I'm gonna leave this journal in case anyone finds my notes and has the courage to stand up to the black market or save the town.
My name is Jeremiah Cuthbert Conklin, though folks around these parts just call me Ole Stampy, 'cause of my stamps. I'm gonna stamp this journal with my new stamp, of curly triangle, just so everyone knows it's mine. I've found folks don't listen to Ole Stampy much though, and after a while it just gets a man down not being listened to, so I'm gonna take off, and try and start new somewhere else. I probably couldn't get the stuff together to save the town anyways. But if you want to give it a try, be my guests. You can be the new Stampy.
I suppose if you're gonna be Stampy, I should tell you a little bit about yourself. You were born right here on the Hole. You know why they calls it ``the Hole'' too. Cause you can't climb out of it. Oh, it's not bad at all. You can be a loner and stay out in the hills with your papa, and when that gets too old, you can move into one of the towns and make your way as best you can. When you get bored of that, you can head back to the hills again and start it all over.
But that's all you've got. The Hills and the Town. After a while a guy gets tired of that, and wants something new. You sure did. But by the time you were old enough and tired enough to make a change, you were too deep in ``the Hole''. You get into a rut, and its hard to get out of.
It's not always that way though. Sometimes, not too often, but sometimes, a chance for change comes and you gotta grab it. If you miss it, you're stuck in the hole. This time, the chance for change was that newcomer.
He blew in with his fancy ship a little under a year ago. It took him a little longer than most to get it, but once he got it, he wasn't really as relieved as most people. Some folks are like that. They don't get it until they get it, and then they don't want to get it. Well, anyways, the newcomer finally got it, and then went a little broody. Then he came up with a plan. He decided to stir things up a bit. Apparently, you can still do that when you're a newcomer.
He started small, just selling a little bit here and there, parts from his ship, things he brought in from other towns, but eventually, just a month or so back, he struck the mother lode. At least, that's what he told you when he recruited you.
That was pretty strange. No one pays much attention to Ole Stampy, er New Stampy, in the regular way of things, so the fact he wanted you to work for him was pretty flattering. He said he knew you were looking for change though, a leg up, and he was right. So you joined his new organization. He called it, ``the black market''.
Now, setting up his ``black market'' was pretty tricksy. No one really wants a bunch of stuff they don't need, and if they need it you just give it to them. At least, that's the way things have always been done. He badgered and cajoled, and got you and a couple of other people to help him, and eventually, people were giving him stuff they didn't want in exchange for getting better stuff. He wouldn't tell you who the other people were who were black marketing with him, since he said that that's not how its done. But you know there's at least a couple of them.
The way the black market works is like this. You talk to people and see if there's anything they want that they don't have, and don't need. Sometimes you gotsta talk to them for a long time before they come around, but everyone has something. Then you go to ``the stash'' and search around for what they wanted. Then you go back and give it to them in exchange for some of these little purple things that most people in town have. You take the purple things, and give half of them to the boss, and keep the rest yourself.
The point of this whole process is to get more purple things than anyone else has. The boss said that if you get more purple things than anyone else who's working for him, he'll give you his ship and get you out of ``the Hole'' for good.
You were doing pretty well too. Your best customer was Phil Hatfield. (He joined up with the Hatfields a couple of months ago.) He was always poking around down by the river sticking sticks in the water and drawing lines on them. One day you asked him why he was always down by the river and he got a little mad gleam in his eye and told you that it was going to move soon. When you asked him where, he said, ``It's going to cover the town, of course''.
Well, that was pretty upsetting. You pumped him for details and he explained that sometimes rivers around town just move here and there. Usually things improve, with more boat space, or better irrigation, but for some reason, this river was getting ready to overflow its banks and wash the town away. He sounded crazy, but after a lifetime of being Stampy, you know when its time to listen to crazy ole coots.
He told you about his plan to save the town, and its pretty complicated. You wrote it all down, but thinking about it, you decided that there probably wasn't enough time to get it all done. So you decided to take off.
Well, I decided to take off. Ole Stampy is heading back out to the hills. If you read this and decide to become New Stampy, you'll probably want Ole Stampy's purple things. In fact, Id better leave you a bunch of notes so you knows what's what. Just so you don't get confused reading them all at once, I'll put them in little envelopes. If you see the person or thing I wrote on the envelope, open it up and you'll find important information inside. Just so I knows your serious, I'll put my stash of purple things at the end of a few clues. I only want serious Stampys to get them.
Well, good luck New Stampy. You'll want to solve the clues to get the purple things, sell more stuff to win the black market competition, and escape the Hole. Or if you don't win and get the boss's ship, save the town from the river before you drown.