The Adventurer's Consumer Guide: Goblin, Give me the Cow-o-Meter

Put your Let's Plays in here.
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>W

On a mountain ledge

A narrow mountain ledge leading west and east.

The new magical sword from Adventurer's Emporium is here. According to the commercial it will start to vibrate when you are close to danger.

The goblin comes running after you.

>GET SWORD
Taken.

>E

On a mountain ledge

The end of a narrow mountain ledge leading west. The tall mountain wall has three caves: to the northwest, north and northeast.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword starts vibrating ever so slightly.>SAVE
Ok.
Restore point created as LP1.glksave

If/when there's more than one, if it's not specified which one to load then I'll go with the most recent (in most situations).
>NW

Big cave

This cave has an exit southeast to the outside, or you could go further into the mountain to the northwest.
A somewhat larger than life-size statue of his holiness One-Hand Jack stands in the middle of the cave. Jack used to be an infamous pirate, but later formed Hoverism, a peaceful religion. The statue holds its left arm out and up, the hook at the end of it just low enough to be reached.
An old Hoverist is hovering about a meter above the floor. He is sitting in the lotus position, his head is turned towards the statue, and his eyes are closed. He is wearing a white loincloth.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword starts shaking quite a lot.
> _

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> beware of tiny old men who might be janitors
> talk to Hoverist

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> remember rule one

> check if Hoverist is bald

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>TALK TO HOVERIST
"What are you doing?" you ask.
The Hoverist opens his eyes and looks at you. "I am trying to reach the forty-seventh stage of Hoverism. I can teach you about Hoverism if you like. The first stage is to be able to hover. You have to figure out how to do that for yourself. Once you know how to hover come talk to me again, and I will teach you the second stage."
> _

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Everyone knows how to hover.

>throw self at ground
>miss

More seriously, let's try just
>hover

and see what happens.

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^ seconding all of the above

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>THROW SELF AT GROUND, MISS
You can't see "self" (yourself) at the moment.
Can't say that was the error message I was expecting to see, but... okay.
>HOVER
You don't know how to do that. Maybe there is some way to fake it.
In all fairness, I absolutely just went and did this as well first time I got to this area. And second as well. Seems like a just-dumb-enough idea to work but nope.

> _

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So if we find a mirror we can then throw ourselves? Good to know.

>fake hover

>tell goblin to hover

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Oh wait.

> stick staff in ground
> put helmet on staff
> put invisible cloak over helmet
> sit on cloak on helmet

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>FAKE HOVER
That's not a verb I recognise.
Good idea, but runs into a limitation. Was absolutely worth a shot.
>GOBLIN, HOVER
The goblin jumps about for a while, but don't take off.
Once again, at least he tried. Maybe one day he'll be useful for something.
>GOBLIN, STICK STAFF IN GROUND
The game did not understand the order you were trying to give.

>STICK STAFF IN GROUND
That's not a verb I recognise.

>PUT HELMET ON STAFF
Putting things on the staff would achieve nothing.

>PUT COAT ON STAFF
Putting things on the staff would achieve nothing.
Clever, but stymied just a little. Shame, because that totally seemed like it would've worked too.

> _

The coat doesn't make things invisible, but is itself invisible, and nobody said we had to hover very high.

Drop coat
Stand on coat

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>DROP COAT
Dropped.

>STAND ON COAT
That's not something you can stand on.
Hopefully we can find the coat again, just in case...

> _

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> tango

Let's get that coat visible again.

If that doesn't work:

> waltz

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> Rock 'n' Roll

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>ROCK 'N' ROLL
That's not a verb I recognise.

>WALTZ
That's not a verb I recognise.
I did wonder if Waltz would give us anything, since being less specific does:
>DANCE
Not going to happen. On a product-testing mission half a year ago, there was an incident involving a stuffed geyser, a highly ineffective Monster Repellent Spray and a demented dentist. Since then you have had Sherina, Queen of the Slithering Parasite People living in your left leg. Dancing would only wake her up.
Doesn't matter where or when we input this, it always returns the same result.

