KB: 77, Rooms: 81, Objects: 61, Tasks: 625, Events: 2, Characters: 16
Introduction
Welcome to the Kingdom of Harrenden, a land torn by war, famine, death and several of the lesser known Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Harrenden, at the time of this adventure, is a land beset by all manner of problems: the Goblin hordes of Torgre have recently announced a ferverently held desire to see the King's head mounted on a spike on his very walls; the wizards of Idril-Fell have said the King's daughter, the lovely Princess Isabella, is actually the spawn of the Devil and should be put to death; the legendary highwayman, Jake the Mad, is out and about again; the price of sugar is reaching astonomical proportions; and so on... Harrenden is not a happy land.
Little of this concerns you as you are, alas, just a mere farmboy. Your lot in life to date has been to clean the dung out of the sheep pen on your parents' farm, milk the constipated donkey your mother calls 'Enry and avoid the town bullies (all of whom, as is usually the case with town bullies, are eight feet tall and built like an ogre's privy). The doings of anyone more rich and famous than you (i.e. everyone in the world with the exception of a couple of diseased beggars living in the local cemetery) hold little interest for you. But one day, everything changed... It was at the time of the Grand Processional. This is held each time the King feels it is time to give something back to the country that has given him so much. Or, as your father often likes to put it, when "he's worried that some peasant's going to up and lop his head off and feels that some serious ass-kissing is called for". At times like this, the King and his court from Castle Bloodheart ride around the country and show the average man in the street (or dung pen in your case) just how rich and famous they are. Quite why this would make everyone like the King is a mystery you have never fathomed. Until the day you met Princess Isabella... You remember the day well. It was a warm, muggy day in mid-summer. The Grand Processional had been underway for a while by this stage and the whole land was living in a state of "oh god! When's the scrounging bugger gonna come visitin' me an' eat all me food an' drink all me wine?" But the Processional passed through your home town of Leper's Boil all the same. You stood at the side of the road, your cleanest (and only) shirt on, your face upturned to greet your monarch... Who passed you by without so much as a glance. The King's entourage passed by behind him: knights, soldiers, guards, cooks, even a magician or two, the court jester, the King's cat (in it's very own carrier), the King's cat's bodyguard, the king's cat's bodyguard's servant, the King's cat's bodyguard's servant's best friend, and so on... And then the Princess Isabella rode past. It was love - or perhaps lust - at first sight. How to describe her? You're not sure really. Words have never been sure strong point. But the desire to throw yourself on her and ravish her right there and then in the muddy street was almost overpowering. The only thing that held you back was the fact that the King's guards would cut you down before you got within five feet of the Princess. Even so, it was a close thing for a moment there. As soon as the Processional had passed, the people of Leper's Boil went back to work, mumbling endlessly over the way the King and his entourage had just swept through the town as if they owned the place. The fact that they diddid own the place didn't make the situation any easier to accept. You mulled over your few seconds of nearness to the Princess before deciding it was high time you mucked out the sheep. Such is life... The news came one day later in the year. You had just finished the latest dung-gathering and were in the process of tackling the turds lining the bottom of the chicken run, when your father came out with the news. "It's terrible, son," he said. "Just terrible." The net result of this (aside from a large bruise to the side of your head where you hit a fencepost on your way down) is a burning desire to rescue the Princess. Foolish, perhaps. Dangerous, certainly. Going to end in you getting yourself killed, without a doubt. But you're determined all the same. You will rescue the Princess or die trying. So one night while your parents are asleep and dreaming of pigs (or whatever it is that occupies their dreams - it must be something unpleasant judging by the grunts and groans you often hear emanating from their room), you swipe your father's best knife, scribble a quite note for them ("MUM, DAD, GONE TO RESCUE THE PRINCESS FROM A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH. BACK BEFORE TEA. PS - DON'T FORGET TO MUCK OUT THE SHEEP WHILE I'M GONE") and set off into the night... And there you have the background to this sordid little tale of kidnapping, murder, bed messing and the like. You play a farm boy who is out to rescue a Princess from the clutches of an evil tyrant. Your adventure will not be easy. It will be hard. You may (for "may" read "definitely will") get killed from time to time. But the advantage you have over a real adventurer is that you can be resurrected any time you want. Amazing. The things they can do with modern technology these days. The only down side to it is that you have to go right back to the start of your adventure and you lose all the items that you might have been carrying at the time you died. Aside from that, there are no disadvantages to it whatsoever. As you wander around the land of Harrenden, you can interact with the characters you meet, most of whom are a miserable bunch if the truth be told and more than likely to murder you at the slightest provocation (like looking at them wrong). If this sounds a little daunting, it's just something you'll have to get used to. Without a little character interaction, you won't get very far. Speak to characters in the format "talk to bertram" or "talk to agnes". Most of the time the characters you meet will either ignore you (very probably), turn violent (extremely probably) or help you (fat chance but it could happen). For a list of extra commands for this adventure, type "commands" at any time. This won't list all the extra commands, though. (Just the ones that you don't really need.) You'll have to figure the rest out for yourself.
"What's happened, father?" you asked, fearing the worst (i.e. one of the sheep had got free and murdered a tourist, always a real possibility).
"There's been trouble at the King's Castle at Kingholme," your father went on. "It seems someone broke into the castle just last week, broke one of the King's favourite chamberpots, upset his maid, killed fourteen of his guards, and messed up the King's bed." Your father pauses, mulls this over, then adds, "oh yes, and kidnapped the Princess."
Your reaction to this is to faint...
