Journey Across the Muerte Sea
| Journey Across the Muerte Sea | |
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| ◄Eamon adventure #269► | |
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| Author | John MacArthur |
| Created | Summer 2004 |
| Released | March 2005 |
| EDX number | 20 |
| Native format | MS-DOS |
| File | Eamon 269 - Journey Across the Muerte Sea.zip |
Journey Across the Muerte Sea is an Eamon adventure written by John MacArthur.
Background
Jon MacArthur sketched out the basic plot of Journey Across the Muerte Sea on alt.games.eamon in June 2004 and sought advice concerning the story and programming. The premise began with the planet Eamon finding itself in a "World War II/Cold War era." Matthew Clark provided feedback to MacArthur and in the release notes to the Eamon Deluxe adventure, Frank Black states that he first received the adventure from MacArthur in the Summer of 2004.
In the aforementioned notes—as well as the review in the February 2005 issue of the Eamon Deluxe Newsletter—Frank Black indicates that after a few messages back and forth, MacArthur lost interest in the adventure. Black hence finished the debugging and released the adventure in 2005 and Muerte Sea became the first adventure written specifically for the Eamon Deluxe platform.
Premise
The events described in Journey Across the Muerte Sea take place during a future World War on Eamon, in which a number of rival nations on the continent of Grancasa are fighting one another over political and ideological differences. MacArthur's lengthy introduction gives considerable detail about the origin and history of the conflict, but the quest is relatively simple: venture into the treacherous Muerte Sea and find the three elemental essences of pure water, pure air, and pure fire, each hidden on three separate islands. Once collected they can be combined to make a "control potion" which can be used to divide the attacking nations and save your land from falling to the enemy.
You set off on your quest with a team of three other trained operatives, but two are killed almost immediately by a bomb, leaving just you and a single companion to complete the mission.
| Full introduction |
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In the BeginningIn the beginning, the four gods created your world. There was the god of fire, the god of water, the god of air, and the god of earth. Each created the world with their element. It was supposed to create peace between the otherwise competitive gods. However, discord between them was only increased! The gods each believed that their element was the best element. They quickly battled each other in the Muerte Sea separating the continents. Eventually, this ocean was barred from the rest of the world. Nobody, man or beast, dared cross the sea, especially the southern part! The three continents were named thus: Grancasa was the home of your people for thousands of years. Eventually, it split into three empires: The RU EmpireRU is an abbreviation for something in the ancient language, but its meaning had been lost over the centuries. It generally had the happiest people. The natural resources were plenty, the quality of life was good, and the economy was excellent. However, there were problems. Number one was that most of the northern third had unlivable weather conditions. There were mountains at least 10 miles up, and temperatures could easily reach -45 degrees Celsius. There were resources there, but nobody could go there to mine them. Secondly, much of their economy depended on trade. As the Yrma Empire sought to lower its relationships with the other empires, its economy started the inevitable collapse. The fact that the Yrma Empire was secretly increasing ties with the Orntec Empire didn't help things much. Thirdly, the governments of each of the Empires signed a treaty that split the empires up into different ethnic groups. This was supposed to end genocide and other crimes against humanity that were supposedly going on in all three empires. However, this split the majority of the population from the natural resources. The RU Empire was split into Rusa, Furioso, Vaal, and Frioland. The countries of Furioso and Rusa longed for the olden days, and Vaal and Frioland liked how it was now. This caused the economy of Rusa to collapse. In 2163, a person in the RU wrote a book called New Socialism that suggested that the government become more involved in the economy and destroy free enterprise. Instead, everybody would get an equal amount of money, food, water, liquor, etc. Less than ten years later, in 2171, Malther (whose first name is unknown) overthrew the government, thinking that he could make everybody happy by implementing many of the ideas! The Orntec EmpireOrntec means central in the ancient language. It is the center of commerce, and rightfully so, because its small size is deceiving! It has the most natural resources of any of the empires. This seems very good; however, this empire has extreme problems with crime! Its police force is small, the burglars settle here because it is the most best off, and the government hasn't done much to stop it. However, from extreme pressure with the people, they made an agreement with the Yrma Empire which would ship all the criminals over to their empire. The Yrma EmpireThe Yrma empire is a militaristic empire. Its military is at least triple the size of Orntec's and RU's combined! It is the sole owner of the Malcarcel continent, which it uses as a prison colony. It is guarded extremely well, is very large, and allows criminals to start their lives over again. This was a large concern of the people ("What if they got away?")