Though, saying that, there is one spot I can think of that might not. Probably does though.
>TANGO
"Tango!"
The coat turns visible.
> _

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:stare: okay, mental note to purify our left leg as soon as possible. In the meantime I have an idea.

>hang coat on hook on statue
>turn coat invisible again
>get into coat/hang off coat/whatever command is needed

I'm relying on you to translate this into gamespeak, I haven't had enough coffee for linguistic gymnastics yet.

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>GET COAT
Taken.

>HANG COAT ON HOOK
You hang the coat on the hook.

>TANGO
"Tango!"
The coat turns invisible.

>HANG FROM COAT
You grab hold of the coat. You hang there dangling.
"Hey old guy," you say "look at me! I am hovering!"
The Hoverist looks at you and says, "Excellent, albeit a very strange and dangling hovering technique. I will now teach you the second stage of Hoverism: Facing pain."

The Hoverist spends some time teaching you how to face pain. You will still feel the pain, but you are no longer afraid of it.

[Your score has just gone up by five points.]
Score: 11. Moves: 84.

We can't take the coat off of here, just as a quick heads up. No point in trying that one, 'cos it's not needed for anything else. Somehow we just... know that already.

> _

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I guess we should try one of the other caves.

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>DROP
(the coat)
You drop down.
Very dumb thing that you gotta do this manually, but whatever. I'm used to it by now.

While we're here, before we forget:
>TALK TO HOVERIST
"Could you teach me some more?" you ask.
The Hoverist says, "Nobody can teach you what the third stage is, you must figure it out for yourself. That will take at least a few decades of constant hovering. When you have understood it, come talk to me again, and I will teach you the fourth stage: X-ray vision."

>POINT COW-O-METER AT HOVERIST
According to the cow-o-meter, the Hoverist has seen 199 cows.
Okay, there. Now we can do less important things. We're seemingly done in this room, so this might well be a good time to move on.
>SE

On a mountain ledge

The end of a narrow mountain ledge leading west. The tall mountain wall has three caves: to the northwest, north and northeast.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword calms down, and is now only vibrating ever so slightly.
I figure I might as well make at least a basic map of the layout as we go through it. These caves can get, for want of a better word, complicated. Don't need a map but it'll help chart where we've been at least:

Image

> _

Thanks for the map; it definitely helps for people like me with no sense of direction!

> N

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Yeah, thanks for that. Let's explore the 'early' caves first.

> N

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>N

Spacious cave

This cave has an exit leading outside to the south, or you can go further into the mountain to the north.
A burly barbarian is leaning against a wall, his arms crossed over his naked chest, a grim expression on his face. A long sabre is in his belt.
A tough-looking dwarf, wearing chain mail and a helmet, is sitting on the floor. He is holding an axe almost as big as himself. He is smoking a pipe.
A muscular white horse and a mangy donkey stand here.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword starts shaking quite a lot.
> _

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> look barbarian
> look dwarf
> ask barbarian about sabre
> trade sabre for sword






> ask dwarf about fortress

> goblin, go n
> talk horse
> talk donkey

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>TALK BARBARIAN
(the barbarian)
"What are you doing?" you ask.
"Grirgr and the dwarf were sent to look for treasures. But Grirgr not stupid! He thinks, why risk our lives? So we wait here until somebody else finds treasure! Then we buy it!"

>TALK DWARF
"So, been here long?" you say. The dwarf nods.

>ASK ABOUT SABRE
You can't see any such thing.
Uh, hm. I think the game just gets a tiny bit confused with stuff like this.
>ASK BARBARIAN ABOUT SABRE
(the barbarian about that)
In this game you communicate by "talk to [whatever]", or by giving commands in this format: "goblin, give me the cow-o-meter".

>TALK TO DWARF ABOUT FORTRESS
You can't see any such thing.

