Chapter 55: Come Up to the Lab

You’ve destroyed wave after wave of Morpuls, which seem to keep getting faster and more dangerous. You and the Spectra Warrior have been firing the Spectron back and forth between your ships so much it has overheated dozens of times. But you blast one last group of Mastrods, just as your sensors indicate that the Spectron has gone into permanent meltdown. Melvin has reappeared in the loading chamber, dripping with sweat, and about to pass out. Just then the Mothership glides across the battlefield and you are sure that the next group of Mechanolds it releases are going to do you in. But… this time the Mothership stops, just hovering there. The white lights on the side fade out ominously. Then they blink back on, spelling out “We Surrender!”

On your video screen, you see and hear the Spectra Warrior hoot victoriously. “We have done it! Spectra is avenged!” He presses a button, and again your body is gripped with painful electricity, and everything fades to white.

When the pain and the white light subside, you and Melvin are standing in the center of a vast arena, in front of an audience of thousands of Spectrans who are howling with excitement. On a vast screen above, you see replays of your battle, and each time a Morpul is destroyed, the crowd howls again. The Warrior is there with you, and is shouting and howling along with the rest of the crowd. Suddenly, the crowd goes silent. Out of the shadows, an enormous form looms forth, a giant Spectran, at least forty feet tall, wearing rainbow war paint like the warrior, but with many elaborate decorations in his braided hair. He stares at you grimly, and with booming footsteps, strides to the center of the stage. “SPECTRANS!” he thunders. “OUR LONG NIGHTMARE IS OVER!” The audience howls back in excitement. “THE INVADING MORPULS HAVE BEEN CHASED BACK TO TZORIS, AND HAVE SURRENDERED! IT IS ALL THANKS TO MIGHTY WARRIOR JAANTIK AND THE ALLY THAT HE FOUND. SIX CHEERS FOR THE ALLY!” The audience barks six times, sounding something like “GAMP GAMP GAMP GAMP GAMP GAMP!”

“WE ARE AT PEACE – FOR NOW.” He looks down at you sternly. “ALLY, YOU ARE TRULY A FRIEND OF THE SPECTRAN PEOPLE. YOUR PROWESS AT BATTLE IS INDEED MIGHTY. THE PEOPLE OF SPECTRA OFFER YOU TWO THINGS: FIRST, THE MEDAL OF VALOR!” Two Spectrans, a man and a woman, come out, each holding either end of a string. In the middle of the string is a strange floating pillow, and upon that, a shining circular medal, about the size of a quarter, emblazoned with the seal of spectra, and adorned with rainbow ribbons on either side. The man and woman stop before you, but the floating pillow keeps moving by its momentum. It floats over and hovers before you, and suddenly the medal rises up from the pillow on a strange ropy tentacle, which guides the medal to your chest, where it attaches. The crowd erupts into howling approval. The warrior, whose name is apparently Jaantik, strides to you and shakes both of your hands at once in what seems to be a Spectran salute. He smiles and whispers, “What? No Medal of Klig?” He laughs. “I tease you! You should be proud!”

The giant Spectra speaks again. “NOW ALLY: AS MUCH AS YOU WANT TO, YOU MAY NOT STAY WITH US. WE WILL RETURN YOU TO WHATEVER NOBLE ENDEAVOR WE TOOK YOU FROM.” A thing that looks like a vast bundle of tree roots, but facing up, floats down from the unfathomably high ceiling in darkness above. Amongst the roots are glowing spheres in every color of the rainbow. Ropy, vinelike tentacles wave around beneath it. It makes you think of a giant jellyfish wearing some sort of crown. “OUR DIMENSIONAL SENDER CAN PLACE YOU ANYWHERE YOU CARE TO BE, IN THIS WORLD OR ANY OTHER.”

Of course, you think, we need to get to Dracula’s castle, so we can get the crosses so that we can… but then, an image of your own bed comes into your mind. You realize how tired you are, how strange this all is, and how it feels like the end of a dream, and you are ready to wake up. One of the tentacles comes forth, spreads into a series of thin fingers, which ever so gently grip your head. In your mind, you see a glowing rainbow of light. Up on the screen, you suddenly see your bed, in your room at home. “JUST THINK OF WHERE YOU WOULD GO, ALLY, AND WE WILL SEND YOU THERE.” You look longingly for a moment at that picture of your bed. But suddenly the picture changes, and on the screen is Peek, sitting alone in a dark corner of his dark house. You can tell he is hiding from something horrible, and though tears are streaming down his cheeks, he does not make a noise. Then the picture changes again to the gray castle of Queen Stella, which still looks sad and crumbling. Then your bed reappears. The leader booms, “THERE ARE MANY PICTURES HERE, ALLY. WHERE WOULD YOU GO?”

“I…” you look longingly at your bed. Then you look at Melvin. He looks down at the floor. “You have done a lot, Player, I won’t make you go back.”

You look up at the leader. “I have chosen.” A picture of your front door appears on the screen. Melvin looks crestfallen. You go on. “As much as I would like to return to my true home, this missile and I must continue our quest. We must go somewhere in none of these pictures, because we have never been there. It is a castle on earth that contains a terrible monster. We must stop that monster, to save the souls of many. Can your sender bring us to a place we have never been?”

