The Scrap Heap is a wasteland of discarded objects — broken swords, empty potion bottles, shattered mirrors. But hidden among the junk are portal mirrors, and learning ln -s lets you build instant teleportation.

🕹️ Play This Chamber

This page is your walkthrough and strategy guide — play right here in the browser, then follow the steps below.

🎯 Quest Objectives

• Understand the difference between hard links and symbolic links
• Create a symbolic link with ln -s
• Identify symlinks with ls -l (look for ->)
• Resolve the target of a symlink with readlink
• Use the scrap’s portal symlinks to shortcut navigation
• Collect the portal crystal

�️ Quest Prerequisites

• Cellar side-quest complete
• Comfortable with ls -F, ls -l, and cd

⚡ Command Cheatsheet

Hard Link vs Symbolic Link

🗺️ Walkthrough

Step 1 — Survey the scrap heap

ls -F
# broken_sword  empty_bottle  portal_mirror@  scrap_pile/  crystal_hint

ls -l portal_mirror
# lrwxrwxrwx  1 user group  12 Jan 01  portal_mirror -> /vault/lab

portal_mirror is already a symlink — it points to the vault’s lab. You can cd portal_mirror and you will land directly in the lab.

Step 2 — Navigate via the existing portal

cd portal_mirror
pwd
# .../vault/lab   ← teleported!
cd -             # Return to previous directory (the scrap heap)
pwd
# .../scrap

cd - takes you back to wherever you were last. Very useful.

Step 3 — Read the hint

cat crystal_hint
# "Create a shortcut named 'quick_entrance' pointing to ../../ENTRANCE"

Step 4 — Create your own portal

ln -s ../../ENTRANCE quick_entrance
ls -l quick_entrance
# lrwxrwxrwx  1 user group  20 Jan 01  quick_entrance -> ../../ENTRANCE

ls -F quick_entrance/
# scroll  cellar/          ← entrance contents, via symlink

Step 5 — Inspect and resolve

readlink quick_entrance
# ../../ENTRANCE

readlink -f quick_entrance
# /home/user/bashcrawl/ENTRANCE  ← absolute, resolved path

Step 6 — Collect the crystal

cat crystal_hint
inventory
# portal crystal ✓

💡 Common Pitfalls

Danger: rm -r symlink_to_dir may behave unexpectedly depending on your shell version. Prefer unlink symlink_name to safely remove only the link.

✅ Validation

• You know the difference between ls -F @ and a real directory
• You created quick_entrance and successfully cd‘d through it
• You can resolve absolute target paths with readlink -f
• The portal crystal is in your inventory

➡️ Next Steps

• Complete other branches → Hidden Chapel · Vault
• Enter the final gauntlet → The Rift
• Back to hub → Bashcrawl Hub

🖥️ Advanced: Install & Play Locally

The embedded terminal above is the fastest way to play — but the advanced version runs Bashcrawl in a real shell on your own machine, with the full Textual TUI, agent mode, and a genuine filesystem sandbox. The walkthrough on this page works identically in either mode.

Option A — Clone the game

git clone https://github.com/bamr87/bashcrawl.git
cd bashcrawl
./setup.sh        # one-time setup: dirs, permissions, help system
./main.sh         # launch the adventure (interactive menu)

Option B — It already ships with IT-Journey

Bashcrawl lives in this repository as the submodules/bashcrawl git submodule. If you cloned IT-Journey, pull it down and play in place:

git submodule update --init submodules/bashcrawl
cd submodules/bashcrawl
./setup.sh
./main.sh --interactive

Play modes

Want to host the browser build yourself? From the game directory run make web-preview and open http://127.0.0.1:8000. The same static build is what powers the embedded terminal above (bamr87.github.io/bashcrawl).

📚 External Resources

Continue your terminal adventure with these resources:

• Bashcrawl Web Demo — Play in your browser, no installation required
• Bashcrawl on GitHub — Source code, setup, and open contributions
• GNU Bash Manual — Symbolic Links — Portal magic for brave adventurers
• IT-Journey Bashcrawl Hub — Full quest series and walkthroughs
• Linux Symlinks Guide — Master the art of magical portals

Portals created. The dungeon’s geography bends to your will. 🗑️

🕸️ Knowledge Graph

Structured wiki-links connect this quest to the IT-Journey knowledge graph. Open the Obsidian Graph View to explore connections.

Level hub: [[Level 0000 - Foundation & Init World]] Overworld: [[🏰 Overworld - Master Quest Map]] Prerequisites: [[Bashcrawl Cellar: File Types, Aliases, and Emerald Amulet]] Unlocks: [[Bashcrawl Rift: Pipes, Redirection, and the Final Boss]] Sequel quests: [[Bashcrawl Rift: Pipes, Redirection, and the Final Boss]] Obsidian docs: [[Obsidian Knowledge Graph and Wiki Links]]