Wisptail

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C:\>a:

Insert floppy into a:

C:\>a:

A:\>cd wisptail

A:\Wisptail>run wisptail.exe

Loading… %100

WISPTAIL © 1987, BLACKMORE STUDIOS, INC. GC AUS.

Welcome back adventurer!

Would you like to CONTINUE, start a NEW GAME, or QUIT?

>new game

Name your character:

>brandon

Your journey is ready to begin!

Prologue

Deep in the forests of Ajur a small ring of moss-covered stones lay bedded upon brown and amber leaves in a forgotten grove. Above, an intertwining of ancient oak crowds the sky allowing only the silver glimmers of a perpetual twilight to illuminate a sight that no mortal eye has witnessed in an age. A verdant energy, old as the earth, shimmers in the air above the stones like a mirage; an energy given the name of wisptail by the druids yet rarely seen even by they who are best versed in the magic of the forests.

Beyond the grove a single pulsing light grows closer, its pale blue beams reaching through the tangled foliage like fingers of morning sky. It effortlessly weaves its way past tree and vine until it enters the penetralium, moving to hover at the edge of the stone circle. No sooner has it arrived alone before other lights begin to emerge from the forest, some of the same pale blue, others in yellow, pink, and green. Each light enters in its own time and takes its place around the circle until there are several dozen circling the stones in concentric rings.

At some signal imperceptible to mortal senses, they begin a dance, flying sideways in their circles, one ring clockwise, the next counterclockwise. A hum emanates until it comes to resemble the wind. The wisptail starts to glow with the light of the coloured wisps, creating a rainbow miasma that showers the surrounding woods with a hue unnatural to this clime, or any other of the Earth. Something is being summoned through the ring, for a purpose only the creatures of the forest know...

Chapter 1

You emerge from the wisptail and fall to the ground in the centre of the ring of stones. You had been dreaming of the forest and the wisps until the point of summoning when suddenly the dream ended with you being the actual subject of their summoning! You look up and see that colour has been drained from the wisps during your summoning, revealing within each dying light a faerie, dully reflected in the silvered gloom, small wings humming imperceptibly. They do not speak, perhaps knowing their tongue is alien to you. Instead, they all point into forest behind you, as if controlled by a single puppeteer.

>why am I here

The faerie’s do not respond verbally but point again in the same direction.

>look behind

At first you see only the denseness of the forest and cannot make anything out that distinguishes it from any other direction. Eventually your eyes adjust to the twilight, and you make out a faint trace of smoke rising through a gap in the canopy. A vague glimpse of sun indicates this direction is East. Seemingly satisfied, the faeries disperse and leave you alone on the forest floor.

>help

The faerie’s have dispersed, and you are alone in the forest. No one can hear you.

>look

You are in a grove surrounded by a ring of stones, just as in your dream.

>look west

The forest is dense with oak and vine.

>move west

You venture into the thick forest. There is barely room for you to climb between the gnarling branches and tangled vines. After this struggle, seemingly travelling away from the grove, you are surprised to find out that you have re-entered the grove from the direction you set out on.

>move south

You venture into the thick forest. There is barely room for you to climb between the gnarling branches and tangled vines. After this struggle, seemingly travelling away from the grove, you are surprised to find out that you have re-entered the grove from the direction you set out on.

>move east

You venture into the thick forest in the direction of the smoke. There is barely room for you to climb between the gnarling branches and tangled vines. After this struggle, you find yourself entering another clearing where a small thatch-roofed hut sits, dilapidated, beside a stream. The smoke is emanating from the small chimney in the roof.

>knock

You knock on the door of the hut. There is no answer.

>enter

You enter the hut and find there is no one home.

>look

The hut is sparsely furnished with oak furniture and only the barest of possessions populate the room, most of which would not have any value to anyone but their owner. Whoever they are, they have a taste for an age long past, as crude and rustic are the tools and stone ornaments that adorn the space. Of practical use, there is a dull knife, and a gourd half filled with an unknown liquid.

>take knife

You take the knife.

>take gourd

You take the gourd.

>exit

You move to exit the hut but are surprised to find a figure baring your way. “Something yeh planning on doing with that knife o’ mine?” it says in a legible but archaic tongue.

>sorry

“Either do or don’t do. No talk.”

>drop knife

You drop the knife. The figure takes this as a sign of parlay and steps into the light of the hearth revealing a large man with a matted grey beard and donned in a bear skin cloak. He is holding a bucket of water; no doubt collected from the nearby stream. His eyes are closed as he talks to you, making him seem as though dead. Continuing in his rough dialect, he says, “It’s not oft visitation comes to me abode. What be yer name?”

>john

“Yeh lie. But no matter - the forest has no need of names.” He sits by the fire and reaches for the place where his gourd was placed. Not finding it with his fingers he looks with his closed eyes, then moves his head as though looking at you. “Me gourd as well? Quite the thief are yeh? There was a time I’d have throttled yeh, but time has since quenched that crimson voice. Give it now and all is forgiven.”

>give gourd

You hand over the gourd. The man immediately takes a long drink, emptying its contents entirely. He then refills it from the bucket of water and hands it back to you. “Yeh’ll need this.”

>take gourd

“Yeh’re quite the meek one aren’t yeh? Most I encounter try to stick me at first sight. Not that they or yeh can end me: the forest folk made sure o’ that.” He pauses, staring in the fire.

