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from: the Asimov collection
FISH!
(Rainbird/Magnetic Scrolls)
You start swimming upside down in a goldfish bowl in the body of a
goldfish, enjoying a month's break between jobs after foiling the Seven
Deadly Fins who unfortunately got away. Suddenly a tacky plastic castle
drops into the bowl. You realise there's a message in the castle for
you.
"Turn over" , "in" . Sir Playfair Panchax, head of Mission HQ, says
the Fins are up to their old tricks again. They've stolen a focus wheel
and dismantled it. You must find the pieces.
A glass box and three warps appear. The warps are jagged, smooth and
small. The box is closed.
The Small Warp
"Go through small warp". You find yourself in a recording studio. The
producer tells you to make a cup of coffee. The kitchen is locked and
you can't enter it. Rod is standing nearby so "Rod, make coffee" ; he
does so and will do whenever you are asked to make it.
Examine the bin to find a ferric cassette. Get it. Go to the far west
end of the corridor, open wooden door and "switch switch" it puts a
light on in the room to the south so you can enter. Go in and get the
metal and chrome cassettes.
Go back to the corridor and open secondary door. Close the door and
press the button. This switches on the red light outside so when the
producer comes to get you to make more coffee, he thinks you're working
and goes away again.
Open small cupboard, get head cleaner from it. "Play cleaner in player"
(Note, don't put it in or a bug stops you completing this bit). Examine
amplifier; it has one fader which is used to set the volume and can be
set from 0 to 11 and is currently on 0. If you try to play a tape, you
can't hear it so "set fader to 3".
"Play ferric cassette in player, play chrome cassette in player, play
metal cassette in player" (any order). When the third tape is played,
you hear the producer's voice reminding them of the beat eg no, like
this, 3,4,2 (random).
Leave this room and go and open door to the office. Go in and examine
the filing cabinet. It has a combination lock on it, set to a random
number. "Set lock to 342" or whatever you heard on the tape. The
cabinet is now unlocked. Open it, look into it. You see a spindle. Get
it. The Fins try to stop you but you escape to the goldfish bowl where
the spindle falls into the glass box.
The Smooth Warp
"Go through smooth warp". You are in a human body by a tree stump in a
forest. Examine the stump; inside is a gold disc and micky Blowtorch,
an ex-operative who has gone warp-crazy. He won't let you take the disc
and be careful not to go near him when you are carrying anything you
find.
Go to the smithy. Inside is a bird cage containing a parrot and a
mould. The parrot will explode after a certain number of moves. Open
the cage; the parrot won't leave and you can't get it out. Leave the
location, it flies out into the forest where it will explode later.
Go back in, open the cupboard to see some tongs, a crucible and a
hammer. On the cupboard is a pair of gloves.
Go back to the stump and wait till Micky leaves. He goes se to the wet
forest. Get the disc and go s,s,e,e,e back to the smithy so you don't
meet him.
You only have a limited number of moves to complete this bit.
Get the mould and everything from the cupboard. Wear the gloves. "Put
disc in crucible, hold crucible with tongs, hold crucible in fire"; the
disc melts, leaving a puddle of molten gold in the crucible.
"Pour gold into mould". You now need to cool it and this can only be
done in the cool glade but in certain areas it is raining and you must
also not go past Micky! So go to the charred glade, n, ne to the dim
forest, e to the cool glade.
Wait three times, the mould cools. "Break mould with hammer". You see a
crude gold ring. Get ring; one of the Fins appears but you just get the
ring in time. You arrive back in the goldfish bowl, the ring drops into
the glass box.
The Jagged Warp.
"Go through jagged warp". You are in a human body in the back of a van.
Get and wear all the clothes. Ignore the blanket. In the front of the
van is a note from Steve saying he's gone to get some diesel and will
be back before dawn. "Search rubbish" to find a torch. "Light torch" or
you can't leave the van. Go east to leave the van.
