Author's Note: Do not own the rights for Gauntlet, Questor or Morak, Atari does.
I pull back my bow and release an arrow. It homes in on the square brown generator and destroys it. Now just to mop up the remainder, I say to my self. Cleaning up these orc-like grunts is so much easier when they aren't being respawned. Two minutes later, the area is monster-free. Time to move on.
I'm Questor, an elf. I've been running through all these rooms trying to restore peace to the land of Rendar. Some purple guy with little horns on his head named Morak stole the Sacred Orb and locked it away somewhere. I was hired out to go through his maze called the Gauntlet and bring it back. At the time, it seemed like a good idea: the employer said, "Think of the money, and the fame you will earn." I jumped on that like a starving dog on the last piece of meat in the world.
What the contract didn't mention was the fact that this 'Gauntlet' was populated by monsters. Hordes of monsters: ghosts, grunts, flame-spitters, acid puddles, you get the picture . What was worse is if you kill one, a generator made more of them. At one point, I kept track of the number of monsters I killed, but I stopped counting after room twenty; it was too much effort just to stay alive. The worse of the lot was a quick little black creature I called 'death.' Normal weapons wouldn't scratch it. It was quick, and if it caught up with you, it took a lot of life. Painfully. Granted, I outran death on most occasions, but you can't replenish that lost energy with only gruel and ale. I honestly should have read the fine print before I signed on; it probably read something along the lines of "we can't guarantee that you'll ever return."
Ninety-nine rooms, I think to myself. Ninety-nine rooms…or was it one hundred eighty five? At several points in my journey I encountered a series of rooms that had exits to each other: it took me weeks? days? hours? to figure out the right exit in the right room. There was one point that the exit to room ninety-six sent me all the way back to room thirty-four. That just hacked me off. I am determined to finish this, however: I've got a bone to pick with Morak for designing this sadistic maze.
I catch the white gleam of a portal. The only problem is that there are six generators and fifty monsters between it and me. Now, I'm wearing a forest green outfit: lightweight, but offers poor protection. I reach into my pocket, withdraw a white pouch, and toss it in front of me. The monsters vaporize, leaving only the generator, which start cranking out more replacements. I'm out of bombs, so my only hope is to dash to the exit. I jump four feet in the air and sail through the portal head first.
My head comes in contact with a solid object. Ouch! I gingerly rub my sore noggin and look at the object. It is a blue cabinet with little eight dials and a black button. A closed round hole about five feet high stands beside it. Literally nothing exists around except for this object; white emptiness stretches onward as far as the eye can see. This must that 'vault' Morak kept muttering about, I say to myself. Good thing I have my combinat…what! Who wrote this illegible garbage! Guess who…
I fiddle with the dials to what I think is the correct combination and press the black button. The round hole opens with a shoosh. Alright! Just you wait Morak! I step through, only to feel my energy drained away. I can't move…can't breath…getting dark…I expire as I hit the floor of room one hundred.