Resuming my playthrough of Steve Jackson’s Secrets of Salamonis, I wake to find a couple of rats snuggling against me. Not very pleasant, but they do nothing to harm me when I shoo them away.
On the way back to the Adventurers’ Guild I encounter someone desperate enough to seek employment at the Guttery. The advertising board outside the building has a new notice on it, announcing the discovery of a backpack, prompting me to hurry inside in case the pack is mine. There are plenty of adventurers inside, many of them chatting, and I overhear fragmentary conversations suggesting that this adventure precedes the events of Temple of Terror and possibly the novel The Trolltooth Wars (the latter implying that a few other adventures (and sequels) also have yet to take place).
I make my way to a counter where someone official is on duty, and explain that I think the backpack which has been handed in might be mine. The man behind the counter asks me to describe its contents to prove the validity of my claim, and I list my possessions. Most of them are fairly generic, but there is one particularly distinctive item: a copy of my favourite book, the compendium of legends that fuelled my ambition to become an adventurer.
Conceding that the pack may be mine, the man says I’ll need to pay a gold piece to get it back. This is why I chose not to pay for a room in the Half-Darned Sock – while lacking the money isn’t an automatic game over, I’d need to succeed at a Luck roll to persuade the man to waive the charge, and the dream and the incident with Dog have cost me enough points that I really don’t fancy my chances with that roll.
Handing over the money, I receive my pack (which also contains a money pouch with 12 gold pieces in it), and also gain a point apiece of Luck and Amonour. The man then introduces himself as Guildmaster Jeskan Stover, and mentions the Guild registration fee, so I hand over some of my regained cash in return for an official permit.
Stover recommends getting some training before I undertake any quests, and I ask him for recommendations. There’s a little suboptimal gamebook design here: even though I already have some leads that could help me get some training, I have to seek Stover’s advice if I don’t want to skip training altogether, and as the book limits the number of times I can train, it’s possible (depending on what skills I choose to prioritise) to wind up asking what he suggests for the sole purpose of gaining the option of ignoring him and going my own way. Not yet having played Secrets often enough to have explored every available avenue of training, I don't know which are the best skills to go for, but it may well be that consulting and then disregarding Stover is the optimal course of action. It’s certainly what I shall be doing on this occasion.
Stover mentions the local library, a Guild member who runs a course on avoiding tricks and traps, and a temple that teaches skills which ought to be unteachable. Now that I have the option, I reflect on the contacts I’ve made that also open up opportunities for training. The book slightly obfuscates matters, not asking for the names of potential trainers or the fields in which they could instruct me, but checking to see if I recognise something mentioned during my previous encounter with the relevant contacts. It’s a rather flawed approach, as it penalises players who don’t memorise trivia there’s no obvious reason to focus on. A reader who knows of a map vendor who can teach magic shouldn’t effectively be barred from seeking him out just because they forgot an unrelated name-drop from the conversation they had with him. Secrets isn’t the only gamebook to pull such tricks, but precedent does not equal justification.
Perhaps thanks to the closer attention I pay to the text when playing a gamebook for this blog, I do recognise all the references that open up additional avenues of instruction. And then things get a bit messy. Confirming that I recognise a textual cue takes me to a section where I seek out the relevant contact and learn more of what they can teach me, also being given a section number where I can embark on that course of training before being sent back to the section from which I just came. The problem is, that section has no instruction to move on to any training course – just the list of leads and directions on where to turn if none of them mean anything to me, so I’m technically stuck here. All right, so there’s nothing to stop me from just turning to one of the section numbers I was given when the training options were elaborated upon, but there’s also nothing to stop me from turning straight to the last section of the book and claiming an unearned victory.
