It’s high time I was getting back to my attempt at Rhianna Pratchett’s FF book, Crystal of Storms, the first part of which is here. My character's sleep is troubled, filled with dreams about repeatedly trying and failing to catch friends as they fall from the sky. At one point I do catch someone, but am unable to hang on to him, and before he slips from my grasp and plunges into the sea, I see that he has my face.
A buzzing sound wakes me, and I open my eyes to see a winged mechanical eye, around the size of a grapefruit, hovering in the corner of the barracks, watching me. It starts to dart around mid-air, blinking at me, and in a desperate attempt to avert the introduction of paparazzi and reality TV into Titan, I grab a boot and hurl it at the flying pest. Randomness determines that, while the boot does hit the thing, I do no significant damage, and the steampunk monopticon flies up the chimney before I can take any further action.
There’s nothing more I can do here, so I leave – well, I try to, but the vines I previously noticed encroaching on the building have become that bit more militant, and block the way. A bunch of grapes explodes, and these aren’t just sour: they’re acidic, so I take damage from the juice that hits me. This encounter might sound a bit daft, but the impending combat is what ended my second attempt at the book. This time round my Skill is significantly higher, but I see that using a potion would take me to a different section than fighting and winning, so as I have a spare and I’m curious about the outcome, I attempt to calm the wrath of grapes.
Well, the vines subside and permit me to leave, but they don’t offer me any restorative fruit by way of apology, which I’d thought might result from choosing the more peaceful approach. Nor do they attempt to tell me anything, so I can’t be Titan’s equivalent of Marvin Gaye.
I’m wondering if it’s time to move on to another island when I hear shouting in the distance, and decide to investigate that first. In an orchard I see that more lush, aggressive vegetation is causing trouble: a Dragon Fruit Tree has sprouted dragon heads, and is attacking an old woman armed only with a spade. Or rather, a spade handle, as a plume of flame breathed by one of the heads has just melted the shovel blade. Here I have no choice but to fight.
Subduing the tree is easy enough (though it might not have been if the dragon heads had had a Hellhound-style randomised chance of doing extra damage), and its intended victim thanks me and introduces herself as a retired adventurer, formerly known as Maude the Mauler. She tells me that her daughter is a member of the Sky Watch, and asks what happened on Nimbus. I don’t think a reassuring lie would be appropriate here, so I explain that that’s what I’m trying to find out. Maude concludes that I could do with some assistance, and fetches a healing potion and a warhammer from her cottage. I thank her and, having now exhausted all obvious avenues of enquiry on Cirrus, head north in search of the local Goblin flyer.
It takes me a little while to find the flyer, and things don’t look too good when I do reach it: the balloon is deflated, and the pilot is clearly displeased. Cautiously approaching, I learn that the pilot was on his lunch break when a chunk of rock punctured his balloon, and the shock caused him to drop his pie over the edge of the island. Nowhere near the worst thing that’s happened to anyone today, but belittling his misfortunes because others have had it worse wouldn’t help. The silk cloth I was given could work as a patch for the hole, but I don’t have anything that would serve as an adhesive, so repairing the balloon is not an option.
Grateful for my willingness to help, even if I couldn’t actually provide any meaningful assistance, the pilot directs me to the charger where I can power up the hovers, so long as I can pay. It’s a good thing I was able to get back the money pilfered by that cockroach, or my adventure would be ending here.
I can only charge the hovers enough to enable me to fly to one of the closest islands, which means heading for Altos as I’ve already done what I could on Cumulus (well, the lack of any 'if you have not been there before' restriction means that technically I could head back to see what Hazi and Methedus can deduce from the fragment of the crystal shard that I acquired, but the book isn’t really set up to handle return visits, so I’d wind up having to repeat almost every encounter I had there, which is obviously not ideal).
The voyage is largely uneventful,
but as I draw near to the island I startle a flock of the sentient clouds which
are farmed here, and the mother Cloudkin hits me with a bolt of lightning,
inflicting a little Stamina damage and causing me to make a rather ungainly
landing on Altos.
