TMUK Text Adventures #1: Chapter 2 - The search for Mr. K.

[Stomski]

Apr 12, 2019 19:36:15 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

PICK UP device.
KNOCK on the Doctor's door.
OFFER device to the Doctor.

You pick up the device.

Item added: E-Meter (+1 point)

You return to the door with the circular symbol. Again the lady comes to the door.

"Hello again!"

You offer her the device.

"Brilliant! This is just what I need." She says enthusiastically taking the device from you.

Item removed: E-Meter

"With this I can fix the time circuits and I can be on my way. As a thank you, I can give you a lift. When do you want to go?"

Inventory:	Key card, Black Mexican Prowl, hacking device, shiny yo-yo, poncho, sombrero
Cash:	SP0, PT0
Wearing:	Transformers pants, green uniform
Location:	Dark Alley
Connected Locations (1/2):	City Plaza
Uninvestigated POI:	0

Current Score: 85/250

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Hmmm.

So, do you guys reckon we'll be blocked from going to any time other than between 8pm and 9pm?

Martin

[Pinwig]

I would think so. We could ask for any time any where, but the TARDIS isn't that reliable. I would bet we'll always end up right where we need to be for the next step. Particularly as we have no other way to get to the time we want.

SAY to Doctor, "We really need to be outside Kasparov's house at 8pm if you can help."

[Pinwig]

I do note we're asked when, not where, we want to go, which does limit the options a bit.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Well anyway, we've killed an innocent person and nicked their stuff. I hope we're proud of ourselves.

Maybe as in Total Recall we really are a bad guy!

Martin

[Pinwig]

We also seen to have been instrumental in turning Enrique into a Borg. Oh, and we stole his identity.

We're horrible!

[Pinwig]

I'd still like to know how to show the palmers we're worthy. I wonder if Blueshift's pants off idea would have worked after all.

[Pinwig]

Also, we've just lured a scientologist to his death at the hands of Ramsay Bolton so we can help Doctor Who. Let's ponder that for a second before asking Stomski what the hell he's smoking...

[Stomski]

Apr 13, 2019 22:18:38 GMT Pinwig said:

Also, we've just lured a scientologist to his death at the hands of Ramsay Bolton so we can help Doctor Who. Let's ponder that for a second before asking Stomski what the hell he's smoking...

But you're fine with the Transformers/Star Trek/Ghostbusters/Aliens/Star Wars/DC Comics/Coming To America/Big/Red Dwarf cross over?

[blueshift]

I feel like we need to visit Ramsey again, he might have some sausages in stock for us now.

[Stomski]

Apr 13, 2019 15:00:08 GMT Pinwig said:

SAY to Doctor, "We really need to be outside Kasparov's house at 8pm if you can help."

"I think he lives around here somewhere. Unfortunately, with the incoming cosmic storms we're limited in how much we can travel through time and relative dimension in space. However, 8pm shouldn't be a problem."

Inviting you in, in the front room there appears to be an old style British Police Box. She enters it through the door leaving you standing in the entrance hall not really sure weather to follow or not. A moment later she pops her head out.

"Well, c'mon then!" She says briskly before disappearing back inside.

You follow her in and to your surprise the inside opens out in a vast area, strange lights flicker all around and in the middle you see the lady's two legs poking out from underneath a large central console, controls on all sides.

She slides herself out from underneath.

"That should do it." she says confidently tossing aside bits of the E-Meter device you gave her previously. Standing to the console, she moves around pressing various buttons, checking the many dials and readouts before finally seeming ready. There's an aloof urgency about the way she operates, certainly an intriguing individual.

"Right then gang, are we ready to go?" You nod sheepishly as she initiates what you assume are the main systems. There's some kind of deep wheezing noise that crescendos slightly before stopping.

"Right here, we are! 8pm as requested."

You don't feel like anything's changed. She takes you out of the control room you're in back into the front room of the house and back to the alley outside.

Inventory:	Key card, Black Mexican Prowl, hacking device, shiny yo-yo, poncho, sombrero
Cash:	SP0, PT0
Wearing:	Transformers pants, green uniform
Location:	Dark Alley
Connected Locations (1/2):	City Plaza
Uninvestigated POI:	0

Current Score: 85/250

[Pinwig]

EXAMINE blank door.

