Things Which Act Against Everything We Believe In

Black Vein Prophecy wasn't the only Fighting Fantasy book to wind up on the sale table in Brown's Books. On another visit to the shop, I saw a reduced copy of Moonrunner, the last of Stephen Hand's FF books. I didn't buy it, though, as I'd not had any related curiosity simmering away in the depths of my mind for more than half a decade, and the cover illustration was not sufficiently enticing to make me want to look inside.

Around five years later, when I'd properly got back into collecting gamebooks, I started using eBay to try and track down the ones I was most keen to acquire. I came across a listing for Spectral Stalkers, which was one of the FF books I most wanted, so I bid on it. The seller had also put up a job lot of the Sorcery! series, but I'd already got one of those books, and wasn't interested in getting an extra copy, so I didn't place a bid on the set. My bid on Stalkers was successful, and nobody bid on the Sorcery! books, so I asked the seller if he'd be willing to sell me just the titles I wanted. He agreed, and also sent me a list of his other spare gamebooks in case there was anything else he could sell me. There was a copy of Moonrunner on the list, and as I was now committed to getting the whole series (by then I'd already added Sky Lord to my collection, and that ranked a lot lower in my estimation than any FF book I merely hadn't read), I asked for that as well. The whole sale went via eBay, so I wasn't breaking any rules against off-site purchases.

As I recall, my first attempt at the book ended when my attempts at pursuing an assassin led to my winding up trapped in a carriage that drove into a river, where I drowned. That's not the only trap that claimed the life of one of my characters: the villain of Moonrunner is a sneaky so-and-so.

I don't think high stats are as essential to victory here as in most of the later FF books, so I'm taking a chance and not customising my character. And I wind up with exactly the set-up I'd have picked if I'd allocated dice, namely:
Skill 12
Stamina 15
Luck 9
That's not necessarily a bad thing - if either of the Stamina dice had wound up going on Skill, I might have had cause to regret taking the dice as they fell.

In this book I also have Special Skills, and can choose four from a list of nine. I'll go for Con, Disguise, Lock Picking and Tracking. The last time I played this adventure online, lack of Tracking caused me to pick the wrong gate and get killed by something nasty and invisible, and I don't want to make that mistake again.

The adventure starts with a clandestine meeting, at which some surprisingly awkward info-dumping takes place. Awkward because my character is a veteran of the War of the Four Kingdoms, who has since made a name for himself by tracking down and capturing war criminals, and yet Guard Marshal Bennet, who is employing me because of these facts, tells me all about the War and the greatest war criminal of all, and I just sit there while he tells me stuff he knows I already know. Surprisingly so because in his previous FF book, Mr. Hand used quotations from in-universe reference books to provide the reader with background detail that would already be familiar to the character, so why not use the same trick here?

Anyway, Bennet has called me in because Karam Gruul, the worst of the war criminals, alleged to have been killed in the Last Battle, has resurfaced. His precise whereabouts is unknown, but he's somewhere here in the town of Blackhaven, and he must be up to something serious to have come out of hiding at all. I accept the job of bringing him to justice without hesitation, as I have personal reasons for wanting to see Gruul pay for his crimes. Personal reasons which will go unexplained until a dramatically appropriate moment, but their existence is established from the start.

Bennet goes on to explain that Gruul is probably involved with a secret society known as the Cabal of the Werewolf. He suggests a few leads to follow up: Matra Ouspenskaya, an inmate at the local asylum, claims to have been a member of the Cabal, there's a tavern where they're purported to hold meetings, and paid informant Silas Entador is likely to have heard if Gruul is in contact with Blackhaven's criminal contingent. Bennet also mentions that he thinks one of his men may be a traitor, so he hasn't told any of them about me. He mentions some things for me in his desk drawer, but is interrupted by a dagger in the back. Someone must have thrown it through the window - which is quite a feat, considering how many floors up we are.

From a certain perspective, Bennet's dying wish was for me to have the letter and money in the drawer. I choose to honour that wish by heading straight for the desk and using my Lock Picking ability to bypass the elaborate puzzle lock on the drawer. In addition to the gold and the letter identifying me as a relative of Ouspenskaya, there's a page from Bennet's diary, mentioning that Entador has identified a Guard named Conrad Zaar as a spy for the Cabal.

The door bursts open and three Guards enter. Predictably, they assume that I'm responsible for Bennet's death, and from their Captain's words I gather that Zaar has set me up. Since Bennet didn't tell any of his men that he was calling me in, I won't achieve much by identifying myself, but my Con ability saves me from having to fight the Guards, who are on the same side as I, if only they knew it. I claim to be in pursuit of the 'Vampiric Shapeshifter' that killed Bennet, and warn the Guards that it could now be disguised as one of them. This shifts each Guard's attention from me to his companions for a moment or two, which is enough of a distraction to enable me to make my getaway.

I think it's time I had a little word with Mr. Zaar, and head for his home. He lives in a mill, but isn't much like Jonathan Creek. Except for his aptitude for devising tricks, such as the portcullis that blocks off the entrance just after I go in. I have a look around, finding some food and a leaflet issued by a group called the Eternal Fraternity of the Rosy Chalice. Either there's a message hidden in the text, or it's been written by the local equivalent of the Time Cube man. Still, the mad blatherings include the name of the tavern mentioned by Bennet, so there may be something of significance buried in there.

If there is, it's too well-buried for a quick analysis to dig it up, so I head down into the cellar, which contains a gargoyle. Not the sentient kind found in some parts of Titan, but this isn't just a bit of ornamental stonework either. Its eyes light up, and a voice commands Zaar to report. I say nothing, and whoever is speaking begins to suspect that I'm not Zaar, but if I say anything, that may confirm their suspicions, so I climb back up to ground level.

The portcullis is still there, so my only remaining option is to check out the loft. It contains nothing of interest, but there is a door leading out onto a balcony. This balcony is right behind the mill's sails, and Zaar is waiting for me on it. He attacks, but isn't much of an opponent, and soon plummets to his death in the mill workings. Lightning blasts through the mill roof, hitting his body and bringing it back to life. Donning a facemask in recognition of his new status as slasher movie-style nigh-unstoppable homicidal maniac, he arms himself with a machete and starts to climb back up. I try to knock him off the ladder with a thrown lantern, and merely succeed in setting him and the mill on fire. A sudden gout of flame consumes the ladder, and Zaar plunges into the inferno below. It's high time I was somewhere else, and there's only one remotely safe-looking way down: to jump from the balcony and try to catch one of the mill's sails on its downward sweep. This tactic works, and I hurry away before the blazing mill collapses.

Following that lead wasn't massively helpful, so I try another, and head for Craven Asylum. Charmingly, this is one of Blackhaven's primary tourist attractions, and it's rumoured that, for the right price, the proprietors will waive such formalities as checking that a potential inmate is actually insane before admitting them. The warden who opens the door to me is a Troll, who pretends he can read the letter and takes me to see deputy director Crabb.

Crabb reads the letter and explains that his superior, Doktor Welsch, is unable to see me himself because he's so busy. I make note of the fact that the trouble that's been occupying the Doktor's attention is in Cumbleside - there may be something worth checking out there. I ask to see Ouspenskaya, declining the offer of refreshments (I'm at full Stamina as it is, and the design on the medallion Crabb wears looks enough like a wolf (or, more to the point, a werewolf) to make me wary). Crabb warns me that Ouspenskaya is paranoid and delusional, apologises for being unable to accompany me, and tells me to follow the signs marked 'Nosh'.

I proceed from his office into a hall. It has five exits, each bearing a sign. There is one marked 'Nosh', but one of my earlier attempts at the book failed because I went straight there and missed a helpful encounter from elsewhere in the asylum, so I'll try another door or two first. 'Wipefeet' is the door through which I just came, and 'Big Trubbull' may well be exactly what it says, so it comes down to a choice between 'Big Laffs' and 'Fat Maggots'. I've never actually investigated the latter before, so this time I'll take a chance and check it out.

Now that's impressively bad taste - it leads to the asylum graveyard. Which is haunted. The ghost tells me to avenge the dead and free the insane, then disappears. I return to the hall and try 'Big Laffs', which leads to a vestibule with a barred door. Beyond that door is the vault that houses the asylum's inmates. Given the conditions here, they'd actually be better off under Care in the Community. Four of the closest ones attack me, but I have no trouble fighting them off. The other inmates cower away from me - except for one very lucid-seeming young man who gives me a locket containing portraits of himself (in better days) and a woman, and asks me to find the woman and give her the locket.

Returning to the hall (without barring the door behind me), I now turn my attention to the reason I initially came here. Behind the 'Nosh' door is a spiral staircase leading down to a cell, which contains the dying Ouspenskaya and something so horrifying that the author can't bring himself to say what it is. A couple of possibilities occur to me, one inspired by the sign on the door, the other by what I know of the final encounter to be had in the asylum. Neither the sort of thing I want to dwell on at length.

I tell Ouspenskaya who I am, and tend her wounds to the best of my ability. She tells me that the Cabal are all war criminals, and the Fraternity is a front for them, then expires with the word 'tavern' on her lips. Turning to go back upstairs, I see Crabb and a large group of armed wardens. Either Crabb is a member of the Cabal, and not pleased to have me investigating, or he's really strict about enforcing the 'no non-family members outside visiting hours' rule, as he has the Trolls drag me upstairs, where they lock me into a darkened, but not unoccupied, room.

As the sound of dragging feet draws closer, a man with a lantern enters from an adjacent room. The light reveals that I'm in a laboratory, but doesn't immediately show who - or what - was moving towards me. The man with the lantern introduces himself as Doktor Welsch, says he hopes I wiped my feet before coming in, and then raises the lantern in order to show me the laboratory's other occupant - Doktor Kauderwelsch. Sort of. After she was killed by some tax-dodging troublemaker, her son, cunningly concealing his true identity by using the pseudonym Fronkensteen Welsch, saved her brain. He has housed it in a new body built from the remains of assorted inmates, but now intends to transplant it into my much more fit and healthy body.

