My 'shorter series' rota has cycled back to The Way of the Tiger, but today I'm not replaying Avenger! even though I failed both of my previous attempts at it. The thing is, I have several gamebook-related saved searches on eBay, and on a couple of occasions last year one or other of them proved indirectly helpful. 'Indirectly' because so far the actual searches have only ever turned up listings that are outside my price range, the wrong edition (in situations where the edition matters), the wrong book, or something completely unrelated to what I sought (mainly CDs and miniatures), but sometimes the notifications of unhelpful matches included a 'You might also like' section linking to other listings, which made me aware of different books for sale that caught my interest. One such listing was for a batch of gamebooks, more than half of which I'd never heard of, and none of which duplicated books already in my collection. I placed a bid, was not outbid, and thus gained an assortment of new-to-me gamebooks, which included Ninja!, David Walters' prequel to Way. So that's what I shall be attempting - for the first time ever - in this post.
As this adventure takes place before the first one in the series, I was expecting to be using a less developed character, but that's not the case. If the combat with which Avenger! opens might be considered the final of the latest series of Who Wants to Be a Grandmaster?, this book concerns itself with the semi-finals, and takes place just under a week earlier.
So, I have been transported to the Isle of Plenty along with four other contenders. Each of us must traverse the island from east to west in no more than five days, along the way doing no evil and obtaining flags from two of the five Daimyo who rule cities on the island. Each has only the one flag, and (assuming I have correctly interpreted the word ‘peer’ in the rules) we may not take flags from our competitors, so this contest will allow between zero and two of us to qualify for the final. Additionally, only two of the Daimyo are trustworthy enough to have been informed of the contest, so I guess we have to hope that the other three are sufficiently villainous that tricking, robbing or killing them in order to get their flags won’t count as evil.
As regards skill selection (the only part of character creation into which I have any input), I think I’ll stick with what I chose during my previous attempt. Thus, I pick Poison Needles (unusable until I find some poison, but I gather that my chances of surviving one of the subsequent books are negligible if I don’t have this one, and The Way of the Tiger doesn’t hand out extra skills for completing adventures as freely as Lone Wolf does, so I can’t just grab it at the start of the next book), Immunity to Poisons and Picking Locks, Detecting and Disarming Traps, and I automatically get Shurikenjutsu.
The adventure proper commences as the ship transporting us enters the harbour. My competitors consist of Aiko (the token female, and the only other participant who’s trained as a ninja), Gorobei (the big guy who makes it through to the finals according to the start of Avenger!), Daon (my rival for the ‘most tragic backstory’ award, as the temple where he was raised was burned down during a rebellion) and Chigeru (the token senior).
We transfer to another ship, where we are greeted by a woman known to Gorobei from his previous attempt at the challenge. The very recently widowed Singing Wind explains that, following the assassination of her husband, a bandit has seized her home in a bid to assume control of the city, and she seeks our help, promising the flag to whoever recovers her late husband’s katana. Gorobei, Aiko and Daon all pledge their support, while Chigeru uses a metaphor to imply that she shouldn’t need any more help than has already been offered, and indicates that he’s off to a different city in search of its Daimyo’s flag.
Metaknowledge suggests that, regardless of who does most to help Singing Wind, it’s Gorobei who’ll claim the local flag, so it would be pragmatic to seek another one. Chigeru gives no indication of wanting me alongside him, so I opt to head to yet another city and seek the flag that’s there.
Initially I make good progress, but I pause to do some eavesdropping when a passing kabuki troupe mentions the monks of the Scarlet Mantis, followers of one of Orb's less pleasant deities. It transpires that five of them have stationed themselves at the bridge over the Ketsuiki River, on the look-out for any of my order who travel this way, most likely with the aim of making things unpleasant or lethal for participants in the challenge I am undertaking. Aware that the ‘lone martial artist prevails when significantly outnumbered’ thing tends not to work so well outside of films, I am seeking a safer way across the river when I catch sight of Aiko and Daon on the road behind me (already? Did I spend a really long time listening to talk of the Scarlet Mantis mob, or did Gorobei find some way of rapidly dissuading the others from accompanying him on the bandit-slaying sub-quest?), and feel obligated to let them know of the not-officially-part-of-the-challenge peril lying in wait at the bridge.
