UNKNOWN PILGRIM
FIRST PART OF THE QUEST
All was not well in the heart of the Second Dungeon Master, the
Conqueror of Zork. He was still troubled by the murder of the thief
Lucien, which had been committed in self-defense, and devoted the
entirety of his strength and resources to undoing his deed. Using his
most powerful magical spells, he summoned an outsider to his
assistance. This lone female pilgrim, having had Bivotar’s recovered
journal delivered to her, had already set foot in the Forbidden Lands
to ascertain the fate of Syovar’s missing servant. Some have theorized
that this unknown female was Juranda herself, in search of her long
lost Bivotar. These claims are unfortunately nothing but conjecture and
all attempts to discover the identity of this pilgrim apart from sex
have returned void.
Having been chosen by the Dungeon Master, she found herself wandering
deeper and deeper into a tangled web of confusion and altered reality,
at the center of which lurked the truth behind the Forbidden Lands and
the inexplicable disappearance of the alchemists. Hurtling through a
jagged gash in the earth and traversing the length of a subterranean
tunnel, she eventually found herself within the interior of the
mountain where the Temple of Agrippa lay, of whose ceiling had broken
away to reveal the sky above.
The spirits of the four alchemists, Alexandria, and Lucien were still
trapped within the temple environment, but their interactions were
limited. They were able to react to the pilgrim’s stimulation, but went
off on their own dialogue course. The trapped spirits worked in this
fashion because they were imprisoned in another dimension. Certain
enchanted objects were able to invoke them, but they were not
completely free.
The first resonation that she had with the spirits was during her trek
to the temple courtyard. Alexandria’s voice drifted into her senses,
“No one remembers exactly when it began, but I’ll never forget. It
began on the day of the Great Eclipse, the day of my murder. I’ve lost
my only love, and I’ve lost my life. Now we all lie under the curse.
Sometimes a single act can be so evil that it can curse the world,
unraveling the future. Only the four lost elements can bring the world
back into balance, and I will live again. I have but one hope left, and
it is you. No one else dares come here.”
The imploring of this same apparition was resumed when the pilgrim
entered the mausoleum. Floating before her, the phantom of Alexandria
mouthed, “Finally someone has come. You’ve got to help us. They’re in
the temple,” before dissolving in smoke.
Once inside the temple, she discovered that the strange building was
haunted by an evil creature called the Nemesis, who warned her to keep
away. With horror, she learned that the souls of the four alchemists
were entrapped in grotesque stone crypts in the temple dome room. When
she first encountered the alchemists, they had almost no powers. They
were trapped and tortured souls whose very spirits were being drained
and sapped by Lucien. They claimed to have been entombed by a vengeful
half-human creature they called the Nemesis. The four said that without
her help, they would perish. She was their only chance of salvation.
The pilgrim also learned that if she did not assist these trapped
souls, she would suffer the same miserable fate. Each made enigmatic
request in turn to search the temple for their alchemical element that
would restore their strength so they could be freed from their
suffering. Fire belonged to Malveaux, air to Sartorius, earth to
Thaddeus Kaine, and water to Sophia. Afterward, the souls could only
speak in gasps unless their life elements were brought to them.
To retrieve these elements, the pilgrim solved a series of puzzles
within the Temple of Agrippa, enabling her to retrieve each of the four
elements. As the each of the four elements was unearthed from their
hiding places deep inside the dark recesses of the temple, each one was
placed upon the temple alter where they became fused to it and could
not be removed. In turn, the souls of the alchemists were temporarily
revived. Each related a corrupted version of their story, donning the
role of an innocent and staging the Nemesis to have been evil from the
start. They also wore facades of regret and shed false tears of
repentance for their acts of involving Lucien and Alexandria, which
resulted in their murders at the hands of the Nemesis. Once all four
were helped, the Nemesis awakened.
Dressed in a hooded robe that obscured, but did not hide his face, the
Nemesis strangled Sartorius’ soul with a botl of lighting before
preparing to murder the pilgrim with a ball of fire from his
fingertips. The alchemists marshaled their meager elemental powers and
drove him away at the last minute, but he promised that he would
return. The four captives told more of their distorted tale and
implored her to travel to each of their homelands to forge the four
powerful alchemical metals which would bring each of their souls to
life and allow her to escape from the Nemesis’ clutches.