Unlike some, he knows when to abandon a long-standing project in favour of a superior new option.

The Kauderwelsch monster attacks, and while I am engaged in what the book marvellously describes as 'a life-or-death struggle for [my] cranial capacity', the door bursts open to admit a horde of disgruntled inmates, who dismember Welsch's creation. Unconvinced that the inmates will make much of a distinction between friend and foe when they turn their attention to the living, I flee as Bates Welsch attempts to salvage bits of his mother, pathetically exclaiming his filial affection.

Bennet, the Fraternity's leaflet and Ouspenskaya's dying words have all pointed me towards the Last Octopus tavern, so that's where I head next. The sun is starting to come up by the time I get to the docklands area where the tavern is located. Probably a good thing, as this is the part of Blackhaven where a mysterious nocturnal killer known as the Shocker prowls the streets, blowing raspberries terrifying people to death. At this point I have to check for code words, and since the two on the list that I do have were gained as a consequence of attracting the gargoyle's attention at the mill and unleashing bedlam at the asylum, this is clearly where I pay the penalty for being less than discreet in my enquiries.

A man calls to me from an alley. He wears long robes and a veil, and offers a substantial reward if I join him and cease interfering in his plans. A rather obvious trap, which means there's probably a not-so-obvious trap prepared in case I try pretending to fall for it in the hope of surprising him, so I walk straight past and carry on into the tavern. A little awkwardly, just before I go in, the book tells me that if I have the appropriate Special Skill and have found the right costume, I can disguise myself as a noble from Brice, the Kingdom from which Gruul and the Cabal come. As I haven't found the costume, it doesn't matter, but if I did, would it not have made more sense to disguise myself before heading to the tavern, rather than trying a quick-change routine on the doorstep? Especially as I'm hurrying away from the suspicious character in the alley, who could potentially make things terminally awkward for me while I was fiddling with buttons.

Despite the early hour, the place is busy. There's a game going on at one table, so I attempt to join in as a way of mingling with the crowd. It turns out to be a shell game, only instead of the usual walnut shells and pea, it uses thimbles and a gold coin (must be big thimbles or a tiny coin). Wondering if my Con Special Skill will help me see through the trick, I wager a couple of coins. No, it's Sleight of Hand that would eliminate the random element here, so I must rely on Luck. I succeed at the roll anyway, and thus avoid losing sight of the correct thimble. The old man running the game packs up in disgust, but the onlookers are delighted to see someone beat him. I've not exactly been unobtrusive, but at least the impression I've made is a good one.

Moving to the bar, I strike up a conversation with the landlady, and name-drop the Fraternity. My Con Skill comes in handy here, enabling me to convince here that I'm an incognito Brician noble. She gives me a brooch depicting a chalice on a rose, and tells me to leave now, but come back at midnight. Sticking around now she's said that would be counterproductive, so I make my exit, and am immediately accosted by a woman with a monocle. She says I've endangered both of us by going into the tavern, then tells me to accompany her, claiming that now we're together, we should have a better chance of evading Gruul's lackeys. Her willingness to use his name suggests that she's not working for him, so I do as directed.

When we reach her lodgings, she insists that I get some rest. Once I've recovered from the night's activities, the woman (indicated by the illustration to look a lot like Margaret Rutherford) gives me some food and money, and introduces herself as Professor Van Heldenghast, a fellow Gruul-hunter. She explains that our mutual enemy uses a mystic art known as Notura, which has enabled him to live for at least three centuries and would, if fully mastered, provide him with the means to conquer the world. However, half a dozen Notura-steeped artefacts that were recovered from his Tower of Inquisition following his previous defeat are now scattered around Blackhaven, and could provide me with protection against his powers. I have nine hours in which to collect as many of them as possible.

Past attempts at the book have taught me that there's no sure-fire way of knowing which of the items I seek I'll need, and that some of the different kinds of harm they can avert are a lot more serious than others. If I need but don't have the one that can be acquired in Gallows Square, failure is a certainty, so my first port of call is pretty obvious.

As the name suggests, Gallows Square is where Blackhaven's criminals are hanged (when they're hanged rather than given positions of authority). Those who are executed are left on display as a not-very-effective deterrent to would-be lawbreakers, and one of the most recent batch to be executed has the item I seek: the wooden hand he had fitted to replace the hand he lost the last time he got caught stealing. I can't simply take it, though, as there are a couple of Man-Orc Provosts in the square, supposedly protecting the corpses from ghoulish souvenir-hunters, though right now they're more interested in tormenting a beggar. I could try taking the hand while they're distracted, but I think I'd rather rely on the gift of the gab than the quickness of the hand. Besides, my interrupting the Provosts' 'fun' enables their victim to get away, and thwarting bullies is usually a good thing to do. The Provosts don't see it that way, of course, but when I claim to be the City Physician, here to collect a specimen of an impressively advanced case of Bone-Rot, they conclude that interfering with me could be bad for their health, and retire to a safe distance while I help myself to the hand.

Mind you, that's only the first stage of what I must do to get the artefact. The hand still needs activating, and to get that done I shall have to visit Mawn Pretoragus the Necromancer. He lives on the perpetually misty Divil's Lane, in a house that seems to fidget. There is no response when I knock on the undulating door, and when I try the grotesque handle, the door won't open. My lock-picking talents are untroubled by the building's nebulous nature, though, and I soon step through into a darkened area.

A Vincent Price look-alike looms out of the darkness, announcing that Van Heldenghast has offered knowledge in return for the service he will provide. Inserting a flaming wick into each finger of the wooden hand (which he just has - I hadn't even taken it out of my backpack), Pretoragus warns me not to follow him through the Door Beyond, and goes away. I keep very still until he returns, looking drained. Giving me the Hand of Glory, he tells me to go, and I don't hesitate. One item down, but acquiring it has taken up three of the nine hours I had.

Next I head for the Wayside Shrine of Belthegor to try and retrieve the marble mask that's embedded in one of the walls. Unspecified unpleasant fates have befallen everyone who's tried and failed, but the Professor thinks that the cryptic runes on the Shrine may provide the solution. The route there crosses a busy bridge, and in the midst of the hubbub, someone presses a note into my hand, summoning me to an urgent rendezvous in another part of town on Cabal-related business. The lack of a signature makes me suspicious, so I continue on my way.

At the Shrine, my Tracking Skill draws my attention to the fact that five sets of fresh footprints lead to the mask - and none lead away from it. Ominous. More ominous, in fact, than not having Tracking and wondering what I've failed to notice on account of lacking it, as happened one of the previous times I played the book. Not that I shall be sharing the fate of the people who left those footprints, as the runes are a pretty straightforward substitution cypher - and the fact that the name 'Belthegor' includes the letters 't-h-e' makes decryption that bit easier. The first time I got to this part of the adventure, I'd already decoded around half of the message by the time I realised that there are clues to make it even easier in the incomplete magic squares (well, that's what they looked like until their true function became apparent) carved around the mask. Solving the puzzle enables me to get the Mask, but the trip to and from the Shrine has taken up another two hours.

If the distances between locations made any difference to the amount of time it takes to acquire items, I might vary the order in which I collect the next however many I can fit into the remaining hours. That's one complication Mr. Hand chose not to have in the book, though (and having experienced some of the headaches that can result from trying to keep track of such factors while working on my unfinished gamebook The Great Blacksand Robbery, I don't criticise him for making that choice), so I'll let other factors determine my choice of third item.

Gustav Hollmann's Chamber of Horrors is a wax museum dedicated to the macabre, and it seems that in among the replicas of the nasty and notorious there's one genuine item, the Angevin Shroud (a name which suggests that Mr. Hand might not have enjoyed covering the English monarchs of the second half of the 12th century in history lessons). There's a large crowd of morbid thrill-seekers trying to get in (perhaps in part because the Asylum isn't running the usual tours today). Trying to sneak in without paying the entrance fee looks like a lot more trouble than it's worth, so I join the queue and pay the 3 Gold Pieces.

The tour is not particularly enjoyable: the proprietor (who'd almost certainly have been played by Michael Ripper if this adventure had been a Hammer film) and his exhibition have both seen better days, and there's one annoying tourist who keeps boasting about how he'd be a match for any of the fiends who inspired the wax effigies. Eventually we reach the shroud, which is purported to have acquired miraculous powers after being used to wrap the decapitated corpse of a Necrophage. Mind you, Hollmann is obviously sceptical, so I'm able to buy the 'worthless piece of tat' from him for a reasonable price once the show is over.

As I'm heading for the exit with my new acquisition, I hear a scream, and smell charred flesh. In the foyer I discover that some of the others who took the tour with me have had far more of a thrill than they anticipated. Remember Conrad Zaar, the near-indestructible maniac guard last seen plunging into the flames at Weathern Mill? Well, the 'near-indestructible' aspect means that he survived the fire, and now he's out for revenge. He's a better fighter than he was before I first killed him, but the Hand of Glory helps me out a little, inducing drowsiness in my opponent. It drains a little of my Stamina to produce this effect, but nowhere near as much as I'd have lost fighting a clear-headed Conrad.

Once I've felled Zaar, the non-slaughtered tourists rush into the room, some of them congratulating me, others calling for the guards, and that braggart claiming that he could have beaten the maniac with just a lump of wood. A claim that is immediately put to the lie as Zaar revives again and buries his machete in the arrogant twit's back. The other onlookers are dumb enough to attack the unstoppable killer en masse rather than making a swift departure, as I do. If Hollmann survives this, he's going to have a whole new attraction for lovers of the macabre.

All that only took an hour, so I can continue to add to my Notura collection. I head north to the remains of the Olde Gaol. The 'invincible' Demothrax Argolis was buried alive there, bound with a magical chain, three years ago, shortly before the earthquake that destroyed the place. I need to find a way of getting the chain without unleashing Argolis to cause mayhem (and research tachyonics), and the only help I have for figuring out how to do this is an obscure rhyme.

