Hunt the Wumpus
When you enter the cavern, you will be presented with a description of one of the rooms below, possibly one to three warnings, and the ability to travel to 3 additional chambers.
The layout is based on the original Hunt the Wumpus, and maps to the faces of an icosahedron (20-sided solid) or, equivalently, to the vertices of a dodecahedron. The goal is to reach the Wumpus while avoiding bats and pits.
After the room's description, there may be one or more warnings:
- Spatters of blood covering the floor and an overpowering stench indicate that the Wumpus must be nearby. Tread carefully, for you'll only get one chance to make good your attack.
This indicates that the Wumpus is in an adjacent room. Three additional buttons will allow you to charge into the destination room and fight the Wumpus if it is there. If you charge into the wrong room, or enter the correct room without charging, the Wumpus will kill you.
- You hear a low roaring sound nearby, like the echo of wind in an empty space.
This means at least one of the three choices will lead to a superpit, thus failing the mission.
- You hear the fluttering of wings and a high-pitched squeaking coming from somewhere nearby.
This means at least one of the three choices will lead to bats, which will pick you up and drop you into a random room. They can drop you into a room with a pit, causing instant death, but they will not drop you into the Wumpus room.
The web of chamber connections is reset upon Ascension, while the location of bats, pits, the Wumpus and your starting cave are reset upon defeating the Wumpus. If you die in the cave, the cave will not be reset, allowing you to return later and avoid making the same deadly mistake.
Below are the descriptions for each room:
| Enter the acrid chamber |
You step through the opening in the cavern wall, and pass into another chamber. This chamber of the cavern is suffused with a sharp odor, as though there's a nearby deposit of sulfur or some other caustic mineral. Or maybe this is where the Wumpus keeps its rotten egg collection.
| Enter the breezy chamber |
As Krakrox entered the next chamber of the cavern, a strong draft blew through the room. It might have presented a problem, had Krakrox been relying on a torch for light rather than the ever-present glowing moss that since the dawn of time had illuminated every adventuresome location in which managing a light source would be a pain in the ass.
| Enter the creepy chamber |
Stepping into the next chamber of the cavern, you note that the stalagmites and other rock formations here cast eerie shadows that resemble fanged beasts, tentacled monstrosities, and other horrors. Oh, except that one over there, which looks like a bunny. The rest of them, though: brr.
| Enter the dripping chamber |
Krakrox strode into another chamber of the cavern. This chamber was particularly humid, and the rhythmic dripping and splashing of new stalactites being formed echoed around the rocky cavern walls in an oddly musical fashion.
| Enter the echoing chamber |
The shape of the chamber you have just entered somehow causes the sound of your footsteps to reverberate and echo back at you from every direction. It's a bit disorienting, frankly, but it could be worse -- you could be a bat.
| Enter the fetid chamber |
Krakrox grimaced with disgust as he entered the cavern chamber. This room evidently served as the Wumpus's cesspit, and it stank to high heaven. The barbarian's eyes began to water from the stench, and he looked around quickly for an exit.
| Enter the gloomy chamber |
You grip your <weapon> a little tighter as you enter this chamber of the cavern. For some reason there's less of the glowing moss in here, making the room darker and more shadowy than the others. Carefully keeping watch all around you for any unexpected surprises that might be lurking, you make your way toward the next chamber.
| Enter the howling chamber |
As Krakrox entered the cavern chamber, a loud wailing howl pierced the air. The barbarian froze, eyes narrowed, but soon relaxed as he identified the sound as being caused by wind whistling through the oddly-shaped rooms and tunnels. Probably.
| Enter the immense chamber |
You step into the next cavern chamber, and look around in awe -- this room is huge, easily large enough for a regulation-sized football pitch. You must be deeper underground than you expected. Soon enough, though, you manage to find the entrances to the adjoining chambers.
| Enter the long chamber |
Krakrox stepped into the next cavern chamber, which was really not so much a chamber as a widening of the tunnel, stretching farther into the distance. Fortunately, it was not so long as to present a difficulty, and the barbarian was able to locate the passages to the adjoining rooms without an undue amount of time expended.
| Enter the moaning chamber |
As you step into the next room of the cavern, your ears prick up at the sound of a low mournful wail that echoes eerily from the walls of the chamber. Hopefully, it's just produced by the echoes of wind through the tunnels. That's what you hope.
| Enter the narrow chamber |
This chamber was much narrower than the rest of the cavern complex -- so much so that Krakrox was forced to turn sideways to fit his muscular bulk through the tighter parts of the tunnel. Fortunately, the adjacent chambers appeared to be of a much more comfortable size.
| Enter the ordinary chamber |
You step into the next cavern chamber, about which I can't really think of much to say. The walls are rough natural stone, there are stalagmites and stalactites scattered about... um... well, it's a cave, you know?
