chapter 4 "The Town Well"

Ok, so you're now all set with a bunch of money in the bank, 
light-but-decent equipment, and a thirst for more advancement.
Let's try a quest that requires a little fancy footwork and
little (if any) fighting.

I'm going to assume that the portal gun portals are where the
default distribution puts them. The blue portal in the hazlab,
the orange portal...well, you'll see.

By now you should have Kleiner's badge. If not, go back to where I
describe how to get it. If you sold it, go buy it back. Also, get
yourself a flashlight. I recommend maglite, but whatever you can 
find is better than nothing. Now go back to Jennybot. Near her is
a stairwell that leads to the campus basement. Turn on your
flashlight then go 1n, 1w, 1s, 1d, 1w of Jennybot. You're now in
the western end of the campus basement. Note the smudged wall?
%^GREEN%^push wall%^RESET%^
Whee! Go west until you can't go any further, then go 1s. Lying
there is a key you'll need. Put it in your ruck, then go north
til you can't go north any further. Note that the next couple of
things you need to do must be done quickly. You're about to enter
a dangerous sewer service area, and you may get blasted with harmful
steam if you hang around too long.

Go down into the sewer area. See that pile of crap? Search it. Bonus!
Now go east twice, up, open grate, up. You're now back up on the
cobblestone road, but with a shiny new ring to wear or sell, and
a key you'll need. Head to the hazlab (4s, 1w, 1s). Now, just in case
some joker put the orange portal somewhere dangerous, you should have
an omni handy (you can buy one from Oana). Enter the blue portal. Unless
someone's been playing around, you should now be in an underground
tunnel, with a large metal door to the west. There's not much to
explore here...if you follow the tunnel north and east, you'll find
a locked gate with a cave troll on the other side. What you really
want to do is get past the door to the west. You got the key to this door
from the campus underground, so go ahead and unlock it. Now comes the
hard part...open the door.

Chances are that you can't. It's huge and it's heavy...it requires having
a strength stat of at least 50 to open. You have 2 possible ways of dealing
with this...one is expensive, the other a bit tricky. The expensive way
is to buy strength potions from Oana and drink them until your strength
is above 49, then rush back to this door before the potions wear off, 
and open the door. Like I said, expensive.

The other way is to control something that is strong enough to open the
door. Go back to kleiner, then type:
%^GREEN%^dial stargate lab%^RESET%^
This takes you to a secret area used by creators to test their npc's,
armor, and equipment. Go north, then east. If you're lucky, nobody has
taken the landstrider mech for a joyride and it's standing there, waiting
for you. Type: %^GREEN%^enter mech%^RESET%^
You are now inside your very own mech-type robot you control. Cool!
Have it go back to the stargate:
%^GREEN%^drive west%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive south%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to dial campus lab%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to enter gate%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive south%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive south%^RESET%^

Uh oh! The mech can't enter the hazlab because it's not carrying Kleiner's
badge! What you need to do is drop the badge. It will then be in the mech's
inventory, so that the security door can see it.

%^GREEN%^drop badge%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive south%^RESET%^

Now we have the mech enter the portal and open the door for you.

%^GREEN%^direct mech to enter portal%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to open door%^RESET%^

Excellent! Now, the next part involves making this area kind of
hostile for general use, so let's get the mech out of harm's way

%^GREEN%^get badge%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^wear badge%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to enter portal%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^out%^RESET%^

Now go back in the portal (just you, without the mech), and
go west twice. This is the source of the problem. The town well is dry
because someone shut off the water source! 

To restore water to the well, turn the metal wheel here, and
water will start rushing out of the pipe at high pressure. There's a 
grate-type door overhead through which the water is supposed to flow up to 
the bottom of the well. If the orange portal hadn't been there, you'd have had
to do the alternate solution, which involves accessing the
water source from that other direction.

Now, as you can imagine, this area is going to fill up with water
very rapidly, so leave east right away. The entire series of tunnels
will flood, so get back to the orange portal and enter it quickly.

