UNKNOWN
SWEEPSTAKES WINNER
As the terror of
Morphius
esculated in the
Valley
of the Sparrows,
Rooper
caught on to enough of the evil process and set out to destroy it
before it reached an unstoppable point. Prior to the earnest beginning
of the investigations, on 05
Arch
1647 GUE,
Rooper prepared a help message disguised as a public-relations package
to be sent to everyone in the Westlands on his mailing list. This
package contained a notification that the bearer had just won the grand
prize of the
Dizzy World
Resort sweepstakes, a map to
Shanbar
in the
Eastlands, an
instant camera, a
Zony tape
recorder, and a gift
Tele-Orb
as a bonus. All the bearer needed to do to claim the prize was to
journey (at his own expense) to West Shanbar and hear a presentation by
Rooper and the Wizard
Trembyle.
One such adventurer from the
Westlands,
of whose name and age have been lost to time, was ironically was the
nephew of Rooper. The chronicles and perseverance of this mysterious
man have been passed on from generation to generation. He stumbled
across the
IT&L’s Valley
of the Sparrows Resort package in the mailbox of the
White House during the
month of
Mumberbur
that same year. There had always been a spark of the pioneer (the
adventurer) in him, lying dormant in his heart and soul. The enclosed
letter seemed to ignite these desires. Therefore, allured by its
promises, the
Sweepstakes Winner set out from the White House and arrived at the
Mountain Pass—the entrance of the Valley of the Sparrows. Here the
Tele-orb again came to life. Until the end of the quest, the Wizard
Trembyle provided helpful commentary through the illumynite-powered
device. The human quickly learned that the entire valley and village of
Shanbar had fallen under some dark and sinister influence, having
become decayed and dysfunctional. Whole buildings had mysteriously
vanished, murderous vultures infested the land, people had frequent and
disturbing nightmares, featuring some dark being which referred to
itself as Morphius, and many of those who had survived had become
reclusive and paranoid.
One of the few townspeople the Sweepstakes Winner befriended
was
Ms. Mavis Peepers,
the slightly dowdy town schoolmarm, who gave him a
notebook, asking that he investigate the causes of the powers
that had gripped East Shanbar and the rest of the land. After the
defeat of Morphius, she would edit this collected information into the
popular book, “The Rise and Fall of Zork.”
The exploration of
the valley led the Sweepstakes Winner to discover a secret door in the
cellar of the old mill. On the other side, he discovered the
lost East Shanbar and the remnants of the
Great Underground Empire.
Here
Moadikum Moodock
taught the game
Survivor,
and gifted the traveler with a token and the
Sword of Zork, which was
used to defeat a clan of
half-trolls
that had taken residence in some ancient sewer pipes near the
subterranean village. Much of the exploration of this vast realm was
done in cooperation with the anthropologist
Rebecca Snoot, whose
father’s farm had been
transported to the underworld, while he himself confined to stone
imprisonment by the vultures.
The
two met when the Sweepstakes Winner trespassed the Snoot residence by
slipping through an open window. Their encounter took place in her
bathroom. With a single punch, she knocked the intruder unconscious.
After changing her clothing, she kept the human at gunpoint until
consciousness returned. She proceeded to question the intruder. With
the correct answer she was somehow able to tell that this suspect bore
her no harm. She granted permission that anything within the house
could be used in accordance with the quest. Rebecca continued to aid
this adventurer by gathering information and even translating one of
four jokes, which would be essential in the recovery of the six pieces
of the last
Flying
Disc of Frobozz. In the process, the two would develop
romantic interest for one another.
This specific disc, known as the
Nectus,
was the same one which the practitioners of evil had broken up prior to
the
Great Diffusion
in 1247. One of the pieces was found in the bowels of a
boar statue in
the
Forest of the
Spirits, a second was hidden in some underground ruins near
the same woods, and the last four were in the possession of men: the
Lighthouse Keeper
north of Shanbar;
Cliff
Robinson, the proprietor of
Chuckles’ Comedy Club
(It was the reward of the
Big
Laugh Contest, which was won when the entire crowd roared
after the successful telling of four jokes from
Bizboz’s ancient text “The Book
of Four Jokes and Learned Essays Upon Them”); the
son of Cliff, who had
escaped to the overworld; and the Morphius-possessed mage
Canuk.