If you aren't wearing all the clothes, your skin catches the light by
the fire and alerts the hippies. Go to pew, get it. Turn torch off (or
the beam wavers and alerts the hippies) and go to the ruined transcept
and archway. Drop the pew here.
Go down to catacombs, "search debris" to find a sarcophagus lid. Get
it; you see an exit leading down. Drop lid.
In the altar room, "examine altar"; one side has a hole where are
gargoyle should be. There's a ceremonial cord on the altar. Get it.
Go back to pew and "get on pew", go up to archway. "Tie cord to
gargoyle", down, "pull cord"; you pull down the gargoyle and the arch
making a terrible noise and the hippies look your way.
Get gargoyle, go to catacombs, get lid and "put lid in doorway". The
hippies arrive outside and talk. They decide you've been killed by the
collapsing ceiling and leave.
"Untie cord", go to altar room and "put gargoyle in hole"; the altar
sinks into the ground as a column descends from the ceiling. "Examine
column"; there's a chalice in a niche in it. "Look in chalice"; there's
a grommet in it. "Get chalice".
Get grommet; the hippies try to stop you and their leader (one of the
Fins) tells you to hand it over. Suddenly a hole opens in the ceiling
and you leap through. As you arrive back in the bowl, the grommet drops
into the box.
Note that you must look in the chalice to see and thus be able to get
the grommet and getting the chalice triggers the hippies entering. So
you must look in the chalice before you get it to be able to do this in
one bit.
Panchax says they'll open a warp into Hydropolis, the fish planet's
capital. The Fins have set up a meterological imbalance on the planet,
causing water to evaporate. The fish scientists devised a project to
save the world but the Fins sabotaged it. You must help them complete
the project in the body of their leader, Dr Roach. You now see a large
warp.
Hypropolis
"Go through large warp". You arrive in Roach's apartment. One move
after your arrival, the wall behind your fishton glows. It's the
principal's secretary to confirm that the principal is expecting you at
10 o'clock.
Examine watch; it shows the time as 9.02 and you will find out by
playing that you must save Hydropolis before 4 o'clock.
Examine fishton; it's a glorified sofa. "Look behind fishton"; you find
a travel pass. Get it. Examine shelf; there's a fishofax on it. It
contains a fisa card (use to buy things) and a tatty card (you need it
for identification to get into the lab).
Examine switch; Roach rewired it to control the lights in the rest of
the apartments in the building instead of his own! It's currently on.
When you go to leave, you find the door is a sliding design operated by
a silver hand print next to it. "Put hand on print" to open the door.
On the landing there are two prints. The silver one operates your door
and the gold one the apartment opposite which belongs to Chubb. Don't
close your door as you want to be burgled!
Go to Paddlington, and to the underground; you show your pass as you go
through. Wait, if necessary, till the train arrives then "get onto
train".
There are 8 stations on the underground. You can leave at Pickerel,
Bettersea, Opah University, Eelport, Museum and Paddlington but not at
Barbellican or Angel.
Leave the underground at Pickerel and go to the clothing shop. "Buy tie
and glasses with fisa". Go to music shop, "buy plugs with fisa".
Go to secondhand shop. You see a radio case there but when you try to
buy it you're told that Ernest Chubb has already bought it and it will
be delivered to him later in the day. Also in the shop is the fishton
from your apartment! "Buy fishton with fisa". Steve, the owner, says he
will get Rod to deliver it to your apartment.
Go to hardware shop. Examine hyperdriver; it's needed to remove lok
screws. "Buy hyperdriver, screwdriver and bag with fisa".
Go to Opah university to the Principal's office by 10. She explains
that a junior member of your staff was taken over by a parasite and
sabotaged the project. You are the only one who can investigate. She is
going to see the government and will be back tomorrow.
Go to the library. Inside is a book and if you open it, it opens at
random to a page showing a colour picture of an item you have
previously seen in the game. If you "open book at last page" or "open
book at page 321", you see a picture of the glass box. "Tear out page";
you rip it out and are thrown out of the library but the page isn't
taken from you.
