Missed Classic: Beyond Zork - Finally Finding the Plot

Written by Joe Pranevich

Welcome back to Beyond Zork! I admit that I have struggled with this game. It's not that it's a bad game, but I have difficulty motivating myself to play or write about it. Every time I try, my attention drifts elsewhere and I find something else to do. I'm almost surprised I haven't opted to paint my bathroom by now. This should be impossible – this is a Brian Moriarty game! This is a Zork game! This is Infocom! I've played my fair share of duds for this blog — and I'll admit, a bad game can be charming in its own way. Every one of them inspired me to write, sometimes too much. Beyond Zork is the first game where my primary feeling is one of mediocrity. It should be a better game and my energy is sapped. This session at least ended well and I hope that I can keep up this positive motivation to finally finish and rate one of the final games in our marathon. 

Last time, I needed hints to progress, including a major one for solving the riddle at the lighthouse entrance. After navigating the structure and battling interesting monsters — from replicating dust devils to a creature with countless eyes — I opened a chest at the very top. What happened next was unexpected: I was teleported to a celestial realm filled with unicorns. They didn’t like me much and banished me back to earth with a warning that they would not be so friendly next time. I still have many unsolved puzzles, with perhaps the largest being that my character hasn’t “found the plot” yet. We (the player) know what is going on and that we’re questing for the Coconut of Quendor, but all my protagonist knows is that she had a sudden urge one day to do a fetch quest for a cook in a nearby inn and before she knew it she was trying on armor and being insulted by unicorns. What is her motivation?

This week, as the title suggests, we’ve finally discovered the plot. Let’s get on with it!

The “scroll of recall” comes in handy!

With all of my hints exhausted and at a dead end thanks to the rejection of the unicorns, I resolved to spend time experimenting with everything. Unfortunately, “everything” includes items in the stores that I haven’t been able to afford. To do this, I would iterate over a save file, selling my stuff and buying the more expensive items until I had a chance to play with almost everything. A few items are beyond my price range even then, but I was able to try out a majority of the items found in the game’s three shops. 

• The “Scroll of Recall” causes a glowing magic word to appear in the air in our location. Using that word permits us to travel back to where the spell was cast at any time and there does not appear to be a limit to the use, except that you can only set the destination once. This looks like another way south from Zeno’s bridge, but it could be needed to get back into a locked space or a similar future puzzle.
  
  
• The “Stick of Eversion” turns things briefly inside out, but not in any way that appears immediately useful. I try, for example, to turn the painting on the wharf inside out to “free” the ship that is painted on it, but that’s not the correct approach.
  
  
• The “Cane of Annihilation” will destroy almost any creature, but the only one I want to destroy (the Monkey Grinder by the Guildhall) can absorb its power into his hurdy gurdy instead. 
  
  
• The “Potion of Death” does exactly as is indicated on the label. There is a puzzle in King’s Quest VI where our character has to die to gain access to the afterlife, but I do not otherwise know what it might be useful for. 
  
  
• The “Potion of Forgetfulness” causes me to forget the whole map and all of our identified items. I don’t see a way that helps us, but perhaps a villain later in the game can read our thoughts and we need to forget something. 
  
  
• The “Scroll of Protection” improves the armor class of whatever we are wearing, but only works once. (It’s the same as the “Honing” spell, except for armor.) We should hold off on using it until we have the best armor.
  
  
• The “Scabbard of the Blade of Entharion” has an unwieldy name and is mostly useless without the matching blade, but it does allow us to recover four HP per turn while out of combat instead of one. It is not tremendously helpful.

I could really use one of these.

Just listing items is already getting boring, so let me cut to the chase and say that I spent a long time trying things. Remember the spade that we captured off of the ghoul north of Zeno’s Bridge? I tried digging with it in lots of places. Near the Christmas town, I get helpful responses that I need to have the “proper tool” to write the protection glyph, but neither the spade nor anything else I have seems to be it. I found a fun case where the umbrella flies out of your hands if you cast the “Levitate” spell on it, completely defeating my idea to Mary Poppins may way down off Zeno’s Bridge. I try making sure that I don’t carry the horseshoe into the “Plane of Arrogant Unicorns” (based on a clue about how much they hate equine subservience), but they don’t respond any differently. I do lots of things and very little works.