The end of the chain is sticking out of the ground. I give it an experimental tug, and a high-backed chair erupts from the floor, with Argolis chained to it. Her invincibility evidently doesn't prevent decomposition, though her semi-decayed condition doesn't appear to make her any less powerful. Nevertheless, I pull the chain again, and it comes free - as does Argolis. She's one of those ungrateful entities that choose to try and kill whoever frees them, and at this point I have a slight issue with the writing of the book. According to that rhyme, now Argolis is free, I should 'Turn not your face/Nor bind, nor strike,' and I am now offered a choice between turning and fleeing, trying to bind her with the chain again, or attacking. How I'm supposed to fight the Demothrax without striking her is unclear, but that's not quite as self-evidently impossible as turning and fleeing without turning, or binding her without binding, so attacking is the least bad option here. As in the last fight, the Hand helps me, and I manage to subdue Argolis for long enough to hurl her back into the pit from which she emerged. It promptly closes up, and the weight of earth on top of Argolis proves just as effective a restraint as the chain did.

I still have one hour, so I finish off this phase of the adventure by paying a visit to Kiennar's Curiosity Shop. When I mention who sent me here, Kiennar nervously produces a phial of dried blood - all that remains of one of the Vampire Lords of Vannan, with whom my character has some sort of history, mentioned in passing in the book's Introduction. Despite being nervous about the phial's contents, Kiennar smirks as he mentions how much he wants for it - a fair bit more than the money Van Heldenghast gave me. I can afford it, though, so I hand over the money. Kiennar then offers to sell me a cross and a stake for protection, and I have more than enough cash left for both, so I buy them too.

That's my nine hours up, so I return to Van Heldenghast's. She gives me a meal, tells me to spy on the Fraternity meeting at the Last Octopus, and lets me know that she's leaving Blackhaven, as she's done everything she can to help. I set off to the tavern, and hear yelling from close by, indicating that the Shocker has struck again. Investigating could take long enough to cause me to miss what I'm here for, so I stay close to the tavern.

Soon afterwards, several horse-drawn coaches arrive and unload passengers. One of these is the woman depicted in the locket the lucid asylum inmate gave me, so I do as the man requested. Upon learning that her husband was imprisoned in the asylum, she realises that Gruul has been misleading the Cabal, and tells me that he's gone to the ruins of his Tower of Inquisition, at a place named Hope's End. The Fraternity meeting is obviously just a distraction, or at best a sideshow, so I leave the tavern and set off to Hope's End.

Apart from the remains of the Tower, there's not a lot there - just rocky desolation and the occasional pool of steaming brown sludge. I'm only around a kilometre from the ruins when I hear a lot of horses drawing near. In case the riders are more of Gruul's followers, I hide behind a rock. Good thing too, as practically the entire Cabal troops past. Once they've gone by, I continue on my way, and as the ruins come into view, I see that a vast horde of zombies has been assembled to rebuild the Tower, under the direction of whip-wielding Orcs. The whips strike me as superfluous, as I'm pretty sure that zombies feel no pain, but I doubt that the Orcs would appreciate my input on the topic.

Giving myself a convincing pallor with some whitish dust, I impersonate a zombie in order to get to the Tower without attracting any attention. At lest, that's the plan. One of the Orcs lashes me with its whip and orders me to carry a large block of stone to the Tower. The exertion of doing as directed takes its toll on my Stamina, but at least I reach my objective without an alarm being raised.

Two gates lead inside. My Tracking ability enables me to spot which one the riders who recently came this way used, and I emulate their example - this is where not having Tracking got me killed on a previous attempt at the book, as I didn't (and still don't) have the item needed to defeat what lies beyond the other gate. A quick meal before I go through, to restore my Stamina, and then I head on in.

The Cabal members fill a hall. Up on a high balcony is Radu, a Magus I could have encountered if I'd followed a different route to get this far. Since I didn't, it's a little odd that I know who he is, but that's a pretty minor niggle. Radu is showing off Gruul's Ethereal Projector, a Notura-powered WMD which he plans to use to massacre the inhsabitants of my homeland's capital city. Needless to say, I do not approve, and start shambling towards the pillars supporting the balcony.

Somehow the landlady from the Last Octopus sees through my disguise, and alerts her fellow Cabalists to my presence, but not before I've got close enough to the balcony to spot the secret door beneath it. I hurry through and, finding no way of locking it, dash up the spiral stairs behind it. My pursuers aren't fast enough to keep me from reaching Radu, and I seize him and demand that he take me to Gruul. He laughs, swells up, and bursts, thereby revealing himself to be just a disguise that Gruul (who bears a regrettable resemblance to a Fu Manchu-style villain) was wearing. This twist might actually have some impact if I'd known of Radu for more than the past minute or so, but as things stand, it's all rather pointless.

Is it worse when the dodgy ethnic stereotype is the unnecessary costume?

Gruul now proceeds to use his Notura against me. As I have five of the six protective Wards, I shouldn't be in too much trouble here, but it depends on how the dice fall. Gruul starts by hurling a bolt of energy, which is deflected by the Shroud. As I move closer, he creates a Force Wall that keeps me from getting to him, but the Mask keeps me from being harmed by it. Things then get a bit awkward, as the book doesn't address the issue of rolling the same number more than once while determining Gruul's attacks. Does he recast spells that have already failed once? And are the Wards still effective against recast magic - both the Shroud and the Mask can be used to beneficial effect in circumstances other than this sequence, but each can only be used once, so does that mean that they can only protect me from one Notura-based attack? Well, regardless of whether he cast Force Wall once or three times, he expends his remaining Notura on a mental assault from which I am shielded by the Hand. Out of power, he goes for the Ethereal Projector, but as he activates it, I push him aside and turn the device on the Cabal, destroying most of them.

Taking Gruul prisoner, I drag him outdoors, tie him to a horse, and ride away from the remaining Cabalists and the zombies. Along the way, I explain why I'm so intent on defeating him: back in the war, I was captured by the Brician forces, and Gruul experimented on me to turn me into a nocturnal beast under his control. While a cure was found for the physical transformation, I still have nightmares about the experience. Upon learning that I was one of his 'Moonrunners', Gruul attempts to reactivate whatever conditioning he used on me, but I'm strong enough to resist (and the Hand prevented him from creating a hacker-style 'back door' in my mind), and give him a slap to discourage further such misbehaviour.

The remnants of the Cabal are gaining on us, but before they can catch up, we meet a patrol of my compatriots. The patrol are outnumbered, and the captain asks me to help, but I can't risk allowing Gruul to fall back into the hands of the Cabal. There's nothing in the text to say that I can't hand over any still-working Wards of Notura to help even the odds, though, so I'm saying that I let him have the chain, which can be used to immobilise one opponent - not much help, but better than nothing.

However the patrol's fight with the last of the Cabalists goes, I don't face any further trouble while taking Gruul to face justice. He is tried, found guilty, and sent to prison for the remainder of his wretched existence. My work done, I quit the bounty-hunting business and do my best to enjoy a peaceful retirement with my family. At least until Conrad turns up again...

For the most part, Moonrunner is a very enjoyable horror/fantasy adventure. There are plenty of viable paths through the book, and a number of suitably nasty-looking encounters I missed in this playthrough (including a trip to a plague village, a chance to go grave-robbing with the local equivalents of Burke and Hare, and a run-in with an anthropomorphic serpentine assassin straight out of The Reptile). Towards the end, though, the book does become weaker. I've already covered the potential irrelevance of the twist concerning Radu's identity, and the unclear rules on rerolled numbers during Gruul's Notura onslaught. Beyond that, the concealment of the 'Gruul turned me into a monster' aspect of my character's backstory until the very end of the book is a bit of a cheat, and while I can see the dilemma Mr. Hand was trying to create with the final choice - sacrifice some good men or risk allowing Gruul to escape and resume his destructive activities - it comes across as being rather anticlimactic in the book. And the lesser of two evils is still an evil, so for me, at least, the happy ending is soured by the necessity of abandoning the patrolmen to their fate.

By the way, if there is an actual concealed message somewhere in the Fraternity leaflet, and anyone has ever figured out how to find it, I'd be interested to know about it.

That's a Very Dumb Thing You Did Just Then

Another April 1st, another not-so-serious Tunnels & Trolls adventure. Rick Loomis' Solo for the Intellectually Challenged (aka Solitaire for the Intellectually Challenged aka Solo Adventure for the Intellectually Challenged aka Solitaire Adventure for the Intellectually Challenged - all four titles occur once within the book) is one of three adventures included in book 24 of the Flying Buffalo solo adventures range. As with every other post-20 adventure, I got it on eBay.

In the introduction, Mr. Loomis points out that most gamebooks penalise players who make stupid decisions, often with fatal consequences for the character. As this is liable to put off that proportion of the player base that likes making stupid decisions, he wrote SftIC to cater to them. Practically every option offered within the adventure is blatantly idiotic, and a lot of the fun of playing is in finding out how the outcome will be logical(ish) but nowhere near as catastrophic as you'd expect. The first time I played it, my adventure ended when I drank the contents of a bottle marked with a skull and crossbones, as a result of which my character was transformed into a pirate and went off in search of a more ocean-based adventure.

Not that it's likely to matter, but I'll roll up my stats anyway.
Strength: 9
Intelligence: 8
Luck: 11
Constitution: 9
Dexterity: 8
Charisma: 11
Speed: 4
Not a bad fit for this challenge, if not quite as sub-par as would be ideal.

My character is a sheep-herding peasant somewhere in the Blue Mountains. One morning I happen upon a cave, with a sign over it. It warns that there's a Dragon in the cave, and anybody who enters will die. This is clearly my chance to become a Great Hero, so I enter the cave. Someone has walled off its depths with rocks and mortar, but a rusty door is set into the wall. On the door is a glowing lock. I reach for it, and feel a strange tingle in my hand. The hairs on the back of my hand stand up, and the tingling grows in intensity as I get closer to the lock. There's clearly something very interesting going on here, so I grab hold of the lock to find out more.