>TALK TO THE BARBARIAN ABOUT SABRE
You can only do that to something animate.
Best make it very confused.
>TRADE SABRE FOR SWORD
That's not a verb I recognise.

>GOBLIN, GO N
"After you boss."

>TALK HORSE
"Hello horsy!" you say. The animal ignores you.

>TALK DONKEY
"Hello long ear!" you say. The animal ignores you.
> _

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Determine how many cows everyone has seen.

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>POINT COW-O-METER AT GRIRGR
According to the cow-o-meter, the barbarian has seen 319 cows.

>POINT COW-O-METER AT DWARF
According to the cow-o-meter, the dwarf has seen 266 cows.

>POINT COW-O-METER AT HORSE
According to the cow-o-meter, the horse has seen 319 cows.

>POINT COW-O-METER AT DONKEY
According to the cow-o-meter, the donkey has seen 11 cows.
> _

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Seems like we've hit a bit of a wall here regarding ideas of what to do. In that case, let's check out the third area and see what we can find there:
>S

On a mountain ledge

The end of a narrow mountain ledge leading west. The tall mountain wall has three caves: to the northwest, north and northeast.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword calms down, and is now only vibrating ever so slightly.

>NE

Vast cave

This cave has an exit leading outside to the southwest. In the middle of the ceiling, high above you, is a round hole. On the floor, directly under the hole, is a pile of hay.
A short lever with a handle sticks out from a wall. The handle has a thin, wide gap, large enough for the fingers of one hand to go through.
A metallic pyramid, about half a meter high, sticks up from the cave floor. You once tested a hundred different teleporters, and you recognize the pyramid as one of the safest and least complicated models. To use it you just stand on it and shake the lever repeatedly. This particular teleporter seems badly designed though: the lever is far away from it, almost on the other side of the cave.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword stops moving.
> _

> goblin, stand on pyramid
> shake lever (repeat as needed)

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My guess for this puzzle is that we have to get our sword to shake the lever while we're on the teleporter, but we're kind of not in any danger at the moment. So I suggest we look for some to bring into this cave. So I suggest...

>SW
>N
>N

...to get closer to some danger.

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>GOBLIN, STAND ON PYRAMID
The goblin gets on the teleporter.

>SHAKE LEVER
You shake the lever. There comes a low humming sound from the teleporter.

>SHAKE LEVER
You shake the lever. The sound from the teleporter gets louder.

>SHAKE LEVER
You shake the lever. The sound gets even louder. A few electrical sparks shoots up from the teleporter. The goblin giggles.

>SHAKE LEVER
You shake the lever. The teleporter starts shaking and smoking. The goblin fades away. Lightning shoots out from the pyramid with a loud bang. Afterwards the teleporter seems to have calmed down. It is not smoking, humming, shaking or shooting sparks. You hear a voice from above. "Hello? Where did you go?" Then the goblin's head sticks out from the hole in the ceiling. "There you are!" he says and smiles.

The goblin jumps down through the hole. "Wheeeeeee!" he shouts, before landing in the hay. Your sidekick runs up to you whilst removing some hay from his ear. Then he says, "That was fun! Can we do it again?"
Seems like it doesn't warp all that far. Maybe we'll be giv--
>SW

On a mountain ledge

The end of a narrow mountain ledge leading west. The tall mountain wall has three caves: to the northwest, north and northeast.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword starts vibrating ever so slightly.
Er, leaving. Maybe we'll be leaving.
>N

Spacious cave

This cave has an exit leading outside to the south, or you can go further into the mountain to the north.
A burly barbarian is leaning against a wall, his arms crossed over his naked chest, a grim expression on his face. A long sabre is in his belt.
A tough-looking dwarf, wearing chain mail and a helmet, is sitting on the floor. He is holding an axe almost as big as himself. He is smoking a pipe.
A muscular white horse and a mangy donkey stand here.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword starts shaking quite a lot.

