The Choice Between a Single Line and Thin Line and a Wrinkled Thing and...

So, having now replayed everything that precedes Lone Wolf book 11, The Prisoners of Time, I have a character who's better equipped, has slightly superior stats, and is currently in less than ideal health. In the gap between adventures I finish assimilating the power contained within the Lorestone of Luomi, gaining the Discipline of Pathsmanship and completing another Lore-circle, which adds another point to my Combat Skill, and two to my starting Endurance.

I'm not sure why getting the Lorestone didn't restore any Endurance, given that the ones in books 7-9 did, and book 10 states that I am filled with 'renewed strength' when the Lorestone falls into my hands. The Mongoose edit doesn't help: though it adds 'and vigour' to that, there's still no mention of any restoration of attributes, so I remain at less than half health even as an unavoidable Endurance loss in the very first section of the next book approaches.

Assuming I don't die before I get to do anything, I'll mostly follow the same path I did on my first attempt at Prisoners for the blog, and when I deviate from that route it'll be in the same way that I did on my next try - at least, up until the fight with the Chaos-master. Ideally, I won't die this time round, and to aid me in attaining that goal I'll be downing the Alether potion from Kalte rather than eating unrefined berries, for an additional boost to Combat Skill.

In brief, then: I take a lot of damage travelling through the portal, and shelter in the sepulchre. The Yoacor find me and take me to the Beholder. Food restores a little Endurance, but I lose more than that from the combination of the Beholder's mind probe and passage through the Dimension Door. I proceed to the city via as direct a route as possible, and the damage I take from the pawing and poking of its citizens would be enough to kill me if I weren't wearing a leather waistcoat. That would be a more preposterous way of dying than the rubbish one from book 13 that I rant about every so often.

Once I meet Serocca I get an info-dump which takes in enough section transitions to be tedious even when condensed to snarky bullet points by my gamebook manager, and have all my lost Endurance restored. It's about time.

Doomed companion T'uk T'ron takes me further, I get the same vague waffle from the fortune teller as on the last two occasions I played the book, and the ambush at the bridge leaves me on my own for a bit. I meet Ironheart's troops, doing my best to avert the friendly fire incident that they seem so keen on, get yet more exposition from Ironheart himself, and head for the tombs in the company of another redshirt.

When I encounter the helmeted warrior who's trying to take the Lorestones, I attempt to put an arrow through his throat. He tries to dodge, but the bonuses I get for having the Silver Bow and Weaponmastery in Bow help me find a chink in his armour. This being one of the more railroady parts of the book, I merely wound him, so he still grabs the Lorestones, and I have to fight him for them. His stats are lower than on either of the last two times I fought him, and I kill him in the first round of combat, but his winged steed inevitably denies me the opportunity to recover both Lorestones. The one I do get restores me to full Endurance again (not that I'd lost much anyway), reminding me afresh of what I was complaining about in the second paragraph of this post.

In Baylon's Tomb I help myself to the healing wine from the sarcophagus, and before long it's time to fight the Chaos-master again. I use the slightly lower stats from the Mongoose edit, down the potent Alether potion, and find myself in a situation where Psi-surge might just be worth using.

I win, losing just over half my Endurance in the process. On my way to the city from which the helmeted warrior came, I get into a fight with a big grey lizard. It's particularly vulnerable to psychic attacks, but has a Combat Skill so low that I have the best possible Combat Ratio even without using Mindblast or Psi-surge. Even so, it wounds me a few times.

As I plod on through a dead landscape, the mind-numbing dreariness causes me to start to lose my grip on reality. That reminds me of something in real life... oh, yes, it's a bit like reading this book. Eventually I encounter a trio of bargain basement Ringwraiths, who launch a psychic attack, but my Psi-screen not only blocks it but uses some of the energy from it to reinforce my mental defences. Sensing this, the phantasmal riders urge their steeds closer to me, and a new kind of psychic combat takes place, conducted using much the same rules as a physical fight. Most of the bonuses I get to apply in normal battles don't apply here, but the Mongoose text says that I can still use the one provided by the Silver Helmet I wear (the tinfoil hat-wearers of the world might take this as an endorsement of their views). I also get to add Combat Skill for possessing Disciplines above and beyond the base three, and for having the ring I bought in book 8.