It comes off in my hand. I pocket it, as there's probably a wizard somewhere who'll pay good money for metal that does such interesting things. The door opens with an appropriate creaking noise, and I see only darkness beyond. They (whoever 'they' are) say it's always darkest right before the dawn, so walking into the dark should make it get light, right?

I trip over a bone, quite fortuitously, as it turns out, since that causes the blow aimed at my head by some unseen assailant to miss. In the course of attempting to get back up, I manage to stumble into a hole in the ground, which turns out to be the mouth of a chute leading to a brightly lit cavern. The cavern is full of treasure, but after grabbing a few precious stones, I get distracted from the valuables by other features. There's the potion bottle I mentioned before, a rope with a sign reading 'alarm', and a scorched and bloodstained altar festooned with gargoyles and arcane runes, which looks as if it could be a handy stepping stone for getting the glowing sword with the letters 'E.V.I.L.' on the hilt that hangs above it.

An alarmed Dragon will probably get careless, so I pull the rope in the hope of improving my chances in the fight that must be imminent. But I have misinterpreted the function of the rope, which summons a yellow-skinned, blue-haired creature known as Larm, who offers to grant me a wish. Though tempted to laugh at his hairstyle, I decide that this is too good an opportunity to waste, and wish for a sandwich. Not just any sandwich, though. One with roast beef  in. Larm grants my wish (and takes my lunch).

Now that I have the sandwich, I clamber onto the altar and take the sword. A spark of static causes me to overbalance and fall off just before a bolt of electricity strikes the altar, and the sword falls beside me. A tall, muscular man with a beard and armour introduces himself as Edgar Victor Ichabod Lodz, and tells me to hand over his sword. I hand it to him, hilt first so as to keep him from thinking I'm attacking, and thereby discover that the blade is sharp enough to cut my hand.

Lodz tells me there's a bottle of healing potion behind me, but I ignore that and demand a reward for finding his sword for him. He offers to cast a spell that will give me good health for the rest of my life, but I have to close my eyes and turn round before he'll cast it. I tell him I'm not interested in such a dull reward, and he laughs and walks off.

Five guards with crossbows and spears burst into the cavern and call me an intruder. I offer to share my sandwich with them. It's got roast beef in, you know? They find this highly amusing - so much so that they forget to frisk me for stolen valuables before forcibly ejecting me from the cave. So I never did get to fight that Dragon, but I end my first adventure as this character sufficiently well-off that I can buy some decent adventuring gear and continue my endeavours to become a Great Hero some other day. You have been warned.

There's Been Some Terrific Heat Here Recently

The Shadow of Shargan, published in issue 13 of Proteus, was Elizabeth Caldwell's sequel to Challenge of the Promethean Guild. That was a little surprising, considering the irrational hostility with which many readers responded to Challenge's SF trappings, not to mention the complete lack of continuity between Proteus adventures before this one.

I definitely got my copy on the way to school, as I remember being worried about what would happen if any of my classmates saw the illustration on page 28. While not the first picture of an underdressed female to appear in the magazine, this one showed significantly more flesh than the others, and was likely to elicit far more vulgar mockery than usual. My first attempt at the adventure was, consequently, conducted rather furtively. If I'd used dice, my character would almost certainly have died in an unnecessary fight against a tentacled monstrosity, but as it was, I got as far as the cave where assorted toxic gases doom anyone who lacks a certain item.

Back when I was reviewing the Proteus adventures for a Yahoo! group, it took me 46 attempts to succeed at this one. Even if I get the best possible stats and dig out my old map to eliminate the risk of taking a wrong turning, I'll have (at most) a 1 in 3 chance of getting as far as the endgame. Let's see how much more doomed character creation makes me...
Dexterity: 11
Strength: 16
Skill: 10
I allocated dice, as there are a couple of fights that make a high Dexterity essential.

Having recently qualified to train as a member of the fabled Promethean Guild, I am dragged away from my studies to be offered a mission. Recently the Sorcerer and scientist Shargan moved into the scientifically backward kingdom of Aarlach and, having harnessed the powers of a Fire Elemental, has established a base inside a dormant volcano. It's unclear what he's doing in there, but the Aarlachians fear that he's constructing some kind of super-weapon that could threaten the whole world. While the Guildmasters aren't convinced that the threat Shargan poses is that serious, living in a volcano is such an obvious sign of villainy that they acknowledge the need to do something about him. However, the King of Aarlach is unwilling to pay more than 50,000 gold pieces, which makes the job too cheap for any qualified Guild members, so as I'm the most promising trainee, I get first refusal. Predictably, I accept.

In the morning I set off to meet with Aarlachian envoy Kai-Tul, only to learn that he was murdered during the night. Still, he'd already made arrangements for the voyage to Aarlach, so I go to the boat that was to transport us and inform the Captain that he'll only have the one passenger, as it turns out. He suspects that Kai-Tul was killed by demons that serve Shargan, and this theory is strongly backed up by an attack on the ship by half a dozen such creatures a couple of days into the sea crossing. I fight one of them, the laser built into the hilt of my sword enabling me to win in half the time an ordinary combat would take, and run a second demon through without even having to use dice. The ship's crew have dealt with the others, and the remainder of the journey passes without incident.

Upon our arrival at the Aarlachian port of Isar, a fat, balding man introduces himself as Lai-Ti, an official who's been chosen to guide me to the volcano. I have no real grounds for suspecting him of being up to no good, so I get into his hover car, and he does nothing worse than bore me with inane small talk on the flight to Mount Villpus. He doesn't loiter once he's dropped me off, and I start to climb the mountain.

After a while I hear the beating of leathery wings, and prepare to defend myself against the Pterodactyl and rider that are heading for me. A laughing face appears in the sky to justify the cover illustration, and then the fight commences. Again the laser component of my laser sword saves me a couple of rounds' worth of combat, and the Pterodactyl's rider is no match for me once he's on the ground. The face in the sky disappears, and after catching my breath I find a cave leading into the mountain.

Activating my torch, I find myself in a passageway leading south to a T-junction. The air is hot and dry, but breathable. As I recall, I need to go east here. The passage leads to a chamber full of statues of people. On closer examination, they turn out not to be statues, but real humans who were petrified in an eruption. An earth tremor causes the one closest to me to topple over and shatter on the floor, and I spot a ring in among the fragments.

Putting the ring on would be a bad idea, but its effects are ill-suited for an adventure as lethal as this one. Wearing it results in a gradual, drawn-out and painful transformation, which eventually ends badly. But it's obvious that the change taking place is not a beneficial one pretty much from the outset, so most readers will only ever have one character try the ring on. And the likelihood of that character's surviving long enough to meet the fate linked above is very low indeed.

Incidentally, the words spoken by the black-clad man (who, as you may have guessed, is Shargan) in that fatal paragraph raise some questions. Kai-Tul said that Mount Villpus hadn't erupted in centuries. Shargan says that the ring was stolen from him. So either Shargan's been around for a very long time, and lived here before, or it wasn't an eruption that caused the petrification of the people in the chamber.

But I digress. Leaving the chamber, I find that the passage turns south, and before long I see a turning to the east. Investigating, I notice a significant increase in humidity, and eventually reach a cave in which water drips from the ceiling and drains away through a hole in the south wall. Assorted objects have been suspended from the cave roof with ropes, and there must be something odd about the water, as the droplets that have dripped onto these items have caused them to become encased in a stony veneer. There's a flower, a bird, a cat, a severed hand holding a key... All rather morbid and macabre. But keys in gamebooks are usually useful, and the one here is conspicuously devoid of the marble-like coating on the cave's other contents, so I decide to see if there's any way of extracting it from the hand it's in. This requires a Skill roll, at which I very narrowly succeed. Even so, I get splashed by a couple of drips, and my skin is bleached and withered where the water touched it.

Returning to the southward-leading passage, I keep going until I reach another side turning, this one heading west. As I recall, it leads to the most entertaining of this adventure's overly lethal bits - only a 50% chance of getting killed, and the text emphasises the threat posed by the advancing android enough that surviving feels like an achievement. But it's not an essential encounter, and while there are worse odds to be faced elsewhere, the likelihood of dying is still too high to justify taking the detour.

Continuing south, I reach an area with a lot of stalactites and stalagmites. A luminescent substance coats the walls, and if I were wearing that ring, the glow would trigger its effect. As it is, the only danger I face here comes from the local fauna: two creatures that are similar to spiders, but have shells and pincers like crabs. The laser in my sword eviscerates the first one, and a few blows with the pointy end take care of the second.

Proceeding further south, I reach a crossroads. I think I need to go west here, but I'm not sure whether or not it's advisable to go east first. Might as well try it, I guess. The turning east leads to a locked door and, oddly, I'm offered a choice between turning back and attempting to pick the lock. Okay, so maybe the key from the dripping water cave doesn't fit this lock, but there should be an option to try it and find out that it's not the right one - it's not hard to find a couple of sections that could be merged to free up a slot.

Anyway, I manage to pick the lock, and the door opens, leading into a cave that contains a bubbling pool of lava and several mounds of glowing rock. The fact that there was a locked door barring access to the cave suggests that there's something significant in here, so I look around. The door slams and locks, and I hear a laugh from the other side. A lava monster erupts from the pool, splashing me with molten rock (which does an implausibly small amount of damage), and I have to fight it. While I have the higher Dexterity, I get a lot of bad rolls. By the penultimate round of the battle, we're both down to our last 2 Strength points, and it's the monster that manages to strike the final blow.

Not a very satisfactory ending, but not the worst this adventure has to offer.

Men Shall Die For This

My first noteworthy experience of Paul Mason's The Crimson Tide was coming across a second-hand copy in Archeron Books. It was during one of the periods when I was rather indifferent towards gamebooks, but, as on the occasion I first came across The Keep of the Lich-Lord, I looked through the book in some detail to see if anything in it grabbed me. I wound up not getting it, but the bad ending that explains the title of the book did stick in my memory. Which is why I've saved this reminiscence for now, even though there was also a copy of Tower of Destruction in the shop, and I gave that book an equally thorough scrutiny. At that time the content of Tower made no impression on me whatsoever, and I doubt that I'd even remember having looked at it if Tide hadn't got that one hook in.