Their powers were still weak, and the souls of the alchemists
dematerialized, leaving behind a sphere of pure gold. She placed it
into the position of the sun in the temple orrery. Whenever the pilgrim
aligned its gaze with any of the four planets that corresponded to the
alchemists, she would transport herself to their worlds through the
magic portal resting at the center of the gilded planetarium. These
were Steppinthrax Monastery, Gray Mountains Asylum, Castle Irondune,
and the Frigid River Branch Conservatory. Until the pilgrim arrived,
the Nemesis had been unable to leave the temple or even enter the
portal worlds. When she entered those regions, the door was left open
for the Nemesis to follow. In this way, the Nemesis was able to attempt
to thwart her progress.
Each of the alchemists hid their practice of alchemical magic, Lucien
and Alexandria’s forbidden love affair, and their larger conspiracy in
a quest for eternal life. The metals were hidden from the Nemesis, and
thus it took much effort for the pilgrim to discover and forge each
character’s metal (a purified object that represented each of their
contributions to the alchemical table).
In the process, she learned of the narrative that occurred in each of
the abandoned environments through flashbacks and hallucinations. The
spaces were surreal and strange, haunted by the still smoldering souls
of the dead inhabitants and vibrant with memories of past events. When
she touched certain powerful objects in each of the buildings, she
released the energy and memories they contained. Sometimes these
memories were forthright, but most were strange and disjointed,
providing snippets of events she had to put together. She also heard
audio hallucinations or fragments of conversations and events that took
place long ago. Through these mechanisms, she was able to put together
the past relationship of Alexandria and Lucien and the evil cabal.
At the Steppinthrax Monastery, the pilgrim saw hallucinations that
revealed that Malveaux was involved in a strange plot with Sophia,
Kaine and Sartorius. The plot involved his adopted daughter,
Alexandria, who was brought into the Monastery as a baby, baptized by
the cabal of the four, and then raised by Malveaux and his monks. She
saw the affectionate relationship between Malveaux and Alexandria that
ultimately complicated their association.
In the Gray Mountains Asylum, she learned about Sartorius’ questionable
medical career and of Sartorius' involvement in the conspiracy, how he
chose Zoe Wolfe and used medical techniques to impregnate her with what
would become Alexandria, and his special technique to ensure that she
would be the perfect specimen for their alchemical ritual. The pilgrim
further learned details about Sartorius’ unconventional and suspect
medical practices, how he was kicked out of medical school and
forbidden to practice.
In Kaine’s castle, she learned about Kaine’s and Lucien’s relationship.
She also discovered some of Kaine’s background and the reason for his
success as a soldier.
In the watery Conservatory, the pilgrim learned about Alexandria’s
musical genius and how she and Lucien fell in love during Alexandria’s
musical debut. She also learned how Sophia was charged with raising
Alexandria and Sophia’s romantic involvement with General Kaine.
BREAKING THE SIEGE ON IRONDUNE
Although the visits to most of these virtually empty structures had
little effect on the outside world, the pilgrim’s visit to Irondune was
marked by the chronic siege. Although Kaine’s army had been routed and
pushed into the southern edge of Famathria, the armies of Ellron had
not yet broken through the thick plates of shell-pocked corroded iron.
Some of the upper levels of the structure had crumpled from beneath the
ferocious military assault. Gunfire and shouting soldiers could be
heard from within the bowels of the castle. Ellron’s cannons, lining
the eastern ridge of the Copper Hills to the north of Irondune,
continuously bombarded the castle while his infantry were pitched along
the southeastern banks of the Frigid River Branch. The only forces
loyal to Kaine that remained (apart from a single retired soldier
within the castle itself who refused to desert the General) were
reinforcement troops from neighboring lands, namely Port of Tumper.
This force, a unison of cavalry and infantry, was dissected from the
castle by both the Frigid River Branch and Ellron’s infantry, who kept
them at bay from time to time with heavy cannon fire from atop the
hills.
The pilgrim successfully deciphered the radio system which Kaine used
to deliver messages to his troops. After consulting Kaine’s war journal
and carefully planning a strategy to defeat Ellron, she relayed the
proper instructions to the small Irondune unit and those gathered at
Tumper:
1. Decoy with Power
2. Build Bridge
3. Split the Troops
4. Infiltrate & Destroy
5. Verify Message
The strategy was verified by the retired solider and the army followed
orders. The forces of Tumper, consisting of cavalry and infantry, were
on the northwestern side of the river cut off from the castle. A bridge
could not be built for their passage across unless Ellron’s forces on
the southeastern banks were lured away. To accomplish this, a unit of
Kaine’s men near the castle itself went out to set decoy barrels of
gunpowder on the outskirts of Irondune. The soldiers abandoned the
gunpowder and retreated back to the castle. This decoy was a startling
enough disruption to draw the entirety of Ellron’s infantry away from
the river to investigate.