In the end, I start reading clues posted in the comments. The first clue upsets me and turns my middling dislike of the game to something more pronounced. It also reveals that I never would have solved the puzzle on my own because I never would have tried it:

We have to attack the baby hungus. The one that is drowning in quicksand with his mother crying nearby. We have to attack a drowning kid. We. Have. To. Attack. A. Drowning. Kid. If this is really the only solution, I hope someone has a list of the worst text adventure game puzzles of all time and I hope this is on it. I also had to restore back to even do this because I rescued the baby a while ago and being a good samaritan without attacking the baby first puts us into an unwinnable state.

Don’t ever attack a baby hungus.

I don’t even know how to write this up properly, but attacking the baby hungus causes the mother to seethe with rage. (Along with one retrogaming enthusiast.) She charges at our character and will follow us all through the jungle. You may also recall that the jungle contains a “see-saw” idol puzzle where the Crocodile’s Tear jewel is in a temple with a strange see-saw ramp. If we climb up to get the jewel, our weight causes the ramp to tip and send us into a darkened room in the middle of the temple. If the mother hungus is following us, we can trick her into standing on the bottom of that see-saw. Because she is very heavy, we have little difficulty climbing up and grabbing the jewel. Puzzle solved? Not so far.

She gets angry and charges up the ramp. In the brief ensuing melee, she swallows the jewel by accident and we are plunged into the temple’s cell anyway. We found a few ways out last time (“eversion” and “sayonara” spells both get us out, not to mention “recall”) and then have to deal with a still-angry mother who has now eaten the treasure we were after. Fortunately, this seems to be the correct use of the “eversion” spell as we can momentarily turn the mother hungus inside-out to get the jewel. She is not having a great day, although she is thankfully not harmed by the experience. 

Once that is all done, we can return to the baby hungus and finally rescue him using the “levitate” spell. The mother seems relieved and heads off into the jungle with her baby, never to be seen again, but no doubt cursing the insane woman that has completely ruined her day before saving her child. She must be so confused. 

The jewel itself doesn’t seem to have a use except as something to sell; none of the shop keepers will tell me anything about it, other than it is worth 1000 zorkmids. That lets me purchase anything else I might want, but I already have a target in mind: the hourglass. I think we know where that goes already.

Honestly, "making" images with the ferret is my favorite part of the game.

You may recall from our last outing that there is an archway with an hourglass symbol on it in the ruined city north of Zeno’s Bridge. I purchase the hourglass and head there. I still don’t know the correct way to cross the bridge, but we can get across by summoning the pterodactyl and flying across. This leads as you might expect to a staple puzzle in the Zork series: time travel. 

Flipping the hourglass while standing under the arch transforms the world into a strange north-south corridor. We quickly discover that walking north takes us into the future while walking south takes us into the past. I check south first and emerge into a scene at the plaza where two princes are fighting. One prince is beheaded and his horse is killed before I have time to figure out what to do. 

If I am going to figure this out, I am going to need to be organized. I sharpen my pencil and take good notes:

• The furthest south leads to a “timeless, dimensionless void” where only the archway remains. Not that much to do there.
  
  
• Next is a savannah filled with volcanoes and dinosaurs. 
  
  
• Further in time is a forest clearing where primitive huts dot the riverbank. We cannot explore the huts or leave the clearing. As before, we’re always stuck to just the area immediately around the archway.
  
  
• Next is a young and thriving city. The plaza is a plaza now, filled to the brim with people. An orator is giving a speech at one end.

Despite so many attempts, the AI refuses to draw a Greek-style orator without a microphone.

The speech seems important, so let me recount it here in full:

   The orator stills the throng with a wave of his hand.

   “Our fathers built this city at the Place Where the Great Waters Meet,” he cries. “The right to name the One River belongs to us!” 

   The throng roars its approval.

   [...]

   “The infidels from the east control the One River’s mouth,” continues the orator. “But we, who dwell at the joinings of the Rivers Phee and Bor, WE control the source.” The throng whistles. “As the daughter takes the name of the father, so shall the One River be known by the place of its birth!”

   “Pheebor!” roars the throng. “Hail the River Pheebor!”  

   [...]

   “Phee-bor! Phee-bor!” chants the throng. 

   “We have no quarrel with the city to the east,” claims the orator (amid shouts to the contrary). “But if they continue to slight our heritage with the wretched name Borphee” (the crowd hisses), “we shall smite them from the face of the land!”