>

He takes your silence as permission to tell his story in explanation, “I was a man of yonder mountains. Hunting and skinning the game that roamed their peaks. Yet one season, the herds grew scarce, and I made into the valley to seek a new source for me and the mouths that roamed with me. ‘Twas there I learnt the ways of tending the field and staying fixed like yeh see me now. I prospered, yet with prospering came avarice. I sought not only to feed but to earn the coin of the village folk. With me axe I hew into the forest to clear more land than I truly needed for me fields. I earnt from the villager folk with me crops o’ barley yet angered the forest folk on whose ground I desecrated. One day they had their revenge. They blighted me fields, condemning us all to a hungering death. I was the last of all to fall, yet when death’s cold grip did grasp me I found I had not gone yonder into paradise or hell. I was as yeh see me know, undying yea, yet nay dead. Such have I now been for a thousand summers. The sprits of the forest keep me here, slave to their bidding, when contact with our kind be needed. Such a time again be now, or else yeh’d not be standing in me hearth stealing me possessions.” He lapses into silence as if time has no meaning and speech need not continue.

>why

“I can’t know why yeh’re here, that is for the forest to say; I can merely guide yeh to the towering tree, the very spirit of nature’s vengeance, in the heart o’ the forest to receive the brand o’ the ancients - if yeh be worthy, then you’ll know the will o’ the spirits that summoned yeh. All I can tell yeh is that yeh are needed for a task outside the bounds o’ this forest of Ajur. Anything within these halls o’ wood I can attend to at their whim, yet I cannot leave the boundaries o’ the forest lest the magic animating me bones goes beyond the realm of its power and l fall to a true death. Such would be me wish, but I cannot willingly venture out. I have tried a thousand times, yet the spirits o’ the forest have a way to befuddle the mind and send yeh back in the direction they wish yeh to travel. One day I hope to escape and find me true peace but have yet to find the way.”

>ajur

“’Tis vast and vengeful.”

>towering tree

“’Tis the meanest and largest of all the oak. It will test yeh to see if yeh are worthy to aid the forest. Know that if yeh are not then yer fate will be mine, so best give yer all. Shall I take yeh now?”

>yes

The man stands slowly, grimacing, and leaves the hut saying simply, “Come”.

>exit

You leave the hut and see the man venturing into the forest to the North.

>move north

You enter the thickness of the forest behind the man and follow a few paces behind yet were you any further behind you feel you would easily lose sight of the bear skin on his back. You walk for an undefinable amount of time; the sun does not seem to move in its twilit vigil. Eventually an immense form starts to shadow still darker a forest already prone to a perpetual gloom. The further you follow the man the deeper the dark gets until you have to move closer to your guide just to keep his form in focus. Above, the shadow takes the form of a tree of such immensity there seems no sky that could contain it. Once in sight of the behemoth, your guide slows and turns to you, “I think yeh can find yer way from here. Remember to give yer all.”

>thanks

He looks surprised at your appreciation, yet soon scowls, “There’s nothing to be thankful for here. The forest is as cruel as they who cut it down.” That said he walks back in the direction you came and soon disappears from your sight.

>move north

You walk toward the tree until its base becomes clear through the foliage. An immense wall of wood stretching into your periphery into the gloom at either side.

>look tree

You look closely at the wood and see its bark has been etched as though with a knife across every part of its vast surface. The pattern is indiscernible to human logic, yet you sense a correctness to its design.

>touch tree

You touch the bark and the tree vanishes instantly, along with everything around you, leaving only white in all directions.

>look north

There is no way to know which way is North - there is only white.

>move north

You move in a direction you think is North based on your previous bearings. There is no change to your surroundings no matter how far you go.

>look

You see only white.

>close eyes

You close your eyes and see the ancient tree again before you.

>look

The etchings on the tree glow with a similar resonance that you had seen in your dream of the fae and the wisptail.

>touch tree

You touch the tree again and you feel an impatience dwelling inside, despite its age, as though your presence is a nuisance to time.

>look left

You see the circumference of the tree trailing of in the gloom.

>look behind

The gnarled forest is as you remember it except for one small rose, red, growing alone on the forest floor.

>look rose

The red petals seem to laugh at its surroundings, bitter and vengeful. Its thorns reaching out malignantly as though spurning the thought of a world without pain.

>touch rose

You reach out to touch the rose but somehow manage to catch your fingers on the thorns and recoil in searing pain, a hundred times stronger than you recall when last you touched a thorn. In your ears the resonance of the rose’s pain seems to direct its laugh at you, reviling you, belittling your courage.

>kick rose

You kick the rose, scattering its petals across the forest floor.

>grab petals

You reach out to grab the petals but they turn brown in your hands. As they crumble, dry and wretched into dust, your consciousness fades and disintegrates in the pain of the rose’s poison...

...You awaken to find yourself in the hut of the man from the mountains. He is seated beside you, tending his fire, his closed eyes seemingly unneeded. You then notice your eyes are closed as well yet seeing just as he does. “Yeh failed, ‘John’,” he says. “Didn’t I give yeh the gourd? Now yeh are like me, undying and forever bound to this place. People like yeh and me, we never learn. Maybe a time will come when the fae bring a worthy man into this dark place, but for now: only we slaves shall live on here."

Game over!

WISPTAIL © 1987, BLACKMORE STUDIOS, INC. GC AUS.

Welcome back adventurer!

Would you like to CONTINUE, start a NEW GAME, or QUIT?

>continue

No saved game exists. Game will be saved automatically at the end of each chapter.

Would you like to CONTINUE, start a NEW GAME, or QUIT?

>quit

A:\Wisptail>c:

C:\>shutdown /s

Shutting down...