I win the fight, and I'm not sure if I lost any Endurance during it, as the text doesn't specify whether or not the cost of employing Psi-surge during a standard combat also applies here. Assuming the worst, I deduct an appropriate amount.

The wind brings the sound of a bell to my ears, and I am irresistibly drawn to a golden light. A shining globe hangs above a stone tower, and through a portal in its side I see a tunnel leading to a distant light. One of the Lore-circles I've completed enables me to heal extra Endurance. A load of mystical mumbo-jumbo follows, made more bearable by the fact that every separate section of this cosmic twaddle allows me to regain a point of Endurance. I see visions of everyone and everything that has shaped my destiny (I wonder if that includes an unimpressed reader and a random number generator, because they've been doing a lot of the heavy lifting of late), and get a pep talk from Lone Wolf's god.

Then I find myself at the bottom of a sheer cliff, at the top of which is the city where the Lorestone I seek now resides. Close by is a sewage outlet, which could be an easier way in than the straight climb, especially as Nexus should protect me from mephitic vapours. Not that they're actually an issue here, as it turns out. A giant sewer snake, on the other hand...

I kill it, taking a little damage, and continue my ascent. Eventually I emerge onto the streets of Haagadar. The place stinks of salt and sulphur, and the locals use damp pads on their faces to block out the stench. Tethered outside a temple I see the bird that transported the helmeted warrior, and I sense that the Lorestone is now inside the temple. There only appears to be one door leading into the building, and that is guarded. A vent on the roof could provide another way in, but I have Invisibility, so I opt to cover my face (getting flashbacks to 2020) and try to bluff my way past the guards.

The guards are convinced by my imposture, and assume that I'm in trouble - potentially a lethal amount. Amused, they let me past, and I proceed along a curved corridor past numerous doors with writhing serpents painted on them (does that remind you of anything?). It leads to a staircase, which ascends to a balcony overlooking a hall. This hall contains alchemical paraphernalia and the Shadow Gate that could take me home. By now Healing has made good a fair bit of the damage I'd sustained, and I use the Oede herb I've been toting around to restore me to full health in anticipation of the imminent boss fight.

A group of six people in vaguely familiar clothing approaches. I hide behind the table of alchemical gubbins and study the sextet until I twig what I've recognised: their clothes are in styles popular back in my homeland. This enables me to identify the people: a selection of Sommerlund's Most Wanted, all of whom were exiled via the Shadow Gate. Brief descriptions of their crimes are provided, but as I've had nothing to do with five of them before now, the accompanying illustration has more impact, so they come across as: fat villain, villain with eyepatch, villainess, villain with goatee, villain with long beard, and Vonotar the Traitor. The latter gloats about being able to take his revenge, and sets the others on me mob-handed.

I down a handful of Alether berries and, as this scurvy bunch has no immunity to Mindblast, use that (but not Psi-surge, in view of the Endurance cost) to give myself a decent edge in the fight. It takes me six rounds of combat to kill the lot, and I take less damage than I did against the Chaos-master. If I'd used Psi-surge, the fight would have been a bit quicker, but I'd have lost almost twice as much Endurance, so I reckon I made the right choice there.

Vonotar makes a move towards the Shadow Gate, opening a lead box he carries, which contains the Lorestone. I charge at him, and he blasts me with a bolt of energy from a magical ring, doing a not insignificant amount of damage. He fires again, but this time I dodge, and I attack before he can try a third time. I shan't be using Psi-surge in this fight, either, because it doesn't affect him. Two blows with the Sommerswerd suffice to finish him off, though, and he inflicts no wounds on me during the fight, which is a good thing, because the last Lorestone is another 'no Endurance restoration for you, loser' one, and I remember from the 1990s that the next book starts with another Shadow Gate-induced Endurance loss.

Anyway, I take the Lorestone and proceed through the Shadow Gate, heading for home. This victory doesn't so much give me (the reader) a sense of triumph as the kind of relief you feel when the car alarm that's been going off for the past 20-odd minutes finally shuts up.

And that's that book done with, mostly. I do still have the mini-adventure from the Mongoose edition to play through, but I think it unlikely that that will be anywhere near as dismal a slog as Prisoners turned out to be, and in any case, it'll be a while before I get to that one. Probably not this year, unless I pick up the pace of my posts, and there's enough going on elsewhere in my life (and little enough enthusiasm regarding ploughing on through the series) that that's not massively likely.