Strange Leaflet Quest

From TheKolWiki

Description

• You receive the Strange Leaflet, the first time you visit The Council of Loathing after reaching Level 9.
• The Council of Loathing: Your name is <name>, right? This came in the mail for you.

strange leaflet

You acquire an item: strange leaflet

• When you receive the strange leaflet, read it:
  You read the leaflet, and things become less... illustrated.
  
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house. The house's front door is closed. You hear a gurgling stream to the south, and a path leads north into a dense forest.

Hints and Tips

• When exploring the Leaflet, simple commands will do everything - two or three words, four is the maximum needed (for instance, throw (item) at (target)).
• Movement is normally by compass directions - north, south, east, west. Up and down also work. You can even abbreviate these to N, S, E, W, U and D.
• Some of the items you find will be in your Leaflet inventory rather than your main in-game KOL inventory. To pick up an item, take (item), get (item), pick up (item). To check your Leaflet inventory, type inventory (you can abbreviate this to "i"). Some items will not appear in your leaflet inventory, they will show up in your real KOL inventory instead.
• Look at everything. Really EVERYTHING - the in-place features as well as the items, including some of the most unlikely and irrelevant things. There is at least one feature that can be examined, that changes from ascension to ascension and from player to player.
• You may type exit at any time to return to your KOL inventory, or use any link at the top of the screen to return to KOL. When you return to the Leaflet, you will be exactly in the same situation as when you left it.
• If the game suggests you may not be able to return from an area, take heed, and make sure you have done everything in the previous areas that you can, before proceeding into the new area.

Rewards

• Frobozz Real-Estate Company Instant House (TM)
• Grue egg
• Giant pinky ring
• CLEESH
• 200 Fortitude
  200 Mysteriousness
  200 Sarcasm

Notes

• If you explore thoroughly, you can learn a spell usable outside the leaflet, and even keep that skill when you ascend. However, you will have to be VERY observant early on in order to find the method of getting the skill out of the leaflet and into KoL proper.
• Reading a leaflet found in the mailbox advertises Kingdom of Loathing.
• There is a trophy which you can sometimes get as well. It's not available every run.
• There is an easter egg that gives a hefty bonus to all substats, involving magic words that are magic words or easter-eggs from some really old text adventure games.
• Typing Win Game will cause you to win: Congratulations, you win! Doesn't seem to have changed anything, but hooray all the same.
• Typing any profanity will yield this message: Do you kiss your mother with that mouth??
• Look out for references to the oldest computer adventure game of all, the Colossal Cave Adventure, originally known simply as "Adventure" — you can find this game's homepage at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/.
• Another hidden reference can be found to an easter egg in another old text adventure game, Scott Adams's "Pirate Adventure".
• When you type Take hole when near the hole, you get the response How very Zen.
• Entering a message in this format: Throw [anything] at [anything] yields this message: Your request to throw something, presumably at something else, made no sense to me. Perhaps you're trying to throw an item you don't have, or throw an item at a target that doesn't exist, or perhaps those objects simply aren't intended to interact in that way. For more information on the proper throwing of objects, send your name and address to "Throwing: A Guide For Beginners", Pueblo, Colorado, 80019.
• Typing Eat serpent while in the cave but before killing the serpent yields the message The serpent probably wouldn't appreciate that.
• Typing Drink sword, or attempting to drink similar things yields the message You start jonesing. You haven't had a drink since 45 seconds ago.
• Typing Burn Forest, in the dense forest yields the message You decide not to, on the grounds that getting mauled by a bear in a ranger hat would be a stupid way to die.
• Typing Light leaves in the clearing yields the message You're too busy to be messing around like that. Besides, you didn't bring any marshmallows.
• You can count the leaves in the pile of leaves, the number is the same as in piles of leaves from various Infocom games which is 69,105.
• Typing Look at me yields the message You look like yourself. Fancy that.
• Typing Cut down tree yields the message You whack the tree with your sword a couple of times. Ineffectually.
• Typing Eat petunias while in the tree yields the message Nah. You're allergic to petunias, anyways.
• Typing Eat Ruby yields the message You already have the preciousssss ruby.
• Typing Up while on the giant's table yields the message When you're on top of the Giant's Table, you're not going anywhere, Gilbert.
• Typing Look under chair while in the house yields the message Mr. Horrible wouldn't appreciate that.
• Typing Take snake bits after killing the snake yields the message You mean the hacked-up bits? Eew, no thank you.
• Typing Take fire in the house with the fireplace lit or at the bonfire yields the message Sizzle. 'Ow!' Sizzle. 'Ow!' Sizzle. 'Ow!' Eventually, you give up.
• Typing Take cave yields the message Ha ha ha. No.
• Typing Take chest yields the message It's much too heavy to lug around with you.
• Typing Take Me yields the message You attempt to lift yourself up by the bootstraps, but with little success.
• Typing "Take hedge" at the entrance to the cave yields the message You briefly consider taking the minced hedgebits with you, but decide that there are better ways to spend your time.
• Typing Score yields the message Oops, I forgot to keep track. Um... twelve?
• Typing Close door after you have opened the door to get the message You feel a sudden streak of malevolence and decide to leave the door wide open. Serves 'em right for not locking it.
• Typing Look at petunias while in the tree yields the message It's an ordinary bowl of petunias. Apart from the fact that it's up in a tree. The whale must have landed somewhere else. It seems to have some kind of scroll in it, too.
• Typing Take ball while in the tree yields the message The soccer ball is out of your reach. And boring. And exhausting. Just thinking about playing soccer makes you sweat.
• Typing Take nest while in the tree yields the message Meh. What do you want a boring old bird's nest for, anyways?
• Typing Eat meal while on the giant's table yields the message You're not anywhere near that hungry.
• Typing Look at table yields the message There is nothing interesting about this table. Well, apart from the fact that the man who built it was a distant cousin of one of the Councillors of Loathing, and could fit three billiard balls in his mouth at the same time. Other than that, there's nothing interesting about it.
• Typing Take House while standing in the open field outside of the house yields the message Look, I realize that the usual M.O. of these sorts of games includes picking up every object possible, but give me a break.
• Typing Wear ring yields the message You already have it slung across one shoulder like one of those beauty pagent ribbons. That's about as close as you're going to get.
• Typing Examine sword once you get the sword yields the message The hilt is studded with genuine cubic zirconia, and magic runes on the blade read "Frobozz Magic Sword Company."
• Typing Examine boots once you get the boots yields the message It's a pair of large rubber fishing waders, magically enchanted to keep your feet dry. The label reads "Frobozz Unnecessarily Magical Boots Company".
• Typing Examine stick once you get the stick yields the message It's brown and sticky.
• Typing Put out fire when in front of the bonfire yields the message Smokey would be proud, but you haven't got any good way to do that. Typing that in any other situation yields the message Yeah, okay, except that doesn't so much apply in this situation.
• Typing Examine torch when once you get the torch yields the message It's a torch. One end is on fire, and the other end is for you to hold on to. Try not to confuse the two. Also, typing Put out torch yields the message Better not -- you might need it later. You never know.
• Typing Take mailbox when in front of the house yields the message It is securely anchored.
• Typing Put out fireplace while in the house yields the message Did you have a particular plan in mind for doing that? No? Well, nevermind then.
• Typing Examine egg once you get the egg yields the message The egg is covered with fine gold inlay, and ornamented in lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl. Unlike most eggs, this one is hinged and closed with a delicate looking clasp. The egg appears extremely fragile.
• Typing either Up or Down when not at the giant table, will yield the message "[Up/Down]? Isn't this maze annoying enough for you with just the four directions? I suppose next you'll want to go north-by-north-east."