[Stomski]

Fun facts about this dark alley segment...

This entire section was improvised as we've gone along. Originally I had planned for just a single door to be accessible on the street. Then when I came to write out the post describing the alley, I needed something to indicate there was something different about the house. A single symbol though? Too easy. So I put a load of other's on. I put on the Seal of Rassilon on a door just to give Blueshift his Dr. Who connection that he'd wanted and Brian Blessed just 'cos, well Brian Blessed. I had no intention of there being hints or puzzles connected and indeed the hammer and sickle was meant to be Kasparov's. This I changed after the comments in the thread revealed his anti-soviet political stance. The Then upon knocking on Brian Blessed's beautiful face I used the opportunity to hint at which was Kasparov's house, and used that thinking again on the Soviet door. Scientologists and Ramsay Bolton doors were going to be insta-deaths, but I thought better of it and give you an out.

As for the 8pm puzzle, this was originally going to be a meta-puzzle where you'd have to actually have a timestamp against your post between 8pm-9pm (BST I guess now?) however, I thought better of it realising the potential use of Time Travel using The Dr. I'm glad I changed it as I was always worried that the original puzzle may have been a little too obscure.

Other improvised bits include the token found in the busy road (I realised the location was just a death trap and to alert people to existence of the space port, so thought I'd actually put a reason to be there), the Zoltar/basketball puzzle after I gave you the token in the road, the tied up boatsman (after Martin's wordplay) and hacking of the boat and also having 2 other special guests to meet after winning the Mind Games Olympiad.

[Stomski]

Apr 15, 2019 8:17:27 GMT Pinwig said:

EXAMINE blank door.

It's a nondescript front door to a run down house. Seems locked with no discernible way to gain access.

Inventory:	Key card, Black Mexican Prowl, hacking device, shiny yo-yo, poncho, sombrero
Cash:	SP0, PT0
Wearing:	Transformers pants, green uniform
Location:	Dark Alley
Connected Locations (1/2):	City Plaza
Uninvestigated POI:	0

Current Score: 85/250

[Pinwig]

KNOCK on blank door.

[Stomski]

Apr 15, 2019 8:47:19 GMT Pinwig said:

KNOCK on blank door.

There's no answer.

Inventory:	Key card, Black Mexican Prowl, hacking device, shiny yo-yo, poncho, sombrero
Cash:	SP0, PT0
Wearing:	Transformers pants, green uniform
Location:	Dark Alley
Connected Locations (1/2):	City Plaza
Uninvestigated POI:	0

Current Score: 85/250

[Pinwig]

WHAT.

LOOK around alley
LOOK down grate

Then upon knocking on Brian Blessed's beautiful face I used the opportunity to hint at which was Kasparov's house, and used that thinking again on the Soviet door.

So the blank door is the right one. We know we need to knock on it between 8-9, which it now is...

[Pinwig]

Apr 10, 2019 14:33:23 GMT Stomski said:

"That's... a yo yo." she says flatly, dismissing the idea that it could ever interest her.

I just noticed the index entry for this too. Cheek! The Doctor loves yo-yos! This is a thing! Tom Baker's one used a yo-yo as a gravity detector in The Ark in Space and they crop up loads in the series. Impressing her with one was a legitimate possibility!

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Yo-yo

[Pinwig]

Right. Let's look at this again:

He pulls back a sleeve to reveal what is becoming a familiar concealed sigil.

"Is it really you?" he whispers. "We can not speak here. Find my house and knock on the door with our sign between 8 and 9pm and I shall answer. Then I shall tell you all."

The familiar concealed sigil has to be Prowl's face as that's what keeps turning up in these situations. We're in the right place at the right time, the corroborative evidence from the communists and Brian Blessed has told us that, and so has Stom himself. So we need to:

Make the sign appear on the door somehow?
Add the sign to the door somehow?
Knock on the door using the sign, ie, tap on it with the Mexican Prowl?
Try performing the Prowl dance thing again?

[Stomski]

To clarify - yes it was the Prowl face up his sleeve.

