Hints, Tips, Advice and Solutions for "The Prodigal Corpse"


  1. Prelude
  2. Getting the bank plans
  3. The secret library room
  4. The hammer manifesto
  5. Catching the rat
  6. Misc.

Prelude


Dawn slowly rose over The City. The City responded by slowly coming to life. First the laborers scurrying to their jobs and then the store keepers opening their shops. All was a normal day in the City, if there ever was one.

Lord Calibrus was late in waking that morning. Had a Trickster of a headache from all that wine he drank the night before at that party for the Duke... But wait, where was his gold wine glass? Gone somewhere. And bother it all, his ring was missing from the dresser. "What I really need is something to get rid of this headache." as he staggered into his library. Imagine his suprise when he found his healing potion missing. Slowly, the thought began to race through his brain, "I've... beeen... ROBBED!" He raced back to his room to sound the alarm and ran smack into hisensuite tub. There, floating face down was his servant Alphonso. "This is going from bad to worse!" As he ran from room to room, his dismay increased. Everywhere were dead or unconscious guards. All of them, every last mother's son of them. His daughter, that twit, and her tprescious talking mouse were blissfully unaware of anything being wrong, but she seemed a bit distracted by something missing from her desk. On he went, floor by floor. Piles of uncoscious servants or those completely ignorant of what had transpired, even the Hammerites he had kept hidden in the temple were all unconscious. All his cameras destroyed. But his greatest surprise came when he went to check his stronghold. There, frantically wandering between his laboratory, his library and his stronghold was none other than Garrett himself.

"Must... figure.. it... out..." Garrett mumbled, his eyes glazed over in stupor. When Garret saw Calibrus, he raced for the secretive lord. But instead of knocking him out, Garrett threw himself on the floor at his feet.

"Please!" Garrett sobbed. "I surrender! Send me off to Cragscleft and do your worst! But I've got to know!"

Deep down, Calibrus smiled a smug grin and said to himself, "Gotcha, Taffer."

(Fiction provided by Daniel Webster Christensen)

Getting the bank plans

The plans are in the third floor strongroom, which is a square room on the same floor as the biology lab and the big library. To get in you need two keys, one to open the solid metal door and one to open the big metal grill inside. One of the keys is on top of a bookshelf in the thin office next to Calibrus's bedroom, and the other is in the secret room in the library.


The secret room in the library

This puzzle has annoyed a lot of people, and I regret building it. It was supposed to be fairly easy to deduce what to do, but instead it seems to have beeen an entirely arbitary puzzle that has baffled many people. The main clue to the problem is the wet footprints on the floor. These are left by Lord Calibrus when he locks things away in the room, and give a big hint as to how to open the door. His feet are wet because they get splashed when he throws water onto the astrology chart. Getting the chart wet opens the door. If you're fiddling with the telescope, trying to chop down the banner, or assuming that the puddles are acidic, you're barking up the wrong tree. Just pull out a water arrow and get the banner wet. If you don't have any water arrows, you'll be glad to know that the edition of the level that includes this walkthrough has a special water crystal creator hidden near a fountain :-) .


The Hammerite Faction's Manifesto

Down in the hammer basement, there's a small hatch in the floor. Open it, and the manifesto is in the hole with some diamonds.


Catching the rat

One person has reported that the rat dissapears when you gas or blackjack him. If this happens to you, please write and tell me. I can't make it happen myself :-( , he always keels over just like he should, so I need help to find the problem. If you have this difficulty, you can still catch him by just grabbing him as he runs about.


Miscellaneous problems, including those corrected in previous releases

The original relase of "Corpse" was fatally buggy, and if you have one you should replace it. The easiest way to tell is that if your rooms are mainly triangular, you've got the buggy one. (actually, the easiest way to tell is if it crashes repeatedly :-( ) The more recent version is a file entilted "Corpsenew", and is stable but had a couple of silly problems with objectives not working OK. Those have now been fixed in this new release, I hope.