References

• There are numerous references throughout this quest to Infocom text adventure computer games, also known as "interactive fiction":
  • Much of this quest -- including the house, the mailbox, the leaflet, the sword, the references to Frobozz, the grue, the pile of 69,105 leaves, and the jeweled egg that you can't open -- refers to the 1980 game Zork I: The Great Underground Empire. Zork was the first text-adventure game to have a sophisticated command parser that could handle commands as complicated as "give the ball, the marble, and the car to the demon". (By contrast, no command in the Colossal Cave Adventure could be more than two words.)
  • The CLEESH and GNUSTO spells are both references to the 1983 game Enchanter.
  • Typing Consult Guide is a reference to the 1984 game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So is the bowl of petunias, and the reference to the whale.
  • The soccer ball, roadrunner, and ruby are references to the 1986 game Trinity.
• If an unrecognized command is made the parser will return one of several replies such as "Do what with the what, now?" and so on. One of the messages is "You don't know what words mean, do you?", a reference to an oft-quoted line from Mr. Show with Bob and David Season 4, Episode 8 Like Chickens, Delicious Chickens in which David says the line in reference to the unbelievable anatomy claims that Bob's character makes.
• When you type Cleesh Me, the resulting text is a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• When you type kill, attack [anything that can't be killed], the resulting text is a reference to the Smashing Pumpkins song, Bullet with Butterfly Wings.
• When you type Move chair in the house, the resulting text is a reference to the They Might Be Giants song, Someone Keeps Moving My Chair.
• When you type Examine Firewood, the resulting text is a reference to The Log Song from the animated television series Ren & Stimpy.
• When you type Examine stick, the resulting text is a reference to a children's joke "Q: What is brown and sticky? A: a stick".
• Fans of Homestar Runner could try typing DENNIS.
• The message you get when crossing the stream is a reference to the 1984 film Ghostbusters.
• The message you get when you cross back over the stream is a reference to ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, famous for saying "You cannot step into the same river twice." (Other versions of this include "You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in" and "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
• The giant's game where both potions are poison (and the prospect of fairyland beyond the giant) and the message as you attempt to attack the giant are references to the 1985 novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, as is the fact that the giant is wearing a steel-reinforced eyepatch. In the book a young Ender Wiggin is playing a computer game where he is forced to make a choice between the two drinks, in the book and the quest both drinks lead to death. In the book, Ender jumps onto the the giant's face (his character is a rat, literally) and rips out the giants eye, explaining the eyepatch. When you type Attack Giant Eye, the resulting text is in reference to this.
• If you choose a poison by typing Drink Right or Drink Left, the resulting text is a reference to the 1989 Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
• "Twisted firestarter" refers to the song Firestarter by The Prodigy.
• Pueblo, Colorado 81009 is the location of the US Federal Citizen Information Center. They air TV commercials advertising that address to request free pamphlets on many topics.
• When you examine the bowling trophy, you're being told that the word "Malachi" is engraved on it. This most likely hints to Stephen Lynch's Bowling Song (Almighty Malachi Professional Bowling God). Malachi is also the last book of the Bible's Old Testament.
• The message You already have the preciousssss ruby. is a reference to The Lord of the Rings, Gollum. Also, it could be a reference to Sean Astin (Sam) role in the movie Rudy
• 'you're not going anywhere, Gilbert' refers to the film What's eating Gilbert Grape?
• The "win game" command is likely a reference to an easter egg in the computer game Monkey Island, in which pressing a key command prompts the message "You win!" and the game to end.
• Typing light fire when you do not possess the torch will result in the message "Who do you think you are, Charlie McGee?" This is a reference to the 1980 Stephen King book Firestarter. In the book, a young girl, Charlene "Charlie" McGee, is able to start fires with her mind.