Anything's Nothing - When You're Dead

Somewhat belatedly, I resume my attempt at Night of the Necromancer. Apologies for the delay: life is a bit busy and tough, and for some reason Night just doesn't grab me in the way that many gamebooks do. Usually such lack of engagement arises from some flaw in the book, but there's nothing significantly wrong with this one. Yes, there are minor errors here and there, and they annoy me that bit more because the book and I are not simpatico, but I've got on fine with some gamebooks that are more of a mess than this one.

Anyway, it's time I stopped grumbling and got on with the playthrough. If you haven't already read the first part, I would recommend that you do so now, so as to avoid confusion when I start talking about how many times I've been killed on this playthrough.

I find myself by a grey desolation of rock and sand, with storm clouds rumbling in a grey sky. I'm likely to wind up here several times, each successive visit netting me at least one new codeword and bringing me closer to ultimate failure (and further from the irritating typo in the final sentence of the section).

The Dead Winds bear me across the barren landscape towards a gate. Sensing it to be a point of no return, I try to fight their pull in an attempt to return to the land of the living and resume my investigation into the matter of who had me murdered and why. Thanks to the discouragement provided by the Ghoul King, my Will isn't quite strong enough, and I am drawn closer to the gate, at which point I am attacked by an incorporeal being with far too many mouths.

Some of my Stamina is restored for the fight against the Sin Eater. Exactly how much is unclear, as the amount is partially based on half of my Initial Stamina, and the book doesn't say whether halves round up or down. My Skill is lower than the Sin Eater's (that encounter with the Ghoul King just keeps taking its toll), so I lose the fight regardless of what my Stamina went up to.

The Sin Eater flings the savaged remnants of my spirit closer to the gate, and a figure resembling the classic Grim Reaper appears, proclaiming itself to be the Watcher at the Gate. The Watcher produces an hourglass, and is a little confused to see that there is still a significant amount of sand in the top bulb. Unsure why I'm here before my time, the Watcher asks me what I seek. 'Answers' is, alas, not on the list of options (nor is 'Motivation to keep reading', but that's my problem). I'm not going to deliberately choose badly just to hasten my failure, so I'll see if the Watcher considers 'Justice' valid grounds for sending me back. The Watcher asks what I mean by that, narrowing down the list to just two alternatives, and as 'Revenge' tends to be a villain thing, I go for 'A second chance'.

The Watcher finds this suggestion laughable. But, as Luck would have it, the amusement I have thus provided puts the Watcher in such a good mood that a stroke of the scythe sends me back to the mortal realm, albeit with a warning that we shall meet again. I find myself back on the beach, my randomly generated stats at full, and my Will increased. Neither the Hermit nor the Sea Demon are around, so I decide to head inland.

Before long I reach a crossroads. It's still a little early to be heading for home, and I'm not enough of a James Herbert fan to leap at the opportunity to visit the village of Sleath, so I decide to see how many of my kind are resident in the local graveyard. The place turns out to be pretty neglected and in poor condition, several tombs showing signs of having been broken into (or out of).

A few ghosts approach me, asking for help.They don't want to be here, but some malicious entity is preventing them from moving on to the land of the dead. In life, I would have had some degree of responsibility for the well-being of the locals. Even if my duty to the people in the region ended with my death (which is by no means guaranteed, given that on more than one occasion someone has been voted into political office despite having died before the election), my ghost may have an obligation as regards the needs of other ghosts in the area, so I agree to fight the fiend that holds them here (alliterative apparition that I am).

A tremor passes through the graveyard, and the ghosts vanish. A mound of coffin-containing earth rears up and takes on roughly humanoid semblance, and I draw my spectral sword and attack the Grave Golem. This could be my most perilous battle yet: while my opponent and I have equal Skill scores, something bad will happen if the Golem ever wins two consecutive Attack Rounds. As it turns out, the sentient cemetery only manages to land one blow on me all fight, so I don't fall victim to its malign power. The ghosts freed by the defeat of the Golem share their power with me before passing over, restoring the Stamina I lost in the fight and providing another boost to my Will.