As there’s a Cloudkin farm close by, I commence the next phase of my investigation there. It appears to be deserted, and I can guess why when a mutated Cloudkin attacks me. A farm worker emerges from hiding and throws me a wooden staff to use in helping subdue the rogue storm. She also assists me in the fight, providing the same sort of bonuses I gained from having Dav’s help on Cumulus, and we cloudbust our tempestuous foe without difficulty.
The Cloudkin farmer thanks me, expressing some regret at having had to kill one of her stock, but acknowledging that it was already beyond help. She introduces herself as Nemi, and when I explain what I’m doing here, she reveals that I might not be the only member of the Sky Watch still active, as she heard someone snoring inside the local Watchhouse just before the explosion on Nimbus. Nemi also mentions that her best Canidor (a kind of winged dog, not that the text gives any indication of that here) has gone missing, and might have taken refuge at the Great Waterfall.
Deciding to check out the Great Waterfall first, I get to the pool at its foot and, remembering that its waters are said to have healing properties, opt for a quick bathe in the hope of regaining some of the Stamina I’ve lost. Bad idea: there turns out to be something hostile in its depths, and while randomness determines that I take only minor damage in the course of escaping, I get the impression that a worse roll could have ended in death.
After downing one of the healing potions I’ve been given, I continue my exploration, finding paw prints in the mud and catching sight of the local Goblin flyer. The tracks lead to a cave, and inside I find Nemi’s missing Canidor, which is undergoing some kind of mutation in response to the elemental forces given off by the explosion. I use the shard that Methedus gave me to extract the harmful energies, and he returns to normal and sets off back to the farm.
A quick search of the cave turns up a longsword that provides an Attack Strength bonus. As regards game mechanics, it’s no better than the dagger that Hazi gave me, and I can’t dual-wield the two weapons, but it’s good to have a back-up, and there could be an occasion where the longer reach of the sword will prove advantageous, so I’ll keep it anyway.
Now I should check out the Watchhouse, and what I remember from previous attempts at the book prompts me to down a healing potion beforehand. The most direct route passes through a marsh, and while I am making my way across the morass, something spits a dollop of goop at me. I dodge the organic missile with ease, and confront the Giant Toad responsible. Here I have the option of using the other calming potion, but I’d rather keep it in reserve, and just fight my amphibious assailant, winning with ease. Before continuing on my way I carefully add a leaf with some of the toad’s adhesive mucilage on it to my inventory. It may be that the punctured balloon incident was the only situation in which the stuff could have come in handy, but I’d rather have the stuff and not need it than risk failing the adventure for lack of something sticky.
Proceeding to the Watchhouse, I
hear that the occupant mentioned by Nemi is still snoring inside, and find that
the door is locked. Not having any corrosive grapes with me (evidently I shouldn’t
have used that calming potion on the vines – and I am a little disappointed to
find that the book is effectively penalising some nonviolent resolutions), I have no option
but to try and break the door down, taking a little Stamina damage in the
process.
Heading towards the snorer, I am taken by surprise when a log comes swinging towards my face. My Skill is high enough that I dodge the blow, and I discover that the log is being wielded by a Sky Watch officer. He starts to ask how I escaped from the Citadel on Nimbus and, inferring from his words that he is implicated in whatever is afoot, I pin him against a wall and demand that he tell me what he knows about it. He protests his innocence, claiming to have received a message warning him not to attend the meeting, but is reluctant to say who warned him. This is not a lead I can afford to ignore, so I threaten him. He gets me slightly off balance by asking if I’m really willing to kill a fellow member of the Sky Watch, then pushes me away and draws a sword, indicating that he has no qualms about doing so.
Fortunately for me, he doesn’t have anywhere near as high a Skill as I, and in a very short time I have him at my mercy. He begs me to spare him and, hoping that I won’t have cause to regret staying my hand in the hope of getting information from an opponent again, I let him go. He hands me the note and flees, promising to pay me back for letting him live, and I gain a codeword. Well, I could probably have recovered the note from his corpse, and I don’t yet know if that codeword will lead to his assisting me or betraying me, so I remain uncertain about whether or not I was wise to spare him. Still, that codeword is a name, and not the one I found circled on the ledger page I picked up in the Cirrus Watchhouse, which suggests that the man I just fought is not the officer who was already identified as a person of interest.
