When the Hurting Starts and When the Nightmares Begin

I remember very little of the mini-adventure in Fighting Fantazine 11, Stuart Lloyd's Ascent of Darkness. That is partly because my first attempt at it was a rapid failure - I only got to make one decision before my character died in combat. Or possibly three decisions, since a couple of elements of character creation involve choosing things. Nevertheless, I didn't get very far. Furthermore, for reasons which now elude me, at that time I was on a drive to have played every FF mini-adventure in Fantazine at least once, so rather than have another go at Ascent, I immediately moved on to the mini-adventure in the next issue, and until now I've had no motivation to go back to Ascent even without unplayed mini-adventures 'demanding' my attention.

Though this adventure is set on the FF world of Titan, it takes place more than 250 years before the main range adventures, and not long before the outbreak of a devastating war against the forces of Chaos, during which the city of Carsepolis was besieged and pretty much destroyed by armies of Orcs, Goblins, Dark Elves and Chaos-Spawn. In subsequent years the oft-visited hive of iniquity that is Port Blacksand was built on its ruins.

By a funny coincidence, my character comes from the similarly-named city of Caresepolis, the fate of which has never been covered in any FF reference works. Or maybe the author, playtester and editor all failed to spot the repeated misspelling of the name before issue 11 went to print, even though another contributor to the zine had already pointed out the correct spelling while proofreading a different article from the same issue.

At the start of the adventure, I am away from home (whichever way you spell it), endeavouring to help defend the town of Karnak Tor from the armies of Caarth (serpentine humanoids which have featured in a couple of earlier gamebooks, though when playing those books here I evaded the Caarth encounter in one and died too soon to meet any of them in the other) that keep invading from the nearby Desert of Skulls. This is not going brilliantly: in the course of repelling the attacks, more than two thirds of the troops who accompanied me have been killed, and the hostilities are not yet over.

Character creation is a little different from usual. Stats are generated within a narrower range than usual, and one of them will be increased by whichever of the three available Heroic Powers I choose. I'll roll first, and see what the unmodified stats are like before I choose which one to boost... Remembering how quickly I lost that first fight on my previous attempt, I think I'd better do what I can to improve my Skill. 
Skill: 10
Stamina: 17
Luck: 9
Heroic Power: Speed of Pangara
Heroic Flaw: Hubris
Picking the Heroic Flaw was easy, considering the arrogance my character displays in taking full credit for the Heroic Power, which most acquaintances believe to be a divine blessing.

Having learned to recognise the shape made in the sand by a concealed Caarth, I can see that there are a lot of them around an hour's march from Karnak Tor, but as they're very sluggish at night, it should be around eight hours before they actually attack. Time enough for a good rest for me and my men. Not that my night is particularly restful, as my sleep is troubled by foreboding and possibly prophetic or symbolic dreams in which I see my father floating in the air and get hit in the shoulder by an arrow. 

Waking to find that dawn is still a couple of hours off, I summon the troops, and we head out to take the battle to the enemy. If my Heroic Power were the cunning-based one, it might be worth taking the time to seek out the most advantageous position from which to attack, but I went for speed, so I order an immediate strike while the Caarth are still torpid from the nocturnal chill. Not that their condition gives them any penalty to Attack Strength or Skill, judging by the stats of the warrior I soon face.

During fights I also have the option of using Heroic Stunts - assorted manoeuvres that can inflict additional damage or Attack Strength penalties on my foe(s), though if they don't work, I take extra damage instead. My speed gives me improved odds when attempting a Flurry of Blows (which works best against multiple opponents, but is not ineffective when going one-on-one), and though my first couple of attempts at using Stunts prove unsuccessful, persistence pays off, and the Caarth dies in around half the time it would have taken me to kill it using just the regular combat rules.

Surveying the field of battle, I see Caarth reinforcements rising from the sand, threatening to overcome my troops by sheer force of numbers. However, potentially greater cause for concern is the robed Caarth who's wielding a staff with a crystal on the end, since the crystal is starting to glow in a way that hints at an imminent release of destructive magical energies. I charge to attack the probable Sorcerer, and another Caarth warrior attempts to intercept me.

Rather confusingly, this section goes on to outline the fight against the warrior, including directions to turn to one section if the Caarth is killed in no more than four rounds, another if it is still alive after four rounds, and yet another if it dies in four rounds. Either the first of those is supposed to be 'fewer than four rounds', or the third of those options is redundant, since the set 'four or fewer' includes 'four'. However, that's not my problem right now, as my Speed enables me to avoid that fight and spear the staff-wielding Caarth before it can unleash the powers it sought to use against my army.

A screech rings out, and the Caarth fall back, except for one particularly large warrior - around 3 metres tall -  who issues a challenge for one warrior to face it in single combat. I would expect my Hubris to compel me to accept, but the text makes no mention of that flaw, and allows me to choose whether to go one-on-one against the champion, throw my spear, or order the troops to charge. I'm going to play my character anyway, and not pass up this opportunity to display my prowess.

As I charge to the attack, the Caarth champion goes for a sneaky kick, and not even my Speed permits me to dodge. Lacking the strength-based Heroic Power, I get knocked down, taking minor damage before the fight begins. It turns out that the champion has his own Stunt, and while it's not as impressive as mine, the additional damage it does (in combination with some lucky rolls for Attack Strength) is enough to ensure that I don't survive the fight.

That's a pretty brutal adventure. From inadvertent glimpses of other sections I saw that the vast majority of opponents have double-figure Skill scores, and while the amended rules for character generation and the bonus to Attack Strength provided by equipment guarantee an effective minimum Skill of 10, damage taken in battle is likely to be high, and opportunities to recover Stamina appear to be scarcer than normal for FF.

The description of Ascent on the contents page suggests that battling the Caarth isn't even the primary focus of the adventure. The fact that after playing it twice I still haven't got beyond what would be the pre-opening credits sequence in a Bond film suggests that it might be a little unbalanced as regards playability. Not knowing what the actual plot involves also makes it harder for me to get invested in the adventure. For reasons I shall explain at a later date, I'm likely to be playing this again off-blog before the end of the year, and while I'm not dreading the prospect, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about it either.

You Never Know What the Night It May Bring

Sorcerer's Apprentice was not the only magazine to print Tunnels & Trolls mini-adventures. The June/July 1982 edition of White Dwarf (published not long before a certain book was to change editor Ian Livingstone's life quite significantly) featured The Mad Dwarf by T&T veteran author Ken St Andre. 

This was more than a year before I encountered my first gamebook, so I was completely unaware of it back then. Still, in February 2007, a search for gamebooks and the like on eBay turned up a copy of the relevant issue, so I bought it. On the same day I also acquired a complete set of Dice Man, the gamebook/comic hybrid spun off from 2000 AD, which rather monopolised my attention when my purchases arrived, so beyond establishing that The Mad Dwarf appears to be the name of a tavern (which has some precedent in T&T) I never found out anything about what the adventure involves. It's about time I had a proper go at it.

The brief introductory section indicates that I'd be best off bringing a warrior into this adventure. While I do have a couple of warriors who survived earlier adventures, they're both a little short of cash, and a tavern-based adventure is liable to involve some expenditure, so I'll generate a new one and try to budget carefully when equipping him.

As rolled, my new character is on the low side of average - almost all 9s and 10s. If I make him a dwarf, he becomes somebody who might even survive an encounter or two, with:
Strength 20
Intelligence 10
Luck 9
Constitution 18
Dexterity 10
Charisma 8
Speed 7
Plus enough cash to equip him with clothes, boots, a backpack, some armour and a sabre (decent axes are expensive), and still leave a bit of money for drinks, fruit machines and the like.

The adventure starts with me being pursued through a snowstorm by a pack of dire wolves, weighed down by the 'treasure' in my backpack. (Eh? I've saved some money, but not that much.) I'm going numb from the cold, and the wolves are gaining on me, so it comes as something of a relief when I catch sight of a 'strangely built' building up ahead, with sooty smoke belching from the chimney.

