The Lurking Horror Walkthrough
Most text adventure based walkthroughs read only as a general series of commands, with a couple-three editorial comments mixed in. That is why I am writing this, my first walkthrough, as a way to expand upon the commands, give a little flavor to the actions. Also, since I divide it by puzzle name and put it as close chronological orders as I can, then it should be easier to look at specific puzzles.
The Three Standard Caveats
First off, this is free and you get what you pay for. Mistakes might be made. Just keep that in mind. I won't necessarily have the quickest, nor surest solutions. I may word things a little funny. I also don't list (in this game, specifically) any sort of point structure. I think that solving most of the main puzzles correctly warrants you five points. Do not quote me on this. Also, this is for release 221. Other releases may vary. I did not test others out.
Secondly, since this is more of a natural language walkthrough, I avoid certain things that show up in the standard. I don't tell you to save the game, but you really should. I don't tell you to drop items, though sometimes you will need to clear up your inventory because it is a limited resource in this game. I don't tell you to eat food or to rest. This game does not have a lot of rooms, and most sort of radiate out from a common point. If you need to clear items, then pick a spot (I would say the Basement). Drop them there and you will probably pass through or close by several times. If you need to drink or eat or rest (in game), then do so. Well, not rest, since it will be bad for you. I also only rarely mention "LOOK AT" sort of stuff. Part of the fun of IF is looking at the world and interacting with it in ways not necessary to the game. It will add to your enjoyment greatly if you do this, but the degree that you want to do it I leave up to you. In cases where LOOK AT might be needed to advance the plot, I will specify.
Finally, this is an original work by me. I don't mind you copying it. I don't mind you sharing it. I don't mind you telling friends some portion of it and claiming you figured it out. Jus't don't copy it in whole unless that includes my name and this note somewhere or sell it or anything.
Some Basics
The two most important items you need are the flashlight and the coke bottle. The flashlight is needed for all the dark areas and can be put off to about half-through the game (I think you score about 55 points without it). The coke bottle is needed to revive you if you feel tired. If you sleep, you will die. The coke keeps you awake.
You can play the game with only one drink of coke, I think. If you are really effecient, I think you could do it with none. The coke basically extends your exploration time, and will likely be necessary if you mostly play without a walkthrough.
You have two types of items in this game: perishable and non-perishable. A lot of your perishable items are needed at one particular time, and losing them ends your ability to beat the game. Food, of course, is always perishable. So are your flashlight batteries.
This game also has a few events that require time to work out to their end. Some actions have to be repeated. The game is good at letting you know when something had an effect, even if the effect is not quite what you were expecting.
This game does not require as good of a map as most. The room layout tends to make a lot of sense and the room count is relatively small. There are a few places where it could be good to use a map, but after running around for a few minutes, I never quite referred to a map again.
The Joys of Computers, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Strange Dream Sequences
This event must happen before you can beat the game, but I do not suppose it has to happen until right before some of the end sequences. I do it at the beginning, since it makes the most sense at the beginning of the plot. READ ASSIGNMENT (after which I think you can drop the item) and then TURN ON COMPUTER. You can PRESS HELP if you want. You can LOOK AT COMPUTER. LOGIN 872325412. PASSWORD UHLERSOTH. (For those worried that they might be behind the curve, those pieces of information are given in the manual) Eventually EDIT PAPER. CLICK ON PAPER (or CLICK ON BOX). READ PAGE. READ PAGE (or AGAIN). AGAIN. AGAIN.
By this time you should be in a "place". None of the things you have just read are needed specifically, but they do alert you to something brewing on down the road. Apparently somehing other worldly is coming and needs a sacrifice.
In this place, you see a basalt bowl. DOWN into the bowl and then GO PLATFORM (or, I think, just WAIT and you will get pushed). GET STONE (!) (This is a very important act). LOOK AT DARKNESS (or I think WAIT is fine). LOOK AT CREATURE (again, WAITing is ok). You should now have returned from your nap.
Try playing with your PC some. WAIT a few times. The [Hacker] will go into action and eventually tell you the bad news: your paper is gone. He suggests you try the Department of Alchemy.
LOOK AT HACKER. He has a lot of keys. This is a game, so you will probably need keys. ASK HACKER ABOUT KEYS. You will find out a few things. He even apparently has a master key. He is not forthcoming with them, though, and so you have to bribe him.
ASK him some questions. He is hungry. Go SOUTH and then WEST and you will bein a kitchen. OPEN FRIDGE and GET COKE AND CARTON FROM FRIDGE. OPEN MICROWAVE. PUT CARTON IN MICROWAVE. CLOSE MICROWAVE. PRESS 5. PRESS 0. PRESS 0. PRESS START. You now WAIT a few turns for the food to cook. I have seen different times in different walkthroughs. I have also seen people fidget with different settings (power level and whatnot). There may be a random factor involved, but 5:00 seems to work fine. You can touch food and test it.
