The Hall of Sages

Welcome to the Hall of Sages.

Hello young adventurer. I wonder if you can help me? I came across a collection of old bamboo slips with Chinese writing on them. I was told that, if the meaning of the text of these slips can be worked out, these phrases would be of great help in finding one's way through a secret Hall of Sages found in the forest behind my cabin. Can you help me translate them? Why not give them a try? You don't need a perfect translation for them to help you in the adventure but I think the order they are in are important. You can find a large image with all the slips here:

Detailed Image of the Bamboo Slips

I have created a glossary that will help you as you try to translate these old classical Chinese phrases. You can find the glossary here. Once you have translated the slips, you can find the Hall of Sages in the forest in this old text adventure. In a text adventure only a small number of commands are understood. You can move about by typing words like "up" and "north" and "east" and so on. Other commands will work in certain places. Type "help" to learn more. My best advice is to 'look' at things, 'talk' to, and listen to characters you meet along the way. They can give you helpful advice.

A slightly modified version of this text adventure, and the translation exercise that accompanied it was written over the winter holiday in 2017–2018 by Konrad Lawson, for his 11 year-old nephew Liam's annual puzzle. The underlying Python code is based on the python module created by Gever Tulley, Brightworks (sfbrightworks.org) that is available under the MIT License. It can be found here on Github: BWX-adventure. The code for this game is also available under the same license for anyone who wants to create their own version. Consider reporting issues you come across here, and pull requests are most welcome.