>N

Gigantic cave

An extremely bright light comes from an exit to the north. There is also an exit to the south.
A red automat, hundred of meters tall, stands in the middle of the cave. Despite the insane magnitude of the machine, its money-slot and buttons are normal-sized and placed at normal height. The merchandise-slot is also close to the floor, but huge enough to hold a horse. You have come across these automats before. Several companies have recently begun placing them in dangerous places, for adventurers who need equipment. They are easy to use; just buy something. Something is written on the automat next to the buttons.
A stone altar stands up against a wall. It is low, shadowy, bloodstained and has runes written on it. Next to it is a huge pile of fish bones.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword starts shaking like crazy.

You have a hard time holding on to the sword, and you have to struggle to keep from slashing yourself.
Updated map:

Image

> _

Weird, we can't examine the automat, right?

> read automat (or read buttons)
> read altar (or read runes)

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>READ AUTOMAT
Adventurer's Emporium's Convenient Equipment Automat: for everything an adventurer needs.
30 gold coins Wheelbarrow
35 gold coins Umbrella
35 gold coins Roller skates
35 gold coins Pogo stick
35 gold coins Giant rubber band
40 gold coins Spell of summoning: Aardvark
40 gold coins Spell of metamorphosis: Chicken
40 gold coins Lie detector pants
40 gold coins Magical bag of unlimited water balloons
50 gold coins Spell of summoning: Lawyer
50 gold coins Spell of metamorphosis: Giant Sloth
50 gold coins King-size box of assorted fireworks
50 gold coins Horse
100 gold coins Platoon of miniature zombies
500 gold coins Necronomicon

You have a hard time holding on to the sword, and you have to struggle to keep from slashing yourself.
The sword's flailing is appended to the end of just about everything while we're here. I'll just cut it from other stuff.
>READ BUTTONS
No need to mess around with the buttons. Just "BUY" something.

>READ RUNES
At the top of the altar is a long string of small crudely drawn runes. The first depicts a large man punching a small man. The second a large man pushing a small man. The third a large man giving a small man a wedgie. There are many more with similar motifs. You have seen runes like this before. They mean that this is an altar of Snurgelfjekk, the cat-headed god of bullies. At the center of the altar is a larger, more detailed rune. It depicts the altar and two people. One of the people is playing a saxophone. The other is putting something on the altar; you can't quite make out what it is supposed to be. Lines are coming out in all directions from the altar, perhaps representing light or heat.
> _

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Buy the magical bag of unlimited water balloons. (but save first)

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I don't think we have any money, there was no mention of gold when we checked our inventory at the start of the game. So I guess that's our next step. The dwarf and Grirgr have money, they're planning to buy treasure off luckier adventurers, so we're either going to rob them or sell them stuff (like our useless helmet that just hurts us and lectures us, or our useless sword that will kill us if we're in a situation where we need to use it, though I guess we can't sell company property that we're meant to be testing). We have an instantly-reloading crossbow...

Right now I think I want to see what's above the teleporter first though.

>s
>s
>ne
>stand pyramid
>tell goblin shake lever

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>SAVE
Ok.
File saved as LP2.glksave
>BUY UNLIMITED WATER BALLOONS
You can't afford it.
Not much of a surprise. Hard to say how much money we have right now, if any.
>S

The sword calms down, but is still shaking quite a lot.

>S

The sword calms down, and is now only vibrating ever so slightly.

>NE

Vast cave

This cave has an exit leading outside to the southwest. In the middle of the ceiling, high above you, is a round hole. On the floor, directly under the hole, is a pile of hay.
A short lever with a handle sticks out from a wall. The handle has a thin, wide gap, large enough for the fingers of one hand to go through.
A metallic pyramid, about half a meter high, sticks up from the cave floor. You once tested a hundred different teleporters, and you recognize the pyramid as one of the safest and least complicated models. To use it you just stand on it and shake the lever repeatedly. This particular teleporter seems badly designed though: the lever is far away from it, almost on the other side of the cave.