OPEN THE MICROWAVE AND TAKE CARTON. Go out the door and back up into the computer room. GIVE CARTON TO HACKER. Now you can ASK HACKER FOR MASTER KEY and you should be good to go.
The last item you should get now is the flaslight. Head SOUTH to the evelavators. You might have to PRESS DOWN(or up)-ARROW. Get in the elevator. OPEN ACCESS PANEL. There is the trusty old flashlight. GET FLASHLIGHT and then get out for now.
You can, if you want, GET FUNNY BONES from the kitchen but they won't do you much good. You can give them to the [Hacker] or to the [Urchin]. You can play with them in the microwave. You can eat them.
The Basement, part 1
There are a handful of things you can do in the basement. Some do not have to be done until later but there is no real reason to wait.
Head WEST twice and then go DOWN the stairs. NORTHWEST through the crack into the "Tomb of the Unknown Tool". UNLOCK PADLOCK WITH KEY and GET PADLOCK. You do not have to open the hatch, unless you want. SOUTHEAST and then back UP. EAST. You should see the forklift here. TURN ON FLASHLIGHT and then GET ON FORKLIFT. TURN ON FORKLIFT. I'm sure it's against school policy but there you go. You have plenty of flashlight as long as you don't dawdle in certain areas. If you are nervous about saving it, you can wait until it tells you "It is pitch dark."
You are going to go EAST until you get to Storage Room with junk everywhere. MOVE PALLET (or MOVE JUNK or a few other versions) until it tells you have made a path (4-5 times you might have to do it). Get DOWN off forklift and head back WEST once to GET GLOVES AND CROWBAR. WEAR GLOVES. Go UP the stairs into the temporary building and GET FLASK. Back DOWN for now. The flask won't be needed right away, so you can go back WEST again and then drop it by the elevator if you want.
EAST a few times until you see a manhole cover. PRY MANHOLE WITH CROWBAR and then DOWN. If you head SOUTH you will see a trapdoor. Trying to open the trap door will let you know something is on top of it and you will see a lab through it. This is for later, mostly.
NORTH until you get to the Reinovated Cave and then DOWN by the altar. There is a knife here. GET KNIFE. You will also see a hole covered by a panel. It is optional, but you can MOVE PANEL and then LOOK IN HOLE. You can drop stuff down the hole if you never want to see it again. Leave the hole alone and head back UP the way you came and then go all the way back to where the elevator is. TURN OFF FLASHLIGHT. The padlock can stay, as can the crowbar, so you can go ahead and DROP them here if you want.
Getting through the Infinite Hallway (and BEYOND!)
Your next set of tasks is to get through the Infinite Hallway. Go back to the Aero(space) Basement and then WEST to the stairs and UP. SOUTH will take you do the east side of the hallway. A machine is to the east (or possibly in the room with you). WAIT until it heads east if it is or you can explore briefly to the south (nothing much to see, really). GET THE CONTAINER and then go EAST. During this time, you can LOOK AT MAINTENANCE MAN or try talking to him. The game hints that something is up.
You might have to wait in each stage of this journey. The machine will not let you past as long as it is there. You will eventually get to an emergency box. BREAK GLASS and then you can TAKE AXE. OPEN THE CONTAINER and POUR WAX. It will spread everywhere. Head WEST once (or maybe twice, until you see the plug in the socket). CUT CORD WITH AXE. The [Maintenance Man] will freak out, but will eventually slide around in the wax. Wait until he gets to it. If you dumped the wax in a spot to the east of his current location, you can try running towards the wax. Not sure if you will survive.
He will slip and slide. If you WAIT for a bit, he will eventually do a bit of the old horror surreality, but you can sort of ignore him for now. DROP CONTAINER.
Around the center of the hallway you will be in an intersection where you can head UP or SOUTH as well as EAST and WEST. Do not go SOUTH unless you just want to read the flavor text about freezing to death. The game warns you a couple of times.
Do head UP, though. You will see a strange rope which you can CLIMB ROPE if you have gloves. Something squiggly will slither off. At this time, LOWER LADDER and then OPEN DOOR. Go OUT into the cold. You will be on the outside of the dome and you can go UP to the top of the dome. While it mostly makes for cold, there is one important thing to do here (LOOK AT DOME and whatnot to spot it). PULL PLUG and then GET PAPER. READ PAPER to get a bit of the old intrigue and head DOWN. You can DROP PLUG at any time. Go back IN and then DOWN a couple of times until you are in the hallway.
At this point in time you should have the master key, the strange stone, the paper and the knife. EAST to the end of the hallway, and then head NORTH into the Nutrition building (enjoy the sardonic humor, heh). DOWN and SE and GET BOOTS. WEAR BOOTS. You are in the basement of the Brown Building. Head UP twice and then UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY. OPEN DOOR and go OUT. You can go UP into the dome.
