Rub

#rub is the extended command which allows you to rub an object. This has two main uses:

• Rubbing a lamp can have special effects, depending on whether it is a oil lamp or magic lamp. An oil lamp will always produce the message "Nothing happens"; a magic lamp will sometimes produce the message "You see a puff of smoke," and sometimes produce a djinni.

• Rubbing a brass lantern will produce the message "Rubbing the electric lamp is not particularly rewarding. Anyway, nothing exciting happens." This is a reference to the result of trying to RUB LAMP in Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the earliest text adventure games.

• Rubbing with a gray stone is useful for identification. If you have a blessed, identified touchstone (there are exceptions, see the main article for details), you can rub unidentified gems on it to identify them. In addition, a "scritch, scritch" message when you rub an iron item on a gray stone indicates it is a touchstone.