I have the option of ignoring it, but I'm not massively keen to discover whether the wolves can kill me before hypothermia sets in, so I head for the door. As I draw closer, I see indications that the building is an inn, with just about enough paint left on the sign for me to be able to make out that it depicts an axe-toting dwarf sticking his tongue out. Lacking any ability to detect magic, I must either knock on the door or face the wolves. The fact that I was even asked about my sensitivity to magic raises some rather ominous questions, but I still don't fancy my chances against the pack, so I hammer on the door.

The door is about five feet high, which would be uncomfortably low if I'd generated a human or an elf, but the height modifier for dwarves puts the lintel around a foot above my head. In response to my knocking, another dwarf opens the door. This one wears a jewel-encrusted patch over one eye, and has a hunched back. He yells at me to either come in or go away, as it's cold outside and he thinks he can hear wolves. Suppressing the urge to respond with sarcasm, I step indoors.

The inn is spacious, but with what taller species would consider a low ceiling. The bar is stocked with a wide range of containers holding liquids, and on the wall above it is a pornographic painting of female elves, with several darts sticking out of it. I'd have to turn straight to another section if my character were an elf, perhaps to see whether or not this insult to my kindred provokes me to homicidal rage, but since I'm not an elf, I get to turn my attention to the fireplace. Hanging above the flames is a large iron kettle, giving off a smell that my character finds pleasant, though it would turn the stomachs of most non-dwarves. In the middle of the room are a crude table and benches, their height appropriate for the proprietor and me. No sign of any other patrons, perhaps because of the weather, or maybe for some more sinister reason.

Mine host informs me that a room for the night costs 10 gold pieces, food and drink not included. I can afford it, but in view of the lack of other customers, I'll risk trying to haggle. That requires me to make a Saving Roll on Charisma, and the odds are not in my favour. I do fail the roll, but that doesn't result in my being thrown out - just a hefty bill. I still have enough on me, which is a good thing, as the adventure doesn't seem to allow for the possibility of having insufficient funds. Quick check - no I did not miss any mention of needing at least X amount of gold to play.

After taking my money, the dwarf gets very chatty, and his questions about the contents of my backpack and the sort of adventuring I've been up to of late make me suspicious. I decide against having anything to eat or drink and, a little concerned about what may await me in my room, opt to continue warming myself by the fire. I'd like to remain on the alert for any suspicious moves, but that is in the author's hands.

The warmth of the fire induces a comfortable drowsiness. The proprietor of the inn drinks a lot, and becomes tipsy. He invites me to have a drink with him. This could be a trap, but refusing might provoke him to violence, so I'll accept and hope that my Constitution is high enough to protect me from any harmful additives there might be in the booze.

The drink costs my remaining money, and is the sort that initially tastes pretty bad, but seems to get better the more of it I consume. Matching me drink for drink, the dwarf then looks me in the eye (though if I'd been a human or an elf, he'd be focused on my navel) and asks if I want to play darts, see the dancing girls, or go to bed. The subjects of the lewd painting on the wall are dancing, which makes me wonder if showing an interest in the girls might lead to my becoming sorcerously imprisoned in the picture. I'm still a bit wary about the bedroom, so I'll risk darts - if nothing else, the game will at least provide a pretext for having something weapon-like to hand.

That turns out not to be such a good idea, as the painting is also the dartboard, scores varying according to which parts of the elves' anatomy are hit. Also, the game involves a stake of 100 gold pieces, which is a hundred more than I can afford. I back out, and resign myself to finding out what Procrustean peril may await me in my room.

The room is small, dominated by a bed which is simultaneously massive and just four feet long. The floor is covered with a bearskin, and there's just room for a small bedside table with a basin and a pitcher of water on it. It is at this point that my height becomes a plot point, and I'm two thirds of an inch too tall to be spared the Saving Roll on Intelligence that could determine my fate. Oh, and this is one of those annoying instances where the text gives options for 'higher than' and 'lower than', but not 'equal to'. The height generation algorithm ensures that I must fall into one of those categories, but a human character would have a slim chance of being exactly the height being asked about, so that's a bit careless.

The odds of my succeeding at this roll are not favourable, and what I get would have been a failure no matter how high my Intelligence. I remove my armour and lie down, and Mr. St. Andre really hasn't thought this height business through. A guillotine blade pops out of the footboard - which would take the soles off my feet, what with that slight overhang, but the text has it going through my legs and inflicting more than enough damage to kill me.

I was never going to be happy with an outcome like that, but the fact that (somewhat ironically) it's an awkward fit for my character makes it that bit more frustrating. If the owner of this place intended to rob me, he's going to be rather disappointed, as he already had all my money, but whatever annoyance my lack of funds may cause him, it's scant consolation for me.

Certain Local Cartographical Anomalies

It's about time I was concluding my attempt at The Den of Dragons, the second of J.H. Brennan's Grailquest gamebooks. Having spent most of the first part exploring a cursed village, I finished by exploring a ruined tower, in which I found a trapdoor. I tug on the attached iron ring, which comes off in my hand, but the trapdoor disintegrates, opening up the dark shaft beneath.

The book proceeds on the assumption that I was sensible enough to buy a torch and a means of lighting it. Not a problem on this occasion, as I did make the necessary purchases, but if I'd wasted my money on half a dozen sacks, a horn, and a dozen fish-hooks instead, there'd be no consequences to my lacking a light source, even though I need one to see the stone steps leading down into the darkness.

After a brief hesitation, I start to descend the stairs, losing my footing and tumbling to the bottom without taking any damage. A subterranean corridor leads further into the darkness, and I follow it, eventually emerging into a volcanic wasteland, with towering cliffs barring movement in all but two directions. This is where the advice found on one of the scrolls penned by warrior-monk Ethelbert can help with avoiding a lethal mistake, though it turns out to be vaguer than expected. I was warned to 'avoid the more obvious road', but it's not as if one route is clearly signposted while the other is more easily missed. There's a kind of gamebook-derived metaknowledge-based logic to it, as one of the paths leads in a direction less frequently offered in gamebooks than the other, but Brennan has included better clues in worse books.

Following my chosen path, I become aware of the reek of methane mingling with the sulphurous stench. The digression on Dragon biology way back in one of the introductory passages mentioned that Dragons' flame-breathing ability is fuelled by methane produced by rotting leaves in a secondary stomach, so the smell (and the lack of a redirection to section 14, the traditional destination of the Grailquest dead and doomed) indicates that I am indeed on the right track. The gaping cavern mouth up ahead is also a pretty obvious hint that I'm approaching Dragon Cavern.

Some mildly amusing waffle follows before I get to enter the cavern, stepping into a bone-strewn cave with three exits in the north wall. No map provided, so it might be advisable for me to draw one, and hope that this place isn't as geographically muddled as some gamebook locations.

I follow a winding passage to another cave, and unlike certain adventures, this book has me notice that it is occupied by potential enemies (in this instance half a dozen Rock Trolls) before going on to describe the place. There's another exit in the far wall, and the section number for it is the same as for one of the other exits from the first cave, which is topographically unlikely. I'm not wasting my Invisibility spell (and the high Life Point cost of casting it) here, and I doubt that introducing myself to the Trolls and asking them to let me through will go well, so I draw EJ and charge to the attack.

Taking the Trolls by surprise, I bisect one of them before they can react. The other five then strike at me with their swords, two missing altogether, the others failing to get through my armour. I slay another Troll in each of the next three rounds of battle, still taking no damage, but the last two Trolls are slightly more bother. Nevertheless, by the end of the fight there are five dead Trolls and one unconscious one, and I've taken just two points of damage.

