Okay, I've finished it! I was sure it wasn't beatable, but it turned out I wasn't doing something wrong, I was doing the wrong something. Very clever!
I kind of had three phases to my playthroughs.
- I just enjoyed being able to solve problems different ways,
- I obsessively mapped out decision trees trying to brute force a win
- Once I realized such a win was impossible, I just tried to find a new way to approach the story.
The writing is nice, it's a good timeless fantasy bit, like the best early 90s IF. I especially like the verbosity of the reactions to wrong options. Nothing feels like it was rushed through, everything seems viable when you try it the first time.