Below the Root FAQ Version 1.0 Final Copyright Tom Cheng, 2000. tkcheng@home.com 27 Nov 00 Legal crap, etc. This FAQ was written for Tom Cheng, and is intended for free, unmodifed distribution only. Like anyone would steal a FAQ for an Apple II game anyway..... Below the Root is a copyright of Zilpha Keatley-Snyder and Windham Classics. Introduction: Below the Root was a game for the Apple II that I spent a large portion of my childhood playing. Before the dawn of the internet or any printed walkthrough-type material, I made my way through this old side-scroller and was rather proud of myself for doing so. Writing this FAQ is purely an exercise in nostalgia, since I doubt anyone is wracking their brains right now trying to beat Below the Root. This FAQ is 100% from memory, and will at best guide you through some convergent solutions. I cannot recall specifics about the books or game from over 10 years ago. About Below the Root: The game is based off of a series of books written by Zilpha Keatley-Snyder. The books are: Below the Root And All Between Until The Celebration The game itself picks up where Until the Celebration leaves off. You select the role of a hero (or heroine) and are tasked with finding Raamo. Story background: In the land of Green-Sky, inhabitants dwell in giant trees known as Grunds. The inhabitants, whose name I forget, are a race of peaceful, spiritual, vegetarians who possess some psychic powers. Green-Sky folk are forbidden to walk on land, and have recently discovered some subterranean people not dissimilar to themselves, except that they eat meat and are darker skinned. These land-dwellers are viewed with suspicion and thus the books touch on themes of racism. Raamo, a 13-year old boy, is about to become a spiritual leader in some ceremony (the "celebration" in Until the Celebration) when he falls into a pit on the surface. So now you have to find him. CHARACTERS: Really, I don't remember too much of the characters. Green-Sky woman (Genna): starts out with 0 spirit points. Not recommended. Green-Sky girl (Pomma): starts out with 10 spirit points. Recommend. Land-dwelling boy: starts out with 5 spirit points. Green-Sky man: starts out with 5 spirit points. Land-dwelling man: starts out with 5 spirit points. The two adult males can jump farther than the others, which can be crucial in certain areas. CHARACTER ABILITES: All characters will gain psychic abilities throughout their quest. At every 5 spirit points, a new ability is gained. Ergo, Pomma begins with Pense thoughts. Using a skill consumes spirit points like mana in other games, by an amount I can't remember. Although I recall that kiniport self uses 10 SP, which is a lot. 5 points: Pense (read) emotions. Pretty useless except for finding badguys. 10 points: Pense thoughts. Required to gain anything from rabbits and monkeys, and can allow you to hear certain useful messages from certain townsfolk. 15 points: Heal. Recover some damage and level of rest. 20 points: Grundspeak: extends a tree branch horizontally by a small amount, allowing you to cross certain places. 25 points: Kiniport objects. Can teleport any item on screen, usually to you. 30 points: Kiniport self. Teleport self, which can be used to pass locked doors or access otherwise impossible-to-reach places. You must be able to kiniport self (and thus get all the skills) to beat the game. CHARACTER ITEMS: Shuba: All characters must have a shuba at all times. It is a parachute of sorts which is used by pressing fire while falling. Once the shuba is open, you can steer your slowed descent left and right, and can fall without taking damage. Falling and taking damage can break your shuba, meaning you have to get another one somehow. Token: Green-Sky money. Tokens do not affect how many items you can carry. Pan bread: standard food item of the Green-Sky inhabitants. Fruits and nuts: more vegan food for the Green-Sky folk. Roast lapan (rabbit): standard food of the land-dwellers. If a Green-Sky person eats it, it will say "The lapan has a strange taste." However, it's still food. Honey lamp: Lamp used to light dark areas, limited use. Spirit lamp (unique item): unlimited use lamp. Trencher beak: used to break certain walls, will break at random. Vine rope: creates a horizontal line that you can crouch-walk across. Spirit bell (unique item): alerts you to high spiritual activity. Elixir: permanently raises your physical attributes. Temple key: used to get into the temple area. Some other key I forgot: I think you need this to get the Spirit Lamp. I can't remember the name, just that it's blue and in a hole in a tree. It might not let you take it at first, so just keep trying to take it or leave and come back later. Wand of Befal (unique item): a trencher beak that doesn't break. Can also be used to kill people. However, killing people permanently reduces your spirit points by 5, so it pretty much keeps you from beating the game. Berries: The "drug" of the Green-Sky world. If you eat them, you will pass out. The only reason to have them is to bribe the guard to