The note is signed ‘Paxlo’, a name I recognise as belonging to a Goblin who lives on Asperitas, the technomancers’ island. A quick search of the Watchhouse turns up no further clues, but I do find an apple that I can eat to make good the damage I incurred breaking in.
There are no further leads to
follow on Altos, and the hovers are in need of a recharge again, so I head for
the flyer I noticed earlier. I find it without difficulty, but the pilot is in
no fit state to operate his craft, having been hit in the head by a chunk of
rubble. I give him a cabbage leaf, which provides enough healing that he can
return to work, and he tells me that he’s only licenced to transport passengers
to Incus, the hub of the local fishing industry. That is not a problem, as I now
need to move on from the initial cluster of islands, and Incus would give me
access to Paxlo’s home territory.
This encounter has brought me
into the vicinity of possibly the biggest fault in Crystal: while I was able to find an exit from the
Altos-Cirrus-Cumulus loop, if I’d used the cabbage leaves to heal myself before
reaching the flyer, I’d be forced to recharge the hovers and head back to one
of the islands I’ve already visited, repeating at least some of the encounters
I’ve already had, and potentially having to keep looping around until I found a
means to ‘unlock’ flyer access. It could be worse – there’s more than one way
of rendering a flyer usable (though I have yet to experience whatever encounter provides the
healing honey that could be used in either of the situations where a flyer
pilot requires assistance, and its name suggests that, like the cabbage leaves,
it’s a resource that a player might use up for Stamina restoration before learning
that it might be needed to facilitate progress to the next stage of the adventure) – but enforced looping that can mess with internal chronology is not
a good thing.
Still, I do have a means to open
up the route to Incus, so that flaw in the gamebook structure doesn’t affect me
this time round. A substantial info-dump follows my arrival, the most
noteworthy-looking details being the presence of dangerous marine life in the
waters below, the use of bathyspheres for underwater harvesting, and the fact
that any shipwreck survivors who get brought in from outside Pangaria in the
course of being rescued are not permitted to leave.
Straight after disembarking from
the flyer, I get asked if I have the codeword I received after letting that Sky
Watch officer go. Time to find out if I chose poorly… And a cloaked figure
gives me a small package before disappearing into the crowd. My mercy has been
rewarded with a little money and a potion that provides an Attack Strength bonus.
The sound of screams and conflict
gets my attention, and I investigate, finding that a Giant Crab is attacking a
couple of fishermen. Hurrying to the attack, I carve up the crazed crustacean,
and am rewarded with some crab meat and a weaponisable pincer.
I ask the fishermen if they know
anything about what befell Nimbus (which seems to have suddenly gained a ‘the’), and they say that it was afloat in stormy
and foggy waters when they last saw it. When I indicate that I want to head out
to it, they advise against doing so, and then tell me that if I insist, I’ll
need to use a bathysphere, and should talk with a local by the name of Matix. They also let me know where she’s most likely to be found.
Before heading off in search of Matix, I show the fishermen the ledger page. They confirm that it’s from one of the books used for record-keeping here, but don’t recognise the highlighted name. One of them speculates that it might have something to do with a recent shipwreck, and suggests that I ask around to see if anyone knows anything about Talliman.
Proceeding to the district where Matix lives, I ask directions to her home, and get told to follow the sounds of banging and cussing. It doesn’t take me long to start hearing percussive maintenance being carried out on something metallic, accompanied by the yelling of quirky invective. While avoiding the sort of language that would garner a ‘parental advisory’ label, the insults are blistering enough to convince as expressions of frustration, unlike the invective used in some gamebooks.
The hammering and verbal abuse issue from a spacious workshop, in which I find a bathysphere suspended from the rafters, surrounded by a wide assortment of tools and components. I call out to Matix, and an exasperated-looking Goblin emerges from the bathysphere and asks if I have a Wotsit or a Thingie. I explain that I’m investigating what happened on Nimbus, and thus need to requisition a bathysphere, and Matix’s response includes what’s either a mistake or a very obscure pun. More pertinently, she explains that in order to make the bathysphere seaworthy, she needs a Thingie and a Doobry (though a Wotsit – and not the cheesy kind – would be a viable substitute for the latter).
With the end of the month imminent, I think I’ll pause the narrative before I embark on this fetch quest, so I can update the blog before August is out.