Still, despite the lack of a clear direction to turn to one of the sections I’ve been told are available starting points for training, I do have an implicit option to do so, and choosing one of them does seem like the best way of getting out of this inadvertent textual trap. So, do I want to learn magic from Ulsen, join Nanoc as a guard on a caravan and learn advanced combat skills along the way, or pick up further tricks from Rodriguez? Leaving Salamonis and signing on at the training ground in the Forest of Spiders is also an option, but the training ground was a ‘fail no matter what you do’ zone back in Creature of Havoc and I wouldn’t put it past Steve Jackson to have it work the same way here.
To start with, I pay Ulsen for instruction in the mystical art of Spelling. He takes me to a tavern, where the ale restores some of the Stamina I’ve lost. In gameplay terms, using the magic he teaches me requires me to solve a riddle and convert the letters in the solution into numbers, using a grid at the back of the book to find the numerical values rather than going with the standard a=1 set-up. Ulsen demonstrates how the magic works by conjuring himself a free refill, and gets me to demonstrate my understanding of it by having me sorcerously light the grate. Successfully doing so nets me some Amonour and Luck as well as giving me the relevant Special Skill.
There follows a thinly disguised check to see how much training I have done, the book asking if I have a Holy Symbol. There is no such item in my inventory, so I’m told that it’s now the Holy Day of one of Titan’s deities, and while watching a procession to mark the event, I am gifted a Holy Symbol, incidentally gaining another point of Amonour and a superfluous Luck bonus.
I can now seek further training, so I think I’ll take advantage of the opportunity afforded me by Nanoc’s marital troubles and sign on as a guard on the trade caravan for which he’s providing the security. This job lasts several weeks, during which I gain a hefty Amonour bonus, the Special Skill of Brawling, and a couple of limited-use abilities that will enable me to reroll dice (I wonder if the use of the plural indicates that, should the book instruct me to roll a single die, the Second Chance Roll may not be employed) and inflict the occasional killing blow regardless of enemy Stamina.
Towards the end of the return journey, the caravan is ambushed by Brigands, and I must make a Skill roll. The odds are slightly unfavourable, as I’ve not yet had the opportunity to boost my stats, but I just succeed, thereby avoiding falling victim to a surprise attack. I still have to fight against a Man-Orc with a Skill higher than mine, though, and only survive because the one time I win an Attack Round, I do so with a roll that permits me to use my Instant Death ability.
Nanoc and the rest of his men have prevailed against their opponents, so we continue on our way and reach Salamonis without further incident. There I receive payment for the job, and Nanoc presents me with an armband identifying me as a Strongarm.
It’s a good thing I didn’t start by signing on with Nanoc, as successful completion of the tour of duty with him leads straight to the ‘that’s enough training: now get on with some proper adventuring’ section. As I head for Guild HQ, I note that it is Stormsday, and the skies are appropriately grim.
It is now time to use my
Amonour to boost my stats, and while improving my Skill and Luck should
probably take priority, adding a point to my Initial Stamina will enable me to
return to full health, and as I’m currently hanging on to life by a thread, I
can’t really afford to pass up that opportunity for healing. Thus, I settle on going up to:
Skill 10
Stamina 13
Luck 8
Not as good as average rolls would have given me under standard FF rules for character creation, but
significantly better than at the start of this adventure.
In the Market Square I am accosted by the tax collector of whom I was warned shortly after arriving in Salamonis. He demands that I pay Job Seeker’s Tax (don’t go giving the politicians ideas, Steve). The second time I played this book, I opted for tax evasion in the literal sense - that is, I ran away - and received a codeword hinting of subsequent trouble with the law, though my character died before experiencing the consequences of having that codeword. Attacking the pest will probably have even worse consequences, and I can afford to pay, so I hand over the money and continue on my way while he seeks further prey.
No further incidents take place before I reach the Guild building, where I can now pick a quest from the board. This seems like a good time to pause the narrative and update the blog with my progress in the adventure, so that’s what I’ll do. Mind you, if my first quest as an accredited and trained adventurer goes no better than on my previous attempts at the book, my next blog post is likely to be one of my shorter ones. Time will tell, soon enough.