Heading northwards along a well-travelled passage, I reach a large and foul-smelling cave, which contains a mound of dragon droppings and has three exits, one of them blocked by a large boulder. Section number recognition tells me that the passage west leads to the cave where I fought the Trolls, and if I manage to shift the boulder (or waste a fireball destroying it), I can go the same way I'd have gone if I'd taken the third exit from the first cave. That bit almost makes sense on the route I've taken to get here, though if I'd come straight from the entrance cave, going east would effectively take me west. This is proving about as mappable as the first ever gamebook I wrote, and I at least had the excuse of only being an 11-year-old amateur. 

I could take a closer look at the heap of manure, but I don't think this is one of the books in which doing so could prove helpful. Instead, I take the one exit that leads to a previously inaccessible section number. And this brings me to a different kind of section number recognition: unless I am very much mistaken, the cave outside which I now find myself contains only unavoidable limb loss and death. Still, there is a side turning I could take instead of dooming myself, so I think I'll try that.

After some time this passage brings me to a cavern with a couple of exits, containing three brass-bound chests and a small casket, all of which are guarded by a sword-wielding Minotaur. He tries to stop me from going any further, I attempt to intimidate him into letting me pass, and when I name-drop Merlin, the Minotaur asks if I could seek the wizard's help on his behalf. It turns out that the Minotaur finds having the head of a bull to be an impediment to his social life, so he'd prefer a human one.

We strike a deal. Tradition requires that the Minotaur fights anyone who tries to pass through his cave, but he'll make do with a wrestling match. If I win, I get to do a little looting and proceed to one of the exits. If he wins, I have to go to Merlin and ask him to fix the Minotaur's head.

This being a fist fight, I don't have as much of an advantage as when using EJ, but I can still utilise the Luckstone, which, in combination with a few lousy rolls on the part of the Minotaur, ensures that I prevail without taking any damage. Magical safeguards that the Minotaur had placed on his belongings mean that I can only look into two of the receptacles in the cave, and apparently make it necessary to choose both simultaneously. This could lead to frustration, as one of the chests contains another scroll from Ethelbert, this one in code (easily cracked), which reveals which of the other containers holds the only essential item - but since the reader has already made their choice by the time they get the opportunity to decipher the message, it's already too late to act on that knowledge. I'm okay, as I remembered where to get the key that I will need, but a first-time player who chose poorly might not find much consolation in getting a hint about what they should have chosen but didn't.

In addition to the two exits mentioned when I first reached this cave, I have a second chance of going into the cave of Instant Death. I think I'll pass on that one again, thank you very much. Instead I try another section number I think I recognise, and the passage leads me to a cavern that is lined with metal on all sides, with vast machines lined up against the north wall. Tinkering with the machinery are a dozen hunchbacked Dwarves with malevolent expressions on their faces.

The only worthwhile option here is to attack. They're a slow-moving bunch, which means that I manage to kill nine of them and knock the other three out before they get a chance to hit back. A bit one-sided, but when so many gamebooks border on unwinnable, I'm not so bothered at having the imbalance in my favour.

Now that the Dwarves are out of the way, I can take a look at the machine. A blue metal plate has been set into the floor next to three numbered levers, each of which can be pushed up or down. Above the levers a sign warns to place a key in the slot before activating the levers, and next to the sign is a slot big enough to take the key I got from the Minotaur.

The options for lever-pulling are slightly odd. I can push them all up, or all down, or go for a mixture of up and down, but in the latter instance it doesn't matter which lever is in which position, just whether there are more up than down or vice versa. That gives four possible set-ups (plus another four, all leading to death, for using the levers without first inserting the key). It would have been possible to offer a choice of four with just two levers (both up, both down, left up/right down and left down/right up), which seems more sensible to me than having up-down-up produce the exact same results as down-up-up and up-up-down. Then again, this is a Grailquest book, so looking for 'sensible' is about as worthwhile as making 'melodious' a priority when choosing a potato peeler.

Pulling the levers sends a dizzying vibration through my body. A spiral of light coils around me, and I lose consciousness, coming round at a crossroads. Oh, and this is the bit where some of the turnings lead to jarringly inappropriate sections. So incongruous that my teen self actually crossed out a couple of the section numbers and wrote other, less bewildering but more unhelpful numbers in their place. Twit. Good thing I found another copy of the book going cheap in a second-hand shop at a later date.

One of the section numbers my foolish younger self didn't excise is also the one to which a different setting of the levers would have sent me. I'm probably better off ignoring it, but I don't think curiosity will kill me in this instance, so I take the appropriate turning, finding myself in darkness, being attacked by something large and hairy with fangs and talons. The combination of my armour and my Luckstone (plus some straightforward good luck - my attack rolls included two double sixes) keep the fight from going badly for me.

When I kill my opponent, my surroundings light up, though the corpse remains shrouded in darkness. I'm in a chamber with just one exit, which contains a pile of straw, a feeding dish, and a magic wand attached to a nail on the west wall by a leather thong. I take the wand and leave, not returning to the crossroads, but finding myself where I'd have wound up if I'd taken the other turning not adjusted by the idiot I once was.

A tunnel leads me to a cavern shaped a bit like a funnel, and a whacking great boulder blocks the only way onwards. I can move it by rolling high enough, disintegrate it with a Fireball, or spend 25 Life Points to activate that wand, which will dissolve it. Carelessly, the text assumes that I have the wand, even though I could have got here without acquiring it. Proofreading and playtesting don't appear to have been among the publisher's priorities.

Anyway, with the help of the Luckstone I manage to shift the boulder without expending any resources. Beyond it, worn steps lead down, but before I can descend, a giant lizard of some kind slithers up them and attempts to ensnare me with its long tongue. Its initial attack fails, so I get to fight it, but it only needs to win a single round (by rolling 8 or above) to swallow me, with fatal results. I think the extra damage caused by a P.O.W. spell could make a crucial difference here. The casting roll is successful, I get first strike in the fight, and I do just enough damage that, with the accompaniment of the spell, I inflict lethal damage. If this were a podcast rather than a blog, you would just have heard some celebratory exclamations.

Winning the fight takes me to one of the more stochastic sections I could have reached from that crossroads. I step over the already decomposing corpse of the lizard and descend the steps to a constructed chamber. Another exit leads onwards, but of greater interest are the treasure chest and the scroll. I read the scroll first, and am unsurprised to find that it is another of Ethelbert's missives, this one explaining the traps and other perils associated with the chest in implausible detail. Still, forewarned is forearmed (and middlewarned is elbowed).

The scroll also states that the chest contains a magical Orb said to be the only means whereby an adventurer may survive what lies ahead (and that Ethelbert had his doubts about its being so essential, and thus chose not to take it himself). I don't even have the option of not trying to get the Orb for myself, and now turn my attention to the chest.

Ignoring the hasp (which contains a poisoned needle) and the cursed gem set into the lid, I use my battleaxe to smash open the chest. EJ sometimes objects to being used on inanimate objects, and I've had no other use for the back-up weapon all adventure, so I might as well use it now.

Inside the chest I find a mass of spiders' webs, which Ethelbert indicated to be impervious to anything but magical weapons or magical fire. A couple of the section numbers here are the wrong way round in the book, but back in the eighties I was sensible enough to correct those references. The axe won't do me any good here, and I'm not wasting a Fireball, so EJ will have to face his fears (it's not as though there are any actual spiders to go with the webs) and slice through them.

Now that the webs are gone, half a dozen shadowy shapes, each about the size of a hand, flutter out of the chest. Ethelbert warned that, while flimsy, these things can do a lot of damage, so I take a swipe at the closest one with EJ (and in doing so turn to the other inappropriate section reachable from that crossroads). The Luckstone makes it impossible not to inflict a killing blow with EJ every round, which could be considered something of a design flaw, but since a couple of sub-par rolls mean that I'd have lost 30 Life Points without it, I'm not complaining too hard.

Now only the Orb remains in the chest. Well, the Orb, the cushion on which it rests, and the brass plaque explaining that in the hands of a true Dragonmaster, it provides protection against all naturally occurring firebreathers. A non-Dragonmaster might derive similar benefits from the Orb, but the only way to find out is to try. Oh, and magical Dragons are immune to its effects, so it won't help against the Brass Dragon even if it does keep me safe from the rest.