Something is stalking you. LOOK AT TREE and LOOK AT TUB just to pass time. DIG IN DIRT and a hand missing a body will show up. Before taking it, let's deal with the bugger behind you. As Derleth inspired as it is, THROW STONE AT CREATURE and the creature will flee. That's a promising result, but doesn't solve the problem per se. Immediately GET STONE and then head DOWN. THROW STONE AT CREATURE again, and it will flee into the night. You will also lose the stone. UP the ladder again, you can GET HAND and go back down and into warmth. DOWN to the Brown Building lobby and then SOUTH into the cold. GET STONE where it landed and then back NORTH out of the cold. Reverse your steps (DOWN, NW, etc) until you get back to the east end of the Infinite Hallway. SOUTH into the Chemistry department.
Professor Jerk and Evil 101
The main items you need to have for this section are just the knife and the suicide note (paper). It is best to go ahead and have the hand at this time but you can do that later if you want. KNOCK ON DOOR and WAIT until the professor answers it. He will usher you inside. Most things you SHOW him he will be disinterested in. Some things (those involve symbols) he might take. If you try attacking him, he will just take whatever you attacked him with. Jerk.
Eventually, GIVE PAPER TO PROFESSOR and listen to him spin the facts. You can also LOOK AT SIGN-UP SHEET. You get a glimpse at the bigger, more dangerous picture. You cannot head SOUTH into the lab (or get a good answer by ASK PROFESSOR ABOUT LAB) until he reads the suicide note. Afterward, though, SOUTH and he will jump in and you will find yourself in the midst of a ceremony that you did not give consent for in any shape or form.
This is a timed section. If you CUT THE LINE WITH KNIFE too early, he will simply repair the line and take the knife. If you CUT THE LINE WITH KNIFE too late then you do not have time to escape before death arrives. WAIT for two turns. He will be too absorbed, or have went too far at this time to stop you.
Once you CUT LINE WITH KNIFE you have to do the rest of this without fail: EXIT PENTAGRAM, PUSH BENCH, OPEN TRAPDOOR, DOWN. Any hesitation will be death for you. If you want to look around, you can just make sure that you save it before hand and play through it a couple of times to see what you can get away with before you die.
Once the doom and gloom has ceased above, OPEN TRAPDOOR and back UP into the lab. You will need to have your flashlight turned on. Everything is a mess. The lights are busted. And Professor Jerk is on a long term sabbatical. One out of three ain't half bad.
Things the professor took are on the floor. This includes a paper and a hyrax (i.e. a ring with a picture of a hyrax, which is a small furry animal). PUT HAND IN VAT. WAIT a couple terms until the hand comes back to full life and tries getting out of the vat. Once it does, GET HAND (it will perch on your shoulder as a new found pet). GET HYRAX and then PUT HYRAX ON HAND. It will fit the hand perfectly. That's for later. You can SHOW X to HAND and he will feel various things. If you try to PUT HAND IN MICROWAVE or anything like that, which endangers its "life", it will move to the other shoulder and avoid such fates.
Now, remember why you came down here? TURN ON COMPUTER and bask in the glory of bad news. The file isn't here, either. Time to head back to the basement.
The Basement, part 2: The Elevator of IF
Once you are back in front of the elevator, you can continue. This isn't a bad time to search out the [Urchin]. He is a kid that's been roaming around and will occasionally steal things (he might have already done so, but that's ok). He is usually somewhere around the Computer building or in the Aerospace building (maybe SOUTH of there). It shouldn't take too long to find him, just wander back and forth. He doesn't have a flashlight, so he will stick to the lighted portions. Once you find him, you can ASK URCHIN ABOUT MISSING FRIENDS and ASK URCHIN ABOUT MISSING STUDENTS to get some flavor text. If you picked up the Funny Bones, you can GIVE URCHIN FUNNY BONES to be nice with him. If you try HIT URCHIN or KILL URCHIN, he will pull a knife on you and cut you up. Eventually, though, SHOW HAND TO URCHIN (the reanimated hand) and he will flee dropping everything in his pockets, including a bolt cutter. TAKE CUTTER (as well as other things he might have stolen if they show up here) and say a fond farewell to the little scallywag. It is for the best, really. Bad things happen to young folk around here.
