Colossal Cave History

In my archive of Adventure correspondence is a letter from Jack Pike.
It is not dated but was sent sometime around 1981. Among other things it
says:

   I have dug around in the heap of stuff I have got on Adventure 2 and
   extracted the notes I had on cave history. On rereading them I see
   they omit much. I also found an old query list, most of which had
   been fixed but I have jotted a few of the uncorrected ones on the
   back of the History. The are mainly things I tried when I first 
   played the game which did me no good (and I thought they should.)

The letter was accompanied by a single hand-written sheet. I quote it in
full -- the front page for obvious reasons, the back page to indicate
the source of inspiration behind some of my subsequent work on Adv660.

The front page contains:

   Copies of the valuable limited edition are available by sending a SAE
   and an appropriately sized cheque to Jack Pike.
   
   
   A Brief History of Colossal Cave                         by Jack Pike
   
   In the beginning all was peace in the cave. The dwalves were dwalves and
   washed the dishes, the giants were GIANT and did the *heavy* work, the
   fairies danced around and gave orders (which were even sometimes obeyed)
   and the elves did little or nothing except play practical jokes. Over
   the whole menagerie ruled the mountain King with his assorted relitives
   and hangers on. One day Old Nick himself happened to pass that way, and
   seeing the accord in the cave was ill at ease. He resolved to help the
   cave's occupants to lead a more eventful life, so with a flick of his
   tale he released a little molten rock into the lower reaches of the
   cave; just enough to destroy most of the giants' habitat (to say nothing
   about most of the giants) and fill the rest of the cave with fog from
   boiling lakes and steaming rivers.
   
   The dwalves, of course, could not miss such a hell-sent opportunity to
   cause mischief, so in the confusion they stole the ring of Orion and
   turned the fairies into mist and the Mountain King etc into diabolical
   creatures. The elves needed little persuading to leave the steamy
   environment of the cave, and the dwalves then felt they were free of all
   their oppressors.
   
   For many years the situation remained the same, with the dwalves
   squabbling and fighting among themselves and the elves playing pranks on
   the wizards and humans and anyone else they could find on the surface.
   Finally the wizards could stand it no longer, the pranks of the elves
   were straining their relationship with the humans (who half the time did
   not even seem to know the difference), and something had to be done. All
   the wizards were invited to a majic circle, and they decided that now some
   of the steam had cleared, the elves must go back into the cave, dwalves
   or no dwalves. As the dwalves could not match the combined power of the
   wizards, and Old Nick did not seem inclined to intervene on their behalf
   so they were forced to negotiate. In a diplomatic masterpiece the
   wizards got the dwalves to agree to let "adventurers" into the cave
   under the administration of the elves, so placating the humans, and
   solving the problem of the elves in one agreement. That is the situation
   to this day, the elves administration of the cave is a bit elvin and the
   dwalves keep to the agreement in their usual manner (not at all), but
   the wizards have rarely to intervene, so unless Old Nick shows up
   again...


The back page deals with suggested additional commands:

   Does no action on these matter?
   
   Push door
   (Shove)
   
   Douse lamp   |   it took me a long time
   Lamp out     |   to turn the lamp off.
   Putout lamp  |
   
   Open cage
   
   Carry all
   
   Listen bird
   
   Open chest
   
   Try keys
   
   Dip rod (in oil)
   Oil rod
   
   Drink oil
   
   What does Y2 stand for?


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                                                  Mike Arnautov
                                                  29 Sep 2001