A Crazy Breed... Half in Love with Death

My first (and, until now, only) attempt at the mini-adventure in Fighting Fantazine issue 12, Ian Brocklehurst's Starhunt: Void Slavers, went almost as badly as my first go at Ascent of Darkness. I got through a few more sections, but that's largely because there are two 'Turn to' redirects before the first decision. Judging by the comments of some others who've endured Slavers, the fact that you have to read three sections before even getting to make a choice is a good indication of how the whole adventure pans out, linearity outweighing interactivity to the extent that some reviewers have questioned whether this even constitutes a gamebook.

I failed my previous attempt by ignoring my own advice. I've commented before on the futility of seeking help from the authorities in gamebooks, but in this one I started out by going to the police, and a corrupt officer drugged me and had me dumped somewhere with a lot of hungry rats. As with Ascent, at the time I played it I was focused on making sure I'd played every Fantazine mini-adventure at least once, and issue 13 was already out by the time I gave these a try, so I moved straight on to that after meeting my grisly end.

While I'm not going to deliberately fail this, I doubt that I'll fare particularly well at it either, and since it's quite plausible that I'll make another 'wrong' decision and run straight into an Instant Death at the next choice, I won't even bother generating my stats until/unless I reach a point at which I need to know one of them.

Before the adventure's prologue there's a little information on the setting, which doesn't even manage to get through the first paragraph without annoying me. I know that the misuse of 'sentient' to mean 'sapient' is by now so widespread that 'sentient' is probably going to change its meaning, 'sapient' will fall into disuse, and we'll be left with no word for what 'sentient' used to mean, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Anyway, it's the 37th century, and humanity has colonised a variety of planets and moons, but has yet to encounter any aliens that have a similar capacity for intelligence and stupidity. Some worlds are in the Federation TCA, some are independent but trade with the TCA, the people in the Outlying Territories largely keep to themselves, and the Void, despite having a name suggestive of emptiness and nothingness, is actually your standard hive of scum and villainy, only on a multiple-solar-system scale.

As for me, I own a spacecraft named the Starhunt (seemingly a bit ramshackle) and have a robot (for some reason called Kraven-8) for a travelling companion. The latter detail may be because I'm not a particularly likeable individual: when my estranged father unexpectedly contacts me, I'm so impatient and focused on old grudges, he barely has a chance to let me know that my sister has been kidnapped by slavers. I am, at least, quick to respond once I understand the situation, and within minutes I'm on my way to Aquatine, the world on which my sister's dance troupe was vacationing when the slavers conducted their raid.

Aquatine is, as the name suggests, largely covered by water (at least it didn't wind up called Oceany McOceanworld), and most of the people there (almost as many tourists as residents) can be found in floating cities. As I prepare to disembark, I set Kraven-8 the task of hacking into the local mainframe to find out what is known about slavers. We dock in bay 94 (I might need to remember that number in order to get back to my ship, even though I have an earpiece that keeps me in constant communication with my robot), and I arm myself with a blaster and knife before heading out of the Starhunt.

The bay contains a few freighters and a space-yacht named The Eye of Orion (who knows which details are set dressing and which might turn out to be significant). A mechanical customs officer makes me turn in my blaster for the duration of my stay, but allows me to retain the knife, albeit with a warning that the police carry blasters, and will shoot me if I try to do anything illegal with it. Asking how the police failed to prevent the slaver raid, I get told that I'd have to ask a police officer about that.

I proceed onto a busy street, and the text enigmatically tells me that the night sky is visible overhead owing to 'the unique nature of Aquatine's orbit'. Last time I checked (which was just after I wrote the previous sentence), it was possible to see the night sky on Earth, too. I check a map, and find out the location of the nearest police booth and monorail station. A friend of mine lives here, albeit in a different district, so I'll need to use public transport to call on them (despite all the info-dumping, I have no idea whether this friend is male or female yet).

At last I get to make a decision. But not much of one, considering what I learned on my previous attempt at this adventure. Do I go to the police booth and get murdered, or pop onto the monorail and visit my unidentified (and, as far as I can tell, uninformed of my presence here) friend?

On my way to the station I bump into a couple of women pushing a pram (is this relevant?). While I'm waiting on the platform, Kraven-8 contacts me and I get another decision-free section transition. The only information he's been able to get (my robot is apparently male - still not a clue about my friend) is a short list of names, one of which I recognise, as this particular slaver used to be a gun-runner. I tell Kraven-8 that I'm going to meet my friend (thereby discovering that it's a man, though his name remains undisclosed), and travel 17 stops and one section transition on the monorail.

The streets are not busy, though this part of the city would be crowded if it were night (so that orbit business means you can see the night sky during the day?). I head for my friend's workplace, 'Fishnet High' - a high class place, no really, high class - they don't have any of that. That is right out. Then I become aware that someone is sneaking up on me, but I need to turn to another section to find out who.

It's a deranged robot. Unlike the robotic customs officer, which was an I-Bot, this one is a ME-Bot - a distinction that may mean something to my character but, like my friend's name, remains a mystery to the plebs reading this adventure. And since I have to fight the mechanical maniac which has attacked me in a bid to disguise the lack of interactivity in this part of the text, I need to determine some stats. Personal ones, at least. My ship also has stats, but I won't bother with them unless I last long enough to use any of them.

Skill: 11
Stamina: 17
Luck: 12
Blaster Skill: 9
So if/when I fail, it's more likely to be the result of a wrong decision (on one of the rare occasions that I get the opportunity to choose anything) than a bad roll. Though, judging by one of the many complaints raised by one reviewer, it is possible to lose at the last minute thanks to a roll that has nothing to do with any of my stats because completely randomised failure is such fun.

Despite having a 4-point Skill advantage over the metallic madman, I still take a couple of wounds. Then I enter Fishnet High, paying little attention to the anti-grav pole dancers, and when a rollerblading waitress approaches me, I ask to see the manager. It turns out that his name is Arthur (and mine is apparently 'the captain of the Starhunt'). I explain what has brought me here, and Arthur tells me that the slavers, probably assisted by a crooked cop, got into the city via Under-Aqua. Arthur then speculates that the captives will be held in a safe base until the next Slave Mart, and I let him know about the names I've learned. To actually tell him them, I have to turn to another section.

Arthur then tells me potted biographies of the slavers, concluding that Rhea Mosa is probably the one behind the raid. I then ask him about Under-Aqua, and guess what? Time to turn to another section. That'll be the tenth one I turn to on this attempt at the adventure, and I've made one decision and had one gratuitous fight. This got labelled a bumper adventure because it has over 200 sections, but without all these unnecessary hops back and forth through the text, it'd be well below the norm.

Under-Aqua is the part of Aquatine the tourist guides don't like to mention. The homeless, the hunted, and assorted sewer monsters live down there. Arthur has heard that the Slavers gained access to it via Gate 79, and will be meeting their crooked cop there to pay for services rendered. He advises me to head there at once while he contacts some of his shadier associates to find out anything else that might help me. Shockingly, I actually have the option of asking him something first.

I'm not sure I can handle the stress of making a decision right now, so I'm going to post what I've written so far, and continue this slog of an adventure another day.