Travel Bureau: Year One

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Y E A R O N E
VISIT EL MARROW
Jewel of the Land of the Dead · Gateway to the Petrified Forest

Welcome Desk ◆ Year One ◆ Year Two ◆ Year Three ◆ Year Four

Year One is the tutorial, more or less, and it's where most people quit, because they haven't made friends with the controls yet. Don't quit. It gets wonderful. The puzzles below are roughly in the order you'll meet them. Remember: Travel Tip first. Itinerary only if you need it. Highlight the black box to read it.

◆ THE DEPARTMENT OF DEATH ◆

1. Glottis won't drive you.

Travel Tip: Glottis is sulking because he doesn't fit in the cars. Whose fault is that, really? Be a friend about it.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
When you talk to him, don't agree that he's too big. Tell him the cars are too small. That cheers him right up, and he'll want a proper work order before he can get you something better to drive.

2. Nobody will sign the work order.

Travel Tip: Eva can't sign it without the boss. Don Copal doesn't answer people himself. He has a machine that answers for him. Machines can be adjusted.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Get into Copal's office and change the automatic reply on his computer so that it tells Eva to just sign it herself. Then take the work order to Eva. She'll sign it, and Glottis is in business.

3. Domino gets all the good clients.

Travel Tip: The new clients come to the agents through the message tubes. Ask yourself what would happen if the tubes stopped working for a while. Then go see the clown outside. Clowns have balloons. Balloons can be filled with things other than air.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Get two uninflated balloons from the clown (ask him for the "dead worm" kind). Downstairs, near the lobby, there's a room with a red hose and a blue hose. Fill one balloon at each. Bring them back to your office and send them both down your message tube. They'll jam up the whole system.

4. Catching the premium client.

Travel Tip: With the tubes broken, somebody has to go fix them, and the room where the tubes come together is suddenly open. There's a deck of cards in your office, and Eva has a hole punch. Air goes through holes.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Take a card from the deck in your office and punch it with Eva's hole punch. Get into the tube switching room while the repair is going on, and put the punched card into the tube slot. The next premium order gets caught and comes to you instead of Domino.

◆ PASSENGER ADVISORY: STORY AHEAD ◆
Highlight to read. Don't, if you haven't caught that client yet.
The client is Meche, and she's the real thing: a good soul who ought to be riding the Number Nine. But when Manny runs her through the system, it says she gets nothing at all. She sets out on foot, alone, on the four-year walk. Manny is sure something is very wrong at the Department, and he's not the only one. A man named Salvador runs an underground outfit called the Lost Souls' Alliance, and they think somebody is stealing the tickets that good people have earned.

5. The LSA wants your teeth.

Travel Tip: You'd like to keep your teeth, thank you. Would a copy do? Domino is a boxer, or likes to think he is. Have a look around his office.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
In Domino's office, punch his punching bag until his mouthpiece falls down. Squirt Fil-A-Dent into the mouthpiece and you have a cast of teeth to hand over. While you're there, take the green coral out of his desk drawer. You'll need it next.

6. Getting up to the roof.

Travel Tip: The ladder is out of reach. You have a rope. What you need is something hooky to tie on the end of it. Something from Domino's desk, say.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Use the green coral with the rope to make a grappling hook, throw it to reach the ladder, and climb up to the roof.

7. The pigeons won't leave their eggs.

Travel Tip: Pigeons will eat anything you put in front of them. They are also very, very jumpy. What makes a loud bang? Back to the clown.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Get a blown-up balloon animal from the clown and some bread. Bury the balloon under the bread crumbs in the hopper. The pigeons peck at the crumbs, pop the balloon, and scatter, and you can take the eggs. Salvador and Eva can use them to get you out of town.

◆ THE PETRIFIED FOREST ◆

Out of the city at last, with Glottis at the wheel. The forest is gorgeous and creepy and it does not want you in it.

8. Glottis has lost his heart.

Travel Tip: Literally. It's stuck up in a giant spider web. A web is stretchy. So is a slingshot. There's a pile of bones lying around, and your scythe is good for hooking things.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Pick up a bone and throw it into the web. Hook your scythe on the bone, pull the web back, and let go. The web flings the heart free. Then put it back in Glottis where it belongs.

9. The pumping tree.

Travel Tip: You want those pumps. The pumps are all going at their own speeds. Watch them for a while. What would happen if they all pushed at the same time?

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Stall the pumps one side at a time until they fall into step, so the pairs pump together. When you've got it right, the whole tree starts to sway. Then use the machinery to shake it, and down come the pumps. It takes patience and a few tries. Mine took about ten.

10. Lost among the signposts.

Travel Tip: Every path looks the same, and there's a signpost lying on the ground. A signpost always points somewhere. Plant it and see where.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Stand the signpost up, go the way it points, and plant it again. Keep following it, and eventually it leads you to a hidden hatch. There's something you need down there.

11. The beavers are on fire.

Travel Tip: I'm not going to explain the beavers. Nobody can explain the beavers. But they like bones, and you've seen a fire extinguisher somewhere along the way.

ITINERARY (highlight to read):
Throw bones into the tar to lure the beavers out one at a time. When each one comes for a bone, spray it with the fire extinguisher. Three beavers, three sprays, and the way is clear.

After the forest, the road runs down to a little port town on the sea called Rubacava, and that's the end of Year One. Pack a sweater. On to Year Two >>

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Last updated Monday, September 20, 1999