In the end I did get Tide at the same time as Tower, as it was another of the batch of FF books that got me back into the range. The two copies I bought probably weren't the same ones I'd seen earlier, given that Archeron had an annoying habit of putting the prices of their second-hand books on massive labels (around a quarter of the size of the book cover), which were near-impossible to remove without making a mess of the cover. As I recall, the first time I played TCT, my character was sold into slavery and, following a failed escape attempt, got put into chains to make further bids for freedom impossible.

Character creation is handled differently from usual here, because at the start of the book my character is a child. Starting Skill and Stamina are consequently a lot lower than in your average FF book - a detail that might not have been taken into account when the editor chose to 'beef up' one opponent. That's less of an issue than it could be, as the enemy in question is not on the correct path through the book, but that little detail (and the identity of the person responsible for the monster's being so overpowered) didn't stop a number of reviewers from unjustly heaping opprobrium on Mr. Mason for the unbalanced encounter.

On account of the lower-than-usual starting scores, I shall definitely be allocating dice.
Skill: 5
Stamina: 6
Luck: 10
Ferocity: 4
The last, unique-to-this book stat is a consequence of the events that occur at the start of the adventure.

I'm a peasant, living on the island where most of the action in Black Vein Prophecy takes place, and unconcerned by the tales of civil war until a group of foreign mercenaries turns up at my home village. They take all our rice, and all the local women, and kill every man who tries to intervene. Including my father. Aware that there's nothing I can do to help right now, I memorise the appearance of their leader as best I can - a bestial mask hides his face - in the hope that I'll meet him again at a time when I have the advantage. My father's last words are an instruction to go to the Baochou Monastery, avenge him, and rescue my mother.

I find the stick that I carved to look like a sword, take a little food, and leave the village, accompanied by several other children. Initially we head for Yenshu, the town where the district magistrate holds his tribunal. I've never been there, but my cousin Quan, who's also part of the group, has, and thus knows the way. At the point where the path joins the main road, we find another village left in ruins by the mercenaries. Quan speculates that the mercenaries are from the uncivilized land of Hachiman.

We move onto the road, which is a lot less busy than usual. Quite possibly on account of the warrior riding straight towards us. The rest of the children flee into the nearby fields, while I set an ambush. It doesn't go well - for me, at least, though my companions benefit from the distraction I cause. After knocking me into a stupor, the warrior ties me up, steals my possessions, then takes me to a mine and sells me into slavery.

Knot-tying is obviously not one of the warrior's strongest skills, as I manage to slip my bonds just as he's leaving. I choose not to immediately attack my buyer, hoping to lull him into a false sense of security, but as that results in my spending the next year labouring in the mines, I think I may have been the one who got lulled.

One day my excavations break into a channel through which an underground stream is flowing. On the assumption that the stream will emerge from the ground at some point, I grab the food I've been hoarding and dive in. I'll never fully recover from the damage I take from being dashed against the channel walls by the current, but eventually I reach daylight, and crawl ashore at the first opportunity.

After days of travel, I catch sight of Traole, the provincial capital of the region. From a gameplay perspective, I also see a sign that suggests I've already strayed far enough from the optimal path to have no chance of success, so I might as well make this attempt at the book a learning experience. That sign suggests to me that entering the city would be a bad idea, but I may be making dodgy inferences from incomplete knowledge of the book, so I'll go in anyway and try to find out for sure one way or another.

The city is enormous, and I soon get lost. Given the time that has elapsed since the massacre that set me on this trail, I see little point in going through official channels, and even if the mercenaries responsible are still in this region, I'm in no fit state to take any of them on. Which only leaves the option of going to the temple, so I try that. There I hear a priest complaining about declining temple attendance, and blaming it on foreigners like the barbarians from Hachiman who were here recently and are now heading for the capital.

It's still too soon for me to seek out my enemies, so I choose not to follow them. Owing to the amount of stuff I didn't or couldn't do in Traole, I'm no closer to being certain that the city should be avoided, but I do at least know one thing not to bother trying again (and, what with the item and codeword checks that preceded hearing the priest, I am also aware of circumstances under which it might be worth going back to the temple).

For now, I head north to the mountains. A side turning attracts my attention - apparently for the first time, since I have no recollection of the encounter to which it leads. The path goes down to a valley with a stream in, and a creature, part-human, part-fish, emerges from the water to attack me. This is a Yuemo, distinguishable from your standard Fighting Fantasy Fish-Man by its having sharp fins rather than hands and a trident. It wouldn't pose much of a threat to your average FF hero, but I'm a child without a weapon, so my piscine opponent makes short work of me.

Failure to Respond to the Conventional External Stimuli

A slight departure from the usual pattern today, because it's that time of year again. Thus, my next Fighting Fantasy playthrough will be delayed so I can have a go at the second of the Starlight Adventures books I own today.

At the end of a visit to friends in Swansea back in 1999, I was heading for the bus station, and had enough time before my coach was due to leave that I could pop into a few charity shops for a browse along the way. In one that had opened since my previous visit, on College Street if I remember rightly, I found a copy of the sixth of the SA books, Trance, by Pat Hewitt. As I was going through one of my gamebook-acquiring phases, I decided to give it a shot. I played it on the first leg of the journey, discovering a puzzling but not gameplay-wrecking bug along the way, and reached one of the successful endings.

Winning isn't actually all that difficult, as I recall. There's a point early on where the outcome of a coin-flip might result in a bad ending (I'm not certain), but for the most part, passivity is the only way to get into trouble. As I recall, persistent refusal to follow up leads, take opportunities and generally get involved with the adventure eventually leads to a slightly contrived fatal car accident. In effect, you swerve so hard to avoid the plot, you wind up hitting a tree.

My character is a recently qualified nurse who lives in an unspecified English cathedral town (doesn't having a cathedral make it a city rather than a town?). A couple of months back, my brother Jimmy, a reporter for the local paper, went missing for a couple of days. He was subsequently found in a strange condition (mentally similar to catatonia, but without the physical symptoms) in his car, not far from the Burslow Clinic, a private medical facility. The unusual nature of his condition has led to his being given a bed in the Clinic for free. I was offered a temporary job there, though I turned it down because finals were looming and, well, life has to go on, even at times of bizarre family tragedy.

Having completed my training, I have a few weeks' break before I take up my first post as a fully qualified nurse. When I get home, an anonymous, hand-delivered note is waiting for me. Its writer claims to know how to help Jimmy, and wants to meet me. Regrettably, as a result of my having stopped off to do some shopping on the way home, I probably won't be able to get to Ponderosa Café (the specified location) by the specified time. Nevertheless, I decide to give it a shot.

On my way out of the flats where I live, I encounter the janitor, a slightly sleazy and shifty character who asks me to help me with some heavy rubbish bags. I can't afford the time it would take, so I shout out an apology as I dash past. Though I speed to the Ponderosa in my hatchback, it's already closed by the time I get there.

Across the street is a smartly-dressed man with a moustache, a cap pulled down low, and tinted glasses. When he sees that I've noticed him, the man unconvincingly takes an interest in the window display of a computer shop. I start to walk away and, after twenty paces, glance back the way I came. The man is 'casually' moving the same way, looking intently at the windows of the shops he passes. I duck into an alleyway and quicken my pace, resolving not to look back again until I reach the end, but prepared to make a run for it if he really is following me.

When I look again, there's no sign of him. But as I'm catching my breath, I sense somebody close by. It's Gerald Peterson. Whoever that is. He might have been introduced earlier if I'd made a different choice at some point, but here the book gives no explanation of who he is or how I know him. That's the bug to which I alluded earlier - the book's failure to give him an adequate introduction on at least one viable route.

Observing that I'm in a bit of a state, Gerald accompanies me home, and I explain what's been happening. It appears that he's some kind of private investigator, so I ask for his assistance. He wants to start by looking into what Jimmy was doing just before his disappearance, and leaves to commence his investigation. Unwilling to just leave everything to him, I decide to see if any of my neighbours caught sight of whoever delivered the note.

I start with Mrs O'Connor, who lives in the flat directly above mine. After ringing her doorbell, I overhear a bit of ominous dialogue: a woman comments that, 'She doesn't know a thing yet,' and an aggressive-sounding man speaks of the need to shut up whoever they're talking about 'before she does find out.' They could be talking about me, but that is by no means certain, so I risk ringing the doorbell again. The continuing argument stops mid-sentence, but in a 'Mrs O'Connor just turned off the TV'-sounding manner, rather than a 'Hang on, there's someone out there who might be eavesdropping' kind of way.

Mrs O'Connor opens the door and invites me in, and I accept. She fetches a jiffy bag that was left with her for me this afternoon. It was brought by someone in her mid-to-late teens, with very long brown hair. Not somebody I know. The sound of a phone ringing drifts up from my flat, but I probably won't be able to get down there before the caller rings off anyway, so I take the time to ask if Mrs O'Connor knows anything else. She says that the teenager specified that I should be given the bag in person and open it myself.

The phone is still ringing when I get back to the flat. It's Gerald, who says he's coming over straight away, and will be here in a quarter of an hour. Once twice that length of time has passed with no sign of him, I start on the displacement activity, tidying up, dusting Jimmy's books and computer, and so on. The doorbell rings.

It's a biker with a note from Gerald, apologising for having been delayed, and giving a number on which I might be able to contact him if he's around when I try. Mobile phones weren't really a thing when this book was written, so such communication problems are not unreasonable.

The next bit is, I suspect, one of the more clever anti-cheat mechanisms employed in gamebooks. There's a list of things I might have done by this stage of the adventure, with points values for each one. I add up my score for these incidents, receive a rating, and get directed to a section based on that rating. But I'm pretty sure that one of the items on the list doesn't happen in the book, so anyone who falsely claims to have had all the encounters listed will end up sent to a section that probably says something along the lines of, 'Either you've miscounted or you're a dirty cheat. Go back and recheck your figures or answer the questions honestly.'