   The throng goes wild, and carries the orator away on its shoulders.

Oh boy! We know where this is going. Borphee is a city mentioned in several other Zork games, starting with Sorcerer (but retroactively added into the re-release manual for Zork II). Pheebor is clearly going to lose this specific battle. Strangely, that implies that Borphee should be just to the east, but that city is Accardi-by-the-Sea. Perhaps Borphee is just off our Beyond Zork map, further northeast? If it does appear in this game, I haven’t found it yet. 

War is hell.

Just to the future from here is the battlefield that I briefly saw earlier. It feels a bit like the Napoleonic Wars, with trenches ripped into the city streets and combat on horseback. I pay more attention this time and see a “tall, proud man wearing a fabulous helmet”. He is Prince Foo, but he is not long for the world as a dark knight on horseback arrives and attacks. 

“Begone, thou eastern fop! [...] Never shall the River Pheebor yield its sacred name.” 

The black rider cuts off the prince’s head which rolls into a nearby trench. Before I can get to it, his horse is also killed and falls on top. Replaying this scene a few times, the game seems to make it impossible for me to get the helmet so it must be important. I cannot wait in the trench to retrieve it, and if I try to grab it before the prince’s horse is killed, the game just kills the horse faster. My “Amulet of Bok” doesn’t work while time-traveling, so I cannot increase my strength to move the horse either. (I didn’t bring the staff of levitation. I can bring it later.) I travel forward in time to the recent aftermath of the battle and try to dig with the spade, but I am unable to find the helmet that way. 

I continue searching the time zones:

• We arrive at the present day just after the battle aftermath; going any further takes us into the future.
  
  
• The next hop forward reveals an empty plaza but now covered in frost from an Arctic chill. Global cooling? 
  
  
• The next stage further shows the whole area covered by a glacier. Is this something that the villain of the game will cause? Why exactly is the future a frozen wasteland? (There was a period in the 70s and 80s where some scientists postulated that we would have “global cooling” instead of “global warming”. These scientists are likely embarrassed now, but this could be what Moriarty is referencing.) 
  
  
• The next stage shows that the glaciers have receded, but every trace of the city is now gone. Instead, we are near some kind of highway where “strange mechanisms of metal and glass” zoom across the landscape.
  
  
• Further north is just desolation where loose, charred earth is all that remains of a civilization that once existed. I get some real Trinity vibes here. 
  
  
• The farthest future is a timeless, dimensionless void once again.

Unfortunately, I must leave this time travel puzzle un-solved. I suspect that we need to somehow find the helmet after the battle, but none of my digging in any of the time zones has revealed anything of value. The trench was very deep, after all. Does the game have a metal detector? I will need to think about this further. Until then, I restore back (because I cannot afford to waste a use of the whistle) and see what else I can solve.

We’ve been to the end of the universe. It was scary.

In short: I solve nothing. I remain stuck exactly where I was stuck before, only now I know about the time travel puzzle. I have been careful, but I allowed myself to look at another one of the clues posted in the previous comment section. I cannot recall the exact wording now (and I don’t want to check for risk I spoil something else by accident), but it said that there was something in the chest that I missed after returning from the land of the unicorns.

Every time I ever returned from the unicorns, I reset my game back to an earlier point. I just assumed that there would be an object or solution that would allow me to befriend the unicorns and that I shouldn’t waste my only trip to their dimension on a failure. Apparently, at least as I understand this commenter, that’s exactly what we have to do. I have been so concerned about ending up in a “walking dead” state (a sensible fear considering the issue with the hungus puzzle) that I assumed that upsetting the unicorns was one. 

Even so, I should mention that the game doesn’t go out of its way to tell you anything is in the chest after you get back. (You have to explicitly “look into” chest, not “examine” it.) 

> examine chest

The oak chest is compact and sturdy, probably the craft of Atharian dwarves. No latch or keyhole is visible, but a brass plate is affixed to the open lid.

Looking inside reveals a palimpsest and a “vague outline”. Thanks to the identification skills at the magic shop, I learn that the palimpsest is a “Gate” spell, presumably to return back to the land of the unicorns. I am also told that the “vague outline” is useless… “at least on this plane of existence.” Maybe I should take it to a different plane?