The
piece retrieved from Canuk is the most interesting of these tales. The
mage was briefly freed from his imprisonment when the unknown
Sweepstakes Winner used the mage’s own spell to revert him back to
human form. The sweet Canuk, still unaware of the duel-personality,
aided this hero. Besides translating one of four jokes, which
would be used in the acquiring of one of the pieces of the
last
Flying Disc of Frobozz, Canuk also sent this adventurer to gather a
piece which he had obtained sometime after the disc’s sundering. The
piece had been placed in a safe in the cabin of a miniature ship that
rested inside a small glass bottle. Enchanted with a shrink spell, the
adventurer was able to enter the bottle and removed the disc piece.
Canuk, now in his possessed state, was waiting for the adventurer to
emerge, who he planned to transform into a mallard. In defense, the
hero wielded a shiny object as a shield, which ricocheted the spell and
instead ducked the mage once again. To return to the surface, the
adventurer invented
Pet
Vulture Rapid Transit.
When the Sweepstakes Winner arrived at the
dwarven mines, above
ground at the northeastern quadrant of the valley, the dwarven army had
been summoned to protect their
illumynite
from Morphius’ thieving
vultures.
Their general, in collaboration with the current
Head Dwarf Miner,
succeeded in turning away the vultures. The
dwarven general had
intended to raid the
Citadel
of Zork
and smite the evil that dared to threaten their peaceful valley, but
before preparations could be finalized, the entire conflict with the
vultures was put to a halt when that the nameless Sweepstakes Winner
passed through the dwarven mines and finished the quest.
For on the other side was the
ancient
shrine which had been dedicated to six of the
Muses of the Arts, the same one
which may have been built by
Belboz
in 966 and later converted into a forge by the practitioners of evil in
1247. Our hero placed the pieces into the shrine’s trencher in the
proper order (starting and the 8:00 position and laying the rest
sequentially clockwise). This placement caused the eyes of the statues
to turn green and the forge’s two buttons lit up. Then the red button
was pressed. Due to the continual lightning strikes in this region, the
Tele-orb could not be placed directly in the hand of
Lib
without being struck by a bolt. Thus the moving statues had to be
enlisted to help place the orb safely in his hand. Following an ancient
verse, the adventurer placed the following items upon each statue (from
left to right):
Mit, a bog
stick;
Selrach, a
return talon;
Mik, a thermos; nothing was given
to Lib;
Cire, a box and a
miner’s helmet (an account of debatable authority also mentions that a
knife was placed upon this statue);
Xela,
a shield from the temple of
Bel
Naire;
Eoj, the
Tele-orb.
When
the red button was pressed, the forge ran, and after an extended
performance by the statues, the last Flying Disc of Frobozz was
successfully reforged using magical properties somehow inherent in the
statues themselves. It was then tossed like a frisbee at the wall of
illusion which guarded the hidden passageway to the Citadel of Zork,
shattering it. Our hero raided Morphius’ home, conquering orcs and
bypassing many snares, before finally arriving at the Hall of Stone and
Transformation Room.
One reason that the Sweepstakes Winner was able to make it through
the Citadel without detection was that Morphius was making a
counterattack against the remaining citizens of the Valley. The
vultures petrified and captured many more of the surrounding villagers;
these included Rebecca Snoot, Canuk, the
Holy
Woman of Bel Naire,
Barry the Blacksmith, and
Witch
Itah.
In
the final confrontation with Morphius, the nephew of Rooper was able to
outwit Morphius by winning a round of a life-sized game of Survivor,
which had been played using the actual petrified Canuk and Trembyle. To
think that he had been defeated, was too much for Morphius to bear. As
his terrible shriek of defeat echoed through the Citadel of Zork, he
lost grasp of his confining spell. The statues he was holding began to
dissolve. Rebecca, Rooper, the Holy Woman, Kelly, Witch Itah, the Wizard
Trembyle, and even Canuk finally escaped Morphius’ spell, being
released from their stone imprisonment. Rising to the occasion, the
followers of good magic casted long forgotten spells to again disperse
evil magic and scatter the vile creature Morphius into the atmosphere.
These events would be remembered as the
Second Great Diffusion. Throughout
the valley, from every tower to the depths of every crevice, evil magic
had vanished.
When
he had returned to Shanbar, the Sweepstakes Winner was finally reunited
with his uncle Rooper. Having developed romantic interest for one
another during the course of their explorations, Rooper's nephew and
Rebecca Snoot became a couple following the conclusion of these events;
it is unknown if their relationship ever consummated in marriage.
| SOURCE(S): Return to
Zork (game, official backstory, design documents), A History of Quendor |
