Certain Local Cartographical Anomalies

It's about time I was concluding my attempt at The Den of Dragons, the second of J.H. Brennan's Grailquest gamebooks. Having spent most of the first part exploring a cursed village, I finished by exploring a ruined tower, in which I found a trapdoor. I tug on the attached iron ring, which comes off in my hand, but the trapdoor disintegrates, opening up the dark shaft beneath.

The book proceeds on the assumption that I was sensible enough to buy a torch and a means of lighting it. Not a problem on this occasion, as I did make the necessary purchases, but if I'd wasted my money on half a dozen sacks, a horn, and a dozen fish-hooks instead, there'd be no consequences to my lacking a light source, even though I need one to see the stone steps leading down into the darkness.

After a brief hesitation, I start to descend the stairs, losing my footing and tumbling to the bottom without taking any damage. A subterranean corridor leads further into the darkness, and I follow it, eventually emerging into a volcanic wasteland, with towering cliffs barring movement in all but two directions. This is where the advice found on one of the scrolls penned by warrior-monk Ethelbert can help with avoiding a lethal mistake, though it turns out to be vaguer than expected. I was warned to 'avoid the more obvious road', but it's not as if one route is clearly signposted while the other is more easily missed. There's a kind of gamebook-derived metaknowledge-based logic to it, as one of the paths leads in a direction less frequently offered in gamebooks than the other, but Brennan has included better clues in worse books.

Following my chosen path, I become aware of the reek of methane mingling with the sulphurous stench. The digression on Dragon biology way back in one of the introductory passages mentioned that Dragons' flame-breathing ability is fuelled by methane produced by rotting leaves in a secondary stomach, so the smell (and the lack of a redirection to section 14, the traditional destination of the Grailquest dead and doomed) indicates that I am indeed on the right track. The gaping cavern mouth up ahead is also a pretty obvious hint that I'm approaching Dragon Cavern.

Some mildly amusing waffle follows before I get to enter the cavern, stepping into a bone-strewn cave with three exits in the north wall. No map provided, so it might be advisable for me to draw one, and hope that this place isn't as geographically muddled as some gamebook locations.

I follow a winding passage to another cave, and unlike certain adventures, this book has me notice that it is occupied by potential enemies (in this instance half a dozen Rock Trolls) before going on to describe the place. There's another exit in the far wall, and the section number for it is the same as for one of the other exits from the first cave, which is topographically unlikely. I'm not wasting my Invisibility spell (and the high Life Point cost of casting it) here, and I doubt that introducing myself to the Trolls and asking them to let me through will go well, so I draw EJ and charge to the attack.

Taking the Trolls by surprise, I bisect one of them before they can react. The other five then strike at me with their swords, two missing altogether, the others failing to get through my armour. I slay another Troll in each of the next three rounds of battle, still taking no damage, but the last two Trolls are slightly more bother. Nevertheless, by the end of the fight there are five dead Trolls and one unconscious one, and I've taken just two points of damage.

Heading northwards along a well-travelled passage, I reach a large and foul-smelling cave, which contains a mound of dragon droppings and has three exits, one of them blocked by a large boulder. Section number recognition tells me that the passage west leads to the cave where I fought the Trolls, and if I manage to shift the boulder (or waste a fireball destroying it), I can go the same way I'd have gone if I'd taken the third exit from the first cave. That bit almost makes sense on the route I've taken to get here, though if I'd come straight from the entrance cave, going east would effectively take me west. This is proving about as mappable as the first ever gamebook I wrote, and I at least had the excuse of only being an 11-year-old amateur. 

I could take a closer look at the heap of manure, but I don't think this is one of the books in which doing so could prove helpful. Instead, I take the one exit that leads to a previously inaccessible section number. And this brings me to a different kind of section number recognition: unless I am very much mistaken, the cave outside which I now find myself contains only unavoidable limb loss and death. Still, there is a side turning I could take instead of dooming myself, so I think I'll try that.

After some time this passage brings me to a cavern with a couple of exits, containing three brass-bound chests and a small casket, all of which are guarded by a sword-wielding Minotaur. He tries to stop me from going any further, I attempt to intimidate him into letting me pass, and when I name-drop Merlin, the Minotaur asks if I could seek the wizard's help on his behalf. It turns out that the Minotaur finds having the head of a bull to be an impediment to his social life, so he'd prefer a human one.

We strike a deal. Tradition requires that the Minotaur fights anyone who tries to pass through his cave, but he'll make do with a wrestling match. If I win, I get to do a little looting and proceed to one of the exits. If he wins, I have to go to Merlin and ask him to fix the Minotaur's head.