Expecting another trip to the unicorns, I use the “Gate” spell (“Smee” in this playthrough) and arrive at the “Ethereal Plain of Atrii”. If this is the same as where the unicorns are, I am in a completely different area. Instead, this looks to be more like a shadow realm adjacent to our own. As I explore, I find curtains suspended in mid-air that take us to the several shops that we have seen throughout the game. (We cannot re-enter the curtains to get back to Atrii, at least not in any obvious way.) Checking my inventory, the “vague outline” has now become a “phase blade”. That sounds impressive. I wield it as I map this new part of the world. 

ChatGPT keeps wanting to put our heroine in a dress. 

As we approach the part of the map blocked by lightning in the “real” world, we find another vague outline in the sky blocking our path. Given that is how the phase blade looks in the other world, I use it to cut the blockage and we are able to pass through!

On the astral plane roughly over that lightning plain, a group of Implementors sit around a table eating snacks. They are nonchalant, chatting and playing with a coconut. They seem bored by my arrival. “Isn’t this the feeb that used the word ‘wair’ a few moves ago?” one says. Yes, I did make that typo. They must be gods! If they are gods, they are gods that are bad at playing catch because one tosses the coconut… and misses.

   A cheerful looking Implementor catches the coconut and glares down at you with silent contempt. 

[...]

   “Catch!” cries the cheerful-looking Implementor, lobbing the coconut high in the air. 

   “Got it!” a loud-mouthed Implementor jumps out of his seat, steps backwards to grab the falling coconut… and plows directly into you.

   Plop. The coconut skitters across the plain.

What should I do? Well, I’m going to try to end the game by grabbing that coconut!

> get coconut

As you reach towards the coconut, a vortex of laughing darkness boils up from underfoot. 

   “More company,” sighs the cheerful looking Implementor.

   You back away from the zone of darkness as it spreads across the Plain, reaching out with long black fingers, searching, searching…

   Slurp! The coconut falls into the eye of the vortex and disappears, along with a stack of lunch meat and bits of cutlery from the Implementors’ table. Then, with a final chortle, the vortex draws itself together, turns sideways, and flickers out of existence. 

   “Ur-grue?” asks the only woman Implementor?

   “Ur-grue.” nods another.

The main villain of the game?

Reading the manual, I also learn that Ur-grue are fallen Implementors. If this one turns out to be Michael Berlyn, I’m going to laugh and laugh.

   “This is awkward,” remarks a loudmouthed Implementor. “No telling what the ur-grue might do with the Coconut. He could crumble the foundations of reality. Plunges the world into a thousand years of darkness. We might even have to buy our own lunch!” The other Implementors gasp. “And it’s all her fault,” he adds, pointing at you with a drumstick.

   “So,” sighs another Implementor, toying with his sunglasses. “The Coconut is gone. Stolen. Any volunteers to get it back?” 

   One by one, the Implementors turn to look at you. 

   I’d say it’s unanimous, smiles the cheerful-looking Implementor.

[...]

   A mild-mannered Implementor empties his goblet of nectar with a gulp. “Here,” he says, holding it out for you. “Carry this. It’ll keep the thunderbolts off your back.” 

There is so much plot-related to unpack, but as a person that has read and written about Infocom for longer than I care to consider, I cannot help but be distracted by the Implementors. How many of them can we identify? Thus far, we have briefly seen five of them:

1. The “Cheerful” Implementor 
   
   
2. The “Loud-Mouthed” Implementor
   
   
3. The “Woman” Implementor
   
   
4. The “Sunglasses” Implementor
   
   
5. The “Mild-Mannered” Implementor

Of those, the only we can be sure of is the woman because Amy Briggs was the only female Imp at the time of Beyond Zork, at least who had received public recognition. Other good guesses might be Stu Galley for “Cheerful”, Steve Meretzky for “Loud-Mouthed”, Dave Anderson for “Sunglasses”, and Brian Moriarty himself for “Mild-Mannered”. That’s a best guess for now and we’ll see if any more Imps are mentioned later or if we get any more clues either in-game or in the source code. I’m not going to check now for fear of spoiling any upcoming puzzles.

Either way, when I take the goblet out of his hand I am whisked back to the real world. 

Consistency is poor, but at least she is wearing pants!

With my new goblet, I can finally explore another area: the “Field of Frotzen”. This is the lightning-blocked area that is just to the west of our starting position and approximately where the Implementor Picnic was being held on the Plane of Atrii. In short:

• I find a four-leaf clover. It will probably increase my luck, but like the horseshoe I haven’t figured out how to use it.
  
