All around the land there are eager youngsters known as foragers - early escapees from their families keen to seek a future on a bigger canvas; typically in one of the four cities. These foragers look to you, the heroic citizens, with something like reverence, as fountains of knowledge and a route out of the future into which they were born: to be farmers or craftsmen, etc.
If you see a young forager around, GREET him and doubtless he will be pleased to tell you his current ambitions. Foragers are popular companions at times and if you are unable to find one to suit your needs you should take a trip to the mountain village of Archangel. By the statue, there you can type CALL FORAGER. This serves two purposes: it will either instantly summon any forager loyal to you, to attend you, or it will call a brand new forager from the outlying villages to come forth immediately ready to receive your instructions.
The usefulness of these foragers to you is as follows: you can take a forager into your service and set them about tasks that might otherwise be difficult, time consuming or beyond your ken. These are eager youngsters and all they ask is a modest "wage" of lessons for their someday apprenticeship.
PART ONE: MEETING YOUNG FORAGERS AND BECOMING HIS MENTOR
Syntax: GREET <forager>.
The main interaction with foragers is via the TASK command but greeting them will establish an initial connection. It will inform you whether the forager is in the employ of somebody else or, if in your employ, give you some info about his current state-of-play.
Syntax: MENTOR <forager>.
If you have decided to take a young forager into your service you use this command to offer your mentorship. If the forager has no current mentor and no special reason to refuse, in all likelihood he will leap at the opportunity to gain from such a heroic and noble scion as yourself. Use your mentor status wisely for it is a position of trust; the youngsters are very loyal and you could easily damage his future if you take one into your service and subsequently leave him charged with no tasks and given nothing in return for his fidelity.
PART TWO: GENERAL INTERACTION WITH THE YOUNG FORAGER
Syntax: TASK <forager> WAIT.
This demands a forager waits on your further instructions. These youngsters are frenetic souls, ever in search of a mentor or about some task bestowed by a mentor so telling a forager to wait calls a halt to his movements for a little.
Syntax: TASK <forager> INVENTORY (or just TASK <forager> on its own).
If you are the mentor of a young forager or, indeed, if the youngster has no mentor but is seeking one - then you may task him to reveal his inventory. This informs you what produce he has retrieved during his travels about the land, whether bidden by you specifically or the result of past tasks, etc. Foragers are loyal and will not give up their wares to you or, indeed, any information about inventory if they have been sworn into the service of somebody else.
Syntax: TASK <forager> RECEIVE <taskname>/<box number>.
Here you can use the RECEIVE direction to task the young forager to give up products he has retrieved from about the land, handing them over to you. The young forager collects items or information notes for each task in an individual box and it is this box he will be handing over when you ask to RECEIVE the end-results.
Syntax: TASK <forager> RELEASE.
If you are finished with a young forager and wish for no further tasks you would be doing the youngster a kindness by releasing him from your service. He will automatically discard his inventory, including any gold you handed over for use in task completion. He will surrender any lessons you have promised to teach that have not been used performing your bidding. The 'release' informs the young'un to expect no more lesson secrets from you for the time being so he can go seek another mentor elsewhere. The foragers are extremely loyal otherwise and will remain tied to a mentor for a long while if not released - a little unfair to the poor neophyte if you have nothing for him to do.
Syntax: TASK <forager> SUMMON or TASK <forager> SUMMON CEASE to abort.
Sends out the call for one of your young foragers to drop whatever he is doing, wheresoever he is in the land, and make his way to you as quickly as possible. Generally it will take a minute or so for your acolyte to make his way to your location though there are occasions when he may take longer - the young foragers sometimes go far, far afield to carry out their tasks. Send the SUMMON CEASE command to abort a previously requested summons.
NOTE: if you send out a summoning as an emergency, to rescue a forager lost beyond the known regions of the land it will act after four seconds to open a portal, by grace of the Gods, to bring your forager home - back to your location.
Syntax: TASK <forager> GOLD <gold to give>/-<gold to take>.
Some tasks are smoothed along by clever use of gold coins to grease palms and secure information. The young foragers are adept at thrifty but smart use of any gold they are given for their tasks. Use this command to give over gold. If you specify a positive number of gold coins you will hand over coins from your inventory; if you specify a negative number you will (if the forager has enough) be given the specified amount of gold back.
PART THREE: NEGOTIATING A SUCCESSFUL TASK DEMAND
Syntax: TASK <forager> TEACH <number of lessons>.
The 'teach' command is the one you will find the young foragers most yearn to receive, for it is your gift of mentorship to the acolyte made real and will be used as payment for their hard work on your behalf. The process here is simple: you declare the number of lessons you intend to give over to the young forager and you will proceed to teach him accordingly. He will remember the lessons given over, will inform you of their worth whenever you request an INVENTORY and will return ALL unused lessons in the event you RELEASE him from mentorship before he has used up all the teachings in tasks.
Syntax: TASK <forager> LESSONS.
Use this command to discover how many lessons have been imparted to one of the young foragers and, by dint of your relationship with your acolyte, the worth of knowledge imparted across the various possible tasks.
Syntax: TASK <forager> <task>.
This is the centrepiece command for interacting with the young foragers. Let us assume you have taken on a forager as mentor, he will be keen to perform tasks for you in order to prove himself worth of lesson secrets. This command is the means by which you give the young forager his purpose, informing him what to do. See HELP FORAGING for detailed information on all the different tasks you are able to demand of an acolyte. The young forager will consider the task, once it has been given out, and inform you how much of the lessons given via the TEACH command (see above) would be used in its successful completion.
WARNING: if you send a forager on a task to retrieve items unable to be found then often the forager will not return for a long time. Type FORAGERS to check up on your vassal. Foragers are not object creators, they retrieve only that which can be recycled - so they are limited by what is out there, what they can lay hands on and bring back to you.
Syntax: TASK <forager> CANCEL <task>.
If you have just given out a task to a young forager and decide, immediately afterwards, that it is not worthwhile him carrying out your bidding you may use this CANCEL command to nullify the task. It will command your acolyte to discard the task from his list, thereby ensuring no accumulated knowledge is used up. You can only CANCEL tasks at the outset, before the young forager has set off to risk life and limb about their completion. If you decide to abort a task midway you must use the RECEIVE command as described above.
Syntax: TASK <forager> GO.
When you are finished with a forager - AFTER you have charged him with his tasks (see above) - tell him to GO and he will set about your business with fleecefooted urgency.
NOTE: you can interact with young foragers using the abbreviation FG. This will automatically do the equivalent of TASK FORAGER or, if a forager is in your location loyal to you, the equivalent of TASK FORAGER12345 if 12345 is its unique number. Examples are: FG on its own to show its inventory, FG RECEIVE <task> to receive task bounty, FG GO to send your forager on his way. A little experimenting will quickly ensure you work efficiently and quickly with your chosen acolytes. Foragers are not strong fighters and will flee rather than get into a fight.
See HELP FORAGING for a list of tasks you can give over to a young forager, HELP ORDER for summary of the "order" command and HELP CCC for an overview of computer controlled characters (C..C..C.s).