the caverns on the ground. GAME BASICS: Walk, jump, crouch, crouch-walk. That's about it on the ground. If you fall, you will fall straight down unless you press jump to open your shuba. Press jump to enter buildings. Doesn't take a genius. Press down+jump to access the menu. From here, you can access your spiritual powers as well as do other RPGish things like talk, take, inventory, give, buy, etc. In shops, you must "buy" instead of "talk" to get something, and you obviously must have a token to buy something. If you take too much damage, or your level of sleep or level of food get too low, you will pass out and wake up at home, losing a day. Pomma's weakness is that her level of rest and food need more maintainence, while the adult males need the least bodily maintainence to keep going. If you take too long, someone will find Raamo before you and the game will be over. This only happened to me once. Also, if you take too long, your character will just say "I have nothing more to give." That is basically the game giving you the finger for screwing up too much. TOWNSFOLK: What adventure game wouldn't have townsfolk? Some of them will give you free stuff or let you sleep in their place. Unfortunately, like in real life, some of them are racist and will refuse you if you are a land-dweller. Other townsfolk will give you clues, but most are pretty useless. Pensing a person on the same screen will give you their emotional state. If you can pense thoughts, stand right in front of them and pense to hear their thoughts. If you pense thoughts on a monkey or rabbit, you will permanently gain one spirit point, and can do this to unlock either of the kiniport abilities. Hence you should only go mammal-hunting after you get Grundspeak. There are some evil people, who will have negative emotions when pensed. Bumping into them will usually knock you out and take you back home, or kidnap you. This is not bad thing, because if you can kiniport objects, you can steal an elixir or the Wand of Befal from the kidnappers. This is, AFAIK, the only way to get the Wand of Befal. WALKTHROUGH: This part will be sketchy at best, because of my faulty memory. The absolute bare minimum you have to do to win this game is to get kiniport other, one batch of berries, and enough light (be it honey lamps or the spirit lamp) to enter the last dungeon. Now here is, in a nutshell, what I remember about doing this: Start the game and pick up everything at home. Visit the spiritual leader in each of the five Grunds to acquire all the skills. One requires two cuts of a trencher beak or Wand of Befal, another requires Grundspeak or a vine rope. Most require some fancy jumping. Again I don't recall. You can visit people like Raamo's mom, just for the hell of it. Pick up the blue key whose name I can't remember in the hole in one of the grunds. I think you will need it to get one of the spirit items. Get your pense on with the rabbits and monkeys to increase your max spirit points. Either the Spirit Bell or Spirit Lamp are in the Temple, I don't recall which. Entering the Temple is tricky. You can either kiniport yourself in past the door, or you can shuba-drop in from a branch far above. Either way, once you're in, you can get the Temple Key, which allows you enter the Temple without the aforementioned teleporting or falling, and one of the spirit items. On the ground, there will be a cave entrance. Raamo is down there. You will need 2 sets of berries to bribe the guy who is standing in front of the cave. Give him berries once to enter, and then enter the cave and come back. He will have returned, so give him berries again to make him disappear for good. I don't remember which way to go in the cave once you're inside, but all I know is that when the Spirit Bell rings in the cave, click the jump button like you're entering a door. You will enter an unseen door to find Raamo. He will be on a ledge up high, so you have to kiniport self up to him. Give him a rope or shuba so he can get the F out of dodge, and you have beaten the game. It sounds pretty simple, huh? Well, try it with no instructions and no publications while being 12 years old. Good luck! MISCELLANEOUS AND THANKS: This FAQ will probably not be updated unless I get some strange itch to get some emu on and play Below the Root again. There is another game that uses the same engine, "Alice in Wonderland." I never completed Alice because I had a haX0r version that crashed after a certain point and seemed to have bugs that prevented one from advancing in the game. Alice in Wonderland even makes a reference to Below the Root in the Mad Hatter's place, I believe. Thanks to Zilpha Keatley-Snyder for creating another world that is "better than real life." Thanks to Windham Classics for sucking away my childhood. Thanks to my original grade school BtR boys, Jeremy, Robert, and Alvin, to whom I can say, nyah nyah, I beat the game first! Thanks to my selective memory that remembers the stupidest things, like this game, but can't remember anything for exams. "The spirit rises within."
