of a vulure. This spyy recounted to her every significant detail of the islands from high overhead. This buzzard also kept an eye-peeled for an opportune time to snatch Wishbringer. She showed short films at The Wtichville that could only be viewed using special 3D glasses. These showings were in reality a two-way communication device between her minions and her laboratory stationed at whatever was her current headquarters. Preferring higher elevations, like her personal inaccessible tower, she placed her laboratory at the tallest point within a structure. While this hundred foot tower, surrounded by a 20 foot wide moat filled with black oily water, had replaced the post office during the first curse, successive nights saw this laboratory changed every time she started up Witchville, to locations such as the church's bell tower. Quiet proudful, the curse twisted any statues of Festeron's founders into images of herself in a granny dress, holding both her fists aloft in trimuph. She even placed her own face upon Witchville currency.


HISTORY OF GLADYS AND WITCHVILLE
Years ago, before the End of the First Age of Magic in 966 GUE, Festeron was naught but a sleepy island community. But there was a family in town that raised three young sisters. Y’Gael was the eldest of the three. Hortense was the middle. The youngest and scrawniest, was Gladys, who later styled herself The Evil One.

Gladys was a sickly child, and an unhappy one as well. She claimed that their mother and father, and sisters, in fact the whole town of Festeron, would go out of their way, any time, day or night, to pick on little Gladys. How much of that was real? Any family contains a certain amount of sibling rivalry, and perhaps parents are not fair with one child as with another. And there were a couple of bullies at school that picked on Gladys because of her size. All shared part of the blame for The Evil One’s actions. But Gladys was always overly melodramatic. From the time she was little, she always had a way of blowing things way out of proportion.

Her evil nature had mostly to do with having spent two years in medical school. But that was before she realized her true calling—supreme nastiness. Since Nastiness did not generally make for a good beside manner, she turned to her new vocation—freelance dictatorship, where she specialized in evil chuckles and demonic shrieks.

After magic had returned to Zork in 1067 GUE, the aging Y'Gael returned to her hometown of Festeron where she was the proprietor of the Ye Olde Magick Shoppe located on the cliffs of North Festeron island. Shortly after she came into possession of the Wishbringer stone.

The Evil One discovered that whoever possessed Wishbringer would be instilled with incredible magic and that it was in the care of her sister Y’Gael. She had wanted the stone for years for her own foul purposes; mainly, the conquest of the islands, then of the world beyond. Gladys had always thought big. If Gladys was to get her way, she would not stop with Festeron, but would take over all the neighboring countries, and then their neighbors in turn, until she controlled everything upon the surface of Zork! But this could only be done if she could take Wishbringer, and, at the precise stroke of midnight place it in the forehead Y'Gael's cat, who she would turn into a statue, her power would increase a thousandfold, and she would become virtually unstoppable. Thus Gladys planned to place an entire curse upon Festeron, making it become Witchville (she was never very good with names).

The physical layout of Glady’s Witchville curse was written up by Moriarty, Moriarty, Moriarty & Flathead Urban Planners—the final version was completed on 1085-07-02 GUE. But it would be many years before her evil spell would be placed into effect.

In order to gain control of the stone, The Evil One kidnapped her sister's cat, Chaos, turned her into a statue, and held her ransom in 1157 GUE. By the means of Postmaster Crisp, one of her clever minions (among them also were Violet Voss and Sergeant MacGuffin), a ransom letter was sent by an unknown postal worker to Y'Gael. It was then that her Witchville curse went into effect for its first time.

The Evil One’s powers were rather limited when the island was still Festeron. When the island turned to Witchville, she was virtually omnipotent. Omnipresent. Completely unstoppable. Fortunately, these strengths were limited to the islands unless she would have been able to obtain Wishbringer. When Festeron became Witchville, all of the people were still there, along with the buildings, and streets, the whole islands. But none of it was the same as before. It was an evil place. A vile place. A twisted shadow of reality. Nothing would be the same as it had been. Once the process of Witchville had begun, there was no known way to change it back, unless Wishbringer had been placed in the statue's forehead by a hand other than Gladys' by the time the clock struck midnight.

Thanks to the bravery and cunning of a local postal service employee, Gladys' plan was foiled. The Evil One's tower was raided, the postal worker placed the stone into the forehead of the Chaos statue, and returned the cat to its rightful owner. Witchville was transformed back into Festeron, and Wishbringer was kept out of the hands of The Evil One for at least awhile.