This being a fist fight, I don't have as much of an advantage as when using EJ, but I can still utilise the Luckstone, which, in combination with a few lousy rolls on the part of the Minotaur, ensures that I prevail without taking any damage. Magical safeguards that the Minotaur had placed on his belongings mean that I can only look into two of the receptacles in the cave, and apparently make it necessary to choose both simultaneously. This could lead to frustration, as one of the chests contains another scroll from Ethelbert, this one in code (easily cracked), which reveals which of the other containers holds the only essential item - but since the reader has already made their choice by the time they get the opportunity to decipher the message, it's already too late to act on that knowledge. I'm okay, as I remembered where to get the key that I will need, but a first-time player who chose poorly might not find much consolation in getting a hint about what they should have chosen but didn't.

In addition to the two exits mentioned when I first reached this cave, I have a second chance of going into the cave of Instant Death. I think I'll pass on that one again, thank you very much. Instead I try another section number I think I recognise, and the passage leads me to a cavern that is lined with metal on all sides, with vast machines lined up against the north wall. Tinkering with the machinery are a dozen hunchbacked Dwarves with malevolent expressions on their faces.

The only worthwhile option here is to attack. They're a slow-moving bunch, which means that I manage to kill nine of them and knock the other three out before they get a chance to hit back. A bit one-sided, but when so many gamebooks border on unwinnable, I'm not so bothered at having the imbalance in my favour.

Now that the Dwarves are out of the way, I can take a look at the machine. A blue metal plate has been set into the floor next to three numbered levers, each of which can be pushed up or down. Above the levers a sign warns to place a key in the slot before activating the levers, and next to the sign is a slot big enough to take the key I got from the Minotaur.

The options for lever-pulling are slightly odd. I can push them all up, or all down, or go for a mixture of up and down, but in the latter instance it doesn't matter which lever is in which position, just whether there are more up than down or vice versa. That gives four possible set-ups (plus another four, all leading to death, for using the levers without first inserting the key). It would have been possible to offer a choice of four with just two levers (both up, both down, left up/right down and left down/right up), which seems more sensible to me than having up-down-up produce the exact same results as down-up-up and up-up-down. Then again, this is a Grailquest book, so looking for 'sensible' is about as worthwhile as making 'melodious' a priority when choosing a potato peeler.

Pulling the levers sends a dizzying vibration through my body. A spiral of light coils around me, and I lose consciousness, coming round at a crossroads. Oh, and this is the bit where some of the turnings lead to jarringly inappropriate sections. So incongruous that my teen self actually crossed out a couple of the section numbers and wrote other, less bewildering but more unhelpful numbers in their place. Twit. Good thing I found another copy of the book going cheap in a second-hand shop at a later date.

One of the section numbers my foolish younger self didn't excise is also the one to which a different setting of the levers would have sent me. I'm probably better off ignoring it, but I don't think curiosity will kill me in this instance, so I take the appropriate turning, finding myself in darkness, being attacked by something large and hairy with fangs and talons. The combination of my armour and my Luckstone (plus some straightforward good luck - my attack rolls included two double sixes) keep the fight from going badly for me.

When I kill my opponent, my surroundings light up, though the corpse remains shrouded in darkness. I'm in a chamber with just one exit, which contains a pile of straw, a feeding dish, and a magic wand attached to a nail on the west wall by a leather thong. I take the wand and leave, not returning to the crossroads, but finding myself where I'd have wound up if I'd taken the other turning not adjusted by the idiot I once was.

A tunnel leads me to a cavern shaped a bit like a funnel, and a whacking great boulder blocks the only way onwards. I can move it by rolling high enough, disintegrate it with a Fireball, or spend 25 Life Points to activate that wand, which will dissolve it. Carelessly, the text assumes that I have the wand, even though I could have got here without acquiring it. Proofreading and playtesting don't appear to have been among the publisher's priorities.

Anyway, with the help of the Luckstone I manage to shift the boulder without expending any resources. Beyond it, worn steps lead down, but before I can descend, a giant lizard of some kind slithers up them and attempts to ensnare me with its long tongue. Its initial attack fails, so I get to fight it, but it only needs to win a single round (by rolling 8 or above) to swallow me, with fatal results. I think the extra damage caused by a P.O.W. spell could make a crucial difference here. The casting roll is successful, I get first strike in the fight, and I do just enough damage that, with the accompaniment of the spell, I inflict lethal damage. If this were a podcast rather than a blog, you would just have heard some celebratory exclamations.

Winning the fight takes me to one of the more stochastic sections I could have reached from that crossroads. I step over the already decomposing corpse of the lizard and descend the steps to a constructed chamber. Another exit leads onwards, but of greater interest are the treasure chest and the scroll. I read the scroll first, and am unsurprised to find that it is another of Ethelbert's missives, this one explaining the traps and other perils associated with the chest in implausible detail. Still, forewarned is forearmed (and middlewarned is elbowed).