Before I go any further, I cast the spell to activate my Fireballs, so they'll be available against whatever lies ahead. Then I head through the exit and down a tunnel that leads to yet another cavern. The smell of Dragon and the sound of fluttering wings indicate that this is where the Dragons have come to roost.

No turning back. I advance into a vast cavern which contains hundreds of Dragons. At its lowest point squats the Brass Dragon, beside a marble column with a red crystal on it. The Brass Dragon's eyes focus on me, and a voice speaks inside my head. For a moment I think that the Dragon must be telepathic, but the voice rapidly clarifies the situation. Speaking to me, mind to mind, is Ethelbert himself. The Brass Dragon has trapped his soul inside the crystal, and I must shatter it to free him... provided I can first kill the Brass Dragon. And get past the vast multitude of other Dragons surrounding me. Time to use the Orb. And the dice determine that it works, emitting a song which sends all the ordinary Dragons to sleep. So far so good. Now for the big bad.

This could be a tough fight. To improve my chances, I cast Pi R Squared, giving me two attacks to each one that the Dragon makes. I hurl a Fireball - and miss. The second Fireball hits it, though. The Dragon strikes me, doing a little damage. I draw EJ, and hit the Dragon twice, glad that I was able to get that bonus to damage against Dragons. The Dragon wounds me again. Since every third round, it breathes fire, doing extra damage if it hits, I cast P.I.L.L., which incapacitates the Dragon with laughter for a few rounds. Long enough, with my doubled speed, for me to stab it several more times, inflicting a killing blow before it gets a chance to try and burn me.

With the Brass Dragon dead, I can destroy the crystal and release Ethelbert. He properly introduces himself, admits that his services are no longer required here, and offers to show me the way out. Over the course of the next few days we head back to where I started. Well, back to the cow: having been taken to and from Merlin's Crystal Cave by magic, I don't know how to get there. So all we can do is wait for Merlin to notice that I'm back and the job is done.

This takes a while: it transpires that Merlin has resorted to alchemy to try and compensate for the cut in his pension, but it keeps going wrong and turning the lead into steamed pudding (which he doesn't even like). After the seventh failed attempt, Merlin loses his temper and, in a fit of pique, decides to put a blight on the Archbishop of Canterbury's kitchen garden, but while searching for the appropriate wand he finds his crystal ball, which shows him Pip, Ethelbert, the cow, and the severed head of the Brass Dragon, which significantly improves his mood.

A brief coda follows, in which Merlin speculates on the celebrations and rewards sure to follow the slaying of the Brass Dragon, and reminds me that the Gateway to the Ghastly Kingdom of the Dead is still open, and will need closing. But that is an adventure for another day. And indeed another book.

So, that was Grailquest book 2. Like the first book, it was humorous, occasionally harsh, somewhat unbalanced as regards gameplay, a bit sloppy in places, and fun. But more so. On every count. It's entertaining enough that I can forgive its shortcomings, but some of the later books are definitely broken in places. Nowhere near as badly as certain other gamebooks by J.H. Brennan, though. And the next one in the series ramps up the lunacy but, as I recall, has fewer bugs, so I'm quite looking forward to that.

There Is More Harm in the Village Than is Dreamt of

I bought the second of J.H. Brennan's Grailquest books, The Den of Dragons, at the same time as the first. As I recall, I had a quick flick through it in the shop (probably WHSmith), and came across an encounter with a familiar character (of which I'll say more if I reach it on this attempt), while my first attempt at it ended when an arbitrary dice roll determined that the place I was exploring caved in on me. I now know that particular location to be the transition between two different stages of the adventure, so I'm going to have to make the same roll when I play the book here - always assuming I survive long enough to do so.

Mind you, I don't think these books start getting absurdly lethal just yet, so I might make it through. Especially as I did win the first book, and am thus able to carry across certain items I acquired in it. Presumably when Mean Jake stole my belongings at the end, he concentrated on the money, overlooking some potentially more valuable items. But precisely what I still have is covered a couple of sections in, so I'm getting ahead of myself.

The background material is quite substantial, but the writing is entertaining enough that it doesn't drag in the way that some gamebook info-dumps do. Trimming it down substantially, the essentials are that Avalon has been suffering the ravages of a plague of Dragons, but the situation has worsened with the arrival of a Brass Dragon, purportedly from Hell, seemingly possessed of magical powers, and definitely causing death and destruction. King Arthur has made the situation Merlin's responsibility, and Merlin, alarmed at the prospect of having his pension docked, has again used a spell in the form of a book to transfer the reader's consciousness into the body of local hero Pip.

On this occasion the mission briefing is delivered in Merlin's crystal cave (the number and variety of Merlin's homes becomes a running gag across the series), which fits a very literal reading of its name. Practically everything here is crystal - the walls, the roof, the floor, the stalactites and stalagmites, the furnishings... Merlin explains that I'm here to kill the Brass Dragon, which actually comes from the Ghastly Kingdom of the Dead rather than Hell. The gateway to the Ghastly Kingdom of the Dead through which the Dragon entered this world will also need closing, but that's a matter for another book.

Despite the continuity between books, I need to roll my LIFE POINTS afresh. This time round I only start with 36 - still above average (and given the reroll option provided at character generation, I'd be doing pretty poorly not to get at least one above-average roll), but significantly lower than last time. 

Merlin gives me a reminder of the combat rules, and then fetches my sword, at which point the text asks if I've read the previous book in the series. I have, so Excalibur Junior and I recognise each other. I also get back my armour, and half a dozen of the items I acquired during my earlier adventure, most significantly the Luckstone that enables me to increase or decrease any of my dice rolls by 3 (and most insignificantly the Wizard Ansalom's crystal ball, which no longer works). The Firefinger lightning bolts I didn't use last time are also available...ish.

The thing is, this book introduces new rules covering the use of magic. I now know ten spells (many of them with mildly silly acronyms). Most can be cast up to three times over the course of an adventure, the majority cost 3 LIFE POINTS to cast, and all require me to roll 7 or above on two dice to work. I can't use any Firefingers until I have successfully cast the relevant spell (and I can only successfully cast it once per adventure), but when I do, I gain 10 new lightning bolts in addition to the ones left over from book 1.

Before I get started, I can also buy additional equipment. Merlin hands me a couple of magic dice that convert enthusiasm into gold, so I roll them and gain money that can be spent on items from a list. In later books the equivalent lists often include various bizarre artefacts, some of them potentially of use, others just quirky red herrings, but here there's nothing more unconventional than a lute or a dozen fish-hooks. Armour can be combined with what I already have, so I buy a couple more points of damage reduction (I didn't roll high enough for the good stuff), and with what's left I get a spare weapon, some food, some healing potions, a rope and climbing spikes, and some torches plus a tinderbox. Oh, and that lute: I don't recall a situation where I'm likely to need a musical instrument in this book, but it's better to be prepared, just in case. Except where it isn't, but that's a matter for a later book.

Merlin then hands me a copy he made of an ancient map showing the route to Dragon Cavern, and casts a spell to teleport me away. I find myself in a field, being nudged in the back by one of the cows owned by Pip's adoptive parents. Checking the map, I find that the only landmark shown on it is the cow. Also depicted are four winding paths, each leading to a different section number, with no hints about what might be found on any of them.

I try heading roughly north-north-east. This may be a good choice, as the path leads to a village. However, the village doesn't seem to get any closer as I walk towards it, and dice determine what happens next. With what I roll, the Luckstone means I can go for any of the possible outcomes, but that's not much help when I don't know whether I need a high number or a low one.

I risk going high, and a walking statue lumbers along the path towards me, clearly spoiling for a fight. This looks like the sort of combat for which a magic weapon is essential, so I draw EJ. A wise choice, though even he does reduced damage in this battle. Between the Stone Man's slightly poor odds of hitting, my armour, and the Luckstone, I manage to shatter him without taking any damage.