Anyway, I have seen the suspicious-looking man with the moustache and received the package from Mrs O'Connor, so I'm rated X. Which has slightly awkward implications - maybe Ms. Hewitt shouldn't have gone for the tail end of the alphabet. Avoiding A-E makes some sense, as those letters evoke exam grades, and could be erroneously interpreted as some sort of meritocratic scale, but there are plenty of ranges of letters that don't have obvious (at least at the time of publication) associations of a potentially dubious nature.

The package looks as if it might contain an audio cassette. Another detail that rather dates the narrative. In fact, the bag's contents seem a bit too large to just be a tape, prompting a moment's paranoid speculation that this could be a bomb. I tell myself I'm being silly and open the package. Mildly amusingly, the book states, 'There is no searing blast, your hands and head are still where they should be.' Inside is a cassette tape, with extra padding in the form of rubber bands.

I play the tape, which just makes noises too weird even for mid-eighties electronic music. It's a short tape, too, and the other side is blank. This isn't the dead end it may seem, though. In the real world, my first home computer was one of the sort that could save files on audio tape (or would have if I'd had the right cable for hooking it up to a compatible recorder), so I am well aware of the use of such cassettes for purposes other than audio piracy or preserving atrocious amateur dramatics.

After booting up Jimmy's computer (and, this being the eighties, probably waiting long enough to prepare, eat, and wash up after a three-course meal), I load the tape, and find an incomplete article that Jimmy was writing for the paper. It concerns a health farm that is apparently making a fortune by turning its wealthy clients into drug addicts. However, what text there is names no names. Still, now there's an obvious reason why some individuals would want Jimmy silenced, so I'm making progress.

I still have a copy of the most recent issue of the local paper to print anything by Jimmy, so I dig that out to look for any hints about where he might have been researching. He was doing a series on health-related self-help, and the last published article mentions that the following instalment would concern 'one of Europe's top health farms'. Still no name, but there is a clue in a passing reference to interrelatedness in the world of alternative health. Apparently the clinic in question employs the same aromatherapist as the sunbed centre on which Jimmy had reported earlier in the series. That's obviously the place to go next.

The sunbed centre turns out to be a pretty miserable place. There's nobody on the reception desk when I go in, so I ring the bell. Getting caught snooping around could lead to trouble. A woman emerges from an adjoining room, and I make a bland enquiry, but before this can spark a conversation that I could steer in an aromatherapy-related direction, the phone rings. The call may be about something above-board (or at least unrelated to my investigation), but I'm a little suspicious at the way the woman fobs me off with a brochure and shoos me away so she can talk to 'Mr Willoughby'.

Not that it matters, anyway, as the brochure could be all I need from the sunbed centre. On the back is an ad for Dower House, 'More than just a health farm,' which is located in the grounds of Burslow Hall. In other words, not far from the clinic where Jimmy is being looked after. And close to where he was found.

I'm on my way home to plan my next course of action when an odious colleague of Jimmy's takes advantage of my having to stop at a pedestrian crossing to cadge a lift back to his office, where he has something he thinks will be of interest to me. Note to self: lock the passenger seat door in future. And invest in one of those personal defence sprays, if they exist in this era.

There's another bit of gamebook path dissonance here, as the section covering what happens at the newspaper office carries the authorial assumption that I went there as part of my investigations rather than having been forced to by a sexist twit in desperate need of a smack with a harassment suit. Once I'm at the creep's desk, he reveals that he has Jimmy's diary, which he 'accidentally' picked up the last time Jimmy was in the office. Having scented a story in what Jimmy was researching before his brief disappearance, the scumbag wants to go through the list of places Jimmy contemplated profiling in his article in the hope that I can help him to steal my brother's scoop. Dower House is at the top of the list.

As I recognise the name, there's a rather abrupt scene jump here. I'd like to imagine that I feigned ignorance of Dower House, let the lecherous so-and-so go through the rest of the list, and sent him off on a massively inconveniencing red herring, but the book just skips to the following morning. I call Dr MacWilliam, the man who offered me the job at Burslow Hall, and... hang on, the book's contradicting itself. Now it says I was invited to stay at the Clinic, as Jimmy might benefit from having someone familiar around. But the Introduction definitely says it was a job offer.

Regardless, I call to ask if the offer is still open. It is, and arrangements are made for me to head out there. Before ringing off, Dr MacWilliam mentions the potential therapeutic effect of familiar music, and suggests that I bring Jimmy's collection with me. Only the tapes, as they don't have the facilities for playing vinyl (and CDs were still too niche to merit a mention back then). I take a big box of cassettes with me, but if I (the reader) have any say in the matter, all non-musical tapes will have been left back at the flat.

When I arrive, I get told that I've been given quarters in Dower House. Once I've dropped my stuff off, I go to see Jimmy and, just in case the music recommendation was sincere, play him some of the tapes I brought. Based on the details given, either these are unusually short albums, or I only play one side of each before switching to something else. In my experience, average album duration was around 45 minutes, and there's no way to fit half a dozen of them into just two hours. Except when using high-speed dubbing, but I wouldn't have been doing that under the circumstances. I'm pretty sure there are no incidents of coma patients being revived as a result of hearing Spandau Ballet sped up until Tony Hadley sounded like he was on helium.

Eventually the lack of improvement in Jimmy's condition becomes too much to bear, and I go out for some fresh air. A girl (that's the term the book uses) near a shrubbery appears to be beckoning to me, so I approach, but there's no sign of her when I get there (what was I doing that I didn't see where she went?). Entering the shrubbery, I feel a disconcerting sense of loneliness and find a tall privet hedge, which turns out to be part of the outside of a maze. I go in and, trying to follow a rustling sound I hear, fail to adopt a consistent system of turns taken at junctions. So when the sound stops, I have to hope that I've successfully memorised my somewhat haphazard route - otherwise I might have trouble finding my way out again. When I decide to leave, that is. Having come this far, I might as well press on.

Well, the memorisation was futile, as I soon hit a dead end, get flustered, and blunder around choosing directions at random for a while. Eventually I come across a stone seat, and sit down for a rest, just before a conversation starts on the other side of the hedge. One of the participants is called Alan, and the other turns out to be the girl I was trying to follow. She was trying to get my attention, but ducked out of sight to avoid being noticed by MacWilliam when he drove past. They seem to be in a relationship, and to know something about the dodginess that's afoot here. She wants to tell me, but Alan insists that she let him handle it, as the risks he's taken will be for nothing if I give the game away too soon. I get the impression that he's something of a ladies' man, so there may be more unwelcome advances to fend off before long.

The two of them move away, still talking, and the last thing I hear before they move out of earshot is the girl asking if they should warn me about 'MacWilliam's special cocktails'. After that I spend half an hour finding the way out, and return to my room. Someone has left a 'Nightcap' for me - a glass of orange liquid, with a card on top identifying it as part of the health farm's regimen. While I don't know what I need warning about with regard to this concoction, the fact that a warning is considered appropriate is sufficient grounds to convince me to tip it down the plughole.

Looking out of the window, I spot that 'girl' again, and this time I can see how long her hair is, identifying her as the source of that tape. Interior illustrator Gareth Jones appears to have missed out on some significant details, as the picture of her shows just shoulder-length hair, hanging down in such a way that I couldn't have failed to see how long it was the first time I saw her.

I head out to talk to her, and she introduces herself as Jenny Peace. She sometimes helps out in the Clinic, and is distressed at Jimmy's condition, so she arranged for me to get the tape she found in his pocket when he was originally brought in. Yes, she knows what's on it, and she asks me not to let Alan Willoughby know that she didn't destroy it like he said she should. Jenny also lets slip that she's actually a mental patient here, as well as being MacWilliam's niece. That's as much as she's prepared to tell me, and I'm not sure that putting any pressure on her will achieve anything worthwhile. To protect her secret, I decide to wait for Alan to contact me.

At breakfast the next day he makes his approach. According to the text, I recognise his voice even before he speaks - not sure how that works. In any case, he invites me to join his aerobics class, and I accept. After he's gone, I ask the waitress about him and learn that he owns the clinic. Not bad for someone who appears to be in his early twenties. But there's obvious potential for a conflict of interest: even if he has no involvement in the wrongdoing that's being perpetrated here, he's not going to want the place implicated in a scandal.

At the end of the aerobics class, Alan more or less insists that I come to his self-defence class in the afternoon, too. I attend, and find that I'm the only student. And while he does genuinely teach me a variety of techniques for fighting off attackers, the practical demonstrations involve a degree of physical contact that would be considered inappropriate these days. At the end he asks me to go with him for a drink. In the interests of trying to find out if he ever plans to tell me anything about his suspicions, I do so.

Out on the terrace, Alan points out a couple of celebrity clients, then tells me who he is, in case I didn't already know. He stresses that he knows nothing about the medical side of things - that's MacWilliam's business - and says I'm free to use the facilities here as long as Jimmy is a patient. For Jenny's sake, I say nothing about Jimmy's article, and Alan's conversation takes an autobiographical turn. He inherited Dower House and Burslow Hall, but the family was virtually bankrupt, and the estate would have been broken up but for MacWilliam's needing somewhere for his research clinic and health farm combo. It's clear that the welfare of his ancestral home is enough of an obsession that I'm going to have to tread very carefully in my investigations. Consequently, I decline when he invites me to dinner.

The next day I skip the aerobics class in order to avoid awkward confrontations, instead going to the sauna. There are five other women there, gossiping about MacWilliam and his Nightcap. The formula is a closely guarded secret, the drink is only available to Dower House patients, and there are strict limits on how much anyone can take away with them. Most of the crowd disperses, leaving just me and a woman named Daphne, whom I ask about the Nightcap. She says that it affects different people differently, but helps her sleep well. In fact, if she misses a dose, her insomnia is even worse than it used to be before she started taking the stuff. But she doesn't like it when the others joke about addiction.