While Ellron’s men were at a distance from the riverbanks, the armies
of Tumper on the northwestern side quickly built bridges over the
water. Once across, the troops were ordered to split. The cavalry went
north along the banks of the river and through the Copper Hills, while
the infantry remained at the shores of the river.
Realizing that it was no more than a distraction, Ellron’s infantry
returned to the river, shocked to find that the Tumper infantry had
crossed in their absence. Simultaneously, command was given for the
Tumper infantry to engage with Ellron’s while the Tumper cavalry
infiltrated through the Copper Hills, breeched Ellron’s lines along the
eastern ridge and destroyed his cannons. The forces of Tumper returned
to their homeland, victorious. Thus the siege of Irondune was broken
and Ellron’s army scattered.
THE FINAL PART OF THE QUEST
After returning each metal, the alchemists felt as though they had been
freed from debilitating torture of their earlier state. It was only
after the pilgrim had found and transmuted each of the four purified
metals and correctly arranged them on the temple altar, that the
alchemists became enfleshed creatures will full alchemical powers. When
she placed the fourth and final metal object upon the altar, she was
flung backward as if she had been blown into the closest behind the
altar. The doors slammed shut. When she opened the doors, she saw the
four alchemists standing by the altar with their sarcophagi splintered
and cracked apart.
Before her, hovering in space was a strangely luminescent liquid in a
crystal vial. The four urged the pilgrim to quickly drink the so-called
Elixir of Life, else they would all perish. Having experienced enough
of the hallucinations within their homelands, and having unraveled the
mysteries of the alchemical schemes, she already did not trust the
four. When she refused to swallow the poison, they realized that she
was not as stupid as they thought.
Hoping to repay Lucien with an even greater extreme of torture than he
had permitted them to suffer, they summoned the Nemesis. He appeared,
trapped in a glowing, alchemical force field. Lucien was enraged at
what the pilgrim had done by resurrecting the four alchemists. Hoping
that she may in fact be able to redeem herself, Lucien tossed a golden
ring from his finger to her. As he did so, the pilgrim was thrown
backward out of the temple dome room and into the cloister.
When she touched the ring, she received a hallucination of the death of
Alexandria. All suspicions were thoroughly confirmed. The four souls
that she thought were allies were really her enemies. Lucien, the
Nemesis, was truly anguished. Dead was only a physical state, and like
all metal in alchemy, may be transformed. The Circle had used this
pilgrim in a last ditch effort to complete the ceremony Lucien
interrupted so many years ago and made another try at eternal life. The
eclipse that would be perfect for the sun and moon to join and their
eternity to open drew near.
In the final confrontation between the evil alchemists, the pilgrim had
to use everything she had learned about alchemy. Descending into an
enormous subterranean world beneath the temple, she searched for
Lucien’s and Alexandria’s metals of gold and silver. Using the proper
techniques in unison with the mystical and archaic devices in the inner
sanctum below, she forged the two metals into one—into the quintessence.
When she returned to the temple dome room, the alchemists were standing
around the altar, chanting. The translucent, shimmering soul of
Alexandria levitated above the altar’s center. As the eclipse drew
towards its completion, the ceiling rent asunder and its shadowy form
appeared in the sky above the altar space. At the moment that the
eclipse formed, she tossed the quintessence towards the altar. In
midair, a blast of light from above struck the infinity symbol and
reflected into the four sarcophagi. The alchemists, realizing too late
what she had done, screamed as they and their sarcophagi exploded in a
blast of wind, fire, water, and earth.
The process, with its permanent destruction of the four alchemists, in
turn fully restored both Lucien and Alexandria to the flesh. Holding
hands, they directed the pilgrim out of the temple. Once the three
emerged, the entire Temple of Agrippa exploded behind them, leaving
nothing but scattered ruins. Lucien and Alexandria invited the pilgrim
to come with them and they departed through a gate towards the waning
eclipse.