The goblin comes running after you.

The sword stops moving.
For travel like this, I'm thinking I'll truncate it down, when we're passing through places we've been to repeatedly. This is so we're not seeing area descriptors over and over and over again. Can repost them every time if you want though.
>STAND ON PYRAMID
You get on the teleporter.

>GOBLIN, SHAKE LEVER
The goblin shakes the lever. There comes a low humming sound from the teleporter.

>GOBLIN, SHAKE LEVER
The goblin shakes the lever. The sound from the teleporter gets louder.

>GOBLIN, SHAKE LEVER
The goblin shakes the lever. The sound gets even louder. A few electrical sparks shoots up from the teleporter. Your feet tickle.

>GOBLIN, SHAKE LEVER
The goblin shakes the lever. The teleporter starts shaking and smoking. The cave begins to fade out around you, and another cave fades in.

Voluminous cave
This cave has an exit to the east. In the middle of the floor is a round hole.
A huge dead monster lies here, its four feet in the air. It has a stupid-looking face on a round gray hairless body. Its tiny eyes stare at nothing. The upper half of a dead pointy-eared elf is sticking out of its mouth. It looks like the monster choked on the elf. The elf is wearing a backpack.

You look down at yourself. You seem unsubstantial, like a ghost. Slowly you begin to take on a more solid form. You hear the gremlin giggle. You look down. The ghostly gremlin jumps right through the bars of the ghostly cage. Second later you, the gremlin, the cage, and the rest of your possessions look normal again. The gremlin runs to the hole in the floor. "So long sucker!" he says and jumps through. You sigh and throw away the cage. You have tried catching gremlins before, and you know you won't be able to.

[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
Score: 12. Moves: 120.

> _

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>tell goblin catch gremlin
(it's worth a try)

>check how many cows the elf and monster have seen

>loot backpack

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>GOBLIN, CATCH GREMLIN
You seem to want to talk to someone, but I can't see whom.

>POINT COW-O-METER AT ELF
According to the cow-o-meter, the dead elf has seen 192 cows.

>POINT COW-O-METER AT MONSTER
According to the cow-o-meter, the dead monster has seen 11 cows.

>OPEN BACKPACK
You find the following stuff in the backpack, which you take:
A Huxoflux & Son healing gun. You tested one of these four years ago, and they are excellent. Just shoot anything that is wounded or sick.
A nosehairscrew, a small intricate mechanism with many arms, spikes and pinchers. Part of the Guggensmith Portable Torturing Set that you refused to test some months ago. You are supposed to stuff it up someone's nose, and then twist it to cause horrendous pain.
A pair of mirrorshades. You can see yourself in them.
None of the stuff from the backpack is bolded here, normally. I just did that to highlight the relevant keywords for the text parser (plus the inventory does that already).

> _

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>use creature manual to identify dead monster

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>READ PAGE 2
So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have?
None: read page 3
One: read page 35
Two: read page 36
Three: read page 62
Four: read page 63
Six: read page 86
Eight: read page 87
Forty eight billion and five: read page 90
It varies: read page 91

>READ PAGE 63
Does it have hooves?
Yes: read page 64
No: read page 72

>READ PAGE 72
Is it hairy?
Yes: read page 73
No: read page 79

>READ PAGE 79
Does it have large bulging eyes?
No: read page 80
Yes: read page 81

>READ PAGE 80
It is a Gloov. The Gloov has no brain, and steals all its thoughts from other creatures. If a mosquito thinks about sucking your blood, the Gloov might also try to suck your blood, which would be bad, considering it is bigger than a horse. If it is near a bird that thinks about flying, the Gloov might end up crushing someone, as it has no wings. To get rid of it, think very hard about running away or bashing your head against a rock.
I didn't bother using the manual much to identify things before, so this wasn't what I expected here.

> _

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