Afterwards I go to see Jimmy again, along the way passing a door with a nameplate reading 'LORD FORSYTH'. It means nothing to me, so I guess I missed a lead somewhere. Jimmy's bed isn't in the most suitable position, so I crouch down beside it to crank it into a better one, and hear voices. MacWilliam and the Duty Sister are doing the rounds of the clinic. For show's sake, the beds all have floor-length valances, so I could hide under Jimmy's bed and, so long as no contrived sneeze-based incidents occur, be in no risk of getting noticed.

The nurse seems concerned about the possibility of bad publicity about 'this trance thing'. MacWilliam claims that he and Dr Quigley are close to a cure, but still need to check for potential side-effects. He then expresses a desire to check up on 'his' Lord Forsyth, and the two of them leave.

Back in my room, I discover that all of Jimmy's tapes have gone missing. I ask the Duty Sister if she knows what's happened to them, and she says that MacWilliam ordered them removed, as they could do more harm than good. I point out that he had me bring them in the first place, and she points out that Doctors often change their minds.

After that I go back to Jimmy, and when I've run out of things to say to him, I take his hand. It's not limp, which suggests that on some level he's still in control of his body, but not doing anything with it.

Jenny invites me to eat with her in the dining-room, and as I have no prior commitments, I accept. She tells me her life story - orphaned two years ago, money tied up in a Trust Fund, can't stand her guardian, MacWilliam (who doesn't seem that keen on the position either), assorted emotional crises, possibly a suicide attempt, and now engagement to Alan. Who would be ruined if any scandal were to hit the clinic. But she wants me to get MacWilliam, claiming that Jimmy's not the only person he's put into that condition. She alleges that MacWilliam is drugging everyone, tells me to keep off the Nightcap, and says she can help me cure Jimmy if I promise not to do anything to harm Alan. Then someone coughs on the other side of the partition behind me and, suddenly paranoid, Jenny dashes off.

While it's possible that some of Jenny's claims are delusional in nature, I consider it worth checking to see how much truth there is to her story. I seek her out the next day, but she's still alarmed at the possibility of having been overheard, and tells me to stay away from her. I insist that she does something to substantiate her claims, and she demands that I promise I won't do anything to damage Alan. I'm pretty sure he's guilty of nothing worse than keeping silent (legally, at least, though in view of his engagement to Jenny, the way he's been carrying on with me is pretty despicable), so I agree. Jenny hands me a piece of paper she took from her uncle's waste-paper basket, which she thinks should incriminate him.

Back in my room, I take a look at the paper, which has a list of the Nightcap's ingredients on it, plus notes on the more 'interesting' ones: Guaranine, a substance 'similar to caffeine and cocaine' and Pellotine, a constituent of the hallucinogenic Mescal Button. A little research in Dower House's library establishes that the Nightcap is far from innocuous.

The next day I'm invited to a talk by MacWilliam. He goes on at length about stress reduction, claiming that the Nightcap is a 'natural stress-relief remedy', and says that its effectiveness is enhanced when used in conjunction with his relaxation video. He asks for a volunteer to help demonstrate and, when nobody offers, picks me. I decline, but the rest of the audience, keen for someone other than themselves to be the subject, join him in insisting, and as the door has been locked to prevent interruptions, there's nothing I can do about it.

I am seated away from the others, in front of a TV set hooked up to a VCR. At 10:17 MacWilliam starts the tape, and swirling shapes form on the screen, accompanied by 'a cool, lazy sound'. Not having sampled the Nightcap, I don't get the full effect, but I still wind up in a semi-trance, only vaguely aware of MacWilliam going on about suggestibility and relaxation. And then the tape ends, and I become lucid again, finding to my surprise that it's now 10:24. MacWilliam provides everyone with their own personal copy of the video, stating that they can hire copies when they leave, in order to continue experiencing the benefits of the course.

Back in my room, I look through a copy of Pharmacology and Hypnotism by Murdo MacWilliam. It's not an easy read, but I do find an informative paragraph about the use of psychotropic drugs to break down patients' involuntary resistance to hypnosis.

I catch sight of MacWilliam heading for Burslow Hall, and follow him. Once inside, I head for the 'secure ward', purported to contain violently disturbed patients under the care of specially trained male nurses. Surprisingly, it's not locked. Each patient turns out to have their own room, and it soon becomes apparent that they're all in the same state as Jimmy. This discovery shocks me enough that I don't hear MacWilliam approaching the room I'm in until it's too late.

He tells me that I've become too dangerous to remain at liberty, and points out that my lack of close family other than Jimmy means my disappearance is unlikely to attract attention. He leaves me locked in while he attends to something involving a video.

Something from MacWilliam's book pops into my head - speculation about the creation of hypnotic video programmes that could put people into trances from which they could only be revived with the appropriate 'antidote' programme. If that's no longer just theory, there may be an antidote video somewhere here.

Craig the ward nurse unlocks the door, stating that it's time for my treatment. I ask if he's a real nurse and, when he confirms it, appeal to his medical ethics. He admits to having doubts, but says MacWilliam claims the lengthy trances are necessary to get the patients through their crises. I ask about an antidote video, and when he says he has a copy, I urge him to fetch it and get proof that there's nothing wrong with the patients beyond what MacWilliam has done to them.

Random choice between two section numbers determines Craig's response to my appeal. I choose well: Craig walks out of the room without relocking the door. I follow him, and he fetches a tape from a locked cupboard, explaining that it was left with him in case of fire or similar emergencies. While he's still not certain that he's doing the right thing, I've convinced him to act on his doubts, so he lets me have the video. The patients are manhandled into wheelchairs and brought in front of the TV-and-VCR set-up that had been prepared for my 'treatment', and I play them the antidote video.

Nothing happens. Depressed, I turn away from the patients' vacant stares and see MacWilliam by his car. He seems about to get in, but then changes his mind and goes around the side of the building. Then I hear noises behind me, and turn to see that the patients are starting to move. The tape does work. Now I just have to get it (and the VCR) down to Jimmy's ward. There's a small service lift, which I load with the VCR, and I'm about to send it down when I hear someone coming up the stairs. I could just fit myself into the lift with a bit of creative squeezing, if I'm prepared to risk it. Or I could confront whoever's on the stairs.

I choose the stairs and, slightly jarringly, also get to choose who is on them. It's definitely someone I'm pleased to meet, and there's a list of four options. One is someone I've never met, the others are Alan, Gerald and a police officer. Okay, time to find out what Gerald has been up to all this time.

Following me, as it turns out. He could see that I was doing all right on my own, and opted not to stick his nose in, hanging around as an 'insurance policy'. Now it's time to finish things off, and he'd like my help in ensuring that MacWilliam is brought to justice. As I know that Jimmy's condition is reversible, I choose to delay 'curing' him for as long as it takes to ensure that the man responsible doesn't get away with it.

We head down to MacWilliam's office, which shows signs of having been emptied of potentially incriminating documentation in a hurry. Gerald tells me he's already called the police, and speculates that they might be able to catch MacWilliam before he flees the country. So much for bringing the bad doctor to justice.

I play Jimmy the tape, and after a moment he scratches his ear. Gerald proposes to me. Right now I don't think my character has any feelings for him beyond gratitude, so the response is 'No'. He accepts that, but indicates that he's going to give me as much time as I need, and then try again. As often as it takes. Which is probably supposed to be romantic, but, depending on how things turn out, could constitute grounds for a restraining order. At least the book didn't force me to accept.

Well, that was quite enjoyable. As I've indicated, the book does have the odd flaw here and there, but nothing catastrophic. Overall it's a decent enough thriller, and gets quite tense in places. I like that it encourages proactiveness and independence - some gamebooks I've read that were targeted at a female audience could quite harshly penalise attempting to get things done without a man's help. The closing focus on Gerald's romantic intentions was a bit regrettable, though. I'd have preferred to find out whether or not MacWilliam got caught, and how the exposure of his crimes affected Alan and Jenny. Still, the fact that I'm interested in such details shows that Ms. Hewitt did a decent job of drawing me into the story. If I didn't care what happened to any of the characters, that would be a sign of a pretty poor book.

Based on what I've heard or experienced of the rest of the series, I have no interest in tracking down any further Starlight Adventures. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have this and Island of Secrets in my collection. Any gamebook fans who avoided them because of the target audience have missed out: they're a lot better than a number of non-'girly' gamebooks I could name.

Quite an Experience to Live in Fear, Isn't It?

Last month I pointed out that a case could be made for playing the mini-adventure from the eighth Mongoose Publishing Lone Wolf reissue before the seventh LW adventure, Castle Death. I went on to play Castle Death first anyway, but series of unwise decisions led to my rapidly failing it. So before I have a second try at it, I will have a go at that mini-adventure, Darren Pearce's Masquerade in Hikas.

While I haven't played this adventure before, I did take a very quick look at it back when I first got the book. Good thing too, as the one element I noticed was quite significant. The adventure was 150 sections long, and the final section ended with the direction 'Turn to 152'. A quick trip to and registration on the Mongoose website's forums put me in touch with a very helpful fan who had the corrected version of the book and made available a transcript of the missing sections. Owing to the deletion of the Mongoose Lone Wolf forums following the company's loss of the reprint licence, I can no longer identify the fan in question, but they have my thanks.

My character in Masquerade is Paido, the Vakeros (warrior-magician) who accompanies Lone Wolf during part of section 1 of Castle Death (and a lot more of the subsequent book). This pre-encountering-Lone Wolf adventure has me sent on a mission to investigate rumours that Darklord agents and assassins have infiltrated the city of Hikas. I'm sent off with sealed orders that I'm not supposed to open until I see Hikas.

Unusually for an adventure in this series, my stats are not randomly generated. I get to choose my Vakeros Skills, though. This is a bit of a convoluted process: while the rules start out by saying I just need to pick four Skills from a list of eight, it transpires that some of these Skills have subsets from which further selections must be made. In fact, the full list of Skills, sub-skills, paths and schools of magic runs to 12 pages.