From here I can only proceed to Sleath. As I approach the village, moaning voices and a phosphorescent mist herald an assault by a cloud of tormented faces, all with closed eyes. The evil afoot in the region is causing the villagers to have nightmares, and the conglomeration of their bad dreams has become another ethereal being. My Will is more than proof against its insanity-inducing onslaught, but the subsequent fight against the Phantasmagoria does not go as well as the battle in the graveyard. I still win, but take significantly more damage along the way, and the power I absorb from its dissipating essence is not sufficient to restore me to full health.

At this time of day the only part of the village showing any signs of activity is the Cockcrow Inn. There are several other places of potential interest, though: a neglected shrine constructed upon the tomb of some long-forgotten champion of Good, the tacky-looking tent housing itinerant fortune teller Madame Zelda, and the Burgomaster's house.

For starters I check out the tent, which has internal partitions. In the first section I find a circular table with a crystal ball on top. Moving through to the back, I find Madame Zelda herself, who appears to have turned in for the night without bothering to take off her veils or make-up. Her reaction to my presence suggests that she's like Whoopi Goldberg's character from Ghost: possessed of some psychic ability, but not aware of it, and relying on trickery to con her clients into accepting whatever vague prognostications she can think up. The text insinuates that there may be some connection between her and the Death Acolyte who killed me, on the grounds that he had an amethyst sphere and she owns a crystal ball, but that's mighty flimsy evidence, as I know that a crystal ball is one of the principal items of paraphernalia for the stereotypical fortune teller.

Even if Zelda is a charlatan, she may be capable of causing me harm, so I make no threatening moves. Once she's finished amazedly quoting that line from The Sixth Sense, she asks how she can help me. I explain my situation, and she takes me to the crystal ball. Gazing into it, she gives me a little ambiguous bunkum, and then some other entity actually starts to speak through her, telling me that the dead shall soon stalk the land, I must seek the metal-worker and the iron man, and I should be wary of the man who believes only in Good, but I may find salvation at the court of the Liche Queen.

The crystal ball turns black, the table begins to shake, and I get another warning that the Lord of Shadows is coming. Then the crystal ball explodes and Zelda comes back to herself, wondering what just happened. I refrain from explaining and make a quick departure, reflecting that her life is liable to become a lot more interesting from now on, assuming she survives whatever horrors the Lord of Shadows intends to visit upon the land.

Next I head for the shrine, only to find that it is protected by a spiritual barrier that causes me pain when I try to cross it. I endeavour to force my way through, but my Will isn't quite strong enough, so I have to abandon the attempt.

Oh well, time to see if they serve spirits at the inn. The door is closed, but my Poltergeist ability enables me to fling it open. As the patrons all turn to see who the new arrival is, it strikes me that, being a ghost, I may not be particularly welcome here. This realisation, combined with a couple of successful rolls, leads to my spontaneously manifesting the ability to turn invisible.

This is a good thing, as the occupants of the inn include Josef van Richten, the ghost hunter mentioned by the hermit, and eavesdropping on van Richten's conversation with his avaricious servant Streng enables me to ascertain that he is the kind of zealot who makes no distinction between benign and malign ghosts, so an encounter with him is not likely to go well.

As I recall, visiting the Burgomaster's house merely leads to an encounter with the resident ghosts, who look upon newly-arrived spectres in much the same way that a Daily Express-reading Brexiteer thinks of the non-British. There is little to be gained, and much to be lost, by meeting with them, so I shall leave them for van Richten to deal with, and move on from the village to the castle.

That seems an appropriate point at which to pause the narrative and post this entry, thereby reassuring any readers who might be concerned that the longer-than-usual gap between posts presages another hiatus of almost a year. I hope to update again before Christmas.