| Enter the pillared chamber |
The next chamber Krakrox entered was filled with natural stone pillars that filled the room, almost reminiscent of a forest of petrified trees. He strode cautiously amongst them, keeping an eye out for beasts that might me lying in wait, concealed behind the pillars, but eventually was satisfied that no ambush was forthcoming, and turned his eye to selecting which chamber to explore next.
| Enter the quiet chamber |
The first thing you notice about this chamber as you step into it, is how quiet it is compared to the other rooms of the cavern. No sound of dripping water, no eerie whistling of wind... even the echoes of your own footsteps are strangely muffled. The sensation it produces is not unlike walking through a fog-bank, except for your ears. Weird.
| Enter the round chamber |
Krakrox stepped into the next chamber, and noted with slight curiosity that it appeared to be perfectly spherical, as though he were standing in a single air-bubble floating through the solid rock. Interesting, but the barbarian had little time or patience to stand around pondering such things.
| Enter the sparkling chamber |
Your eyes widen as you step into this chamber of the cavern are[sic] are met with the sight of countless sparkling dots of light. Outcroppings of natural crystal formations fill the room, reflecting the dim light like a galaxy of distant stars. The effect is quite beautiful, but unfortunately you don't have the time for sightseeing.
| Enter the underground chamber |
Krakrox strode into the next chamber which, like all the others in this cavern, was underground.
| Enter the vaulted chamber |
As you walk into the next chamber, you note that the ceiling here is much higher than the others have been. Several stone pillars reach up to it, forming natural vaulted arches that give the room the appearance of a Gothic cathedral. Well, a slightly melty one, but still.
| Enter the windy chamber |
As Krakrox entered the next room, he was stopped short by a strong wind that hit him suddenly, like a large soft punch to the face. He shielded his eyes with one hand and waited for the gale to pass, then continued forward.
- Entering a room with bats
As you step into this chamber of the cavern, the sound of your footsteps disturbs a massive flock of bats. They swarm around you, deafening you with their high-pitched cries and blinding you with a cloud of buffeting black wings. You feel yourself being lifted into the air, and realize that the bats are carrying you off to another chamber! You struggle, but in vain -- there are simply too many of them for your blows to have any effect. It appears your only choice is to wait for the bats to drop you...
| Wait for the bats to drop you |
- Entering a superpit
Krakrox stepped into the next chamber, and his foot touched nothing but empty air. Desperately, he twisted around and attempted to grab the lip of the pit he found himself falling into, but his hand clutched only loose gravel, and he fell backwards into the darkness...
| Thump |
Hmm, that can't be right; you're pretty sure Krakrox lived to a ripe old age and didn't die by falling down a pit in a dark cavern in the middle of nowhere. In fact, history records that he died from injuries resulting from a drunken brawl with a tavern wench's boyfriend at the age of seventy-three -- the handbrake on his wheelchair broke after he ran over the guy's head several times, and on the way home he accidentally rolled off the side of a mountain. Anyway, my point is, maybe you should try that again.
 | You lose all hit points. |
- Charging the wrong room
Krakrox shouted his mighty battle-cry and charged into the chamber with his sword upraised. Unfortunately, the wumpus was nowhere to be seen. There was a sound behind him and he spun around, but not quickly enough; the Wumpus claimed another victim. Which is odd, because historians are pretty sure that Krakrox didn't die from being eaten by a wumpus. There must be some kind of interference in the flows of the ancestral... thingumbob. Maybe you should just try again
| You lose all hit points. |
- Entering the wumpus room without charging
You stroll nonchalantly into the cavern chamber and find, unexpectedly, a wumpus. It blinks in surprise, but it is evidently not as surprised as you are; it lashes out with a lightning-fast claw and eviscerates you before you can react. Ouch.
This would be a pretty sorry end for an adventurer as mighty as Krakrox; maybe you should take advantage of the weird time-travel thing going on here and try that again.
| You lose all hit points. |
- Charging the wumpus room
wumpus  -- (edit metadata)
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Occurs at The Jungles of Ancient Loathing after choosing to enter the Cavern Entrance.
Notes
- You can use this tool to assist you in hunting the wumpus.
- There is a greasemonkey script too. No warranty is implied.
- It appears that, just as in the original game, there are 2 rooms with bats and two with pits. This means that the Wumpus might be surrounded by bats and pits on all sides (this has been observed to happen). This seems to make it impossible to continue to hunt the Wumpus until ascending to reset the cave. (The odds of this occuring are around 0.41% per reset of the cave assuming a truly random distribution.) In the original game this was not a problem since the Wumpus could be killed from up to five rooms away.
References
- This adventure is a reimplementation of the early computer game Hunt the Wumpus.
