154 lines
7.5 KiB
Plaintext
154 lines
7.5 KiB
Plaintext
Thoughts on Z6
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Z6 opens during a meeting of the Guild Masters in the ancient Guild Hall
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at Borphee. The meeting has been called to discuss the problem of the
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deterioration of magic. As magic is widely used in "mundane" industries
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and applications, this threatens the very fabric of civilization.
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Master after master details in a heart-rending way how the magic method
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of (for example) dry cleaning clothes no longer works or is unreliable.
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In a less-and-less subtle way, the Masters begin to accuse the Guild of
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Enchanters of not "holding up their end." Anger begins to rise among
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the Enchanters.
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Suddenly, without any warning, all the masters saving only yourself are
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CLEESHed.
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* * *
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You notice a sinister cloaked figure scurrying suspiciously out of the
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hall, and follow. In Belwit Square the figure disappears in a puff of
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orange smoke, leaving behind only a pure-white cube with nothing written
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on it.
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You decide to consult Belboz, who has retired to the Enchanter's
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equivalent of a monastery, so you AIMFIZ yourself to him. He recalls a
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legend that the universe was constructed of such blocks, not materially
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but conceptually, and each block represented a concept. (Various
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funny/serious analogies with sub-atomic physics and ZIL can be made
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here). But he remembers that the process involved writing mystic runes
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representing the concept on the block, and this one is blank. This is
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especially disturbing because that means that someone may be trying to
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introduce new concepts by creating new blocks, or worse yet, erasing
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concepts by erasing the letters from existing blocks!
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By a whizz-bang new spell that uses the Law of Contagion and the Law of
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Similarity, it is be possible to find out where the other blocks are if
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this one has touched them recently, and sure enough, you can reach their
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locales quite easily. These are the locations of the problems, and each
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problem rewards you with a block.
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This is done by BLORPLEing a cube. It produces a room with you inside it
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whose doors open to the locations of things that have recently touched the
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object you BLORPLE. (How's that for advanced magical technology, sports
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fans?) Some of the doors may be locked, even. When you go through a door
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the BLORPLEd object (usually a cube) goes with you.
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* * *
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Possible problems:
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1) The Worm Ouroboros. In this problem a giant serpent (we're talking
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circa 200 feet long and maybe 15 feet thick) guards a block. You can't
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get by the serpent, but you can convince him to eat his own tail. This
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is done by creating and then enticing him through a dimensional gate
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that warps back around to where his tail is. Making this a
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possible-to-solve problem is the big challenge. The gate must be made
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plausible, not to mention understandable, etc.
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2) Oubliette. An oubliette is a cell-like pit in which prisoners are
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dropped whom you wish to basically ignore. The only way out is at the
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top. Has a water channel for sanitation or something. Idea is to
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freeze the water over the outlet and float out. Above the cell is a
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cube.
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3) Self-built Maze. This starts as a solid rock cell, no doors, no
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windows. You have a spell that detects secret doors. Here, however,
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every wall actually has one potentially, so the first wall you use it on
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always has one. It leads into another similar cell. Etc. The idea
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here is that the last cell of six (?) has the cube in it, and the exit
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out. Is this too repetitious and silly?
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4) Nowhere. This is a featureless plain in another dimension, inhabited
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by large flat-bottomed boulders which you can push around because they
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float frictionlessly on the mirror-smooth surface. The idea would be to
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use some mechanism (perhaps billiards-like) to push a boulder over to a
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cube which you can then grab. Alternately you would have to ride a
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boulder and induce it somehow to do what you want.
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5) Grue Heaven. This takes place in a dimension inhabited entirely by
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Grues, and in fact is favored by them since, although the supply of
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adventurers is chancy at best, there is never any light there, because
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the physical laws are different and a photon is a big fuzzy thing about
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the size of a tennis ball. (Could be amusing if you have a light
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source). Idea here is to shape-shift into a Grue, enabling you to (a)
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see in the dark and (b) not look conspicuously adventurer-like and thus
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be invited to lunch. The Grues have a cube in the grue temple, which
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you can steal.
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6) Flying Carpet. Trick here is to learn how to operate it, find a cube
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in a roc's nest, evade the roc, etc.
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7) Appointment in Samarra. Not sure what to do with this, but some
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dangerous being (perhaps Death, perhaps someone less lofty) sees you at
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some point in the game and looks startled. Later, in a different point
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in the game, he encounters you with much more aplomb. He was startled
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because he saw you in the first place and knew you had an appointment
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with him in the second place, and you weren't there.
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8) Scales. There is a standard old brain-teaser involving how to find
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one non-canonical coin (in this it would be a cube) in a pile of N given
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only M chances to weigh them. This could be hoked up into cubes and
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charges of some magical item, for example. The prize would be the
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non-canonical cube (the only real one).
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9) Labyrinth. This is an alternative to the Self-made Maze idea. Here
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you have concentric circles which you can push (physically or magically)
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to line up entrances and exits. There used to be a kid's game like
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this, and the idea was get your marbles to the center before your
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opponent. Here the idea is to get you to the center before ... what?
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10) Another Silly Maze. This one can't be mapped by the usual
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techniques because it consists of only one room and each wall has a
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door. It is the sequence of directions that's important. Not sure what
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clues if any you get as to what virtual room you are in. Not sure if
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the world could stand another *^%&*^ maze problem anyway.
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* * *
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What's Really Going On?:
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The theory is that actually you, and not some other force, are
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responsible for collecting the cubes and banishing them to other
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dimensions, planes, etc. This is being done by a creature analogous to
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the Shadow in Z3, which is working to create an environment it will find
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more to its liking. This would include, for example, god-like powers
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for Enchanters, no distinction between creatures such as itself (spirits
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and the like) and material beings, instant correspondance between
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thought and deed, and so on. We're talking a real power-trip here.
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The catch is that after all this is revealed during the final climactic
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battle with the creature, it also becomes clear that such a development
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(both the bringing to life of the dark side of the Enchanter's power and
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the realignment of the universe) is inherent in the idea of magic, and
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eventually some other Enchanter will get into the same situation. The
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only solution is to destroy the magic-related cubes, which destroys
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magic and perhaps plunges the world into a dark age, but saves it from
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that form of evil forever (or at least until Z7).
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* * *
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The Cubes:
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They represent concepts in the physical universe, and possessing them
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gives you power over that aspect of the universe.
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Possible cubes include
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Earth, Air, Fire, Water: the elements
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Existence, Length, Breadth, Volume, Time: the dimensions
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Animation, Transformation, Creation: the actions
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Mind, Essence, Lightning, Mass, Magic: the forces
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There could also be others, of course. For example, there might be lesser
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cubes that embody adjectives and nouns. Arranging (joining?) them properly
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would produce (e.g.) a dog house or a house dog.
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