Go to the first floor of the Computer building if you are not already there and PRESS the call button (the "down-arrow" suffices). Then head back to the basement. GET CROWBAR AND PADLOCK. If the elevator is moving, WAIT. Once it stops, then force OPEN DOORS and PROP DOORS WITH AXE. Go SOUTH into the elevator bottom. After examining the brick wall to the north, you notice some loose bricks. PRY BRICK WITH CROWBAR a couple of times (you might have to specify "broken brick" the last time) and you will expose a rod. GET CHAIN. TIE CHAIN TO ROD and notice how you can't secure the chain because it is too thick to tie. ATTACH PADLOCK TO CHAIN (or LOCK CHAIN WITH PADLOCK) and you will secure it. Head back UP. Assuming the elevator is still on the first floor, you can see a hook dangling here. ATTACH CHAIN TO HOOK. Then GET AXE so the doors can close and head up to the first floor (or any floor above). Simply make the elevator move up to the second floor or above and it will rip the wall open. You apparently can press the second floor button before you remove the axe, then be in the shaft when the wall falls. Haven't tried it. It might kill you.
You now have a hole big enough to take the axe and the bolt cutter in with you into the steam tunnels. Go back downstairs. GET METAL FLASK. OPEN DOOR. TURN ON FLASHLIGHT and head in.
The Steam Tunnels
You will need the flashlight, the master key, the axe, the crowbar, the stone, the bolt cutter, the hand (wearing the hyrax), and the metal flask to beat the next few stages. You will also need to be wearing the boots and the gloves. Once you have done all this, then head NORTH from the Concrete Box under the elevator.
The first obstacle is the rats. Go WEST until you get to a room with a description mentioning a steam valve. It is rusty, you have to PRY (or TURN) STEAM VALVE WITH CROWBAR. Now you can DROP CROWBAR and WAIT (3-4 times, I think, just keep WAITing until they enter the room description). OPEN VALVE to scare them off with steam. CLOSE VALVE and you will see on dead rat remaining. You can LOOK AT it to see a motif, but there is no need to take it further. Now, WEST until you get to a muddy tunnel and then DOWN.
You are in a room with a bunch of slots cut into the wall and some strange wire running into them. If you WAIT you will eventually see a handful of urchins coming out of the slots (the missing friends mentioned before) but they are under some sort of mind control. CUT WIRE WITH CUTTER and you will free them enough to stop them from attacking you, but they are beyond any immediate help. You can DROP CUTTER if you want to free up some inventory.
Now comes the maze portion of tonight's entertainment. Head DOWN when ready.
The Maze
This maze has two types of solution. The hard way involves getting a bunch of stuff in your inventory, dropping one piece per room and then marking how the rooms connect. This is how I beat it the first time. The problem with this is will probably have to drop enough stuff so that you are missing one of your needed items by the end and then have to replay the maze using your notes.
The easy solution is to bring the hand back to life and to make sure it is wearing the (its) hyrax. As you move around, it will point out the new directions for you to go each time. NORTH DOWN SOUTH SOUTH DOWN I think, but listen to the hand up until you are in the room with the slime. Do not touch slime or try to pass through it. As far as I can tell, once you contact the slime it will eventually be game over. The hand will point south, so you need to get rid of the slime to follow his directions.
EMPTY FLASK ON SLIME and it will freeze up and die. If you have used the flask or left it open for too long, this might be a good time to go back to a previous save before you did this and not repeat that error. You will need a fairly full flask for this to work. It will expose a door to the end boss. DROP FLASK. UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY. Open door. I would recommend saving here since the next few moments have a fairly high chance of error.
When you are ready, head SOUTH and face the final battle.
The Lurking Horror
You will see a mass in front of you. The hand will bobbing up and down. There is a box with a tentacle and some coaxial cable running into it. This whole sequence is timed. I'm not sure how much total time you have, but it is not a huge room for error.
SEARCH POOL (or REACH IN POOL) and you will see what the hand is pointing out. GET LINE. CUT LINE WITH AXE three times until you sever it and it starts to slip back into the water. GRAB LINE to stop this. Now, go over and OPEN BOX. UNPLUG COAXIAL CABLE. Leave the other "cable" alone. During this whole time, the [Hacker] will have showed up and been easily beaten by the monster. I have found on sequence of events that allows you to finish this next step before he gets swallowed.
PLUG LINE INTO SOCKET. If you are wearing both the gloves and the boots then you will be fine. It will fry the monster and you will see the face behind the mask.
In three turns, the Lurking Horror will pounce on you and kill you. Wait until the stone glows red hot and then THROW STONE AT CREATURE. It will destroy him, and you will then be able to PICK UP STONE and have won the game. Of course, since it appears the Lurking Horror was the beast that ate your term paper (and why the "Lovecraft" box didn't have a harddrive), you have also lost that as well. Too bad, huh? Also, a new horror appears to have been released, but it seems pretty par for the course in this world.
You can also GET HAND, but it is muddy and slippery and hard to hold on to. I like to think you get to keep him as a pet afterward.
The way the points work in this game (more as a percentile thing), I don't think you can be less than 100 at this time.
"The hidden is greater than the seen."