After taking a breather, I continue on my way, proceeding to the section I'd have reached if I hadn't modified that earlier roll. Up ahead is something like a heat haze - except that it's not that warm. And the edges are clearly defined, much like a doorway. So I step through it.

Abruptly I find myself standing in the village, close to its westernmost extremity, and due east of a peculiar garden containing stone plants and statues of monsters. Near the front of the book is a picture of the village, with section numbers on all the visitable locations within it, and a conspicuous lack of ways through the surrounding stockade.

Time to go exploring. I remember where the next stage of the route to Dragon Cavern can be found, but there are some helpful or amusing encounters to be had elsewhere in the village, and I think I know which of the cottages contains only an Instant Death, so I'll just look around for a while.

Just to my west is a cottage set into the stockade wall. I take a closer look at it, and oh, it's one of those cottages. Several of them are inhabited by the same type of creature, a bizarre green biped with purple teeth, which wields two daggers and has a pouch (prompting speculation that it might be a type of kangaroo, a magic platypus, or even an Australian cricketer in fancy dress). If I had food to spare, I could avoid a fight by giving the creature indigestion, but this thing isn't much of a threat. Indeed, one blow with EJ is enough to render the brute unconscious, so I take its daggers and the negligible amount of money in the pouch.

There's a long building to the north of the stone garden. It's a disused stable. Searching it, I find a horseshoe, and get reprimanded for wasting time.

My Luckstone should keep me safe from the worst of the danger in the stone garden, so I check that out next. It is a strange place - just like a real garden, except that all the vegetables are made of stone. And full of statues of monsters, one of which almost looks as if it's moving. There are also flowers made entirely from stone, and again I get the impression that that statue moved. With a shrug, I ignore it and pull up a stone cauliflower, finding that it even has roots of stone. And by now the statue is so blatantly moving that I can no longer fool myself about it. Also, I am finding it increasingly difficult to move, and belatedly realise that I am turning to stone. The dice determine what happens next, and but for the Luckstone, I would have wound up petrified. As it is, I manage to stumble backwards out of the garden, at which point I return to normal, and the monster statue becomes inert. That was close.

Due south of the garden is the cottage I think kills anyone who enters it. A little further south is another cottage set into the stockade wall, which contains another of those dagger-toting creatures. This one gets first strike, but fails to hit me, and in retaliation I kill it with one blow.

Further east, a slightly wobbly line of cottages runs north to south. I enter the northernmost one, which contains a man in black armour, who calls out a challenge to me. Remembering an encounter in the woods outside Ansalom's castle, I realise that this is not the dreaded Black Knight, but the friendly yet hapless King Pellinore, and greet him. He explains that, having failed to find the way out of the village, he's commandeered this cottage, and hands me a scroll that he found in the course of his explorations.

The scroll has been penned by a warrior-monk named Ethelbert, who was also on a quest to Dragon Cavern. It tells me which is the safe path through the volcanic wasteland leading to the Cavern, and warns that, while the Dragons congregate on the lower level, the upper levels house various perils of their own, including Trolls, Dwarves, a man with the head of a bull, and an extremely dangerous wailing spirit. That note about the path could help me avoid an Instant Death, so it's a good thing I didn't ignore Pellinore's cottage.

Proceeding to the next cottage, I find that it has a beneficial atmosphere, and if I'd lost any Life Points, it would restore them. I haven't wasted anything, though, as it will have the same effect on any subsequent visit. If I get into one of the more dangerous fights that can be found in the village (and survive), I shall pop back here rather than risk sleeping or use up any potions

The cottage below that one contains lots of plants in pots. Many of the plants are creepers, with a remarkable degree of mobility. They attempt to wrap around me, and again the Luckstone saves my life, enabling me to avoid having my sword arm immobilised, so I can hack my way to safety.

In the next cottage I find a pit trap, with poisoned spikes in the bottom. Thanks to the Luckstone I avoid landing on a spike, and the climbing equipment I bought from Merlin saves me from being trapped down here and starving to death.

A Wolf has made its lair in the next cottage down, and leaps to the attack when I open the door. I manage to render it unconscious, sustaining a couple of points of damage in the course of the fight, and discover that the cottage also contains a casket of 100 Gold Pieces, which I take before returning to the cottage with the healing properties.

The last cottage in this line is larger than the others, and has a Gnome out front. A live Gnome, rather than the ornamental kind. He offers to give me information on the route to Dragon Cavern or the way out of the village, at a randomly determined cost. As I know the answer to the former, and am aware that getting away from the village won't help me in my quest, I opt not to part with my money, and head across the village green to the church.

Dust and cobwebs show the church to be in a state of considerable neglect. It's not completely abandoned, though, as the organ suddenly plays what sounds like the opening to Beethoven's Fifth. Maniacal laughter rings out, and a figure in a cloak and a mask swings towards me on a rope, screaming that I should "Beware the Phantom of the Village Church!" before lunging at me with a sword. As in the previous fight, I take a small amount of damage before overcoming my opponent. There's not much in the way of loot here, though: only a ring on the Phantom's finger, which tingles when I put it on, and cannot be removed.

Following another visit to the healing cottage, I proceed to the Abbey that's just across the road from the church. It too is looking rather run-down, but it's definitely still in use, as a procession of six black-robed monks approaches. One carries a banner with a golden death's head on it, the next bears a censor (sic.) that gives off a foul-smelling smoke, and all chant an invitation to stay with them forever. The invitation does not appeal, and when the four who aren't carrying any paraphernalia rush to the attack, rather than fleeing, I try casting a P.A.N.I.C. spell, to enhance the effectiveness of my armour. It works, making it impossible for them to actually harm me, so all I need do is slice away at the martial Monks while they ineffectually punch at the wall of light that protects me.

It takes me twelve rounds of combat to defeat them (along the way accruing enough Experience Points for my first Permanent Life Point), after which I search the Abbey for treasure, finding another scroll penned by Ethelbert. This one reveals the location of the entrance to Dragon Cavern - of potential use to a first-time player (who hasn't already paid the Gnome), but rather scant pickings otherwise.

Again I nip over to the healing cottage, to restore the LIFE POINTS that casting that spell cost me, and then I proceed to the graveyard. Unsurprisingly, I find many graves and tombstones there. Also one open grave, from which emerges... a drunken Gravedigger. He's a chatty individual by the name of Cedric, who explains that Stonemarten Village has been cursed. A couple of cottages and most of the villagers were turned to stone, the local banker transformed into a Gnome, the Vicar became a Phantom, and 'a very strange class of person' started to move in (I wonder if he means the monks or the dagger-using green beasties). Just before passing out and rolling back into the grave, he says that Dragons laid the curse.

At the eastern end of the graveyard is a large crypt, built of pink marble, its door bearing a brass plaque inscribed with an atrocious poem. As if that wasn't hint enough, below the plaque is an iron plate identifying this as another Crypt of the Fiend. (Incidentally, this is the part of the book I looked at in the shop before making my purchase.)

Proceeding into the crypt, I find an ebony coffin on a dais inscribed with another dismal verse. On the coffin itself is another brass plaque, explaining that I must solve a riddle to awaken the Fiend. There's no way I could have got the right answer if I hadn't already known it, as it is one of the more infamous 'anti-jokes': What's the difference between a duck?

I give the correct answer (which had been featured in BBC children's programme Jigsaw a few years before this book was published, and I'd read it in a comic before that, so it wasn't that obscure), and the coffin opens. The Fiend congratulates me, extemporises an appalling poem about being asked that riddle by the Sphynx, and solicits my feedback on his new composition. Aware that flattery is the safest response, I compliment the Fiend on the mythological allusions, and he rewards me by handing over a silver snuffbox, explaining that the snuff within is made of ground mugwort blessed by a vicar of the Anglican Communion, and heals four dice worth of LIFE POINTS whenever taken (though it can only be used once per section). That should come in handy once I no longer have access to that cottage.

Close by is a large building, which turns out to be a musty-smelling grain store. I search it, and find a rat the size of an Irish wolfhound. I only take one point of damage in the course of killing it, but that's enough to infect me with plague, so I take a quick pinch of healing snuff to ensure my survival.

There are still a dozen cottages (not including the automatically lethal one), plus the well (which I will avoid because I remember what's in it) and the ruins housing the entrance to Dragon Cavern. I won't bother with the cottage that, as I recall, contains a load of poisoned food: there's no 'don't eat' option, and while the spell P.I.P. would give me immunity, I'd rather not risk the 1 in 12 chance (courtesy of the Luckstone) of its not working. There might be something worth having in one of the others, though, so I shall pay some more house calls, starting with the others set into the stockade wall.

Two of them contain more of the green creatures, which I kill with ease. The other has a back door, so I could use it if I wanted to try and escape from the village, but since I know that the place where I need to go is in the village, I see little point in emulating Patrick McGoohan on this occasion.

Well, that leaves a block of eight cottages. One has the section number to which every cottage containing one of the green monsters redirects, and two of the others must be the ones Cedric said were turned to stone, leaving five that could contain something useful. Or more deathtraps or dagger-toting greenies. I might as well find out.

The first one appears abandoned, but while checking, I find a knob that opens the door to a secret passage. Naturally I investigate, and it eventually leads me to a blank wall, with another concealed door in it. I'm about to step through when EJ speaks up, warning me that there's always something nasty at the end of a secret passage: "It's a sort of Law of Nature, like gravity or the way you always have bits left over if you take a clock to pieces and put it back together again."

Disregarding the warning, I advance into a vast subterranean cavern, illuminated by glowing crystals, and with crystal flowers, shrubs and mushrooms growing from the floor. Tiny winged creatures flutter around the crystal flora, and a tall humanoid with silver skin and golden eyes walks over to me. It tells me that mortals who come here often have to stay for ever (prompting an, "I told you!" from EJ), but as my heart is pure and my task is urgent, I may take what I seek and leave in peace.

Not sure what I'm supposed to be seeking here, I ask for further clarification, and the being explains that this is the entrance to the Kingdom of the Sidhe, where I may be fated to adventure at some point. For now, I may go no further. That doesn't help much, and on a whim I claim that my sword told me to come here. This prompts the creature to ask for EJ, who passes out from fear before he can blatantly contradict me. The figure then strokes the blade, increasing the damage EJ inflicts on dragons, and sends me back to the village with my now enhanced sword. That went rather well.

In the next cottage I find an Old Residenter (one of a group mentioned way back in the introductory passages, who predicted trouble in response to the August rains and assorted Omens). He tells me that if I want to find the Brass Dragon, I should be looking in Dragon Cavern rather than the village, but he won't tell me how to get there because it's an immoral place. Then he gives me a bowl of stew that would restore me to full health if I were missing any LIFE POINTS and cure the plague if I still had it. If I had bought some cooking utensils from Merlin, I could take another bowl with me for later. Still, that snuff should provide all the healing I need.

Skipping the cottage I know to contain another of the green creatures (okay, it'd be another Experience Point, but it's just more faff), I find one of the ones that was turned to solid stone. Then I find and kill a further green brute.

The next cottage inexplicably transports me out of the village. I trudge along an unending road until nightfall, make camp, wake to find it raining, and am suddenly and arbitrarily transported back into the village, without any chance to make a decision throughout the whole pointless experience.

The cottage after that has a back door, and even though it's a small distance from the stockade wall, section number recognition tells me that it would work just as well as an exit from the village as the other back door. There's still no point in using it. And that leaves just one more cottage, which must be the other stone one, so why bother checking? Time to head to the ruins and Dragon Cavern. Or death if I roll too badly for the Luckstone to swing things in my favour.

On this occasion I don't need the Luckstone to get the right number. But it's getting late, and this would be a good point at which to break the narrative. Comment if you'd noticed how close the end of the post was, and assumed that I got a lethal outcome.

I Was Careless, I Can See That Now

Resuming my attempt at Hand of Fate, Kieran Coghlan's mini-adventure from issue 10 of Fighting Fantazine (the first part of which can be found here, in case you need clarification on any whos, wheres, whats and wherefores), I leave Zengis, and immediately get asked if I have Sussurus with me. I do, so when I speculate on the advisability of seeking out Pen Ty Kora (aka the Healer) on the grounds that he must know the best way to get to Vatos, the Ganjee politely indicates that I have fallen into the logical fallacy of assuming that expertise in one field automatically confers knowledge of completely unrelated topics. No, just kidding: he insults the Healer, the wizard who trained him (also my erstwhile mentor), and me, and tells me of a convenient magical teleporter about a day's walk from here.

There's no stat for keeping track of the passage of time in this adventure, so it's possible that I could call on the Healer anyway and still be in with a chance of thwarting my enemies, but I'm not sure it's worth it. He's hardly likely to be able to replace my missing hand, and antagonising my primary source of information could lead to additional unpleasantness, so I'll check out the teleporter.

The ruins where the teleporter is situated are in the depths of Elwood Forest (which was called the Forest of Fiends back in Armies of Death. I wonder if the nearbyish Forest of Night has been renamed Jake Forest). As I penetrate into the depths of the forest, I catch sight of a group of Goblins huddled around something, and decide to take a closer look. They attempt to screen whatever had their attention from my sight, and ask what I want. I'm only given a choice between demanding to know what they're hiding or attacking straight off, but I guess any attempt at diplomacy is going to be doomed the moment Sussurus speaks up. 

The Goblin leader has a short sword, and if I end up fighting and killing him and don't get to arm myself... Well, the 'zine is on pdf, so trying to fling the adventure away in disgust would either entail printing it out first or require me to get my computer fixed or replaced afterwards, so I guess I'd have to settle for a strongly worded post at the Fantazine forum. I'll try talking first anyway.

They move apart to reveal what appears to be a life-like statue of a cowering Goblin, and explain that it is a friend of theirs, turned to stone by a 'Big Lizard' that lives in some nearby caves. I deduce that the creature must be a Basilisk before Sussurus points it out. Perhaps if I offer to help, the Goblins might provide a weapon. Nope, they assume that I can defeat the monster single-handed and unarmed. Sussurus heaps scorn on me for my 'suicidal altruistic pursuit', but offers no advice when the tunnel leading into the cave forks.

The slime on the walls of one passage may have been secreted by the Basilisk, so I take that route. Before long I hear the sound of something rapidly approaching, and my sub-par Luck score determines what happens next. And for the second Fantazine mini-adventure running, I fail the adventure by rolling way above the relevant attribute. This means that I forget to cover my eyes (not even 'react too slowly' - forget!) and get turned to stone, much to the annoyance of Sussurus.

So what happens to the Juggernaut key if its bearer dies by a means other than 'honourable combat'? Have I just thwarted my enemies by dying again?

Well, this time round I didn't find Hand of Fate as annoying as on my first attempt. But the opening remains a bad idea, and the text still intermittently gives the impression that the author shares Sussurus' low opinion of my character's mental capabilities, so I still wouldn't call myself a fan.

Confusion Sprung Up From Devotion

Progress with the second part of my playthrough of Hand of Fate is currently a bit slow because of other things requiring my attention. Still, I thought it would be appropriate to make a post today, because this is the 20th anniversary of the discovery of second-hand FF books that got me back into gamebooks (covered in a little more detail here).

To mark the occasion, here's a photo of my gamebook shelves.

Over 70 of these are still on the 'Yet to be played for the blog' list. And then there are all the ones I failed...

It's not the best picture I've ever taken, but it gives some indication of where that casual browse has led me. And I'm sure that some of my readers would be able to identify a significant number of the books shown even from a shot with such poor definition. 

The lower two shelves are double-banked, though around 80% of the back row of the bottom shelf is taken up with non-gamebook-related books. Then again, my copies of Warlock, Proteus and other magazines with gamebook content are elsewhere (most of them on a bookcase below and to the right of these shelves), so that balances things out.

Any questions?

I Know You're Evil and Everything, But...

The first time I played the mini-adventure in issue 10 of Fighting Fantazine, Kieran Coghlan's Hand of Fate, I did not enjoy it. The main reason for that is probably still going to annoy me this time round, so I'll save that rant for when I get to it in the playthrough (which won't take long). However, it is possible that the bad mood created by that particular aspect of the adventure caused me to view what followed in an overly harsh light. Thus, in the hope of increasing my appreciation of the 200+ sections that might not be a kick in the teeth, I want to indulge in a tangential reminiscence for a few paragraphs.

For a while during the mid-to-late 1980s I collected a comic by the name of Oink, which might best be described as a pig-obsessed, child-friendly version of Viz. Much of its content was satirical, including two gamebook parodies that wouldn't be suitable material for this blog (The Unfair Funfair only has one ending, and The Sword of Blatterlee only has one decision), and there was an occasional comic strip called Dice Maniac, about a schoolboy so obsessed with gamebooks and RPGs that he treated his entire life like one.

My favourite contributor to the comic was Jeremy 'Banx' Banks, whose output included the surreal Mister Bignose, Burp (the misadventures of an alien with sapient and independent internal organs: sometimes packed with barbed social commentary, sometimes gloriously absurd, sometimes regrettably crude), and a selection of preposterous cautionary tales in which characters with ridiculous names met with grim fates (such as Ian Nasal Cavity, who spent most of his life headless as a result of not wearing a clip-on tie).

Another of Banx' highlights was Hector Vector and His Talking T-Shirt, in which antisocial youth Keith Disease annoyed a demon and was punished by being transformed into 'a tasteless print' on the T-shirt of hapless passer-by Hector. Still possessed of the power of speech, Disease went on to get Hector into trouble, assorted bizarre perils, and, at times, intensive care, by coming out with a wide range of creative insults directed at whoever Hector happened to be interacting with, or just anyone in his general vicinity. Readers who are familiar with Hand of Fate may be starting to see where I'm going with this. Others should get the point soon enough.

Only slightly worse an outcome than usual for Hector.

My character in Hand is a veteran adventurer - in fact, he's the hero who slew Balthus Dire during a successful attempt at The Citadel of Chaos. Consequently, even though the 'zine tells me to roll up a character in the usual manner, I shall reuse the one with whom I won that book back in the early days of this blog, who has:
Skill 12
Stamina 21
Luck 8
And should have a Magic score of 13, but the rules and character sheet make no mention of that attribute. No, this is not a Mongoose Publishing-style editorial blunder.

Anyway, I'm on my way to the city of Zengis in search of new adventures, confident that my abilities should suffice to deal with any Orcs or Goblins who might seek to waylay me, but still alert to the possibility of an attempted ambush. Yeah, right.

The thing is, while strolling through a wooded valley, I catch sight of a wounded man who pleads for help, claiming to have been attacked by Rhino-men. Right on cue, a trio of halberd-toting Rhino-men emerges from the trees and advances on me, and I smugly reassure the man that they're no cause for concern before casting a spell. It doesn't really matter which I choose, but I have to pick one, so I go for Creature Copy, sorcerously cloning one of the Rhino-men. They mistake my creation for an ally, and by the time they've realised their error and killed it, one of them is dead and a second is seriously injured. I finish off the wounded one with ease, and then the man puts a knife to my throat from behind and has Brus, his surviving Rhino-man ally, club me unconscious.

There is no way of avoiding that outcome. If I'd chosen a different spell, I could have faced a slightly tougher fight or no fight at all before being ambushed by the man, but this is like one of the 'every option leads to failure' decisions with which Steve Jackson liked to taunt doomed players. Except that Steve only used them in situations where the reader had made a sub-optimal decision at an earlier stage in the adventure, which tempts me to suggest that 'playing Hand of Fate' was the bad choice I made here.

Okay, so the plot hinges on my getting myself captured. But there are more than just a few other gamebooks in which getting imprisoned is unavoidable, and none of those present the reader with the illusion of agency while forcing them to do something which is not only stupid but also directly contradicts what has just been said about their character. I'd have preferred to have had the capture as a fait accompli, covered in a couple of paragraphs of the 'Background' (and without making the hero such a gullible cretin), and followed by a lot more of the set-up (which is currently crammed into the massive section 198), with the inevitable escape attempt starting in section 1. An unoriginal approach, perhaps, but nowhere near as annoying as taunting the reader with a meaningless decision and implicitly blaming them for what the author has already decided is going to happen regardless. And since doing that would trim 4 sections from the adventure, and the errata informs me that there is no section 189, it would take the adventure's purported 235 sections down to a nice round 230.

Moving on to more of what I'd have shunted from section 198 to 'Background': the man who 'masterminded' my capture is Fang-Zen, the mediocre antagonist from Deathmoor. A while back the author revealed that Hand is set before Deathmoor, so it doesn't contradict the bit in that book where Fang-Zen gets killed. Just leaving the question of how he gets from the locality of Zengis to Arion in between - roughly equivalent to travelling from Salt Lake City to Mogadishu in the real world (in an era before powered flight or even steamships). He is working for Balthus Dire's widow Lucretia, who has joined forces with Temple of Terror's back-up villainess Leesha, and in order to achieve the mayhem they have planned, they need a hand from me.

Literally. Overheard dialogue indicates that when I killed Balthus, some mystical key that he had was transferred to me, and now resides in my left hand. It can only be passed on by killing the bearer in honourable combat (presumably a rather loose definition of 'honourable combat' which encompasses 'not fighting at all, but exposing the loser to something which has a lethal effect on them' for the sake of readers who took that option to win Citadel). Or someone could take possession of the key by amputating the hand that contains it, so long as they keep the owner of the hand alive. So that's what my captors do, after which they swan off to Leesha's home city of Vatos to retrieve the 'Juggernaut' that the key activates, leaving me chained up, with Fang-Zen, Brus, and an entity in a glass bottle to keep watch over me and make sure I don't die before Lucretia is ready to fight me to the death.

The loss of my hand has left me in a fragile state, mentally speaking, and cost me 1 point of Initial (and presumably also Current) Skill and 3 Stamina.  I'm pretty much out of action until the day the bottle's occupant starts talking to me. It is a Ganjee, one of the malignant spectral beings that formed one of the last few lines of defence before I confronted Balthus himself, now trapped in the bottle as punishment for letting me past. The Ganjee is far from happy about this state of affairs, and has taken advantage of a brief moment when he and I are alone to try and bring me back to my senses. Fang-Zen has snuck off to indulge his gambling habit, and Brus is answering the call of nature, which gives the Ganjee just enough time to tell me the bare essentials of my part in the escape plan he's formulated.

As Brus returns, the Ganjee bursts out laughing and, as directed, I feign similar amusement. The Rhino-man wants to know what's so funny, and the Ganjee tells him that he is the joke - a guard so useless that even with just the one hand, I could easily defeat him if not for the chains. This provokes Brus into releasing me so that he can give me a good beating - he shouldn't get into trouble with his mistress as long as he doesn't actually kill me - and I quickly prove the Ganjee's point, killing Brus without difficulty in spite of the (somewhat lenient) Attack Strength penalty for lacking a weapon.

Small error missed by the editorial staff: 'the' should be 'then' in one of the last sentences Brus utters before freeing me to kill him.

The Ganjee tells me his name is Sussurus and delivers an insult-laden info-dump. I've lost my magical abilities on account of the severing of my left hand, which contains the key to control of a forty-foot-high automaton that used to be the chief weapon in the arsenal of Vatos. I'd already figured out much of what he tells me based on the conversation that preceded the amputation, but since the patronising exposition comes from a being who considers humans to be barely capable of rational thought, it's not as unreasonable as when a gamebook author directly treats the readers as morons.