  
• A scroll. I identify it as a “Scroll of Mischief” that is “fun at parties”. That may be, but when I cast it, it only rearranges someone’s lawn furniture far away. I will look out for a lawn furniture monster.
  
  
• We find three scarecrows watching three fields of corn, but two of the fields are dead. My hunch is that something is special about the scarecrow guarding the still-living field, but I don’t immediately figure out what.
  
  
• A lone butterfly flits around the field. I can get it to land on the rim of the goblet (the Implementors were drinking “golden nectar”), but I do not see what to do next.
  
  
• There is a group of “corbies” (like crows?) that block the path north, plus a “giant corbie” flying above. The manual suggests that it can detect and attack color within 200 blots and we know from the billboard that the field is only 90 blots wide. My guess is that we can lure it with the butterfly-on-goblet, but I don’t see how to do this yet.

This is where I am stuck. I mistakenly dropped the goblet in the field and don’t have a recent save. This involved a lot of swearing and another week of losing interest in the game before I could sit down to it again. 

One last thing before I go...

A Surprise Solution

I had already finished all of my playing and was drafting this post when inspiration struck: I had a great idea for the time travel puzzle. Anyone that has played these text adventures know that often solutions come in the shower or when you are having dinner. Our brains work on the puzzles in the background somehow and then inspiration strikes.

Here is my inspiration: bury a truffle. 

When we arrive in the past, we don’t have enough time to get into the trench safely before the prince comes and is beheaded. We then don’t have enough time to get the helmet before the horse comes and crashes on top of it. But what if we throw a truffle in? I still have one of the specially preserved “Fountain of Youth” truffles that last a while so I toss it in just before the prince falls to his death. The minx is very excited when I do this, implying that I must be on the right track.

Unfortunately, what comes next is disappointing: I zip into the immediate aftermath of the battle when the city is collapsing into empty rubble. Surely, I’d be able to find the truffle then? But the minx doesn’t even shake a whisker. I thought for sure that was the end of this idea, but for completeness I would check the other time periods. I stepped into the future one era at a time, each time being disappointed that there is no truffle to be found. Only when I arrive at the final stop before the void, the desolate plain strewn with boulders, does the minx finally perk up. It digs a hole, revealing a truffle (which it immediately eats) and the helmet! Eons later, somehow both the buried chocolate and the helmet are still safe despite being buried under a plaza, a highway, and a glacier. I’ll take this as a win since I needed one so badly. I don’t even have time to identify the helmet or see what happens when I wear it. (It doesn’t protect you from decapitation!) I’ll do that next time.

Here is my slightly updated list of unsolved puzzles. I solved 2.5 of them this time from my previous list:

• How do I get the unicorns in heaven to like me? Did I dead-end myself by not going there correctly the first time?
  
  
• How do we get to the manor in the southeast of the map?
  
  
• Where is the compass rose to control the wind?
  
  
• What is the “correct” way to cross Zeno’s bridge? I can still only cross to the north using the pterodactyl, but I can return south using either the “recall” or “gate” spells. 
  
  
• How do I defeat or get past the monkey grinder? The frog-sorcerers are in the guildhall and our character still hasn’t met them. 
  
  
• How do I re-make the glyph in the mountains to keep the Christmas tree monsters at bay? I assume this will give me whatever is in the reliquary. 
  
  
• How do I get past the mass of corbies blocking the path? I suspect it is related to the giant corbie and the butterfly? (And what’s up with the scarecrows and the dead/alive corn?)
  
  
• Where is the coconut and the Ur-Grue?

Time played: 3 hr 55 min
Total time: 13 hr 55 min
Score: Level 6 Female Peasant
Inventory: Battleaxe (wielded), rumpled scroll, goblet with a butterfly on the rim, vague outline, scroll of Gating, scroll of Recall, ring of Shielding, staff of Levitation, pack, chocolate truffle, four-leaf clover, silver ornament, scroll of Honing, cane of Annihilation, wand of Anesthesia, lantern, vial, whistle of Summoning, rod of Sayonara, stick of Eversion arrow, scroll of Protection, leather tunic, amulet of Bok, 7 zorkmids– and more stuff in other save files for my experiments including a magical helmet