While Aiko favours evading the ambush as I had planned to do, Daon wants the other monks dead, and I figure that it would be helpful to learn how they knew to expect us, so we wind up devising a plan. Daon will continue along the road towards the bridge, getting the attention of the Scarlet Mantis lot, while Aiko and I stealthily approach via the river, swimming underwater and using our blowpipes as snorkels. All goes smoothly, and as Aiko and I start to climb the bridge, we hear our foes gleefully anticipating getting to kill the lone monk who’s heading their way. We launch a surprise attack that takes out two of the group, evening the odds, and each of us takes on one of the remaining enemies.
The bridge’s barricade was low enough that we could vault over it, so it’s potentially low enough that I might be able to flip my opponent into the river and potentially defeat him with a single attack. I thus open with a Teeth of the Tiger throw, but it turns out that that wouldn’t have ended the fight in one even if I’d rolled well enough for the throw to work. As it is, I miss, and my enemy gets to strike at me, but bungles his attack. I respond with a punch that lands and does a decent bit of damage, and his retaliatory kick just fails to connect. I try kicking him back, without success, and he delivers a painful punch to my kidneys. Having now ascertained that punching gives me the best chance both of hitting him and evading his riposte, I stick with that for the rest of the fight, and eventually I prevail, though I lose half my Endurance in the process.
My companions also overcome their foes, Daon finishing off his opponent with a vicious kick, while Aiko manages the ‘throw the enemy off the bridge to his death’ move denied to me by authorial fiat. It then transpires that the monk I fought was only pretending to have been reduced to -5 Endurance by my final blow (what have the readers done to incur the author’s contempt?), and attempts to flee, but a couple of well-aimed shuriken bring him down, at the same time rendering him too dead to interrogate. Daon does not have a problem with that, and gives me an Obsidian Bracelet he found on one of the corpses. The text compels me to take it, so I hope it’s less dangerous than some enforced acquisitions.
The three of us proceed to the city of Suma, observing a massive warship moored in the harbour. A little snooping establishes that the Daimyo is hosting a banquet for a Daimyo from another island, and that the flag we seek is kept under guard near the banqueting hall. Aiko observes that having ninja training will come in handy here, while Daon favours an open approach in case the local Daimyo is one of the two who are in on the contest.
I leave the two of them to get on with their own plans, and choose to try and get into the palace by disguising myself as a samurai. This involves non-lethally ambushing a real samurai and taking his armour, and I choose a member of the visiting Daimyo’s retinue, as the palace guards might become suspicious if they see a stranger wearing their colours.
The guard on the gate assumes that I’m running late because I’ve been sampling the city’s more dubious pleasures, but lets me in. However, he also calls a couple of samurai to escort me to the banquet hall. I’m not convinced I can knock them out along the way without an alarm being raised, though obviously I’ll attract a lot more attention if I reach the banquet hall and somebody realises that I’m a stranger. Still, if I can discreetly mingle for a short time and then unobtrusively slip away, I might just have a shot at getting the flag.
Alas, there are samurai from both Daimyos’ parties at the entrance to the hall, and I am identified as an impostor. Outnumbered, I make no resistance, and am taken to the cells, my ninja equipment confiscated, though my captors overlook the bracelet.
Also imprisoned here is a bruised and battered monk of the Scarlet Mantis, who reveals that the Daimyo uses ensorcelled chains to force his captives to fight to the death. Yaris, my fellow captive, had a bracelet that enabled him to resist the chain’s effect, but lost it in his last fight. He offers a temporary truce if I release him, but I’ve made no decision by the time a couple of samurai turn up and wrap a glowing chain around my neck. My autonomy is unaffected, so I’m guessing that the bracelet I wear is similar to the one that Yaris lost. As the samurai lead me away, one of them tells Yaris that he also will soon be fighting again.
The fact that he’s not being brought out along with me suggests that I’m going to be fighting someone else first. Given that the Daimyo’s tastes in entertainment imply that he’s a bad guy, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself pitted against Daon, who is doubtless regretting his optimism. Aiko is also a possibility, if she fared no better than I at getting in unnoticed. Or maybe there is no preliminary opponent lined up, and the Daimyo just plans to subject me to a lengthy gloat before bringing Yaris in. Whichever it may be, things look grim.