The leader looks surprised, and the crowd breaks into murmurs. Clearly, this has never happened before. What appear to be Spectra advisors float up on pillows of their own to the leader’s massive face, so that they might give advice. They all appear to be arguing, and the murmuring of the crowd becomes louder. The leader shouts “SILENCE!” and stamps his foot with a thunderous boom. The advisors bow their heads and float to a respectable distance. “ALLY, YOU ASK MUCH, BUT NOT MORE THAN WE CAN PROVIDE. CONCENTRATE ON WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THE PLACE YOU SEEK, AND THE SENDER WILL BRING IT TO YOU.”

You close your eyes and think about a castle, and monstrous Dracula, and a pile of silver crosses. Melvin, who is watching the screen, says, “I see it! Keep concentrating!” While your eyes are gripped shut, a terrifying castle looms on the screen. Bolts of lightning flash in the sky around it, and then suddenly one great bolt of lightning flashes, and your feel your entire body seized with painful electricity, and you feel yourself fall down into the mud.

You open your eyes and find yourself and Melvin lying on your backs in the mud, with rain pounding down on you, soaking your clothes. Suddenly there is a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, showing the silhouette of a huge, evil castle in front of you. “We’re here!” Melvin shouts, over the pounding rain, and you realize that, yes, it appears you are at what must be Dracula’s castle. But then you have a terrible thought. “Melvin! We’re not supposed to be here yet! We don’t have the crosses!” Melvin looks horrified. “You’re right! I… well, we’ll just have to… uh… you don’t suppose it’s too late to just… go play some pinball?”

The lightning flashes again, and you are startled to see a weird hooded figure, with a strange twisted face standing before you. He holds a shovel, and a strange red stone. He is smiling, and seems to have no idea that it is raining. “Can you help me?” he asks. “There is a problem in the castle, and it is urgent.”

You and Melvin look at each other. “A problem with Dracula?” asks Melvin. The weird figure laughs. “Dracula? Oh, no. The Doctor has nothing to fear from Dracula.” He looks serious again. “The problem is with… the creature. The doctor has connected him to the power probe, and with all this lightning, I’m worried something terrible will happen.”

“Terrible like what?” asks Melvin.

“Terrible like… last time,” says the figure. “The creature turned green, became enormous, and destroyed everything in the village.”

You shake your head, and the rain streaming down your face flies off in all directions. You’ve had enough. “We can’t help you now. We need to find crosses so that we stop Dracula. I think you’ll have to work out the creature problem on your own. Come on, Melvin.” You start to stride away from the castle, towards… well, you aren’t sure.

“Wait!” calls the figure. “The Doctor has those crosses! They are what keep him safe from Dracula! But if the monster gets loose, he’ll destroy us all!”

You stop and put your head in your hand. You take a deep breath and look up at the sky. Huge raindrops keep splashing loudly on your face. You return to the weird figure. “Okay, fine. What do we have to do?”

He looks up to the top of the castle, nervously. “The power probe is at the top of the castle, and the Doctor has locked the laboratory. I think he suspects I want to stop him.”

“So, how can we get in?”

“We don’t need to get in.” He holds up the red rock. “These rocks have a strong iron content. If we can build a wall of them outside the lab, it will shield the lightning from getting to the creature.” The figure hobbles a little closer to you. “But I’ll never be able to get them all up there in time. If you can carry these rocks to the top of the castle and build the wall, we’ll all be saved, and I can help you get those crosses.”

Melvin says, “That sounds easy… we just need to carry some rocks? Where are they?”

“Here’s the first one.” He drops it into your hands, and you almost fall over it is so heavy. “This must weigh twenty pounds,” you say. He looks at you. “Yes… It’s full of iron, that’s why it’s red. You take this first one up, and I’ll look for more.”

“What if the Doctor sees us?” you ask nervously.

“Here,” he says, producing a white cap from under his robe. “Put this on. If the Doctor sees you, he’ll think you’re the painter.”

You put it on. It’s hardly the weirdest thing you’ve had to do today. You look up at the castle. It is intimidating, especially with lightning flashing behind it. “How do we get in?”

He points to an open grate that has rainwater pouring into it. “That’s the only safe way to go in. But, it’s easy once you are down there. Just cross the pool of acid, mind the white spiders, climb through the ceiling trap door, mind the brown spiders, climb through the other ceiling trap door, mind the ghost, and then, presto, avoid hundreds and hundreds of bats, and drop the stone outside the lab. Then come back down, and I’ll give you another stone.”

“How many times will we have to do this?” you ask.

“Six stones should do it. But… hurry!” A lightning bolt hits the power probe atop the castle. “The monster is energizing as we speak!”

You start climbing down into the grate. “What’s the Doctor’s name, anyway?”

“Frankenstein,” he calls back, shovel on his shoulder. “And I’m Igor. Pleased to meet you.” He bows, and you see how pronounced his hunchback really is.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” you say, as you and Melvin climb down through the flooding grate into the cold air of the dungeon below the castle.

Place the Frankenstein’s Monster cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 1, and set the difficulty switches to b. Play until you successfully stop the monster. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.