Zig-Zagging

I returned to the dungeon below the white house, and continued my mapping effort, starting with the North-South Crawlway, and discovered a one-room artist’s studio, and the Bank of Zork.

The bank consists of multiple rooms, all plundered long ago, except for a portrait of J. Pierpont Flathead in the chairman’s office.

> look at portrait

                     ||||||||||||||
                    ||   __  __   ||
                    ||   $$  $$   ||
                    \||    >>    ||/
                     ||  ______  ||
                      |  -//--   |
                      \\_//_____//
                     ___//|  |
                    /__// |  |
                          |  |
               __________//  \\__________
              / $ /       ****       \ $ \
             /   /         **         \   \
            /   /|         **         |\   \
           /   / |         **         | \   \
          /   /  |         **         |  \   \
          ^   ^__|______$Z$**$Z$______|___^   ^
          \         *   $Z$**$Z$   *         /
           \________*___$Z$**$Z$___*________/
                 |      $Z$**$Z$      |

                 J.  PIERPONT  FLATHEAD
                        CHAIRMAN

And you thought Infocom games didn't have graphics. Ha!

Multiple signs warn of an advanced security system designed to prevent thieves from leaving, and a security deposit room contains the bank vault and a mysterious impassible “wall of light.” While exploring the bank, the thief entered and stole my sword again. I had to restart, as fighting the troll to get to the maze barehanded was impossible, but from trying I did learn that AFGNCAAP wears armor.

The troll swings; the blade turns on your armor but crashes
broadside into your head.

Restarting, I went right back into the cellar, picked up everything I could carry along the way, killed the troll easily with my sword, and entered the maze. Mapping it out took a while. I think there were about 15 rooms in total, and the thief kept disrupting things. Not only did he have a tendency to attack and kill me seemingly at random, but he’d even pick up the items I’d been using as breadcrumbs and drop them in random places in the maze. I’m still not completely confident that I mapped it out accurately, but I did locate a few points of interest; an adventurer’s skeletal corpse lootable for coins, keys, and useless gear (strange that the thief, having roamed the GUE for presumably far longer than I have, never looted the coins!), a “grating room” on the other side of the locked grate in the clearing above ground, the thief’s lair, and a “cyclops room.”

I remembered from days long past how to pass the Cyclops, mainly because of how simple and yet ludicrous the solution was, and the terrified Cyclops dashed through the door he was guarding leaving a Cyclops-shaped hole in it and a passageway back to the white house living room.

The thief’s lair is upstairs from the cyclops room, but would be deadly at this point. Your combat prowess is determined by score, and my score wasn’t anything to write home about yet.

With the maze mapped out and a few doors-to-before unlocked, this seemed like a good place to take a break. I have a working base map, with every immediately accessible room on it. From here on, progress is going to take planning, thinking, and puzzle solving, and I can’t wait to do it again!

My map so far: