Take Away That Fool's Bauble

Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith's Talisman of Death had been plugged in Warlock, so I knew about it before it came out, but had little idea of what it was going to be like. I vaguely recall coming across the fight with Hawkana's spirit while leafing through the book in WHSmith, and making a small start on properly reading the book on the way home from town, but that's it for memories of my first experience of the book.

Like House of Hell, it got a lot of focus from misguided Concerned Evangelicals, and it was probably the most heavily-quoted of all the books flagged up as harmful influences in a big scaremongering pamphlet that was produced in response to the gamebook 'threat'. Someone from the RPG group at my school brought in a copy of the pamphlet, and we poked fun at it. At one point it contained a quotation from Margaret Thatcher, which Nick Cheeseman read out in a reasonable impersonation of her voice.

The thing the author of the pamphlet failed to understand was that depiction was not endorsement. Yes, the book included some gruesome scenes, and a sequence involving unpleasant rites being carried out in an evil temple, but these were clearly made out to be bad things even within the context of the book. Pretty much anyone who, in the course of playing the adventure, reached any of the sections quoted would try to avoid returning to them on future attempts because they made victory less likely.

Unlike most FF fantasy adventures (given the number of FF gamebooks set in different genres, I don't think the term 'FF fantasy' has quite the same kind of redundancy as the likes of 'PIN number'), this one is not set on Titan. Instead, it's on the authors' own creation, Orb, which went on to feature in their The Way of the Tiger series and make the odd cameo in other books of theirs. Also, the protagonist is from Earth, and transported to Orb by a couple of powerful beings to save it from a threat that can't be fixed by the local heroes. A few strange FF fans try to make out that the protagonist is actually from Titan, but when the book explicitly names Earth at least four times, and describes 'your' home world as lacking a variety of creature and character types known to exist on Titan, it takes a wilful misreading of the text to stick with that theory. Not so much 'death of the author' as 'creeping up on the author, bashing in his skull and sticking the remains under the patio'.

The adventure starts as I wake up in unfamiliar surroundings, wearing unusual clothes, with only a hazy recollection of the past, and a vague awareness that I've been trained as an expert swordfighter. Not quite your average morning after the night before, then. Besides, I feel fine. How fine?
Skill: 12
Stamina: 18
Luck: 12
I was prepared to fudge character creation, as a single-figure Skill pretty much guarantees failure, and if you wanted to read a playthrough that ends at the first really tough fight, you could go here, but that's how the numbers came out anyway.

A talking bird addresses me as 'Champion of Fate' and tells me I'm in the Garden of the Gods on Orb. I am then summoned into the presence of the bird's masters, a hairless (and eyeless) woman whose face shows visions of my destiny, and a man whose form constantly flows from infant to old man and back again. They explain that they've summoned me to fix the balance of nature, and show me an incredibly detailed map of Orb. I find myself drawn towards it, and as it becomes apparent that in this instance Korzybski is mistaken, and this map most definitely is the territory, I black out.

Coming round in a vast subterranean chamber, I see two nearby archways and hear something nasty howling. Running footsteps approach and, aware that I must have been sent to this specific location for a reason (and that at this stage in the book, all options ultimately lead to the same section), I decide to wait and see who's coming. Stone blocks drop to seal the exits, and a party of adventurers emerges from the darkness. The woman points her crossbow at me and demands to know who I am and what I'm doing here. I admit to not being a local, and the party's Priest magically discerns that I'm telling the truth. The gold-wearing Wizard states that he can only teleport one person out, and speculates that I may have been sent to continue their quest.

A substantial info-dump follows. Essentially, these four are the last survivors of a group of Crusaders who were sent to steal the Talisman of Death, which Death's minions can use to summon Death to the surface of the world to destroy everyone else. Nobody is safe as long as the Talisman is on Orb, but if I can find some way of getting back home and taking the Talisman with me, that should remove the immediate threat. I accept the mission, and the teleport spell takes just long enough to cast that I get to see a horde of monstrosities burst into the chamber and start killing the party before I find myself somewhere else.

Transported to 'the lip of an immense chasm' (in a sentence inexplicably absent from Murray's copy of the book), I decide to head for Greyguilds, the city the Wizard told me to go to, via a nearby forest. Not the most direct route, but less conspicuous, and as the monsters dwelling in the chasm will soon be after me, I think it wise to get under cover.

Before long I reach a clearing where a massive wolf is suckling her young. She's not too pleased to see me, but when I throw her a chunk of meat from my Provisions, she quietens down. Then the Guardian Druid of the grove (who must be huge, judging by the illustration - either that or the artist didn't get the memo about the wolf being roughly pony-sized) thanks me for taking the path of non-violence, and gives me an apple to replace the meal I just sacrificed.

After sneaking past a dozing Basilisk (which blinks at a passing mouse to prove that it has a petrifying gaze), I see an old woman up to her neck in a pond and crying for help. By this attempt at the book I am well aware of the true nature of the situation, but with 12 Skill I think I can afford to demonstrate the bizarre reality to my readers, so I wade in to rescue her, and discover that the old woman's head is actually just a fleshy outgrowth used as a lure by the six-tentacled Grendel that lives in the pond.

Earth Grendels are not like Orb Grendels.

After killing the creature, I continue on my way until I reach a moor, where I encounter a score of horse-riding warrior women. Their Captain demands to know what I'm doing there, and I decide that this time honesty may not be the best policy, so I pretend to be a survivor from a caravan that was ambushed. The Captain asks where the caravan came from, and suggests one possible starting point. I know the book well enough to be aware that this is a trick question, as the location she named is in the opposite direction to the one from which I'm coming. As a means of testing someone's veracity, it's a little odd, as I imagine that most of the people who might be encountered out on the moor would know enough of Orb's geography to be aware that they were being asked the equivalent of, "So are you heading from London to Oxford via Yakutsk?"

I do have the option of naming one of the places the Priest spoke of in his info-dump, but it's a bit of a stretch that I'd be able to remember them. Could you, without peeking, say who it was that did the Margaret Thatcher impersonation I mentioned earlier? And I'll wager you haven't been distracted by trekking through a forest and fighting tentacled monstrosities since that name passed briefly through your consciousness. Still, I've played this book enough that I can remember which is the most sensible place to name, so I do so. Consequently, the Captain offers me safe conduct to Greyguilds, and makes me ride pillion on Elvira's horse, much to Elvira's displeasure.

One awkward journey later, I'm at Greyguilds, and go for a stroll down Store Street, where I encounter a woman in robes similar to those worn by the Druid I met earlier. We get chatting, and it turns out that the two of them are old friends. She's a Priestess of the All-Mother, and invites me to accompany her to the temple. Now, this is one part of the book that never got mentioned in the pamphlet, though it could be argued that accepting the invitation leads to breaking the first of the ten commandments. And, unlike attending the abhorrent rites in the temple of Death (a sequence that was heavily referenced in the pamphlet), doing so has distinct advantages, as the visit leads to the acquisition of some magical chainmail, and information that will be of use when I have to leave the city.

A little later on a carriage pulls up nearby, and I notice that it's carrying a coffin with my name on it. Wonder if the surname's spelled correctly - people get it wrong with depressing frequency, even when I tell them the right spelling. The passenger in the carriage turns out to be a skeletal Envoy of Death, who demands the Talisman. I send him back to his boss to indicate my refusal to comply via the most direct route (that is, by killing him).

Catching sight of a library, I pop in for a quick look around, and wind up learning a lot about the city from a work of fiction that has curious parallels with a highly acclaimed 20th century English novel. Basically, the place is a hotbed of religious in-fighting, and even the (all-female) forces of law and order are divided between adherents of two faiths, some following the All-Mother while the rest favour the nondescriptly evil Fell-Kyrinla.

The other patrons of the library depart, and if the librarians had wristwatches, they'd be meaningfully glancing at them, so I also head out onto the streets. One thing not mentioned in my recent reading was the city's appalling litter problem, which I learn about by stepping on a man-trap that some slob has carelessly left lying around. Several sickly-looking Goths approach, proclaiming themselves to be the Priesthood of Death. One of them takes the Talisman from me, but then a contingent of the City Watch turns up. Things then get a little chaotic, and ultimately one of the Watch decides to take the Talisman to the lost property office in the temple of Fell-Kyrinla. I remain caught in the man-trap, vowing not to rest until I have regained the Talisman.

A passing do-gooder releases me and offers a bed for the night. Forgetting the resolution I just made, I accept. The following morning my host says he overheard me talking in my sleep, and wonders what I had stolen from me. It's a good thing my sleep-talking was plot relevant: the one instance of such behaviour I know to have had in real life consisted of the enigmatic utterance, "Teeth?"

Figuring that I could do with some help, and the whole 'trying to prevent the destruction of almost all life on the planet' thing is the kind of mission most people would find a worthy cause, I tell him my tale. He advises me to seek the assistance of the local Thieves' Guild, and tells me where I can make contact with representatives of the group. Not being Bruce Willis, I decide against taking on the followers of Fell-Kyrinla on single-handed, and follow his advice.

Passing up the opportunity to acquire an artefact that would compel me to address others in the most offensive language the authors could get away with, I go to the inn frequented by some of the city's more prominent thieves, and join a suitably shifty-looking bunch. Strangely enough, while the god of thieves, liars and cut-throats is the most popular deity in the city, these gentlemen are more than a little sensitive about their chosen profession, and it is only by being quite circumspect that I am able to arrange an appointment without getting knifed in the back or told to use the booby-trapped entrance to Guild headquarters.

More customers enter, and the innkeeper is evidently displeased to see this particular couple, but tries to hide it. They sit at my table, and the man insults me, but I know that these two make a few appearances in other books by the same authors, and thus cannot be killed, so there's no point in starting a fight. Besides, I've been called worse things than he comes out with in the real world.

My appointment's not until tomorrow, so I go back to the house where I spent last night, stopping along the way when offered a chance to earn some more money. The job turns out to involve animal testing, as a couple of Sages have created a hybrid giant cockroach/crocodile/ogre for use in battle, and want to test its capabilities against a trained fighter. One brief skirmish later, they have to go scurrying back to the drawing board - but not before paying me for my efforts, with a Spell of Agonizing Doom, as their wealth turns out to be on a par with their skill at creating monsters that pose a threat to Skill 12 characters.

There can be few gamebook features more useless than an anti-cheat mechanism based on the honour system. Not that I am cheating, but if I were trying to go somewhere I had no right to be, a simple 'can you prove you're allowed in?' wouldn't be much of a deterrent. My host has invited round a friend who happens to be an expert on travel between realities. Convenient for me, but I can't begin to imagine the career path he must have followed. Anyway, he tells me about a portal that should be able to take me back to Earth. I also learn the correct formula for calling upon divine assistance in an emergency, not that I'm ever likely to need such a contrivance, right?

The following morning, on my way to meet the Thieves' Guild, I pause to watch a street magician, whose final trick involves making other people's money disappear (with a little help from his not-so-glamorous assistant, the man who insulted me back in the inn). I am then invited to have sherry with a city elder by the name of Mortphilio. Marginally less unsubtle than De'Ath, but still something of a giveaway. He lives in a bamboo hut with a servant and a talking skull, only the bamboo turns out to actually be human bones, which he animates and sets on me. I dash through the only available exit, which turns out to lead into the temple of Death.

Disguising myself with a convenient robe, I watch as the high priest summons half a dozen wraiths, whom he instructs to recover the Talisman. There was a brief period when the similarity of the words 'wreath' and 'wraith' caused me some confusion regarding the appearance of such apparitions. Making a brazen exit (the best way of not attracting attention), I continue on to my appointment. On this occasion, it's best to be blunt: the thieves have some wacky idea about the Talisman's being immensely valuable (okay, I guess Death's followers might be prepared to pay handsomely to get it back, but the Orb-encompassing genocide that would follow soon after completion of the transaction is certain to get in the way of spending the money), and decide to organise a raid on the spot, before the Talisman can be moved to a more secure location.

Four thieves accompany me on the job, breaking into the temple of Fell-Kyrinla through the roof. I'm the only member of the party to notice an elderly servant who might have spotted us, and I say nothing to the others, because the one part of this book I do find morally objectionable is the bit where going along with his cold-blooded murder has a less unfavourable outcome than sparing his life. The alarm is raised, my companions desert me, and I have to defend myself against one of the guards (after narrowly avoiding a death scene lifted from Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4) before making it to the Inner Sanctum, where the Talisman is being held.

Also present is the High Priestess, Hawkana (how come the high priest of Death didn't get his title capitalised?), who responds to my interrupting her devotions by attempting to immolate me. I retaliate with Agonizing Doom, which only really lives up to the first part of its name, but sufficiently weakens Hawkana that I'm able to finish her off with little difficulty. Having her stay dead is trickier, but I know how to prevent her from coming back to life in the short term, and use the source of her unnatural healing to patch myself up.

The thieves are waiting just outside the doors, and claim to have been unable to get in to help me. We return to the room where we entered, and one of the thieves treacherously attempts to knife me. Doing so causes him to get in the way of a large number of crossbow bolts fired in my general direction by a group of guards, but whatever moral might be derived from this happenstance is lost on him, as he's too busy thrashing about and expiring to reflect upon the bitter fruits of betrayal.

I make my escape from the temple, and the others let slip that that murder attempt was part of the plan all along. Still, having seen my fighting prowess, they're reluctant to try and finish the job, so I find myself alone. But not for long, as one of my erstwhile allies tells the tiresome twosome from the inn about my having the Talisman. Accompanied by the illusionist I saw earlier in the day, they harass me with assorted tricks and tomfoolery until I have no choice but to ask the All-Mother for a little help. Well, it's either that or get decapitated and, through one of the quirks of the book, have time wound back to just before I was teleported out of the Rift, replay virtually the entire adventure and (assuming I don't get myself properly killed on my way back to this confrontation) then face the same choice that got me sent back the first time (repeat until fed up).

An eagle swoops down and bears me away, but the preternatural weight of the Talisman prevents the bird from carrying me all the way to the portal (has someone been listening to criticisms levelled at The Lord of the Rings?). Recalling what I heard at the temple that didn't contain anyone who wanted to kill me, I keep a low profile until the Watch switches from the Fell-Kyrinla shift to the All-Mother shift, and then head for the gate. A Dark Elf doesn't want me to leave, but I insist quite forcefully.

I take the direct route towards the portal, which involves much trudging over rough moorland. One of those Wraiths threatens me, but I refuse to be intimidated. The following night, he comes back with all his friends, but in the mean time I've read the instructions on the back of the Talisman, and use it to banish the spectral sextet.

The next day I reach a cliff with steps carved into it. These steps take me past a waterfall, and I find a cave entrance concealed behind it. A door at the back of a cave bears a picture of a dragon and a spear. Beyond the door is a passage to a crossroads. I know from past attempts that whichever way I go, I will experience the same thing: a room containing mildly cryptic advice about what is up ahead, plus a booby trap. The only difference will be what I read and the precise nature of the trap. As it turns out, I pick the one with the message I didn't properly understand for years (shockingly, I didn't even pick up on the idle/idol pun), and the potentially lethal cascade of sand.

I was kind of hoping for the rip-off homage to this scene.

Evading the trap, I proceed to the room where the paths in here reconverge. It contains three pillars, though the door into it bore the message 'Only one can be read'. I avoid the pillar that's the same shape as the one in the room I just left, and look at one with a more straightforward message (at least for anyone who's been paying attention). All three pillars then vanish (somehow without adversely affecting the structural integrity of the ceiling), and I leave through the only door that will open.

This leads into a hall containing a gruesome idol. On the far side are four doors, each marked with a different symbol: a snake, a monkey, a scarab beetle and a dragon. Now, I could enliven things by deliberately going for the door that causes the idol to animate, but it's getting late, so I'll just pick the exit. Not that it looks much like an exit at first, as a portcullis drops behind me, and up ahead is just a chamber containing a sarcophagus. Inside the sarcophagus is a mummified warrior with two weapons, and I grab the one hinted at earlier. Of course the mummy comes to life and attacks me. Doesn't put up much of a fight, though.

Beneath the sarcophagus is the entrance to a tunnel which eventually takes me back to those steps. Resuming my ascent, I dodge a couple of falling boulders and then carry on to the top of the plateau, where I encounter a group of Hogmen. My options are inconveniently restricted to attacking them or offering them some meat if I have any left. Well, I still have nine portions of Provisions (plus the apple), but the book isn't very clear on what exactly those Provisions are. Was what I gave the wolf all the meat I had, leaving me with nothing but a selection of jam sandwiches, a bag of Monster Munch, a carton of Kia-Ora and a couple of pink wafers?

To be honest, the choice barely matters. I lose a couple of Stamina points if I attack, but I could recover them (and more) by eating the portion of Provisions I didn't give the Hogmen. Dragged before the Headhog and asked my business, I state the truth one more time. This pleases the Headhog, as the portal I seek is guarded by a Red Dragon that's been a nuisance to his people in the past. To help me get rid of the Dragon, he advises me to make a shield out of Dragon scales, and provides me with a gourd of gum to stick the scales together.

Further climbing leads me to the cave where the Dragon has made its lair, and I sneak in, ignore the vast quantities of loot lying around, and help myself to a few shed scales. After assembling the shield (which is a lot less faff than the Airfix kits I had as a child), I carry on to the portal. The Dragon flies up and tells me it's on guard. I explain my mission, and the Dragon tells me I'll have to get rid of all my weapons and money before I can pass through. Tell me, Dragon, am I made of china and full of a hot drink? No? Then how come you think I'm a mug?

My nice new weapon is specially designed to hurt Dragons, so I only have to jab it into old Red a few times before he attempts another trick. I attempt another jab, and the Hogmen have nothing more to fear from their old nemesis. I step through the portal, and find myself back on Earth, in the middle of a circle of standing stones. The entities who dragged me into this adventure in the first place thank me, identify themselves as Fate and Time, and mention that they might call on my services again. They do not let me know precisely where on Earth I am (bet it's miles from home), nor do they mention what happened to the clothes I was wearing back when they dragged me off to Orb (my cashcard and housekeys are in the trouser pockets), or how long I've been gone (I have library books that might be overdue).

Wonderful. I saved Orb, and now I'm lost, with no ID, wearing chainmail and a helmet and carrying two bloodstained weapons, and possibly trespassing on National Trust property. They're going to sling me into the padded cell next to the guy who made it through House of Hell.

If Heroes Don't Exist, It Is Necessary to Invent Them

I had mixed feelings when I first heard that the Lone Wolf series was to be reissued and, all being well, properly concluded (the original follow-up run having come to an end four books earlier than planned). This was largely on account of the announced changes to the first book. Fixing errors was one thing, but changing the plot so that, rather than surviving the massacre on account of being unconscious in the forest nearby, Lone Wolf was actively involved in the Kai's last battle? That sounded decidedly 'Greedo shot first' to me. I liked that the hero was not yet hero material, that his surviving was partly on account of klutziness, that the objective was the pretty low-key 'survive to warn others of the danger' rather than the sort of epic stuff that soon became the norm for the series. I prefer 'numpty who rises to the challenge and winds up becoming a proper hero' to 'epic hero who just keeps getting epicer'.

Nevertheless, I try to keep an open mind about things, so when a bundle of the first 10 reissues turned up on eBay at an affordable price, I put in a bid and was successful. I made a start on Flight from the Dark - Special Edition shortly after I received the bundle, but stalled part of the way into it. This will be a fresh attempt, and I'm hoping that blogging about it will motivate me to keep going this time.

The preface to the adventure is set a little earlier than that of the original version, joining the action at the point where Silent Wolf falls foul of his tutor, Star Fire. One detail I do like is that Star Fire tosses a coin to help him choose between punishments for his inattentive pupil, so anyone taking a Many Worlds Theory stance can situate the original books in the subset of realities where the coin came down tails rather than heads and Silent Wolf was punished with firewood-collecting duty instead of supplemental weapons training.

Character generation is unchanged, and here's this reality's Silent Wolf.
Combat Skill: 15 (some things are consistent across realities)
Endurance: 28 (but this Kai is fitter)
Disciplines: Sixth Sense, Healing, Weaponskill (Warhammer - about as useless as Mace), Mindshield and Mind over Matter

After around half an hour of combat practice using dummy weapons, Star Fire and I are taking a breather when the alarm sounds. The monastery is under attack. Star Fire hastens off to assist in the defence, ordering me to accompany him. I pause in order to get a real weapon, and the text forces me to dither rather than going straight for the weapon I've had special training in using, so when Star Fire loses his rag and yells at me I randomly grab... a short sword. There's a warhammer right next to it, that would give me a decent combat bonus, but choosing sensibly isn't an option. In a parallel reality, Silent Wolf has just concussed himself on a low branch, but this version isn't making a plausible case for being any more competent a hero

Dual-wielding a sword and an axe, Star Fire takes on a group of Giaks (the cannon fodder of the Darklords' armies). One of them goes for me, knocks me down, and attempts to spit me with its spear. However, Star Fire turns out to have the obscure Magnakai Discipline of Being Brian Blessed, and lets out a yell that blasts the Giak away from me for long enough that I can get back up and defend myself. There are different sections to turn to depending on whether the fight takes 1-3 rounds or longer, but even if I had the minimum possible Combat Skill and rolled the worst number every round, I would still win the fight in round 3, so the '4 rounds or more' section is superfluous (and could have been used to allow characters with Weaponskill to make an informed decision at the rack).

As it happens, I turn the Giak to paste in the first round. Authorial contrivance disarms me so Star Fire has to throw me his sword, which I catch just in time to fend off an attack by another two Giaks. They don't last much longer than the first one. Star Fire then instructs me to ascend the highest tower in the monastery and jump out of the window light the beacon that will warn the King of the attack. Even as I set off to do this, huge Zlanbeasts fly over and drop nets filled with Giak troops, not all of whom survive the landing, but some of those which do live manage to get in my way. So does the Kai Master Swift Owl, who pretty much accuses me of cowardice because I'm not heading towards the fighting, and then distrustfully probes my mind when I explain the truth. Doesn't even apologise afterwards, so I'm not going to be massively upset when poetic justice leads to him getting several Giak spears poked through his cranium.

I'm given the option of looking in some cupboards. Metaknowledge tells me that the monastery will fall no matter what I do, and since the 'travel to Holmgard to warn the King' aspect of the plot still takes up a hefty chunk of the book, something's liable to prevent the beacon from serving its purpose, so a brief delay shouldn't matter. But the book says the cupboards are used for spare furniture, which reduces the likelihood of my finding anything useful in there. It's not as if I have Weaponskill in flatpack chiffonier.

My path takes me through the kitchens, just as Giaks start smashing the skylights to gain access. Then I reach a junction, where I must choose between heading towards the dormitories and going to the training park. My character would know if one of those ways is more likely to lead to my goal than the other, but either it makes no difference or that information is being withheld through authorial incompetence/malice. The dormitories sound more dead-endy, so I'll pass up the opportunity to find out whether or not I have a plush Kazim to collect from my bedside locker, and make for the training park. As the name suggests, this is outdoors, so it has a couple of Giaks in it. But not for long.

Dever-induced ineptitude has me forgetting to close the door behind me. As I'm about to head back and shut it, my Sixth Sense alerts me to an imminent attack from an airborne Giak with a cursed spear. I dodge, and then fling the spear at the Giak horde making for the door, and the resultant carnage gives me time to secure the door. Very cinematic, but this is a book, and flashy heroics don't make up for having been cretinous enough to make that mistake in the first place.

A brief detour to the armoury turns up little, as most of the weapons are being used to defend the monastery. Still, the small selection remaining includes a warhammer (but not a mace, so I'm better off than the other me would be). Continuing on my way, I find a dead guard and a ladder being used by Giaks to descend from a trapdoor in the roof. The Giaks are still some way up, so I give the ladder a hefty tap with my hammer. A few Giaks become smears on the floor.

Further on, I find that a hole has been blasted in a wall, killing three Kai sentinels. A couple of Giaks are stabbing the corpses, so I pause to demonstrate that in situations like this, one's energies are better spent attacking living opponents. I'm sure they'd thank me if their heads weren't quite so pulped.

After delaying to rescue a couple of horses from the burning stables, I see that the way I was planning on going is blocked by debris, and a lone Kai is fighting to defend the beacon (which is unlit because he lacks the Kai discipline of Protagonism). The only way left for me to get to him is via the Chapel, which is on the other side of the training park. I ride one of the horses across, trampling several Giaks, before attracting the attention of a Drakkar, one of the humans in the invading army. He fires a crossbow at me, and this Silent Wolf's selection of Mind Over Matter instead of Hunting is vindicated as I psychokinetically divert the bolt. The Lone Wolf of a later book would have made it flip round and hit the Drakkar in the eye, but I'm content with not getting killed.

Entering the Chapel, I meet fellow Initiates Rain Dove and Steel Sky (proof that randomly generating character names has its drawbacks) and have the option of arming myself with a replica of the famous Iron Pearl Broadsword. I grab it as a backup weapon in case it has any special qualities.

Further progress is impeded by a stone door with a combination lock. For some perverse reason, we now get a trivia quiz shoehorned into the book. I have to answer questions about earlier in the adventure, each answer constituting one digit of the section number to which I'm supposed to turn next. Which makes no sense whatsoever. A proper intelligence test I could understand. Needing to recall some detail to prove that you'd acquired an essential item or bit of information would make sense as an anti-cheat mechanism. But this is just absurd. Unless Lone Wolf  fans are notorious for going, "I can't be bothered to read the whole book. I'll just start at section 291 and take it from there," and Dever wanted to penalise such a playstyle. I may include a 'section 291-watch' feature in future LW playthroughs, just to see if there's anything that would support that hypothesis. Still, it's not very likely.

This is actually the main reason I lost interest in the book last time I tried it. Not because of any difficulty in answering the questions. I knew the answers then, I know them now, and you could find them by rereading the previous half dozen paragraphs of this blog entry. It irritates me because it's so ridiculous. Mind you, it is also unfair for anyone who has to read the book in fits and starts owing to limited free time. It's one thing to remember an incidental detail you read a few minutes ago, but if you had to put the book down at an inopportune moment and couldn't get back to it until the following day, that would get a whole lot trickier. If the reissues do all get done and Mongoose Publishing proceed to the planned-but-never-published final four books, fans who can't get through a whole adventure in one sitting risk having to take ludicrously copious notes in order not to fall foul of further such nonsense. But one of the questions refers to something that didn't happen, to provide the digit 0. So those notes would have to include details of what didn't happen. And identifying the right kind of nothing in order to mention it in case it should come up in a quiz ranks somewhere below 'picking the winning numbers for every variant of the National Lottery every draw for a month' on the probability scales.

Okay, rant over. Back to the book. Beyond the stone door I find a corridor leading to the Grand Hall of the Kai, and stop to search for useful artefacts. There are a few bonus-bearing weapons - no warhammer, but there is a mace, so I'm now worse off than alt-Lone Wolf would be. There's also a healing potion, a couple of crystal grenades, and a gold key, any or all of which could come in handy.

A broken ladder impedes my progress. Lacking a rope, I have to activate a rising screen and grab onto it so it will lift me up to the gallery I need to reach. The top of the screen is sharp for no remotely sane reason, but it gets me close to the beacon. And closer to the corpse of Kai Master True Path (if the name is symbolic, something else is seriously wrong with this book). He's the one I saw by the beacon, and appears to have spent the last few minutes of his life sealing off the roof access to keep his killers from getting in. So they're probably still out there, trying to find a way to sabotage the beacon. Time to use one of those grenades, I think. Ideally the one full of sleeping gas, as I don't want to blow up the beacon.

It works, but before I can activate the beacon, a Giak Captain is airlifted to the roof, and I have to fight him off. Then I finally get to perform the task I was sent here to do. Which attracts a good deal of not-entirely-welcome attention. Nevertheless, I take a chance on searching the dead Captain before going back indoors, finding a Meal and another healing potion.

Grand Master Brave Blade telepathically contacts me with instructions to escape to Holmgard and warn the King, and then gets killed. Authorial contrivance sends me to a window to look down on the carnage, and something nasty spots me and lobs a fireball in my direction. I get singed and the books nearby catch fire, just in case a direct order from a superior wasn't enough of a reason to leave. There's only one way out not being assaulted from the other side, and that's locked. Good thing I have that key, as otherwise I'd probably have to gnaw a finger into the shape of a skeleton key to get out.

The way out leads through the Vault of the Sun, where I get some healing from a few pictures and find more weapons with bonuses. This time they do include a warhammer, so I'm now as well equipped as I'm likely to get for a while. On the way to the exit I change my name, and after emerging, I'm presented with the same choice that comes in section 1 of the original book. Yep, this far, it's all been additional material, and I'm sure there's more to come yet.

The next change is actually a subtraction. Using Sixth Sense again warns me to avoid the paths, but this time I don't have the option of heading in an inadvisable direction. Heading south, I avoid being spotted by a Kraan, and continue to a junction. Unlike Tailsworld Lone Wolf, I continue south and find a watchtower, which I take a chance on climbing. The ladder is old and rotten, and a rung breaks, causing me to fall. I am redirected to the original description of the clearing, so either I can try the ladder again and hope for a better roll, or this is further authorial sloppiness. Going with the first option, I get to the top this time, observing that a port to the north is on fire, there's a fight going on to the south-west, and someone left a box up here. The box contains a quarterstaff, which isn't worth taking.

I decide to investigate that fight, which can't be the big battle at the bridge unless someone mixed up east and west. The trail leads me to a clearing containing skeletal remains. Closer examination reveals a spear lodged in the rib cage, but that's of no more use to me than the quarterstaff. Rules explicitly forbid carrying more than two weapons (except for when a weapon gets classified as something other than a weapon as a clumsy means of getting around the restriction), and the weapons I already have give me bonuses, so I have no incentive to drop either one in favour of something less useful. Even if I had Weaponskill in either of the types of which I've found examples, the weapons in the Vault of the Sun included a +1 quarterstaff and a +1 spear, so I can't see why any player would feel the need to take the ones in the forest.

Further on, I reach a stone circle, where I am attacked by a wounded black bear (though if I had the Kai Discipline of Animal Kinship, it would prove absolutely useless here). Mr. Dever appears to rather lack confidence in Lone Wolf's abilities, as he provides the option of escaping after three rounds of combat, but the bear doesn't even make it through the first round.

A nearby cave catches my attention, and turns out to be the mouth of a subterranean tunnel. I investigate, finding a box containing money and a key, and eventually reaching a damp chamber from which a rotting door leads onwards. Something ticks ominously beyond it, I sense a malevolent presence, and the book forces me to leave. Either that's foreshadowing something, or it's the most pointlessly over-elaborate dead end in all gamebookdom.

Resuming my trek through the forest, I find my way blocked by a stream, and turn east, apparently afraid to get my feet wet. Some way downstream I find a dead Kraan and rider, and help myself to the latter's money (which is in the local currency, as if the dead Giak popped to the bureau de change-equivalent before joining the invasion, hoping to get a spot of souvenir shopping done in between bouts of looting and pillaging).

Further along, I reach a bridge and get to choose between heading south towards Holmgard (and the big fight that's between here and there) or continuing east and finding out whether or not the road travel sections around here are still as problematic as they were in the original book. This Lone Wolf is better equipped for battle, and I'd rather not rant again so soon after the trivia quiz, so I go south.

Before long I reach a road on which many people are heading south, probably refugees from the blazing port. Joining them is liable to lead to the painfully unsubtle encounter where I wind up having to defend helpless children from the invaders (well, there is an 'abandon them to their fate' option, but I suspect that that leads to a contrived Instant Death. Possibly inadvertently throttling myself when the moustache I twirl as I watch the carnage gets wrapped around my throat).

Avoiding the refugees and attendant crude emotional manipulation leads instead to the encounter with the wounded soldier. After healing him and hearing his tale, I continue on my way until I hear sounds of fighting from the west. That's odd, as the battle at the bridge is still to the south. Taking a quick look, I find that this is an encounter I'd assumed I'd missed. An unpunctured magician stands amidst the ruins of a temple, beset by Giaks but frying them with blue flames. He hasn't noticed one that's preparing to attack him from behind, so I shout a warning. He fries the little sneak, and the Giak commander sets a couple of his troops on me. I may not be able to shoot magical fire, but my warhammer can be just as lethal in the right hands, i.e. mine.

After seeing me mash my assailants, the Giaks retreat, the leader yelling something incomprehensible but probably rude as he goes. I then have a short chat with the magician, Banedon, who will become a recurring character in later books. He reveals that he was on his way to deliver a message to the Kai monastery. It turns out to be a warning about the gathering enemy armies, and a recommendation to forget about the traditional celebrations and prepare to defend against the invaders. The Guildmaster really should have paid the extra and gone for express delivery. Banedon name-drops a renegade from his guild who'll become a more significant nuisance slightly later on in the series, gives me a pendant to signify that we're best buddies now, and heads home to announce the 'successful' completion of his task.

Resuming my journey, I evade more enemy troops and help myself to a rope and a healing potion from a fisherman's hut. Then I reach the River Unoram and an info-dump about local geography and history (there'd better not be another quiz, Dever), plus a brief mention of the innumerable enemy hordes gathering close by. I sneak away, but have to come out into the open to cross a turnpike. The outcome of this is randomised, and I get a number lousy enough that I'd still get the bad option even if I had both the Disciplines that provide modifiers here.

Mind you, the bad option is only 'get spotted by a Giak who only notifies two friends, lure them all to a spot where nobody will notice your flattening them, and fight an unchallenging battle against them', so as catastrophes go, this is pretty minor. I take their money and blanket, endure more traveloguing about the bridge (save it for the RPG sourcebook, man), and creep to the nearer of the bridge gatehouse towers. I need to get into a tower, and there's no obvious reason not to go for this one, so I hurry up the ladder and into a chamber that contains the bodies of the bridge guards. They haven't been looted, so I can help myself to a selection of superfluous weapons, some Meals, or another healing potion. Lacking a Meal when required by the text to eat one costs 3 Endurance. The potion restores 4 Endurance. When there's not room in the Backpack for everything, is anyone ever going to go for the food? I have to dump the blanket to make space for this one, but I think it unlikely that the book contains many situations where lack of a blanket will cost me more than 4 Endurance.

Sneaking across part of the bridge by means of a raised walkway, I come across some barrels of explosive powder. These were to be used to blow up the bridge and inconvenience the invaders, but they never got used because that would have left me with no way to cross the river. I have no means of lighting the fuse, so I can't use the barrels either. With the aid of the fisherman's rope, I get to use a parapet to hide from enemies as I continue on my way.

When I reach the part of the bridge where the battle is raging, I'm some way above the action. As in the other reality, the Prince is felled by an arrow while fighting the Gourgaz, and I need to intervene. But on account of my being so high up, I need to hurry down a staircase or do something cinematic involving a cargo line on a pulley. I go for the flashier option, as the stairs are probably being staked out by several dozen snipers. Again the random factor determines how I fare, and again I get a rubbish number, but I'm only mildly hurt by my bad landing. Then events between the two realities sync up again, though here the Gourgaz doesn't do as much damage before I kill it. The dying Prince gives me a verbal plot hook for book 2 and tells me to take his horse, my Healing powers prove insufficient to save him, and I ride south.

The Meal check along the way has been dispensed with, but the vandalised signpost is still there. I go the same way as my mace-trained counterpart, and spot an unspecified number of Giaks (but apparently no Doomwolves) on the road up ahead. I could try charging through them, but 'a group' doesn't make it clear whether or not there's a reasonable chance of succeeding, so I leave the road instead. Alas, close by is a secret Giak encampment that my Sixth Sense totally failed to pick up on, and a flurry of arrows comes my way. This time the random number generator is merciful, and I merely take an arrow in the money pouch (and that is not a euphemism) before getting away.

As in the other timestream, I wait until it's darker than seems entirely smart before taking a break for the night, but encounter no further hazards before catching sight of Holmgard. Sticking with what I know, I make my final approach to the city via the Graveyard of the Ancients, and fall into the usual hole. In this reality I take minor damage from the fall, but the tomb into which I have fallen is much the same. Including the way in which it makes my Sixth Sense quietly suggest, "GET THE **** OUT OF THERE NOW!"

Something's just occurred to me. Down here is an ancient evil so powerful that it could potentially snuff Lone Wolf out with less effort than I need to hit the spacebar on my keyboard. But by the time this book series hits the late teens, the hero is able to confront evil deities and survive. So does he ever pop back to actually do something about the malignancy that's been festering just outside his capital city since before the start of the first book?

At the junction I find not two but three paths onwards. I stick with what I know, but when I get to the chamber with the throne and the winged serpent, I leave the 'statue' alone. A search reveals the hidden exit, but not how to activate it, so I risk sitting on the throne. The winged serpent comes to life... and fetches a Golden Key for me (not to be confused with the completely unrelated gold key I found back in the Kai monastery).

Never underestimate the effectiveness of a nice sit down.

The door opens, so I leave. The exit from the tomb is much the same as before, but in this reality I have the key. And Mind Over Matter, which I chose over Hunting for just this eventuality, but since I got the key, I might as well use that. It unlocks the door, with none of that 'falling granite slab' unpleasantness. However, as I head for the Graveyard exit, something inhuman within the tomb laughs at me, spooking me into running the rest of the way. Like my slab-dodging counterpart, I am recognised and cheered on by the guards, but after swooning, I am offered water rather than alcohol.

An officer has horses brought, and we ride into the city, but then we encounter one of those annoying clichéd arrogant superior officers who interfere and refuse to listen to explanations. Slightly regretful that I didn't choose the Discipline of Mindblast, which would come in very handy right now for psychically giving a certain Captain a much-needed kick up the backside, I follow the twit as he intimidates the crowds into making way for him. My reluctance to have my horse trample civilians causes me to fall behind, and I decide to abandon the horse and continue on foot.

To remind me of why I'm going to risk my neck to save these people, Dever has me robbed by some light-fingered low-life, knocked down by an out-of-control horse and cart, and attacked by a lunatic with a cleaver. Fearful that defending myself will lead to a misunderstanding with local law enforcement, and my being locked up until the city falls to the invading armies, I evade the nutter and wind up forced into an alley, where a freshly-painted door catches my attention. Above it is a partially faded sign (or the printers did a bad job on the illustration) advertising a Sage and (presumably) Herbalist. Great.

Back when the original Flight From the Dark first came out, I flicked through a copy in the WHSmith in the shopping precinct. What I read then did not motivate me to buy, but it did show me an unappealing Instant Death in a Sage's shop. So do I go back to the crowds, or confront the homicidal maniac?

I return to the streets, and am forced by authorial fiat up onto the roof of a tavern, after which I have no choice but to keep travelling across the rooftops towards the palace. An inconveniently wide street lies between me and my goal, I have no option of returning to ground level, and there's a 30% chance of ignominious death from making the leap. Maybe I should have fought the lunatic or the murderer: I'd have had better odds. And I get a big, fat(al) zero. So no chance to find out what other tiresome complications Mr. Dever has crammed into the endgame, but I do vaguely remember having heard something that suggests the man with the scar is now an evil traitor who tries to keep Lone Wolf from reaching the King.

Based on what I've experienced of this version of the book so far, I still prefer the original. Edits aren't always improvements.

The Correct Way to Kill

Alexander Scott's RPG Maelstrom was originally released by Puffin books in 1984. It's set in the 16th century, and the rulebook includes a solo adventure (somewhat uninspiredly entitled A Solo Adventure) to help familiarise players with the system. I know I attempted it back in the eighties, and got at least as far as a fight with a guard in a maze, but I'm not sure I've ever won it by the rules.

My only other memory relating to ASA is the attention that one of my friends gave to the big unreachable section. While this wasn't the first solo to include a 'there is no way of getting to this paragraph, so you must be reading sections at random, you bad person' paragraph, it attains some notability by having so much unreachable material: in addition to the section that says there's no way of getting to it, there's a loop of sections, all unreachable except from within that loop, that has 'you' endlessly walking along a corridor, finding precious stones, being injured by hitting your head on a low ceiling, and seeing signs warning against reading paragraphs you can't get to. The 'you cannot get to this section' section even points out the inaccessibility and inescapability of the corridor loop. All in all, this material constitutes around 5% of the sections. There must have been a better way of bringing the number of sections to a nice round 160.

Characters are built rather than rolled up. There are 9 basic attributes (yes, that is a lot), each starting at 30, and I get an additional 50 points to distribute among them, which means that my starting scores average out at just over 35½ each. The value of an attribute is the percentage chance of my succeeding at any challenge based on that attribute, so a totally balanced character has almost a 2/3 chance of failing at every trial faced. So I'm not expecting to win this one.

Based on what I can remember of the actual adventure, I'm tailoring my character to make him a little more adept where I think it's most likely to matter. So he winds up as:
Attack Skill 40
Defence Skill 40
Knowledge 30
Will 30
Endurance 35
Persuasion 40
Perception 35
Speed 30
Agility 40
He earns his living as an assassin, as the solo is only for assassins, so any other profession would take me straight to the 'Nothing happens. Now make an assassin character and stop messing about' ending.

One miserable evening, I am making my way home from my cover job (having a more respectable secondary profession helps avoid awkwardness at social gatherings when someone asks, "So what do you do?") when a carriage comes straight for me. I dodge out of the way, and the carriage comes to a halt. Two men get out of it and grab me. Combat can be a pretty tortuous process in the Maelstrom system, and I'm not going to get far through the adventure by resisting my would-be employer's 'invitation', so I let the rogues manhandle me into the carriage.

The interior is quite plush, and there are curtains to keep me from seeing where I'm being taken. Leaping out of a moving vehicle isn't a particularly clever thing to do, even pre-internal combustion engine, so I sit back and enjoy being out of the cold and the wet. Eventually the carriage stops in a courtyard and, after relieving me of my possessions, four guards escort me to a room where a masked man sits on a chair, resting one hand on a wooden lever.

The masked man states that he wishes me to dispose of one Magnus Brote, a tax collector and merchant. I accept the commission, partly because that's the whole point of the adventure, and partly because I know that if I refuse, he'll pull the lever to open a trapdoor which will drop me into the crocodile pit. No, I have no idea how someone in Tudor England is able to maintain a crocodile pit for dropping people into. And now would not be a good time to start asking silly questions.

I am given 10 shillings and a dagger, and led back to the carriage for another ride. Ten minutes later, the carriage stops and I am thrown out into a cobbled street. The carriage departs again and I look around. Convenient signs indicate a nearby apothecary's shop and the home of Magnus Brote.

Entering the shop, I resist the temptation to sample the contents of a random jar (guess how well that would turn out), and ring the bell on the counter. The apothecary claims to know why I'm here, and offers to sell me a suitable poison for 20 shillings. I'm going to have to find some more money. I remembered as much from playing the adventure before, but it's good to know how much extra I need before I come back.

Given the choice between entering Brote's house and wandering off down the street, I pick the option more relevant to my mission. Can't remember what happens if I head elsewhere, but it's not likely to be good. As I approach the door, an old man welcomes me, hands me a compass and a leather case, and tells me that I'll find the merchant in the dining-hall. The people round here seem very well-informed about my mission, don't they?

He leaves me in a corridor with doors at all cardinal points of the compass. I start with the east one, which leads to a large hallway, heated by a fire. Again there are exits in all four directions, and I also have the option of throwing myself into the fire. The adventure's not that bad yet.

Behind the south door is a flight of stairs. Best to stay on the ground level for now. I'm pretty sure I can retrace my steps any time I like (except that I'll need a house key before going back out onto the street, as the old man won't be there to let me in again). East again, then. I'm starting to get tired of corridors with four exits, so I'll keep quiet about my wanderings until I find something else of note.

Like the guardroom I enter a couple of doors on. The guard attacks, and he's well-armed and alarmingly competent, so I'm probably dead. Combat is turn-based, with Speed determining the order in which the fighters strike. The attacking combatant has to roll against Attack Skill. If that roll is successful, the opponent gets to roll against Defence Skill, and only takes damage if they fail that roll. This set-up, combined with the competence level of the average Maelstrom character, can lead to numerous rounds in which the fighters either fail to hit their opponent or have their attacks blocked, which is about as fun as that sounds. Still, the guard has scores of 71 and 82 in the relevant attributes, so this fight should be over fairly quickly.

I was overly optimistic. After five rounds, I've been injured once and the guard is unscathed. By the end of round ten, I've sustained a second blow and still failed to hurt the guard. Thankfully, after that the guard gets better, and hits me in rounds eleven and twelve, rendering me unconscious, after which he runs me through.

So, a pretty dismal failure, then. The slim possibility of my one day making a second attempt at this adventure  for the blog keeps me from revealing the insane twist in the victory section here, but rest assured, it's gloriously absurd.

As you may have gathered, I'm not a big fan of Maelstrom. Still, it was rereleased a few years ago, which suggests that a significant number of people must have enjoyed it, so it was evidently a success on some level. And there's far, far worse stuff out there.

Burnin' Down the House

I got the full-length version of House of Hell for Christmas 1984. The traditional stocking full of small-scale gifts was still a fixture, and the top item in each stocking was invariably a book - Mr. Men and the like in earlier years, but more substantial volumes as my sisters and I grew older. I had indicated a preference for House to be the stocking-topper that year, and it was, so I spent the time between when I woke up and when we were allowed to disturb the parents looking through the book.

Not that I hadn't read bits of it before. The temptation to peek at sections of one of the copies on the shelves in WHSmith had proved too strong (and I'd spoilered myself on the climactic twist as a consequence), but that was still my first opportunity to have a proper go at the book. No idea how I wound up failing, but the details that had been changed from the Warlock teaser ensured that it took me several tries to find out how to win the book.

House was one of the books that got singled out for attention when concerns were raised about the effect of gamebooks on children's minds. Not long after the first reports of the books' supposed harmful influence came out, my dad asked me a few questions to see whether or not there was any actual cause for concern. As I had no trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality, was not obsessed with the occult, had had no nightmares inspired by gamebooks, and wasn't self-harming (and wasn't a good enough liar to have deceived him if anything had been wrong on any of those fronts), he concluded that there was nothing to worry about, and didn't trouble me regarding gamebooks again.

My original copy was among the 50+ gamebooks I gave away or sold off in the nineties. The previous owner of the one I now own wrote on the Adventure Sheet and Evil Encounter Boxes in pencil, enabling me to deduce that he (or she) made the mistake of entering the Balthus Room, cheated on the torturer's test, and wound up heading down the false trail that includes witnessing the sacrifice in the cellar, ultimately getting captured.

Every FF adventure from this one onwards got a detailed write-up at the unofficial forum when I played it for my last 'books in order' marathon, and I'll be linking to those write-ups as I play the appropriate adventures here, in part to encourage myself to find new things to say about the books. The House write-up was originally in two parts, though they got slightly awkwardly combined here when I had to salvage the playthrough following the deletion of the iteration of the forum where I originally posted it.

The book makes the usual claim about being able to win even with weak initial rolls, but that's demonstrably untrue here (as is spelled out late on in the abovelinked playthrough). I was, therefore, going to fudge character creation to give myself a chance of making it to the final battle, but my rolls made that unnecessary, as I didn't get lower than 5 on any of them. So I'm a formidable
Skill: 11
Stamina: 23
Luck: 12
Fear: 12
As I have more than the minimum necessary Fear, I may do a little non-essential exploration, just to add a bit more variety.

So, the basic set-up is the same as in the teaser: lost in a storm, car in the ditch, seeking shelter and a phone in the only house nearby. But the first difference comes in before the end of the first section, as a light comes on at the side of the house, and I have the option of investigating. So I take a look, and find that the lit room is a kitchen. Two men, out of sight of the window, are mid-conversation, one expressing excitement at the possibility of being visited, the other expressing doubts about the whole affair. There's a clear threat behind the first man's response, and the second hastily reaffirms his commitment. The men then leave the kitchen, and I return to the front door and knock on it. The knocking is compulsory in this instance (though the bell-pull just rings a bell rather than activating a trap here).

Franklins opens the door (not that he's been named yet in the book), and after I explain the situation, he tells me I'm expected and leads me to a reception hall. To pass the time, I take a look at the pictures on the wall. The portrait of Lady Margaret of Danvers is particularly well-rendered: some pictures' eyes seem to follow you round the room, whereas this one's lips appear to move. And utter audible warnings about my host's murderous intent, with particular emphasis on shunning the white wine.

My initial encounter with the Earl of Drumer goes much the same way as it did in the teaser, though in deference to the picture's words I request a nice Chianti with the meal. There's a small but significant difference between the Warlock version of the Earl's tale and the one in the book: when he tells of the discovery of his sister's corpse in the woods, the body is described as having been 'dead' rather than 'naked'. And I have a first edition Puffin book, so this edit pre-dates the removal of the illustration of the human sacrifice that happened in response to complaints.

At the end of the meal I have fruit, coffee and brandy, avoiding the cheese as it's not good for me. Not that I'm lactose intolerant - it's just that the drugs do work, and I'd rather keep my wits about me tonight. Franklins shows me to the Erasmus room and (as I discover when I decide to go wandering around) locks me in. An attempt at breaking the door open just leaves me with a bruised shoulder, and as I try and make up my mind what to do next, I hear footsteps approaching. A key rattles in the lock, and I hide behind the door, watching as the hunchback from the cellar in the teaser brings a glass of some unspecified drink into the room. I pounce on him, and after a brief struggle, he pleads for mercy, so I ask him what's going on here. He is surprised at my question, and says a little about what's planned for tonight before belatedly realising that I'm not one of his Master's friends (so are they in the habit of roughing up the more menial members of the staff?). Before he can shuffle off to warn someone that he's revealed secrets to an outsider, I make a quick exit and lock him into the room.

Ignoring the lone door at the right end of the landing, I go left. The next door along has the name 'Azazel' on it, and leads into an antiquated-looking laboratory. There are times in gamebooks when characters have the option of taking a course of action that no remotely sane person would ever contemplate doing, and these actions sometimes prove beneficial (or even essential) rather than catastrophic. This is one such instance, as I drink the contents of one of the vials in a rack, and gain temporary invulnerability rather than poisoning myself (which would, admittedly, have happened if I'd picked the wrong vial).

I pass by the next couple of doors, which are labelled 'Mephisto' and 'Balthus'. There's nothing of use in either room, and there's a substantial gain in Fear to be found in one of them. No name adorns the next door I do open, which leads into a narrow passageway ending at a window, with a door set into the left wall. The door leads to the Diabolus room, another place best avoided unless you're trying to see how quickly you can get your character scared to death. The window is a different matter, though. Far too securely barred to be a means of escape, but it bears a cryptic message written in the condensation. It's never made clear who wrote it, or why, but given that I will need the information it provides, it must have some benign source.

Returning to the landing, I ignore the stairs down, and go through a second unmarked door, which leads to the storeroom where my character from the teaser found the knife. The knife is there again, and this time there's also some garlic. The liquid in the unlabelled bottle is a different colour this time round, but that doesn't make it any more appealing.

There's another door leading out of the storeroom, but I know that it can lead to a catastrophically false trail, and I'd rather not risk confirming that going through it is a guarantee of failure, so I return to the landing, passing by the third unmarked door, which leads nowhere good. Further on, the passage branches, and I take a chance on briefly deviating from the 'true' path. Moving down the side passage, I reach another two named rooms: Asmodeus and Eblis.

The former is locked, but has the key in the door, so I open it and enter a room lit by a single candle, with packing crates placed by the table on which it stands, to serve as crude seats. A moment later I discover that the room is being used as a cell, and its occupant also knows how to hide behind doors and ambush anyone who comes into the room. The accompanying illustration is a little odd, as the 'thick white hair' that is one of the man's primary distinguishing characteristics is far from prominent, and it looks as if my attacker has marbles spilling out of the neck of his robe. I fend my assailant off and point out that I'm not one of his captors. He doesn't believe me, so I ask how I can prove it, and he demands that I make the sign of the cross. I'm not a Roman Catholic, but I have seen Nuns on the Run, so I know the right order of the gestures, and do as requested.

At once the man apologises for having taken me for one of the Master's servants. I ask for his advice on how to defeat the Master, and he tells me that I'd need the Kris knife, which is hidden downstairs in a secret room that can only be opened with a password. He doesn't know the password, but mentions that Old Mordana knew it. This would not be particularly helpful information, as he adds that she died some time ago, but that message on the window mentioned Mordana, so I get the impression that I'm onto something here. The man then heads off to avenge himself on his captors however he can, and I return to the landing.

The next room along bears the name Tuttivillus, and is another deathtrap. If I hadn't eaten the drugged cheese in the teaser, the bedroom to which I would have been shown would have contained the dangers found within this one, which goes some way towards explaining why one of the available options in there is to go to bed. Here, it's a little incongruous, but it makes sense in your designated bedroom.

At the end of the landing are another three doors, one unmarked, the others with the names Belial and Abbadon. The latter name was mentioned in the message on the window, but the design of the book makes that room the last one I can visit on this level, and I happen to know that there's something worth having in one of the others, so I start by opening the unnamed door.

It leads to a bedroom, with a low fire in the grate, and a candle and a bed-time snack on the bedside table. I refrain from searching the room, as Steve Jackson couldn't resist the temptation to include some literal skeletons in the closet in the book. There's nothing wrong with the food on the table, though, and by eating it I regain the Stamina I lost charging the door out of the Erasmus room.

Restored to full health, I enter the Abbadon room. In the teaser, it was called the Lucretia room, and I had no reason to spend time in it. Here, I need to have a word with Mordana. The white-haired man was right about her being dead, but that doesn't stop her from glaring at me with pupil-less eyes and rebuking me for entering her bedchamber (though, unlike the portrait downstairs, she doesn't move her lips when speaking). She orders me to leave her to die in peace (evidently not having noticed that she did that earlier), but I have questions about the house that only she can answer. Outraged, she sets her hounds on me, but that invulnerability I gained lasts just long enough to keep the Great Danes from harming me before I put them down.

She is, understandably, still reluctant to answer my questions, but after I threaten her potted plants, she agrees to tell me what I want to know provided I know her name. It occurs to me-as-reader that there's a slight bug in the book here: a reference number was provided when I read the message on the window, and I need to turn to that number now to prove that I know Mordana's name. But I also heard that name from the white-haired man, so it would theoretically be possible for someone who spoke with him but didn't look at the window to guess that this is the Mordana he mentioned, and thus have the correct answer to the question, but not the accompanying number.

Though displeased enough to use unladylike language when I say her name, she is true to her word, so when I ask about secret rooms, she tells me where to find the hidden room I seek. The password has been changed recently, and she doesn't know the new one, but tells me that Shekou does know. That's as much as she can tell me, so I finally leave her alone and head downstairs.

Two doors flank the front door (which is only a way out insofar as the Fear gained by seeing what's on the other side of it may be enough to cause weak-hearted or overly curious characters to depart this life). I try one of the other doors, and it's locked. Ignoring the one opposite, I move down the hall to a junction, and take the turning on the same side as the door I just didn't try. Now I have three doors to choose from: one on each side, and one up ahead.

I enter a book-lined study, illuminated by a candle on an antique wooden desk. Also on the desk is a blank sheet of paper. Well, it starts out blank, but then the message 'Find Shekou' writes itself upon the paper in a childlike scrawl before fading as mysteriously as it appeared.

When visiting people, I like to look at the books on their shelves to see how much overlap there is between their literary tastes and mine. The books on display in this study don't appear to match up with what's on my bookshelves at all: no gamebooks, no SF, just lots about black magic and hypnotism. One of the former turns out to have been hollowed out, and contains a metal pentacle on a chain. According to the slip of paper with it, this is no mere fashion accessory for a Goth, but an artefact that gives its wielder power over devil worshippers. Not as useful as that might make it sound.

The study has a second door, which leads into a drawing-room that renders the layout of the ground floor nonsensical. The thing is, that drawing-room is the room I would have entered if I'd tried the door I ignored after descending the stairs. Which wouldn't be a problem if the book didn't state that the two doors in the drawing room are next to each other. The text doesn't say anything about the shape of the study, or the precise location of the door connecting it with the drawing-room, but the only way I can get close to making it all fit is as shown in this map (which only shows what my character has seen since coming down the stairs).

And that's stretching the definition of 'next to'.

Also, the stairs need to go somewhere in the long corridor.

Anyway, the drawing-room is very cosy, with a dying fire, comfy chairs, a decanter of brandy and a couple of potted plants. I help myself to some brandy, and then snoop at the letters stuffed behind the mantelpiece clock. As I take them, I find that one of the carvings laid into the mantelpiece moves, and behind it is a button. Before I can decide whether or not to press it, the fire comes back to life and two Fire Sprites leap out to confront me. Using brains rather than brawn, I manage to extinguish them at no personal risk.

Pressing the button activates a sliding panel in one of the corners of the room. Not sure which, but it can't be the one by the door (assuming my map is even close to accurate), as the panel doesn't actually lead anywhere, but just serves as bait to lure the unwary onto the trapdoor next to it. It works.

Like the trapdoor in the porch in the teaser, this one drops me onto a mound of hay in the cellar, and the hunchbacked servant (who must have been released from the Erasmus room by somebody) comes to investigate again. Having apparently forgotten that I hit him and locked him up, he gives me directions to the stairs up. I point out that we've met before, but he still doesn't remember the specifics of our earlier encounter, and introduces himself as Shekou. Knowing him to have the information I require, I ply him with brandy, then quiz him about the secret doors. He doesn't quite tell me what I need to know, but provides a big enough clue that I'll be able to pick the right password from the list at the appropriate moment.

Again realising that he's said too much, Shekou vanishes into his room, and I pop through the door on the other side of the passage, which leads to a dungeon containing four cells and three prisoners. One is inappropriately described as a 'young girl' (given that she turns out to be the district nurse scheduled for sacrifice, she must be a woman rather than a girl). The second is a tall man who wants me to help him commit suicide and deprive his captors of the pleasure of killing him (and I say more about that in my article in Fighting Fantazine 1, downloadable here).

The third prisoner is a balding man in a grey gown, and that raises an interesting question. The thing is, a different talking portrait to the one I encountered mentions a potential ally dressed in grey. And if I'd asked Shekou a different question back in the Erasmus room, he'd have referred to the white-haired man in the Asmodeus room as the Man in Grey. And that man did turn out to be on my side, but he wasn't really a lot of help. Whereas this man in grey not only mentions that I need the Kris knife, but also explains that I'd have to fight the Master in a red room, reminds me of the dining room's red wallpaper, warns me that the room will now be locked, and tells me that the key is hidden behind the mirror. So is the Man in Grey from upstairs just a red herring, and the one down here the true ally? Or did Steve not give too much thought to this man's dress, and inadvertently create some potential confusion here?

Returning to the corridor, and ignoring the next door along, I again reach the stairs up, and am again attacked by examples of the fictional breed of bat that actually likes dive-bombing people.

Not a very convincing portrayal.

However, this time I hide under the stairs, as that's where Mordana told me the secret room is. Checking the wall, I find a roughly door-shaped patch that sounds hollow when I knock on it, and speak the password. Considering the lengths to which Mr. Jackson went to ensure that Mordana's question could only be answered by someone who'd read the message on the window, it's a little odd that he didn't adopt similar measures here. As it is, he just provides four options, one of them the correct answer, thereby making it possible for readers who missed Shekou's clue to make a preposterously lucky guess.

I say the word, and the secret door opens (but not where I expected it to be), allowing me into the room to pick up the box that contains the Kris. Leaving the cellar, I find my way to the reception room with the mirror that doesn't reflect me. There is still a hidden compartment in the table, but this time it contains a golden key, and the chamber behind the mirror has two doors leading from it. One is locked, but the key from the table fits it. The room beyond is very dusty, with obvious footprints leading to the loose stone in the wall behind which a second key, this one bearing a number, has been hidden. There's no mention of any footprints leading away from the hidey-hole, but that oddity is probably an authorial oversight, as there's no 'so what happened to the person who made the prints?' Fear penalty.

Ignoring the other door behind the mirror, I step back into the reception room once the people who entered it have gone, and return to the hall. Either Steve Jackson is being peculiarly selective about which architectural details he mentions from this point onwards, or the interior of the house has actually changed: the cellar door is nowhere to be seen, and a whole hallway has likewise been misplaced, narrowing my options to two doors. One leads to the dead end that is the kitchen, but I know my way around the pre-endgame well enough to pick the dining room door instead. It's locked, but the key fits.

I ring for the butler (without the booby-trapped bell-pull outside the front door, the number of sections dedicated to getting paranoid about ringing this bell and searching for traps is frankly ludicrous) and have him fetch the Earl. Which is a little pointless, given the twist that's been added to the final fight. Given that anyone who wants to avoid spoilers should have bailed on this post a long while back, I don't have any qualms about revealing that Keyser Soze is Luke's father, calling from inside the house, and already dead. Or, more pertinently, that the butler did it. That is to say, the relationship between Franklins and the Earl is not so much 'Jeeves and Wooster' as 'disguised Demon and worshipper'.

The fight against the Master of the house is needlessly complicated by the terminology used. For the most part, Steve's been pretty good at distinguishing between Skill bonuses (cannot exceed Initial score) and Attack Strength bonuses (fully usable in battle). Here, he's forgotten. Or the bonus provided by the Kris is only partially usable unless the reader's character has lost 3 Skill points over the course of the adventure. Which I'm not sure is possible.

If I treat the bonus as applying to Attack Strength, I win the fight. If I go by the letter-of-the-law interpretation of the text, I still win, but I get a lot more cut-up in the process. Either way, my coup de grace sends the Demon flying into the chandelier, scattering lit candles and setting the curtains alight. While the Earl sobs over the corpse of his Master, I make a discreet exit, the nasty surprise behind the front door evidently having departed. By the time I reach the end of the drive, the whole ground floor is in flames.

My character views the fire with some satisfaction. I, personally, am troubled by three thoughts:

1. If the prisoners in the cellar hadn't been killed by the time I confronted the principal villains, they're probably going to die in the fire, and it'll be my fault.
2. If the fire attracts the authorities' attention, I'm going to have to answer a lot of awkward questions, and I don't think the truth is going to go down well.
3. After all that, I'm no closer to getting my car fixed and making it to my urgent appointment than I was at the start of the adventure.

Any Port in a Storm

These days there's more than one company producing Tunnels & Trolls material. In most instances, this is quite legitimate (though anything from Outlaw Press should be avoided - there's a pretty thorough explanation why here), and I have a small selection of solo adventures from some of the non-Flying Buffalo publishers. These include the Halloween-themed Dark Harbour, written by Andy Holmes and produced by TavernMaster games, which I acquired from Mr. Holmes himself on eBay some years ago. It's a limited edition, on orange paper, signed and authenticated by the author.

The first time I played it, my character was killed by a half-man, half-fish monstrosity. Given my track record, I don't expect to do much better this time round, but let's have a look at the character who'll be facing the adventure's horrors. The dice make him ugly-but-otherwise-average, and as that's not likely to suffice, I make him a Dwarf, and suddenly he's more impressive (but even worse-looking).
Strength: 24
Intelligence: 11
Luck: 12
Constitution: 22
Dexterity: 10
Charisma: 5
Speed: 14
He can afford a warhammer, a helmet and a shield, which should enable him to contend with the piscine anthropmorph that ended my first try at the adventure.

Fleeing some sort of trouble with the Guild of Thieves in an unspecified city, I make a heroic leap from the harbour onto a departing ship, and learn that my meagre funds will only cover transport to its next port of call, the obscure hamlet of Horosk, arriving just in time for All Hallows' Eve. I turn out to be the only person disembarking there, and the ship makes a very prompt departure once I'm ashore. It's a stormy night, and the clock strikes midnight as I hurry towards the only building with a light in it.

One of the quirks of this adventure is the Trick or Treat table, on which it is periodically necessary to roll. Odd numbers have harmful outcomes, even numbers beneficial ones. I've just reached the first such roll, and got the not particularly helpful 'double the amount of gold you are carrying'. If I'm to take the intro literally, I spent the last of my money getting here, and twice nothing is nothing.

The building turns out to be the Harbour Master's quarters, and all the signs indicate that it's been abandoned for some time. A quick search turns up nothing of interest, so I head for the rear door. Behind it, a flight of stairs leads up. I ascend, and find the Harbour Master. Probably, though I will have difficulties confirming the man's profession, as his corpse is being devoured by a Ghoul. The Ghoul wants a bit of variety in its diet, and attacks me. One smack with the hammer is enough to transform the Ghoul into a smear on the wall.

The dead body may be that of another adventurer actually, judging by the loot lying around. His broadsword isn't as good a weapon as my hammer, but it's good to have a back-up, so I take it. The quirky iron key (shaped like a pumpkin - presumably just at the non-business end) is liable to come in handy somewhere. I shan't try the bottles of unidentified liquid just yet. Torches, twine and chalk are all handy adventuring tools.

Another door leads onwards. I have to roll on the Trick or Treat table again, and am guaranteed success at my next two rolls against attributes. Beyond the door is a Troll, who apologises for having turned up in the wrong solo and opens a trapdoor for me before exiting, possibly via the hole that just appeared in the fourth wall. I may, if I wish, follow him as he departs the adventure, thereby surviving and gaining a small experience bonus, but that would make for an unsatisfactory conclusion to this playthrough, so I risk investigating the trapdoor.

A ladder leads down a slimy shaft to a dark tunnel. This is where a former character met a fishy end, but encountering his killer is a consequence of a failed Luck roll, and I cannot fail the roll this time, so my dead hero shall not be avenged today. At the far end of the tunnel is another shaft with a ladder, leading up to a trapdoor that's bolted on this side and inscribed with a symbol that prevents it from being magically opened from above. It looks to me as though someone wants to keep something trapped on the other side. And the only option available here is to open the trapdoor and go through.

I find myself on the ground floor of the lighthouse. The trapdoor closes and will not open again. Might as well keep going up, I guess. No, that was a bad choice, as I am attacked by the seaweed-draped ghost of the Lighthouse Keeper. The fight is more drawn-out than most, but the outcome was never really in any doubt, with him scoring (on average) 15-16 higher than I did every round. The mysteries of Horosk remain largely unexplained, and my success rate at T&T hasn't got any better.

Who You Gonna Call?

Another of my whimsical eBay acquisitions today, and a bit of a departure from the norm, as it's an audio gamebook. Back in the mid-nineties, Sagard the Barbarian co-writer Flint Dille got TSR to bring out a series of gamebooks-on-CD: Terror T.R.A.X. Each track on the disc is equivalent to a separate section, and decisions are made by skipping to the appropriate track.

The basic premise is that there's a super secret branch of the American Police known as T.R.A.X. (short for Trace, Research, Analyze and eXterminate), which deals with any paranormal cases. The player is coordinator for a team of operatives - I listen to the recording of the 911 call, possibly consult with experts, and tell the field operatives what to do. Options are presented by the T.R.A.X. Interface Computer, which has the Shatneresque speech patterns of your average automated telephone system, and there's on-the-spot commentary from the men on the front line (and sometimes the 'computer' gives a more convincing performance than the human (or other non-mechanical) characters).

First in the series is Track of the Vampire, by Buzz Dixon and the aforementioned Dille, which opens with a cheesy intro to explain the concept, goes on to explain how to play the 'audio CD interactive game', and then instructs me to go to track 3 to start the adventure. I wonder what's on track 2. I may investigate later, but for now I'm going to get going with my mission.

Actually, track 3 is not the start of the adventure. I get congratulated for having figured out how to navigate to a specific track, redirected to track 5, and warned that I'll get suspended if I don't skip track 4. That would be a particularly rubbish way to fail, so I jump to track 5 and finally get to hear the call to which I'm supposed to be responding. From this point onwards I'll keep quiet about the track numbers (unless I do decide to see what's on 2 and 4 once the mission has been concluded).

A woman screams about being attacked. A man vith an accent like ze Count from Sesame Street calls her a liar and claims to have been lured to wherever the call is being made from. The woman shrieks that the man is a vampire, at which point the call becomes T.R.A.X. business. A struggle occurs, in the course of which a receptacle containing blood gets dropped, and frantic slurping noises ensue. It's all very loud and incoherent, and reminds me of the Gumby performance of The Cherry Orchard featured on several Monty Python albums. Oh, and it transpires that track 4 is for running a digital analysis on the recording, rather than the 'fired for not obeying simple instructions' ending one might have expected. Still, best to get someone on the way to the crime scene as quickly as possible.

An officer (who sounds as if he desperately wants to be 1970s Clint Eastwood) is sent to the apartment from which the call was made. He gets the male from the call at gunpoint, and the suspect throws a bottle at him and dives out of the window. The officer comments on how dumb the suspect must be, as they're twelve floors up. Well, someone's certainly dumb. A member of a team explicitly put together to deal with supernatural threats doesn't think the kind of villain he's going to be confronting might be able to survive that big a drop? Muttering macho absurdities, he makes his way across to the window and is surprised to find the leaper gone. Well, his words indicate surprise, even if the way he says them doesn't.

I have the officer search the apartment. He reports that it appears to have been made ready for a romantic evening, oh, and there's a dead woman on the couch. When prompted to check for fangs, he finds that she does have some, and with a screech, she attacks him. He fires eight bullets, manages to drive her off, and spouts some 'witticisms' that even Commando-era Arnie would have found too unfunny to utter.

Further investigation of the apartment turns up evidence that its occupant works for the Late Date Dating Service, and has seen a different man every night for some time. I wonder which meaning of 'late' is the more accurate. Researchers dig up a tacky and sleazy ad for the service (the most horrifying part of the disc yet), which indicates that they specialise in providing partners for late-night tête-à-têtes.

The officer finds a doctor's bag containing medical equipment and a number of bottles of blood. The plot coagulates. There's a 'return to' tag on the bag, so I send an officer to the hospital named. He arrives to find that there's been trouble there. Somebody broke into Intensive Care and stole a transplant kidney. From the patient into whom it had been transplanted. That's actually quite nasty.

The thief isn't likely to have loitered, so I have a check run on the hospital's records. That wasn't the first such theft. All stolen organs came from the same donor. Two further organs from that person have not yet been 'repossessed': the heart and a lung. It's hard to believe that nobody's noticed the common denominator to these incidents before now, but that doesn't stop this from being creepy and ominous.

The officer on-scene is sent to look around, in case the organ thief is still around. He maintains a running commentary, and is played by a better voice actor than the cretin at the apartment, which helps a lot in building atmosphere. When he starts commenting on the Health and Safety nightmare of the room he's in, which contains all kinds of flammable and hazardous chemicals, the computer tells him to restrict himself to relevant data. Either someone needs to program it with an understanding of Chekhov's pistol, or it already knows, and figures that the likelihood of a fire, spillage or other unpleasantness has just increased massively because the officer mentioned the danger.

A thin trail of blood leads to the morgue. The officer sounds nervous, and observes the lack of an attendant. He finds a mutilated body on one of the slabs, with the heart removed. The name on the tag is that of a convicted murderer who was executed by lethal injection and then sent to the hospital to have his organs harvested for transplanting (would they still be usable?). And the tag is attached to the toe of an artificial leg. In fact, three of the limbs are prosthetic, and the officer is troubled to find them still attached to the corpse.

The body opens its eyes and starts demanding something unspecified that belongs to it. The officer requests guidance and, as I've already had confirmation that bullets don't seem to do much, I advise him to use handcuffs instead. I just hope he has the sense to put them on the real arm. Alas, while he does, he attaches the other cuff not to some solid fixture, but to the prosthetic arm, which the corpse promptly rips off and uses to club the officer to death.

Evidently the computer has been taking action on other fronts, as it now connects me with an officer who's pursuing the man who signed the murderous corpse's death certificate, the groan-inducingly-named Dr. Haemos. The doctor is driving dangerously, and tries to elude the pursuing officer by entering a narrow alley. The officer wants to circle round to where he thinks the alley comes out, but I can't risk his being mistaken, and instruct him to maintain pursuit. Something unclear happens, and he dies. Game over.

Well, I rather botched that. Pity, as, after an unpromising start, it was developing into something interesting. The hospital sequence was particularly well done, and actually had me slightly on edge. Based on just this attempt, I'm not sure how (or if) the plot hangs together - the transition from the morgue to the car chase was pretty sloppy - but it looks as if it might well be worth replaying the adventure at some time to try and find out more.

By the way, track 2 is just a 'you should not be listening to this' message, a bit like the 'this is an unreachable section' sections that occasionally crop up in gamebooks for no good reason. Okay, so this one does serve to point out that the listener has failed to follow instructions, but anyone who hears it as a consequence of inability to skip tracks rather than just being curious is going to struggle with the whole adventure.