The scroll also states that the chest contains a magical Orb said to be the only means whereby an adventurer may survive what lies ahead (and that Ethelbert had his doubts about its being so essential, and thus chose not to take it himself). I don't even have the option of not trying to get the Orb for myself, and now turn my attention to the chest.

Ignoring the hasp (which contains a poisoned needle) and the cursed gem set into the lid, I use my battleaxe to smash open the chest. EJ sometimes objects to being used on inanimate objects, and I've had no other use for the back-up weapon all adventure, so I might as well use it now.

Inside the chest I find a mass of spiders' webs, which Ethelbert indicated to be impervious to anything but magical weapons or magical fire. A couple of the section numbers here are the wrong way round in the book, but back in the eighties I was sensible enough to correct those references. The axe won't do me any good here, and I'm not wasting a Fireball, so EJ will have to face his fears (it's not as though there are any actual spiders to go with the webs) and slice through them.

Now that the webs are gone, half a dozen shadowy shapes, each about the size of a hand, flutter out of the chest. Ethelbert warned that, while flimsy, these things can do a lot of damage, so I take a swipe at the closest one with EJ (and in doing so turn to the other inappropriate section reachable from that crossroads). The Luckstone makes it impossible not to inflict a killing blow with EJ every round, which could be considered something of a design flaw, but since a couple of sub-par rolls mean that I'd have lost 30 Life Points without it, I'm not complaining too hard.

Now only the Orb remains in the chest. Well, the Orb, the cushion on which it rests, and the brass plaque explaining that in the hands of a true Dragonmaster, it provides protection against all naturally occurring firebreathers. A non-Dragonmaster might derive similar benefits from the Orb, but the only way to find out is to try. Oh, and magical Dragons are immune to its effects, so it won't help against the Brass Dragon even if it does keep me safe from the rest.

Before I go any further, I cast the spell to activate my Fireballs, so they'll be available against whatever lies ahead. Then I head through the exit and down a tunnel that leads to yet another cavern. The smell of Dragon and the sound of fluttering wings indicate that this is where the Dragons have come to roost.

No turning back. I advance into a vast cavern which contains hundreds of Dragons. At its lowest point squats the Brass Dragon, beside a marble column with a red crystal on it. The Brass Dragon's eyes focus on me, and a voice speaks inside my head. For a moment I think that the Dragon must be telepathic, but the voice rapidly clarifies the situation. Speaking to me, mind to mind, is Ethelbert himself. The Brass Dragon has trapped his soul inside the crystal, and I must shatter it to free him... provided I can first kill the Brass Dragon. And get past the vast multitude of other Dragons surrounding me. Time to use the Orb. And the dice determine that it works, emitting a song which sends all the ordinary Dragons to sleep. So far so good. Now for the big bad.

This could be a tough fight. To improve my chances, I cast Pi R Squared, giving me two attacks to each one that the Dragon makes. I hurl a Fireball - and miss. The second Fireball hits it, though. The Dragon strikes me, doing a little damage. I draw EJ, and hit the Dragon twice, glad that I was able to get that bonus to damage against Dragons. The Dragon wounds me again. Since every third round, it breathes fire, doing extra damage if it hits, I cast P.I.L.L., which incapacitates the Dragon with laughter for a few rounds. Long enough, with my doubled speed, for me to stab it several more times, inflicting a killing blow before it gets a chance to try and burn me.

With the Brass Dragon dead, I can destroy the crystal and release Ethelbert. He properly introduces himself, admits that his services are no longer required here, and offers to show me the way out. Over the course of the next few days we head back to where I started. Well, back to the cow: having been taken to and from Merlin's Crystal Cave by magic, I don't know how to get there. So all we can do is wait for Merlin to notice that I'm back and the job is done.

This takes a while: it transpires that Merlin has resorted to alchemy to try and compensate for the cut in his pension, but it keeps going wrong and turning the lead into steamed pudding (which he doesn't even like). After the seventh failed attempt, Merlin loses his temper and, in a fit of pique, decides to put a blight on the Archbishop of Canterbury's kitchen garden, but while searching for the appropriate wand he finds his crystal ball, which shows him Pip, Ethelbert, the cow, and the severed head of the Brass Dragon, which significantly improves his mood.

A brief coda follows, in which Merlin speculates on the celebrations and rewards sure to follow the slaying of the Brass Dragon, and reminds me that the Gateway to the Ghastly Kingdom of the Dead is still open, and will need closing. But that is an adventure for another day. And indeed another book.

So, that was Grailquest book 2. Like the first book, it was humorous, occasionally harsh, somewhat unbalanced as regards gameplay, a bit sloppy in places, and fun. But more so. On every count. It's entertaining enough that I can forgive its shortcomings, but some of the later books are definitely broken in places. Nowhere near as badly as certain other gamebooks by J.H. Brennan, though. And the next one in the series ramps up the lunacy but, as I recall, has fewer bugs, so I'm quite looking forward to that.