Key & Compass presents:
The Antediluvian Weapon
by Daniel M. Stelzer

• Map
• Walkthrough
• Extras
  • ASCII art, Characters, Credits, Endings, Inventory
• Thank You to my Patreon supporters
• Support me on Ko-Fi
• External links:
  • This game at Homepage, IFDB, and IFWiki.
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Map

• A black square marks a locked door or barrier.
• A white square marks an unlocked hidden door or concealed passageway
• "Hallway corner" is renamed to "Hallway junction" after you've found both hidden doors there.

Walkthrough

Anteroom

> x me. i. read letter. (The boldface letters spell out: "High priority. Tell no one.")

> x door. enter it.

Lower chapel

Over the next few turns, your boss, Lady Aragosta, explains to His Grace Duke Cesare of Lucenza that a military relic, a weapon of the Antediluvians, has been excavated in Piostro. Manzio has confirmed where the weapon is, and its human guards have been dosed, leaving only spirits to defend it. Tonight is the time to act. She proposes to teleport you to the weapon so you can steal it.

> x relic.

> x Aragosta.

> x Duke.

> x throne.

The Duke agrees to the plan. Aragosta gives you a glass capsule for navigation; open it once you're there. "Recover the relic, recover Manzio if you can, and get out of the palace." She'll do the rest.

> x capsule.

A priest activates the relic.

> stand on relic.

Strongroom

> open capsule.

You now have a mapping slyph. The exit is east.

> x relic. (It's flat at one end, a fluffy bush of wires at the other, and has no trigger control.)

> x door. x shiny metal. (both made of adamant)

> x pedestal.

> take relic.

> touch relic to door. (The door vanishes.)

You can now VANISH (V) something.

> e.

Tunnel junction

> x scaffold. (supporting the stones in the wall)

The strongroom door returns. Vanished things are not destroyed. They simply go to "nowhere" for two turns, then return to wherever they originally were.

It's counter-intuitive to make the scaffold vanish since it's keeping this wall stable, but it's to your advantage to do so.

> v scaffold. (A crack in the wall is formed.)

> e.

Oubliette

> x figure. (It's Manzio. Alive but out of action.)

Outside, you hear the scaffold reappear and shatter in the reduced space.

> x grate. (adamant, up on east wall)

> x straw. x crack. (narrow)

> v grate. (no: You can't reach it.)

You can't take Manzio through the narrow crack either. Leave him here until you have an escape route available.

> w. n.

Northern stair

> x frescos. (about the four types of spirits)

> e.

Northern walkway

> x gnome. (It's looking east and ignoring you.)

> x frescos. (about spirit-binding)

> v gnome. (It vanishes.)

> e.

Barracks

The gnome will reappear soon, but he won't raise the alarm unless you approach him.

> x beds. x trunks. take bag.

> x uniform. wear it. x personal.

> x door.

> s.

Hallway corner

> x grand door. x grate.

> v grate. w. (You fall several feet into...)

Oubliette

> w. s.

Southern stair

> x frescos. (of the Deluge)

> e.

Southern walkway

> x frescos. (of excavations)

> x puddle.

That puddle is a dormant undine, a water spirit. It will activate when you step through it.

It's slow to act, but it's relentless and will follow your scent wherever you go. If you stay three turns in a location, it will do likewise. If it catches you, you fail.

The trick here is to entrap it in the strongroom. Your sylph and the map will keep you updated on where the undine is and what it's doing.

> e.

Mess

Don't worry about what's here; focus on trapping the undine.

> w. w. n.

Tunnel junction

The undine is now fully formed and will now follow your trail.

> v door. w.

Strongroom

> z. z. z. z. z.

The undine splashes against the door, but can't get in.

> v door.

The undine enters, but it sails past you. Its poor maneuverability saves you, but you must leave now!

> e.

Tunnel junction

> z. (The door returns.)

> z. z. z. z.

The undine finally tries to leave the strongroom, but can't. Unable to perform its job, it quits and dissipates.

> s. e. e.

Mess

> x skittle board. x ball. x pins.

> throw ball at pins.

> x writing board. (You learn the password. It's randomized, but you don't need to write it down.)

> x door. (Like the barracks door, the mess door was also hidden from the hallway side.)

> w. w. n. e.

Oubliette

> put Manzio in bag. (done)

> v Manzio. (done, and you auto-grab the bag)

> w.

Tunnel junction

> z. (Manzio reappears inside the bag! Huzzah!)

> s. e. e. n.

Hallway junction

With the uniform on and the password memorized, and carrying both the weapon and Manzio, you'll ready to go through the grand door.

> e. (oh, of course it's locked)

> v grand. e.

Colonnade

The salamander demands the password.

> talk to salamander. (You say the password you read, but the salamander that's the old password. And now it's about to detonate!)

You can't outrun an explosion.

> v me.

Nowhere

> z. z.

Colonnade

You hear people in the distance, alerted by the explosion. Flee!

> e —or— n —or— s.