Go to end of corridor and "put tatty card in slot" to enter your lab.
Go to the store room where the wall chart shows a lot of items are out
of stock ie filter, photon bridge, focus wheel, tuned crystal, suitable
case, shelf. The shelf is a red herring!
Examine the protocopier. There's a slot in one side and a switch on the
other. It's on and uses a lot of power. "Put page in slot"; the glass
box materialises. Turn the protocopier off.
Go to the restaurant and "buy meal with fisa". The waiter says they're
too busy but he will sell you a takeaway sachet of plankton. "Buy
sachet with fisa".
If you try to go north from the foyer, a student says you need an ID
card. Dr Salmon has it and he's probably getting drunk in town.
Go to the pub and examine the drunk; it's Salmon. "Buy mask with fisa".
Steve hands you a mask. Don't use it yourself, give it to the drunk. He
inhales, thanks you and says he'd give a token of his gratitude but
he's destitute. "Ask Salmon for card"; he gives it to you.
"Buy mask with fisa" and give it to someone else. Do it again and Steve
asks if you'd like to buy a cylinder? "Buy cylinder with fisa"; a drunk
with his left arm in a sling lurches into you and knocks it over. Het
says he'll get you another one and takes that one. Playfair shouts that
it's one of the Fins as he runs off, and that the cylinder must be
important. They have a fix on him and you must follow him. They will
open a warp in Dr Roach's apartment.
Go to Paddlington. The fishton has been delivered to your flat and the
radio case is on the landing, having been delivered for Chubb. Get it,
go in to the apartment; there's now a dark warp there. Drop everything
and "go through warp".
Panchax says it's a place where the Fins have twisted the dimensions
into a labyrinth. The cylinder is in a place where the only exit is up
and if you get into a room with no exits, you're stuck till they get
you out which may be too late for Hydropolis.
To find the cylinder, someone said to me to think of the puzzle as a
Rubik's Cube. Get rid of the corners first and then the sides........
You start in a room with random exits. There is really only one room
(as you can test by dropping something) but the exits change each time.
Every other location has an up exit.
What you must do is move, removing exits as you do so, until your last
move removes the final exit, and that move must be one that adds an up.
Therefore, if you were in a room with exits N, W and NW, moving NW
would remove N, NW and W and add an UP, so the final room would be the
one with the cylinder in it. If the room had been N, NW, W and UP, NW
would have left a room with no exits as the up is removed anyway.
The easiest way I found is to start by removing all "double" exits, eg
NW, NE. Then remove "single" ones eg N, S. If you find yourself in the
position of eg N, NE, E then move NE but if it is N, NE, E, UP move any
way BUT NE as that would remove the last exit. This works every time
but there is probably an easier way!
eg N, E, S, SW, NW. Move NW to give
E, S, SW, W, U. Move SW to give
E. Move E to give
N, NE, SE, S, U. Move NE to give
E, SE, S. Move SE to give
UP and the cylinder.
At the last location, get the cylinder and go up. You end up in the
lounge. Before leaving, turn off the switch.
Go to the university and "put new card in slot" . Go in, drop
everything except the new card, bag and cylinder. "Put cylinder in
bag". Go to tower. The trapdoor is above the usual level of the water
and too high for you to get through.
"Open cylinder", the bag fills with gas and you float through the
trapdoor. You can see the roof, a photon bridge and some railings.
"Drop bag", so you don't float off. Get bridge, "climb railings", you
land back by the statue (+11). If you take too long, your gills dry
out. If you just jump, you die by falling into shallow water.
Go to Museum. Go to alarm room. If you go north, you trigger an alarm;
do it twice and you get killed. "Open sachet"; it disperses in the
water and you can see the beams. North. You are now in the crystal
room. Get crystal and go back south.
Go to Battersea. You must first go north and go on the tour. Examine
the gauge; it shows the output of the station and on the tour you
learned that Battersea is only a secondary power station used during
peak periods and to power the underground. The door will only open when
the turbines stop ie the power isn't being used. The switch controls
the power output of the station and is on.
By now you must have turned off the photocopier and the switch in your
apartment and you only have a certain number of moves once the doors
open as a guard will come and put the switch on again. "Pull switch";
the door opens. Go in to the grille and examine it to see a filter.
Examine the filter to see a screw on it. "Remove screw with
screwdriver"; you take the filter.
Go back to Opah and use the new card to enter the research wing.
Examine the tuna; it is used to adjust the receiving frequency of a
given crystal. It is open."Put crystal in tuna, close tuna"; there's a
ringing sound which dies away after about 20 seconds. "Open tuna" and
get crystal.
Go to lab. "Sit down" at terminal. When prompted to log on, "login", it
asks for your name "Roach" and password; this is in the fishofax
written backwards as EM, so use "me".
By using the command "project" and then "store", you are told that you
need a stream regulator as the old one was stolen. This is made up of a
filter, photon bridge, focus wheel, tuned crystal (there's an untuned
one in the museum but they won't let us have it) and a case. From
"read" and "equipment", you are told the stream regulator = ((a + c) +
(b + d)) + e.
If you "read", "note", it's from the principal saying people are
wasting time playing games. From "games" you learn that Bertie Bream
plays a lot of games (as the principal tells you or Bertie Bream to
stop playing games and go back to work) and also there is a game called
Shutdown which can only be accessed by Bream so it looks as though he
is the saboteur.
When you have finished, "logout".
Go to device. It looks like a large tank filled with multicoloured
gravel. There's a stream accelerator in it which accelerates particles
gathered by the main project machine. There's a lok screw on it (if you
try to remove it with the hyperdriver, it will explode as it's been
booby-trapped. Sir Playfair says you must identify the saboteur as he'd
know how to disarm it.)
"Join wheel to filter" to make a focus filter. "Join crystal to bridge"
to make a crystal bridge. "Join filter to bridge"; you make the only
crystal filter in Fishworld. "Put filter in case"; they fuse to make a
stream regulator. Get regulator (If necessary, drop it and get it to
get the points!)
Go back to the pub and "ask Bream to go to disco". He says he'll meet
you there at 3.30pm and leaves.
Go to disco and wait till 3.30 when he arrives. Wear the glasses and
ear plugs ready so the lights and noise don't affect you. If you go
north, Bream says he can't go in as he hasn't got a tie. "Give tie to
Bertie". You can now go north. You are protected by the glasses and
plugs but he passes out. You see something leave his body. He says he's
done something to the project, needs a shower and rushes off.
Go back to device and "remove lok screw with hyperdriver"; before you
can remove it, Bertie bangs on the door and says to stop. It's booby
trapped, linked to the computer game, Shutdown. You must stop the
program counting down. He thinks his password is gravel.
Go and log onto the computer again, this time as "Bream" using the
password "gravel". Go to "games" and select "shutdown". It gives a
random word eg UACCX and says you have so many minutes to change it to
WATER. The number of minutes is the amount of time left to 4pm.
You must alter one cell at a time. If you add one to cell 1, that is
all that happens but adding 1 to cell 2 adds 2 to cells 1 and 3.
Similarly, adding 1 to cell 3 adds 3 to cells 2 and 4 and adding 1 to
cell 5 adds 4 to cells 4 and 1.
The easy way is to start from cell 5 and working backwards to 1, change
the word to WASCO. That way, as you alter lower numbered cells, the
higher number ones will be altered to the letter you want!
When you succeed, "logout", the lok screw is now safe to touch.
Go to device, "remove lok screw with hyperdriver, get accelerator,
put regulator in device, attach regulator with lok screw"; it snaps
into place.
Success! You return to Mission HQ for debriefing and are awarded with 3
months R&R with the goldfish of your choice!!
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