Gladys did not cease her wickedness when her first attempt was foiled. She continued on for many years, and through many postmen. For the postman became the central figure in this little drama, and it was more important to Gladys that to Y’Gael that the postman played out his part. Generally, when Y’Gael received one of The Evil One’s notes, she gave Wishbringer to whichever postman had delivered the letter to her. Then it was that one’s job to be the guardian of the stone, making sure it did not fall into the wrong hands, and somehow foil Gladys’ plans all over again. The whole thing became like a game to Gladys. But if she captured the postman, he was in trouble. If she captured him and discovered that he had been trying to escape from the island—well, trouble was no longer a strong enough word for what he would have gotten himself into. He would find himself wishing he had a less painful death, being nibbled slowly over a period of hours by the sharks in Festeron Harbor.

Though Hortense had not been originally involved with the Witchville conflict, she later joined sides with Y’Gael. It was during these years in which several rules were set in place, prohibiting the involvement of either of her two sisters, Y’Gael and Hortense, from getting involved directly with the affairs, provided that she agreed to other rules, such as restrictions placed upon Boot Patrol routes, and magical assets to the current postman that could not be destroyed (such as a magic radio, Kitchen Wonder, and magic glasses).

One postman of importance was Mr. Sneed. She was usually merciless with most of those who wore postal uniforms, but due to his meek nature, she was much kinder to Sneed than she was to his predecessors. After that moment, Sneed became paranoid. He began thinking that Gladys was everywhere, watching his every move. And should he do anything else against her, he feared her retribution would be even worse. Thus he lost his grip on reality.

When Simon arrived at Festeron, the town had been without a postal worker for weeks and weeks. But its villains conspired a plan which they believed would ensure full transformation of Witchville. Gladys planned it that prior to sending the current postman with a ransom note to Y’Gael, she would steal Wishbringer. Gladys did so, stealing the stone by subterfuge, but was only able to succeed with her task because Y’Gael had let her have it. Of course, Gladys thought that she had stolen it from her. But when Gladys swiped the magic rock, she also swiped a little extra spell Y’Gael placed upon it, a spell that would activate only when Festeron is turned to Witchville. The minute Witchville appeared, the stone would disappear. It would become invisible and furthermore move three feet to the left of wherever it had last been in Festeron. Thus Gladys would have casted her spell with no way to complete it. For no one was able to see the magic Wishbringer stone, unless they were wearing the magic glasses. But there was more to the plan. The villains had thought they were so clever, planning to succeed by choosing a postman of ill repute. With the aid of the High Court, they had selected Simon, who, in their opinion was doomed to failure. They had thought Simon to be a common criminal, a lowlife who would run at the first challenge. And that was where they would make their first mistake.

Simon went down in the annals as being the most famous of all postmen of Festeron. But Gladys, assured of her victory, set forth to break some of the rules that had been set in place by the sisters, not afraid of the consequences (such as breaking the plastic glasses after she had used them to discover the location of the Wishbringer stone). Because of these violations, Y’Gael and Hortense materialized into the laboratory. While their presence in the entire Witchville affair was breaking the rules, they did so only to stop Gladys from further violating more. Each of the three sisters summoned magical creatures to do battle: a magnificent golden eagle for Y’Gael, a miniature horse with dark blue wings for Hortense, and a half-scorpion, half-spider creature for Gladys. The Evil One lost, but when the sisters relaxed their guard, the Evil One fabricated a colony of huge snakes that wrapped themselves around them so that their arms were pinned to their bodies. Before anything could grow worse, the Honorable Roger arrived with the Platypus Guard. The troop rescued the entangled sisters and carried them out of the room. Gladys knew had seen with the magic glasses that the stone had been hidden in one of three canisters. Both her and Simon made a dash for it. The postman reached them first, and quickly flipped them over, setting up a custom version of his very own shell game. He secretly palmed the stone and rearranged their order. The Evil One turned them over, finding it beneath none of them. Simon had tricked and delayed her. Gladys had once more been defeated.

Whether or not these Witchville curses continued until the Great Diffusion is unknown; if so, they most certainly ceased as a result.


GLADYS' LABORATORY
Always located at high elevation, her laboratory was dominated by advanced scientific equipment, large, gleaming machines full of multicolored lights, with a control panel occupying most of one wall, all designed to operate security systems, the theater, and in general, ensure complete jurisdiction over all Festeron. The rest of the room was filled by test tubes, petri dishes, bunsen burners, and cauldrons, all bubbling chemicals and foul odors. There was also piles of what looks like dried herbs, a stove, refrigerator, and a small table. Lastly, was an antique telescope mounted near an open window which gave her near omniscience over the entire region.


TRIVIA
Gladys' handwriting is atrocious.