*** You have won (and rescued Manzio, too!) ***

Extras

ASCII art

After you break the capsule, the status line expands so its first five lines can be used to display the current ASCII map. This is the map at game's end:

 
     ( )-(G)-( )
      |       |   |
 ( )+( )-( )+( )+(@)- 
      |       |   |
     ( )-( )-( )
 

The "@" character represents you. The "G" is the gnome. A "U" is used for the undine when it manifests itself. A plus sign represents a locked door or barrier that must be vanished before you can pass through it.

Characters

• Valentre is the player-character, a courtier in the Duke's retinue, and also a spy.
• His Grace Duke Cesare of Lucenza is unhappy to be awake in the chapel at this time of night.
• Lady Aragosta the Duke's fixer and spymaster.
• A priest in crimson activates the teleporting relic.
• Manzio is the last agent who tried to steal the weapon. He's unconscious in the oubliette, but he did manage to tell Aragosta exactly where the weapon is stored.
• A mapping slyph (air spirit) is your navigation guide to the tower you find yourself in.
• A gnome (earth spirit) guards the northern walkway, staring fixedly at one sliver of the room.
• An undine (water spirit) guards the southern walkway in the shape of a puddle. After you cross it, it slowly forms into a humanoid-shaped tower of swirling water, relentlessly pursuing you, leaving ice trails in its wake.
• A salamander (fire spirit) guards the colonnade. It demands the password from all who pass by it, and if it doesn't like your answer, it explodes.

Mentioned:

• The human guards who normally help guard the tower were dosed with something unpleasant. They're in the infirmary for the next few hours.
• The Duchess of Piostro is rendered in radiant gold and silver on the grand door.
• The Antediluvians were an earlier race with an advanced civilization. Relics of the Antediluvians are priceless marvels.
• God punished the Antediluvians for their hubris with the Deluge: forty days of city-destroying storms and floods.

Credits

This is the response to ABOUT:

Written by Daniel Stelzer for Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2026. This game was originally built in one week as a worked example, and the whole process will soon be detailed in a series of theory and craft articles. Stay tuned!

Thanks to Ada Stelzer (version 0), Leon Lin, Drew Cook, Melisande, Joel Burton, rh, baezil (version 1), and Melisande again (versions 2 and 3) for testing, and dott. Piergiorgio for providing the snippets of Italian!

Endings

• You have been caught
• if the undine catches you.
• You have been seen
• if you go west from the barracks towards to gnome.
• You have been cooked
• if you cannot get away from the salamander's explosion.
• You haave won
• if you escape the tower with the weapon (but not with Manzio).
• You have won (and rescued Manzio, too!)
• if you escape the tower with both the weapon and Manzio.

Inventory

• a folded letter. You're carrying it.
• Read it. It tells you to go to the lower chapel. The boldface text is a second message: "High priority. Tell no one."
• a glass capsule. In the lower chapel, Aragosta gives it to you when the Duke agrees to her plan.
• In the strongroom, open the capsule. You lose the capsule and gain a mapping slyph.
• a mapping slyph. Acquire it by opening the glass capsule.
• You don't have to do anything directly to the slyph. While you have it, you get an ASCII map in the status bar of visited locations. Also, when the undine isn't dormant, the slyph keeps you updated on what it's doing, regardless of what room it's in.
• the relic weapon. It's on the pedestal in the strongroom.
• Touch the weapon to the strongroom door to make it vanish; afterwards, you can abbreviate this command to VANISH DOOR or just V DOOR.
• When something vanishes, it's nowhere for two turns before reappearing where it was before it vanished.
• You cannot vanish a gas or liquid. You cannot vanish an absence (such as a hole or a crack). You will not vanish a wall. You will not vanish the weapon itself.
• During the course of the game, you will need to vanish doors, the scaffold, the grill, the gnome, Manzio, and yourself. You can vanish other things as well, of course.
• The main goal of the game is to get the weapon out of the tower. You will not discard the weapon once you have it in your possession.
• a kit bag. It's in the trunks in the barracks.
• Look in it. It contains a spare uniform.
• Use the bag and weapon to smuggle Manzio out of the Oubliette and tower; see Manzio.
• You can close the bag but you don't need to close it.
• a spare uniform. It's inside the kit bag.
• Wear the uniform and leave it on.
• Note: You are unwilling to go east through the grand door without the uniform and password.
• Manzio. He's unconscious in the Oubliette.
• To get Manzio out of the Oubliette, put him into the kit bag, vanish him, then quickly take the bag outside the Oubliette before he reappears inside the bag.
• For the best ending, you want to have both Manzio and the weapon with you when you leave the tower.
• some straw. It's in the Oubliette.
• You don't need the straw for anything.
• a writing board. It's in the mess.
• Read it to learn the password, but you don't need the board itself.
• Note: You are unwilling to go east through the grand door without the uniform and password.
• a ball. It's on the skittle board in the mess.
• You don't need the ball for anything, but you can throw it at the pins on the skittle board if you want to.

Thank You to my Patreon supporters

This walkthrough is provided free of charge since the work it's based on has less than fifteen locations. Please consider it a thank you for your support!

I create larger walkthroughs too! Please visit my Patreon account if you're interested in helping me create more interactive fiction walkthroughs. I appreciate all the help I can get! Thanks again.

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