Also - I'm not hugely knowledgeable about Dr. Who, other than Ace was great and that Kandy Man villain freaked me out as a kid so apologies for the Yo-Yo infraction.

I fear it may be time for a Pinwig Review™ (Patent Pending) of recent events. There is something you've seemingly glossed over, not even mentioned it in the discussions and dismissed which is odd.

[Pinwig]

Ooh. How recent is recent? :)

[Stomski]

In the alley.

[blueshift]

I thought the Doctor used a yoyo at the start of Power of Kroll to check the gravity as well but it isn't mentioned on the wiki.

Phil will know.

[Philip Ayres]

It's his hat in Kroll

www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/16-5.htm

(They clamber up onto a piece of raised dry land. The Doctor raises his arm a few times then drops his hat.)
DOCTOR: Gravity check. Escape velocity about one point five miles a second.
ROMANA: Really? Isn't that a little low for a planet?
DOCTOR: Yes. This must be one of the moons of Delta Magna.
(He wets his finger and holds it up.)
DOCTOR: I'd say the third.
ROMANA: Doctor? Sometimes I don't think you're quite right in the head.

[Pinwig]

Right. Let's start gathering info. I realise that there is a lot about condensation draining into the grate, but as that wasn't a POI, I didn't think much of it.

Location:
Entering the dark alley, you notice the hustle and bustle of the plaza fade away. It seems to be, or at least was at one point, residential. Several terraced cottages down either side of a cobbled street ending in a dead end. The aged houses seem to arch over you blocking the sunlight, the dirty walls dripping with condensation that drips down into small puddles that drain into a grate in the middle of the alley. Something scutters by too fast for you to get a good look at, the light dims, in the distance a bird caws. The smells emanating from the drain seemingly contained by the overhanging buildings putting you at ill-ease. Most of the houses barely even seem lived in, their dank doors seem to be sealed shut from years of neglect.

The infoterminal told us:
Not much else remains other than the gates and wall, except the various still working underground sanitation systems connecting many of the residential buildings.

And when we looked at the grate we saw:
It's a very solid grate, heavily integrated into the alley's street. It seems it is in place for drainage purposes and not access.

Through the grate beneath the alley you see some kind of wide drainage tunnel. There appear to be alcoves leading to steps at various points down the sides of the tunnel, perhaps for access of some kind, but with poor lighting and from this angle it's difficult for you to pinpoint their exact location relative to the houses.


The Door we're trying to get into is described as:
It's a nondescript front door to a run down house. Seems locked with no discernible way to gain access.


Boss Nass said:
"Hesa livun next to da religious peepols. Wesa gonna speed yousaway. Da way tooda Kasparov tis goen through da core. Now go."

The religious people next door to Kasparov said:
"Look, I'm just saying that if that guy can't show he's worthy then it was a waste of..."
"When you are able to show us you are worthy, you shall know it."

The Communists said:
"That Chess player? We see him around on the other side of the street, but he's always too busy to come and have fun with us."

[blueshift]

Aha. A childhood memory, ruined!

[Pinwig]

Things we haven't considered yet:

• dirty walls dripping with condensation that drips down into small puddles that drain into a grate in the middle of the alley
• Something scutters by too fast for you to get a good look at
• smells emanating from the drain seemingly contained by the overhanging buildings putting you at ill-ease
• alcoves leading to steps at various points down the sides of the tunnel, perhaps for access of some kind, but with poor lighting and from this angle it's difficult for you to pinpoint their exact location relative to the houses.

Or, if we can work out how to show the palmers we're worthy, we might be able to get to Kasparov's house through theirs. However, that doesn't work with the whole knock on the door at 8pm business, and we've managed to get to 8pm so that must be important. 

We're told we can't go through the grate at all - "It seems it is in place for drainage purposes and not access." but the liquid draining into it can. We don't have anything on us that we could pour through the grate. However I come back again to the fact we could lower the yoyo through it. 

[Pinwig]

SNIFF smells.
FEEL wet walls.
LOWER yoyo through grate using the string.

[blueshift]

Apr 15, 2019 11:29:23 GMT Pinwig said:

We don't have anything on us that we could pour through the grate.

We could do a wee

[Pinwig]

We could.