Judging by a reference to the Elder Arts having been 'simplified' for the purposes of this adventure, I imagine that what we have here is a slimmed-down version of the rules for Vakeros characters in the Lone Wolf RPG. Possibly not slimmed down enough - I mean, is the adventure going to provide opportunities for everything on that list to come in handy? Looking closer, I see that a lot of them can or must be used in combat, and the adventure is sure to have fights in, so that covers using a significant proportion. On the other hand, do we really need that many variations on do extra damage/take less damage/add Combat Skill/decrease enemy Combat Skill?

Careless writing and/or editing makes some of these Skills look pretty rubbish. The description of Bleeding Wound is, I presume, missing an 'extra' - either that or it causes its user to do reduced damage almost 90% of the time. Lightning Riposte appears to work best in circumstances that can never happen. The use of positive and negative numbers in references to Endurance damage isn't consistent.

Okay, I'm picking Counterspell, Prophesy/Prophecy (both spellings are used), Sorcery and Battle Magics of the Vakeros (School of Kaenos). Only the last two of these have combat applications, but if the adventure's been competently put together (which is quite an if, based on Mongoose's track record), the other two should be of use at some point.

The adventure doesn't get off to the best of starts. The sealed envelope mentioned in 'The Story So Far...' has either metamorphosed into or been joined by a scroll (the text says I'm given 'a scroll and a message from [my] leaders', which could be taken as indicating them to be separate items, but I only read the scroll (at the appropriate time), so...). My highly confidential instructions are to go to the Gambit Inn and learn what I can about recent strange or unusual events. And this needed to be kept secret until just now because...? Having read them, I'm given the choice of hanging on to them or throwing them away. No mention of doing anything to ensure that nobody else can read them if I throw them away, so I retain them just in case disposing of them really does mean breaching data security in such a careless manner.

Following an info-dump that, among other things, reveals that even the slums of Hikas are beautiful (what?), I notice something glinting near a ruined farmhouse and pause for a snack. What is the point of including a Meal in the list of equipment at the start of the adventure if I'm compelled to consume it in the very first section? I mean, why not just omit all mention of the food and save a little ink, rather than make the reader note it on the Action Chart in order to delete it straight afterwards?

I choose to take a closer look at the farmhouse, finding a piece of broken glass. Other debris indicates that travellers have made camp in the ruins on their way to the city before now. Something makes a noise, and I investigate. A slate falls from the roof, shattering on the ground, and a large spider falls on me and bites me for negligible damage. I leave the ruins and proceed to the city.

While I'm queuing to enter Hikas, a boy with a jug offers everyone who's waiting a drink of fresh water from the city's aquifer, which restores the Endurance I lost to the spider bite. So unless that bite has some other significance later on, the whole tangent with the ruined farmhouse is completely superfluous. The guards on the gate aren't convinced that I'm a Vakeros until I show them my Blue Steel Sword, after which they warn me that there'll be trouble if I use it within the city.

Heading further in, I reach the market-place. Apart from the inevitable stalls, I also see the inn to which I'm supposed to be heading, and a stage on which fire-juggling acrobats are performing. I decide to have a look around the stalls and see if there's anything worth buying here, which somehow results in my winding up in a tent where a fakir is about to perform his famous 'saw a woman in half' trick. As the performance begins, I notice a shifty-looking character sneaking away, and interrupt Master Kodo to warn him that someone may have interfered with his props. He manages to make a joke out of my butting in, quipping that even if I want to be part of the act, I'm not pretty enough to replace his assistant, but is sufficiently convinced by my warning to double-check, and suddenly the show is off. As the crowd disperses, I am summoned 'backstage', where Kodo thanks me for preventing him from seriously injuring his daughter, and gives me a Medallion as a token of his gratitude.

I proceed to the inn, and the patrons momentarily fall silent in the traditional manner. Once the hubbub has resumed, I sign the register with a false name and pay for a few nights' stay. A hooded woman with piercing eyes is watching everyone, and when her gaze rests on me for a moment, I think I see a flash of recognition in her eyes. There's a bit of poor editing here, a rogue full stop awkwardly breaking a sentence. Into two parts and messing with its grammar.

I approach the bartender and chat with him, learning that several citizens of Hikas have been murdered at night in this part of the city. The book then forces me to order a meal and turn in for the night.

A few hours later, a muffled scream wakes me. Sneaking out to investigate, I find a guard who's been stabbed to death in an alley, and obviously not for the purpose of stealing his money. Lacking the Skill that would give me a shot at communicating with the dead man, and aware that searching the alley where the body lies is almost certain to result in false accusations, I decide to seek help. That's not so simple, as the alleys are something of a warren, but I decide to see if Mr. Pearce is going along with the trend, and thus take a left turn. This leads to my getting lost, but eventually finding my way back to the inn. Unhelpful, but I'm actually quite pleased that the trope has been averted for once.

A couple of the inn staff spot me arriving back and, none too surprisingly, I soon get a visit from half a dozen of the city guard who want me to assist them with their enquiries. Though their leader looks as if he hopes I'll resist arrest, so he can get violent. In the (probably vain) hope of clearing up the misunderstanding, I don't put up a fight. A strange dialogue ensues, the lead guard quietly acknowledging my innocence but making it clear that he means to see me punished anyway, and then he brutally clubs me unconscious.

When I come round, I am alarmed to see an undead Helghast before me. After a moment it changes its appearance, disguising itself as the murdered guard (wouldn't it make more sense for it to use the image of someone not known to have been murdered?). My possessions are confiscated and I'm thrown into a cell. Gradually the number of guards present dwindles, and when only two remain, they distract themselves with a game of dice. I am compelled to try and escape, and have one of the Skills that could be used here. Mind you, as it creates a large, glowing magical hand, I suspect that using it might just attract a little attention. But what's the alternative? Sitting and trying to come up with a plan until I doze off, as it turns out.

The hooded woman from the inn wakes me. She's knocked the guards out and tied them up, and addresses me by my real name when telling me there's no time for explanations. While I'm retrieving my belongings, she makes herself scarce. I'm given a choice between resuming my pursuit of the Helghast (can I resume something I hadn't yet started?) or seeking a way out of the cell block. Finding the killer should be my priority.

I go through the door by which the Helghast left, and enter a room containing three guards. But these aren't Hikasian guards, they're Drakkarim, servants of the Darklords. Which means I don't have to worry too much about using lethal force to defend myself from their attack. One of them has a Set of Keys, which I take, and I must then choose one of three doors.

I go north into a room containing an altar dedicated to Naar, this world's most evil deity. There are fresh bloodstains around it. A door leads west, but for some reason I go back south to choose a different exit from the room where I fought the Drakkarim. Will the west door lead to a room with an exit leading north, that I will similarly be prevented from trying? The room behind it is a laboratory, where chemicals bubble away in assorted vessels. A number of cells are set into the walls, all unoccupied, and there is a door leading north. I'm allowed to go through.

Perhaps I'd have been better off not doing so. The door leads to a room where the Helghast is waiting. It drops a portcullis and a solid barrier to block off the way I came in (wouldn't just one of them have sufficed?) and says that I'm to be a test subject in an experiment. It then dashes through a door in the north wall, and while I'm surveying my surroundings (why am I loitering instead of giving chase?) a panel in the north wall opens to disgorge a homicidal mutant. I cast a Force Blade spell, which almost kills the thing (only usable once in the course of the adventure, but the rules imply that some opponents might be unaffected, so saving it for the climax might be a waste, and this could be a bit of a tough fight otherwise), and then finish the creature off with my sword. The door through which the Helghast left isn't locked, so now I follow.

The next room is empty, and the door on the far side is sealed. A demonic face has been carved on the door, mouth agape, and a voice issues from it, instructing me to choose my fate. I risk putting my hand in the hole, and the mouth bites down, injecting something lethal into my bloodstream.

Or rather, my Prophetic power of Future Sight reveals to me that that would have happened if I'd put my hand in there, so I don't do that. Another Skill I won't be able to use again this adventure, but at least I'm still around to be unable to make further use of it. Searching the rest of the room, I find two discoloured patches of stone that might activate hidden doors. This time I'm stuck with the consequences of my choice...

I press one of the patches, and a sliding panel reveals a passage leading to a circular atrium. Stairs lead up to a locked door, but one of the keys I took opens that, and I return to the streets of Hikas, where hunger pangs do me more harm than the last two fights combined. My Prophetic power of Location Sight tells me that the Helghast is heading north, unaware of my escape (pretty rubbish experimental technique), and entering a district containing warehouses and a storage depot. A street leads that way, though taking it does increase the risk of my being spotted. Going through the alleys is probably safer but slower.

I take a chance on the direct route. Before long I see some patrolling guards with a dog on a leash, and try not to attract their attention. Fortunately for everyone concerned, I manage to slip past unnoticed - my character is less forgiving about the wrongful arrest thing than I, so a confrontation would probably have got quite violent.

I emerge (don't ask from what - either this would make more sense if I'd reached this point by an alternate route, or somebody doesn't know the meaning of the word) and spot the disguised Helghast approaching a warehouse. There's a guard on the gate, and further patrolling guards with attack dogs on a chain leash are approaching. Hoping that the ruined farmhouse incident wasn't some kind of foreshadowing, I decide to climb up to the warehouse's roof and see if I can get in that way.

What the text didn't warn me about that plan is that it would involve climbing onto the roof of a different warehouse with the assistance of a stack of crates, and then attempting to jump across the gap between buildings to reach the correct warehouse. A botched rooftop leap resulted in the death of a Lone Wolf the first time I played a Mongoose book on this blog, and on that occasion my chances of success were higher than they are here. My luck proves no better this time round, and hitting the pavement shatters an impressive number of my bones.

After that poor start, this was shaping up to be quite a decent adventure. In desperate need of decent editing, but that's the first Mongoose mini-adventure I've enjoyed in quite some time. Depending on what sort of mood I'm in, I might even give it another go between Lone Wolf books 7 and 8.