The samurai lead me to the banqueting hall, where Daimyo Arai, dressed as a warrior, is practicing swordplay against a veteran samurai while, in the background, a courtesan sings about stuff that will become relevant in a few books' time. Arai expresses his outrage at the planned theft of his flag, and states that, having seen how the monks of the Scarlet Mantis fight, he now wishes for a demonstration of my order’s techniques.
More samurai bring in Daon, under the influence of a chain, and I observe that one of the serving maids is Aiko in disguise. I can use a hand signal to communicate with her, and may either ask her to try and find my ninja tools for me or send her to the cells to release Yaris. Well, the latter would be my intent, but as our sign language has its limitations, there’s no guarantee that Aiko would correctly interpret my gesture, and might not recognise that the imprisoned enemy could potentially be a short-term ally. And even if she does figure it out, the ambiguous and unconfirmed agreement between Yaris and me doesn’t cover anyone else, so he might attack Aiko if she frees him. All in all, I think there are fewer ways that regaining my equipment could go catastrophically wrong, so that’s what I request.
Aiko departs, and the Daimyo signals that the fight is to commence. I need to spin things out until Aiko gets back, and I don’t want to kill Daon (though the chain’s enchantment has removed any such scruples from his mind), so I must limit my attacks to throws. Based on the diagrams in the rules, the Whirlpool throw should leave me in a less vulnerable position than either of the others available, so I lead with that.
Regrettably, he is sufficiently familiar with that throw that he evades me with ease and delivers a kick that removes more than half of my remaining Endurance. That’s a bit harsh. Okay, the description of the end of his fight on the bridge did mention him using the Whirlpool throw on his opponent, but knowing how to carry out an attack does not automatically mean knowing the perfect defence against it. If that passage had had him dodging a similar technique before delivering the coup de grace, it would have been a reasonable hint for observant readers, but merely showing him performing it falls short.
Well, caution hasn’t helped, so let’s go for the ludicrously dangerous-looking end of the scale and try the Teeth of the Tiger throw. Daon isn’t as adept at countering that one, and I roll well enough for my attack to succeed, giving me time to prepare another throw before he can get close enough to retaliate. If I can survive one more round of this fight, something will change, so the only question is whether I repeat the Teeth of the Tiger or risk switching to the Dragon’s Tail on the off-chance that Daon’s Defence against that is weaker.
The likelihood of my succeeding with another Teeth of the Tiger throw is slightly above 50%, and the odds of my surviving Daon’s counterattack if it doesn’t work are a little lower. I’ll take a chance on trying the Dragon’s Tail in the hope of improving my chances. A smart decision, as his Defence is indeed lower, but the dice still let me down. Daon strikes back at me, and the roll for his attack is no better than my last one, so his elbow fails to make contact.
Incidentally, I can’t help but notice some sloppiness with the page layout in this part of the book, as the following section has its number right at the bottom of one page and the whole of its text on the next. And while I'm critiquing extra-narrative details, I will observe that every 'turn to' direction is underlined and has text in a slightly different colour to the rest, as if Ninja! started out as an online document with hyperlinks to facilitate navigation between sections, and the publishers couldn't be bothered to reformat the text for hard copy. It's not a fault, as such, but it does make the book look like an afterthought.
Seeing that Aiko has returned, I perform a flashy manoeuvre, removing my chain and transferring the bracelet to Daon’s wrist. Realising that he’s lost control of the situation, the Daimyo orders his guards to attack us. Alas, there are just too many samurai for the three of us to handle, and while the ensuing display of our fighting skills costs Daimyo Arai a good deal more than the one he had arranged, at the end of it he’s still alive and we get recycled as dogfood.
I never got as heavily into The Way of the Tiger as I did some other gamebook series, so I'm not sufficiently familiar with the 'house style' to be able to comment on how well Walters has emulated Smith and Thomson's authorial voice, but based on how I've fared at Avenger! so far, I'd say that Ninja! seems a decent fit as regards the difficulty and the nastiness of some of the endings. The spreadsheet I use to keep track of what gets played when for this blog indicates that it'll be a while before I return to The Way of the Tiger (possibly next year, if I can maintain a consistent pace of posting and don't wind up needing multiple entries to cover adventures), but when I do, I shan't be skipping this book in order to get back to the original series opener.