%^RED%^PROTIP:%^RESET%^ The water will also go through the locked cavetroll
gate. And cavetrolls don't breathe water.

Now, go to the town well (1n, 1e, 5n of the hazlab), and: %^GREEN%^enter well%^RESET%^
Hopefully you did get the maglite. By now the weaker flashlights may have
pooped out. See the lever on the wall? That operates a set of two doors that
serve as a waterlock for the well. Pull it, and a door will open, letting
water flood into the well, and solving the quest!

It may be that someone has already been fooling with the water lock, though.
If the door was already open when you got there, push the lever, wait a 
few minutes for water to flood the lock, then pull the lever. It could
take a while depending on the water pressure for the lock to fill up, so
if it's dry, close it again and wait a while before opening again.


%^CYAN%^Alternate Resolution%^RESET%^

It may be that the orange portal was not in the water tunnel. It could 
be that the hazardous materials labs was not accessible to you. If that
is the case, you'll need to solve this quest by accessing the water
source from the direction of the well. This is tricky because you need
to be very strong to open the grate, *and* you need an extra set of
hands to operate the water lock lever. Let's deal with one problem at a time.
First, the strength issue. On the other side of the water lock is a
grate that you must have at least 50 strength to open. If your strength
is already above 49, great. If not, you need to decide whether you want
to boost it with strength potions from Oana (expensive) or use the
landstrider mech (tricky). If the plan is to use strength potions, go buy
them now and stick them in your ruck. If the plan is to use the mech,
go get it. Go to Kleiner, and:

%^GREEN%^dial stargate lab%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^enter gate%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^go north%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^go east%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^enter mech%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive west%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive south%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to dial campus lab%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to enter gate%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive south%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive east%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive north%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive north%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive north%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive north%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive north%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to enter well%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to pull lever%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive west%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^out%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^go east%^RESET%^

The mech is now in the water lock. But neither you nor the mech
can proceed further west...you need someone to pull the lever
for you. You're going to need a servant...a slave...a ZOMBIE! Go
up and west, and buy a dark scroll from Oana. The scroll can be
used to raise a corpse, but you must be able to read English. If
you've chosen a race that doesn't speak English, you'll need to 
learn it now. Go to Bugg (1n, 2e, 1n of the well) and ask him to
teach you English. Once you've learned it, you'll be ready to 
create a zombie. From Bugg, go to the campus square (1s, 2w, 5s)
and murder Tim. It's important that you slay something that speaks
a language you know, so since you're either human or just now 
learned English, a human victim is suitable. Plus Tim is a wuss.
Once he's slain: %^GREEN%^read scroll at tim%^RESET%^

There he is! Your very own zombie! We'll need to move quickly
now. Zombies don't last forever...the clock is ticking. Do the
following to get him to follow you:

%^GREEN%^speak in english%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^say follow cratylus%^RESET%^

Except, of course, instead of "cratylus", put in your own name.
Note something important here. Zombies are obedient, but not
smart. If someone else starts saying things that the zombie understands
as a command, it will start obeying them. So remember that while
you created this zombie, someone else can steal him if you're not
careful.

Now, return to the well (4n) then enter the well and go west.
You'll need to tell the zombie to leave the water lock and operate it:


%^GREEN%^say go east%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^yell push lever%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^enter mech%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^drive west%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^direct mech to open grate%^RESET%^

Woohoo! If you don't have the mech, of course, you just
walk your own self west, drink your strength potions, and
open the grate yourself. If you *do* have the mech, let's get it out
of harm's way...

%^GREEN%^drive east%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^out%^RESET%^
%^GREEN%^go west%^RESET%^

All righty, now let's go resolve this well problem. Go down
and you'll see the metal wheel and the water pipe. To get the water
flowing again, turn the wheel. Then very quickly get yourself back to 
the water lock...the area will fill with water soon! When water 
gets to the lock: %^GREEN%^yell pull lever%^RESET%^
Your zombie will then open the east door, allowing you and the water to
get to the well, and solving the Town Well Quest. Congratulations!