I take what I can from Brus - a backpack, some food and water - and lament my inability to use the two-handed weapon he wielded. As I'm about to leave, Sussurus demands that I take him with me. He can only be freed from the bottle if Lucretia releases him or dies, so as repayment for helping me to escape, he wants to tag along with me. It is perhaps indicative of his desperation that he doesn't Ganjeesplain how bad a mood Lucretia will be in when she returns to find me gone. I could be ungrateful and leave him behind, but since the summary of the adventure on the 'zine's contents page mentioned being accompanied by a Ganjee, it's pretty obvious that abandoning him will lead at best to a penalty and my being forced to accede to his wishes, and at worst to an Instant Death. Thus, with some difficulty (and to the accompaniment of further verbal abuse) I attach the bottle to my belt, and am about to head upstairs when Sussurus points out that they're booby-trapped, and indicates which ones are safe to step on.

At the top of the stairs is a disused kitchen. I'm about to head out of it when Fang-Zen returns to the house. He is, understandably, surprised to see me. Less understandably, I just dither while he takes out and loads a crossbow. If not for the fact that many of Sussurus' insults are glossed over in reported speech, I might start to suspect that the author did have contempt for the readers, and just came up with the Ganjee as a pretext for hurling abuse at them. Under the circumstances, I'm not sure my character can be trusted to remember about the booby-trapped stairs, so charging a mercenary with a loaded crossbow looks less inadvisable than trying to retreat to the cellar.

Fang-Zen fires at me, but only manages to hit my shoulder. A brief fight ensues, and here he has fixed stats, unlike in Deathmoor. He's still outclassed, though, so I win the first round, consequently managing to throw him down the stairs, and hearing proof that Sussurus wasn't lying about the trap. I don't loiter to see if Fang-Zen survived - though now I know that he must have done, since he will return in his first appearance (prequels can have odd effects on chronology), which also raises the grim prospect of his making a nuisance of himself again before this adventure is over. My not checking the body also means that I don't get to arm myself with Fang-Zen's scimitar, because obviously it wouldn't do to get rid of that Attack Strength penalty just yet.

Leaving the building, I discover that I'm in Zengis, and the local pie-eating champion makes a brief cameo to prove that the author has read the FF book which featured Zengis. Sussurus says that I need to catch up with Lucretia and Leesha quickly, and when I point out that I'll need money to equip myself for the trek through the Desert of Skulls, he comments that employment opportunities for a one-handed ex-mage are going to be a bit thin on the ground. I could ask him to use his powers to help me, but I suspect that imprisonment limits his abilities, and trying to get the locals to part with money in return for bespoke insults from the spooky face in the bottle seems unlikely to be an effective means of fundraising. My maimed status could work to my advantage if I were to try begging, though.

The lack of an existing entry to cover this choice on my gamebook manager indicates that on my previous playthrough I must have attempted to get Sussurus to perform tricks. I remember dying in a fight with some guards very shortly after leaving the house, so that was obviously not a good decision. Well, not for my character, though an argument could be made that, since the guard killed me in honourable combat, the key would have passed to him, making the hand in Lucretia's possession useless and thereby thwarting or at the very least delaying her plan, making it a favourable outcome for the people on whom she had intended to set the Juggernaut. Still, 'you defeat the baddie but die in the process' is rarely treated as a win in gamebooks, so I should try for a more positive ending this time round.

Once it occurs to me to exploit my stump, begging does indeed prove a decent earner. So much so, in fact, that I wind up getting the money that would normally have gone to the local beggars, who are somewhat disgruntled at the sudden drop in income. A few of them come up to me to express their grievances, and I try to talk my way out of trouble, explaining that my predicament is a very recent development, and reassuring them that I will be leaving today. It seems to be working, until Sussurus expresses his contempt for their setting their sights so low as to seek a monopoly on begging. Now they demand all the money I've made, threatening me with worse than the loss of a hand, so I demonstrate that I can still throw a good punch with my right.

The beggars are pretty poor fighters, though one of them does manage to hit me once. The fight only lasts five rounds before something intervenes, and I choose to switch opponents each time the one I'm attacking drops below 3 Stamina, hoping that avoiding killing anyone will work in my favour. Luckily for me, the interruption to the fight comes in the form of a group of watchmen rather than reinforcements for the beggars. They arrest the lot of us, confiscate my belongings (including the money and Sussurus), and sling me into a cell.

Time drags until I am brought before a Magistrate. The trial has barely commenced before my previously unmentioned good friend Tynar, a retired warrior-priest, bursts into the courtroom to speak up in my defence. Well, that was convenient. And contrived. The Magistrate grudgingly accepts his testimonial, and since I managed to avoid killing anyone, the odds of my getting a good verdict are as high as I can get. Still, it all hinges on the roll of a die - and with that roll, I could have killed two beggars and punched a watchman and I'd still have the more favourable outcome. And since the 'good' verdict is that I regain my freedom but not my money or Sussurus, I imagine that a harsher verdict would have been a game-ender.

Tynar invites me to his home, where I explain what's happened to me over a restorative brandy. While unwilling to come out of retirement, Tynar is prepared to help me in other ways, and gives me some money and a small healing potion. Still no opportunity to arm myself, though - does a retired adventurer really not have any old weapons that he could give or at least lend to a friend who's about to embark on a hazardous quest to save the region from a sorcerous WMD?

As I suspect that not retrieving Sussurus will guarantee failure, I'm going to have to ask my old friend to help me steal back the pest. Except that it turns out that a daring heist isn't required: I can get the Ganjee back by paying a 'Magical Beings Tax'. The adventure does give me the option of refusing to pay that much, but I don't know if that'd lead to the burglary I was expecting or just an enforced decision to head off to Vatos on my own, so I'd better hand over the money and hope that that doesn't leave me lacking the wherewithal to purchase some essential item.

The clerk pockets the money, leading me to suspect that it was not so much a tax as a bribe, and brings me Sussurus, who's almost pleased to see me, as he was bored by all the talk of accounts and legislation at the courthouse. Thankful that he seems not to have realised just how much he could have increased his ability to cause suffering if he'd made the effort to learn how bureaucracy functions, I proceed to the market to see what I can still afford.

A couple of the city watch guard the entrance to the market square. As I approach, the text of the adventure asks if I've killed two watchmen, which seems oddly specific. That might make more sense if I'd taken a different path to get here: as it is, I'm left pondering the possibility that the guards would be unbothered if I had killed just one of their fellow officers. "I'd have to gut you if you'd done for Vasgo as well, but Jayem had it coming, didn't he? Kept everyone in the barracks awake with his snoring, and his body odour could knock out a Mucalytic, so we're well rid of him. Cheers, mate. On you go."

Slightly surprisingly, I avoid the vendors of arbitrary weird stuff that could inexplicably prove essential, and head straight for a stall that sells useful items. And having paid that 'tax' does make a difference for the worse: the cloak and large water flask are both liable to help a lot in the desert (even if the author does try obfuscating by saying that the cloak would provide protection from 'the rain'), but if I buy both of them, I can't afford a sword. Still, it is only a small Attack Strength penalty, and I'm more likely to be able to pilfer a weapon from a defeated enemy than to find either of the other items just lying around, so I'll continue to fight bare-handed, and get some more provisions with the funds that don't quite stretch to a sword.

Oh, and I do not intend to throw away my regular water flask just because I now have a large one. Yes, the large flask holds twice as much as the one I took from the Rhino-man, but that means the two flasks combined hold three times as much as Brus' flask on its own, and as I'm about to head into a desert, that bit more water could be a life-saver. And since I'm not lugging around the weight of a sword, I shouldn't find it too difficult to carry a second flask. This is a Fighting Fantasy mini-adventure, not an ad for Wash & Go.

Anyway, I'm as well-equipped as I can get right now, so it's time I was heading off in search of Vatos, Lucretia, Leesha and the Juggernaut. As this seems like a convenient break in the narrative (and some of the readers are getting impatient), I'll post what I've achieved so far, and save the next stage of the adventure for another blog entry.