It's about time I went on with my probably-doomed-but-can-still-be-informative attempt at Sir Ian Livingstone's The Port of Peril. So I'm on my way to the Moonstone Hills, hoping that the map I obtained in Chalice will enable me to find some treasure and turn around my fortunes.
As I trek on, I catch sight of some birds circling above a building. I can think of a couple of earlier books by Mr. Livingstone in which circling birds were a sign of nothing good, but I also know that he does like to throw the occasional curve ball (like the way he clearly has a preferred direction at left/right junctions, but often makes it advisable or essential to go the other way at some point), so I'll investigate in case this time the birds are drawing my attention to something useful or essential rather than potential trouble or death.
The building is a simple cabin, and the birds would appear to be interested in the blueberry bushes planted in front of it, yet not helping themselves to the fruit for fear of the scarecrow in the midst of the bushes. Would I be right in thinking that the scarecrow is neither inanimate nor as good-natured as Worzel Gummidge? There's only one way to find out...
Well, I was half right. The scarecrow turns out to be a live human, held captive and used to deter birds by the inhabitants of the cabin. As I draw near, the door bursts open and a trio of Blue Imps charges towards me, brandishing oversized cutlery (and I'm not talking tablespoons). I have the option of trying to flee, but the Imps don't seem like a serious threat, and rescuing their prisoner seems like a worthy cause.
For no good reason the Imps attack one at a time, and I manage to kill them all without taking any damage. When I untie their unwilling scarecrow, he explains that they captured him while he was camping in the area, and threatened to eat him if he didn't keep the birds away from the bushes. They were cultivating the berries in order to make dye for their skins rather than for food, but the man I freed proves that the fruit is edible by devouring several handfuls, and I also eat some to restore a little of the Stamina I lost fighting Man-Orcs.
When I explain my quest, the man advises me to build a fire to deter nocturnal predators, and gives me some stikkle wax to use as a remedy for Gronk bites, before setting off home. I opt to check the cabin for potentially useful bric-รข-brac, helping myself to an Imp's knife along the way. Inside the cabin I find some Imp-sized furniture, a simmering cauldron of dye, and a shelf cluttered with jars. There are seven jars, and I can take just three of them because whatever. No idea what could be useful, beyond the fact that I was not able to remain spoiler-free regarding the identity of this book's villain, and one of the jars contains one of the substances that were needed to help defeat him the last time he was a gamebook antagonist. I take that one and more or less arbitrarily also select Noop Powder and Fireroot Juice.
Continuing on my way, I don't reach the hills until dusk (though if I hadn't detoured to the Imps' hut, I'd have arrived no sooner - section number recognition is not a skill I can turn off). Before settling down for the night I gather up some fallen branches to bodge together a bivouac, and rummage through my backpack for some scraps of food (despite still having the cobs of corn I picked earlier in the day and the Provisions that the rules said were part of my starting inventory). It's a warm night, but I remember the ex-scarecrow's advice, and build a fire anyway. Consequently, while I hear animals in the vicinity a couple of times during the night, nothing attempts to prey on me or press-gang me into becoming a weathervane or a paperweight.
In the morning I press on towards the crag indicated on the map. Along the way I notice a cave mouth leading into another hill and, aware that not exploring the cave is just as likely to prove lethal as exploring it, I take a closer look. Almost immediately I am attacked by a Plague Witch, and while her stats are negligible, she only needs to win one round of combat to infect me, with game-ending consequences. The dice continue to favour me (though I did draw one round, so if I hadn't restored the Skill point I temporarily lost, that would have been it for this post, bar some kind of pithy summing-up paragraph).
The only item of potential interest in the cave is a clay pot with a cracked lid. It could contain something essential, or its contents might be harmful - with Ian Livingstone and pots, you never can tell unless you check. And it holds 5 gold pieces and a lock of hair, presumably from the head of the hag I just slew. Well, that could come in very handy, unless Ian is playing an elaborate prank on readers of his earlier books.
Continuing through the hills, I unavoidably stumble and hurt my arm, taking negligible damage. After a while I reach a gully with a stream running through it, and pause to top up my drinking water. A boulder rolls downhill towards me, but I manage to dodge it. For a moment I think it might be a Boulder Beast, as the author does like including them in gamebooks, but no, it seems to be just a regular boulder, rolled at my by a couple of Wild Hill Men (also quite popular in his works, but I've already linked the relevant books once in this post).
Annoyed at having failed to kill me, the Wild Hill Men try firing arrows instead, but I take cover behind the boulder. One of them flings everything remotely throwable in the vicinity my way (including his bow and shoulderbag), and once they're out of potential missiles, the two give up trying to harm me and wander off. I help myself to the bow and arrows, and find that the bag contains a gold coin, some salt, and a box of fish hooks. What is it with Ian Livingstone and fish hooks nowadays? One of his other 21st-century gamebooks included what seemed like dozens of opportunities to acquire them, and if there's any point in that book at which they become useful, I never found it.
I also take a drink from the stream, regaining the Stamina I lost when I fell over, before resuming my travels and finally reaching my destination, a hill shaped something like a massive skull, not unsurprisingly named Skull Crag. Openings in the hill roughly correspond to eye sockets and mouth, and I risk going into the one at ground level. My lantern reveals charcoal drawings of monsters on the walls, and at the back of the cave is a tunnel entrance leading to a junction. Time to see if Sit Ian's favourite direction remains unchanged...
Apparently it has changed. Or he's picked up Steve Jackson's trick of giving the reader a choice between death and death, and I should have avoided Mouth Cave altogether. Either way, a stone slab descends behind me, trapping me in the depths of the crag to starve to death.
Well, after a pretty poor start, that book was okayish. Not up there with Mr Livingstone's finest, but an improvement on at least the previous two FF books he penned. I am a little less pessimistic than I was about the news that he has another Deathtrap Dungeon sequel coming out later this year.
