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Key & Compass presents:
The Twelve Heads of St. John the Baptist
by Jake Wildstrom

The Twelve Heads of St. John the Baptist is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 7 and is © 2007 by Jake Wildstrom. It's also called Christian Text Adventure #2 and was a participant in the Speed-IF Introcomp event.

In this short game, you play as an IF operative. As you know, Speed-IF is fueled by religious artifacts, and you planned to feed the Primary Source with the head of St. John the Baptist. But then Quebecois heretics stole the head! You've easily stolen it back, of course, but, uh, with eleven other heads they had. Now which of these twelve heads will provide the latest Speed-IF with the inspiration it needs?

This solution is by David Welbourn, and is based on Release 1 of the game.


Map

→ →→ → widder-shins w n d u xyzzy d u Library TwelfthDimension QuebecShuttleStation ArchiveShuttleStation Outsideof theCave Chamberof theHeads Inter-libraryShuttle Inter-libraryShuttle Source

Walkthrough

Chamber of the Heads

> x me. i. (You're carrying twelve heads.)

> w.

Outside of the Cave

> x guards. n.

Twelfth Dimension

> x custard. take it. widdershins.

Library

> x book. take it. d.

Quebec Shuttle Station

> s.

Interlibrary Shuttle

> x chef.

> give custard to chef. (He will comment on the eye colour of "le Baptiste". "Verdant" means green. Remember this fact.)

> z. (Repeat waiting until the train arrives at the Archive.)

> n. d.

Source

> x boiler. x sheet. (Note if the head is said to be mummified or not.)

> look up John in book. (Note if the head should be adorned with gold or not.)

Examine all the heads to find the one head that satisfies all three facts about the true head. (Note that the heads aren't randomized, just the clues that you get.)

By the way: carbuncles, rubies, and garnets are red stones. Emeralds, jades, and malachites are green stones.

> x France. (red eyes, no gold, skull)

> x Turkey. (red eyes, gold, skull)

> x Italy. (red eyes, gold, head)

> x Israel. (no eyes, no gold, head)

> x England. (no eyes, gold, skull)

> x Hungary. (no eyes, gold, head)

> x Russia. (green eyes, gold, head)

> x China. (green eyes, no gold, skull)

> x Greece. (green eyes, gold, skull)

> x Zimbabwe. (no eyes, no gold, skull)

> x Germany. (green eyes, no gold, head)

> x Spain. (red eyes, no gold, head)

Put the true head of St. John the Baptist into the boiler.

> put COUNTRY in boiler.

*** You are a Chef 2 can be written ***


Extras

Characters


Endings


Inventory


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!

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