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IMAGES: Cage for Royal Jewels |
While Dimwit certainly inherited Duncanthrax’s ambition and ingratiating personality, he directed them in a somewhat less productive fashion. Whereas Duncanthrax used his power to expand his empire, Dimwit was motivated to realize his bizarre whims. Raising the kingdom’s tax rate to just over 98%, Dimwit began a series of grandiose projects that soon earned him the title “Flathead the Excessive.” Thousands upon thousands of golden zorkmids were minted and spent by the royal treasury in an effort to finance Dimwit's remarkable and excessive ceremonies and constructions. Lord Dimwit gave all of his underground projects to the Frobozz Magic Cave Company, chiefly because his brother, John D. Flathead, was President of FrobozzCo International, the Magic Cave Company's parent company. Hundreds of new subsidiaries were formed daily.
One of the first of these incredible projects was the creation of the Royal Zork Museum in 776 GUE to house the crown jewels, along with a technology display, and a famous royal puzzle in the form of a sandstone and marble maze (the blocks were taken from the marble mines in the Peltoid Valley)s. The Technology Museum was, at that time, the greatest historical collection in the Great Underground Empire, containing items generously provided by FrobozzCo International (donated directly by John D. Flathead), nonworking models of Thomas Alva Flathead’s Frobozz Magic Compressor and Frobozz Magic Room Spinner, and a working model of a Frobozz Magic Temporizer.
This museum had incredibly tight security that actually showed restraint on the part of the king. He had originally planned to build the museum under two miles of mountain, and surrounded with 500 feet of steel, but had to settle for a less excessive construction plan. This rare moment of self-control was probably due in some part to the sound advice of one of his chief advisors, Lord Feepness, who said that the idea was “impractical.” His other advisor, Delbor of Gurth, was probably too frightened to give his opinion in the matter. It was during his inspection of the museum with Feepness, when Dimwit revealed his Flood Control Dam #3 and volcano projects.
It is of slight historical interest that on that very day the adventurer who would eventually become the second Dungeon Master used the Royal Museum's Temporizer to travel back in time from 948 to 776 to steal one of the crown jewels. This resulted in a dramatic increase in security measures by Dimwit Flathead. The unexplained theft of his royal ring during the final stages of construction led to a greater eccentric excessiveness on his part, forcing him to place the remaining jewels in a hidden vault buried seven miles under the Flathead Mountains, accessible only by a chain of sixty-three secret teleportation spells. Thus, the following year, the museum was dedicated on Arch 22 without the Crown Jewels of the Great Underground Empire.
The Royal Zork Museum was the finest and grandest museum ever built. Before the fall of the Empire in 883 GUE, the Royal Museum was a tourist attraction, although the three-week security clearance procedure discouraged many visitors.
When Lucien Kaine visited this region of the Great Underground Empire, he discovered the abandoned Royal Puzzle by following a passage that once connected his lair to the museum (a later unknown event destroyed this passage by 948). Though murderous, this thief left a friendly note warning other adventurers to keep out:
Warning:
The Royal Puzzle is quite dangerous and it is possible to become trapped
within its confines. Please do not enter the puzzle after hours or when museum
personnel are not present.
The Management
In 948, the entrance to the Royal Museum was found by the Second Dungeon Master sealed. An earthquake that year opened a large cleft to the right of the great iron door, permitting him to enter, use the time machine there to return to the year 776, and steal Dimwit Flathead's royal ring.
The Royal Museum is 18 bloits south of Flatheadia and 73 bloits north of Fublio Valley along the GUH-95.
ADDITIONAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEM
The only description of the musem which has been handed down, survives in one of the accounts of the Second Dungeon Master, who only explored a portion of the mammoth underground construction. Besides the entrance was the Technology Museum, the Jewel Room, and the Royal Puzzle. The Jewel room was a high-ceilinged chamber, in which a tall, round steel cage covered a pedestal that contained the Crown Jewels of the Great Underground Empire: a scepter, a jeweled knife, and a golden ring.
At least in 789 GUE, Will Weng was the one to approve gold door pass cards which allowed passage through the door of the Royal Puzzle that was protected by a Frobozz Magic Security System, but only from the inside. Pass cards had an expiration date, and any use of the card by unauthorized persons or after the expiration date would result in immediate confiscation. One of the various accounts of the Second Dungeon Master's descent through the Dungeon of Zork in 948 tells that one of these Gold Pass Cards was one of the Treasures of Zork. During the tenth century, a perfectly round hole was dug in the top of the Royal Puzzle (most likely created by Luciek Kaine) which allowed one to descend into it from the ceiling.