! The Yrma and Orntec Empires made a deal to trade only with each other. However, this got sharp criticism from the RU Empire when they found out in 2160. This almost caused a war to break out. However, some quick thinking by the UI (United Islands, I'll get to them in a minute) and the Free Republic could have saved the world (for about ten years), before the inevitable happened. All three world leaders signed the "Treaty of Alliance" that would stop all future wars (supposedly). It called for the splitting of the empires into separate countries. This ended making all but two nations unhappy: Rusa and Furioso from the RU Empire! Not that there wasn't some people who liked it. The Puent people were finally united after many years of separation under two empires. The Nocambio island, part of the Orntec Empire, finally got to close ties with other nations. But the RU Empire wanted to stay together, except for Vaal and Frioland, which had exclusive access to most of the RU Empire's resources! War Breaks OutThings did not look good. When Malther rose to power in Rusa, he renamed it the Rojo Empire, made the country a total communist dictatorship, and set out to create a large-scale army, that even the Yrma empire wasn't ready to fight! Malther ignored the tiny fact that the Treaty of Alliance forbid an army above 10,000 men. This raised sharp criticism from other nations. He sent the army to the border of Furioso, another violation. But the other nations were enjoying peace, and didn't want to be the ones to declare war first. They weren't. After Furioso and Rojo united in 2175 (a third violation), the two empires marched into Vaal, which had declared itself neutral! This sparked a WORLD WAR!! Even the Free Republic joined the war. However, in late 2176, the country of Vaal fell to the communists. However, the Rojo Empire knew that marching troops through was too expensive. They came up with a terrible, horrifying plan to take over nations. In the country of Frioland, the president was at a theatre watching a play, when... BOOM!!! There was an explosion. The communist forces were above, dropping bombs everywhere. They sent ground troops too, that killed anyone who got in their way. This was a BLITZKREIG!! It took only two weeks for the communists to seize control of the government! The other world powers, realizing that the worst was coming, had a meeting with the king of the Rojo Empire. They drew up another treaty saying that the Rojo Empire could keep all of its existing countries, but no new invasions of other countries. The king signed it. The president of the UI went home waving the treaty in the air and rejoicing that he had signed it! Except for one thing: MATHER'S WORD COULD NOT BE TRUSTED! Less than two months after the treaty was signed, Malther attack Orntec! The country fell in three weeks. The Nocambio nation promised to support Orntec, but never did. Many countries fell to the Rojo Empire, including Puente, Yrma, and the Central Territory but the worst thing they did was: BOOM!!! They dropped two atomic bombs on the continent of Malcarcel, flattening it! There was nowhere to put criminals anymore. Malther claimed that an individual had done it, but at that point, nobody trusted Malther! The ResistanceThe United Islands of Sur (or just the UI) was a small country that never was part of an empire. It was the country that felt it was necessary to split up the empires to preserve the peace (to some degree). Although the plan worked in the beginning, they received sharp criticism for not realizing what Malther was capable of. The Free Republic was a nation that shared the continent of Republica with a country called Oeste. It, along with Oeste, supported the countries that were being taken over and tried to stop the Rojo Empire. It didn't work. Twenty years after the conquest of Vaal, the Empire was unstoppable. The Eamon Adventurer's GuildYou went into the bar one afternoon after an adventure that nearly killed you. You realized that the 5 1/2 % sign was up, signalling that you were supposed to report to EAG headquarters immediately. You went into the kitchen, entered the walk-in freezer, and turned the temperature dial to -12 1/2 degrees. The wall slowly opened, revealing EAG headquarters. "You're late!" snapped General Zuchowksi. Everybody looks at you. You realize that you'd better behave or you'll be beheaded. "Well, now that we're all here..." said the general, looking at you. "As you know, the Rojo Empire has been conquering, attacking, and destroying our allies. Right now, we stand no chance of winning this war as we ourselves have lost thousands of troops." "However, we aren't going to stop trying. There is one thing that might turn Nocambio against them. I am talking about the control potion." "We have one person who is familiar with the legend..." He turns to face you. "You may take three people with you to locate it." "How am I supposed to find something that I'm not even sure exists?" "Oh, it exists all right. Somebody tried to slip it into the president's drink! Is that enough evidence?" "@*!&$! All right, may I see the files for Brian Gendreau, David Lechner, and Russell Lewis?"
You set out to the Muerte Sea, where there are three islands, according to legend. Nobody has successfully crossed this sea. However, on each island is an artifact from the god that inherited it. On one island is a jar of pure water, on another is a jar of pure air, and on the last island is a torch lighted with pure fire. The legend says that if the water is lit with the fire in the presence of the air, a potion will be created, personalized for the person who called it forth. They can give the potion to anybody to control them. One catch: you must be strong enough to control the person, otherwise you and the person will die. LOCATE 5: So off you went. However, suddenly: BOOM!!! The next thing you see is two of your companions, dead! They are Lechner and Russell Lewis. And nobody was supposed to know about your mission... |
Walkthrough
Cosmogony and Geography
Journey Across the Muerte Sea, in addition to providing a very detailed portrait of the geopolitical features of the planet Eamon, also relays a creation myth about the planet. The account suggests that four deities—one representing each of the four elements—created the planet Eamon as a cooperative exercise. Each deity, however, each believed that his or her element was most important, and the four deities fought in the eponymous Muerte Sea, leaving it impassible and isolating the three continents.
The three continents are "Grancasa," "Republica," and "Malcarcel," each separated by the Muerte Sea. The former continent is home to the Main Hall and the political intrigue underpinning the adventure is set entirely on Grancasa. MacArthur suggests that inhabitants of each continent have been terrified to traverse the Muerte Sea and implies that there has been no contact between, e.g., Free Adventurers and inhabitants of Republica and Malcarcel since the division of the continents, suggesting that most of the Eamon canon has taken place on the continent of Grancasa.
Trivia
- Tom Zuchowski, former head of the Eamon Adventurer's Guild and author of many adventures, makes an appearance in Journey Across the Muerte Sea as "General Zuchowski," a character in charge of mercenary aspects of the Guild, who assigns the mission to the adventurer.
See also
External links
- Eamon Adventurer's Guild Library Master List
- The Interactive Fiction Database: Journey Across the Muerte Sea
- Interactive Fiction Reviews: Journey Across the Muerte Sea
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