[LP] The Way of the Tiger. (Complete)

[angelfromanotherpin]

You have only a few seconds to beat the burly torturer before the guards surround you.

(Avenger has Inner Force left)

You decide to use Inner Force and, leaping across the torture chamber, you unleash a flying Forked Lightning Strike of awesome power at his chest and head.Deduct 1 from your Inner Force. The torturer is too slow to defend against this kick, but you will need a Kick Roll of 8 or more if you are to fell him with one attack.

(7, not enough)

The torturer is knocked backwards against the racks by your kicks but he rolls across the taut body of his prisoner, putting the rack between you as the guards run into the torture chamber behind you. You fight valiantly, knocking three of them unconscious with swift jabs and punches, but one of them catches you a lucky blow with his warhammer, knocking you to the floor. They pinion you and bind you with ropes and one of them begins heating a set of manacles in a small furnace while the torturer goes in search of bandages for his throbbing head.

(Avenger is not a skilled Escapologist.)

You are helpless in your bonds as the men of Quench-heart Keep fasten red hot rings of iron around your wrists and ankles. They begin to argue over whether to torture you to death, or to leave you to swing in one of the Iron-maidens which hang beyond the gatehouse. Kwon will not aid you again so soon and you decide to commit Seppuku, honourable suicide. Biting your own tongue off, you bleed to death, cheating them of their sport.

[angelfromanotherpin]

So, shall we fudge the kick roll, or just start over?

[Darth Rabbitt]

My vote would be to reroll, or switch to another choice (in which case I suggest the pool.)

[Omegonthesane]

You all saw that - we rolled a 27.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The torturer grunts as your foot distorts his skull and he falls pole-axed to the floor. The young boy points and says, 'In the water, a way out,' just before the guards rush into the torture chamber. You decide to follow his advice and dive into the chill, dark depths of the pool knowing that if there is a way out to be found, the heavily armoured guards will not be able to follow easily. At last you locate an underwater tunnel ahead of you. Make a Fate Roll with only 1 die.

(2+1 is 3)



The tunnel down which you swim seems quite wide; you cannot feel thesides but swim strongly on. After a minute, your head is still brushing the ceiling underwater, but at last you emerge in a dank cavern, lit by a single, smoking torch. As the water runs from your costume, you see the vague outline of what looks like one of the Elder Gods, creatures that stalked the earth before man came from the stars.

A great horn protrudes from its head and it stoops, almost brushing the tip against the fifteen foot-high ceiling. Its outline is strangely jagged and the smell of putrefaction suggests that its thick hide is sloughing off in great dead patches. If it is truly one of the Elder Gods, you know that it will be immensely strong even if weakened by its existence in this dank pit of slime.

You see a half-eaten corpse, that of the unfortunate who was fed to the beast as you arrived at Quench-heart Keep. Its face is a mask of horror. Knowing that to return to the Keep itself would mean death, you step forward, ready to give battle.


The huge monster lumbers towards you and you can see that it resembles a great, hairless ape. It is chained at the ankles with massive iron links, so that it can only reach the entrance to the cavern. The great areas of hanging skin reveal enormous black muscles taut with power.

Avenger, Grandmaster of the Five Winds
Modifiers: Fortune +1
Inner Force: 4/5
Endurance: 15/20
Techniques: Acrobatics, Climbing, Disable Device, Poison Needles, Kwon's Flail.
Shuriken: ****
Ninja Tools: Ninja Costume, Breathing Tube, Iron Sleeves, Garotte, Flint & Tinder, Spiderfish.
Special Items: Opal Ring, Pouch with 15 Gold Pieces.

• Winged Horse kick?
• Iron Fist?
• Dragon's Tail throw?

[Ancient History]

Given the chain, I'm going to bet throws are out. Let's try a Brony Winged Horse Kick.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Well, I know that boats are the only weakness of Elder Gods, but since we don't have a boat I suggest kicking.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The beast tries to grab you in a crushing embrace, but you somersault towards it, under its grasping hands, and roll to your feet, delivering a Winged Horse kick as you do so.

THE ELDER GOD
Defence against Winged Horse Kick: 5
Endurance: 26
Damage: 2 Dice + 2

If the beast is still alive, it tries to grab you and impale you on its great horn. Your Defence against this is 8 as you try to leap back beyond it's long reach.

(I think this is as good a set-up as we're going to get against this monstrosity, so I'll stick with it.)

(I used 1 Inner Force to finish it more quickly, but the clumsy beast never touched us – thank Kwon!)


You have slain a so-called 'immortal,' thus delivering Orb from one of the beasts which roamed the world before man came from the stars. Breathing deeply but silently, you pass by the fallen hulk and up a narrow tunnel, at the end of which is an opening to the sky, blocked by a grille in the ceiling. You brace your back against one wall of the tunnel and with your feet against the other, edge your way up to the ceiling where you lift the grille and throw it aside. You climb out onto the grass beyond the moat. You have escaped from Quench-heart Keep, at least for the moment.

As you consider which way to turn you hear the baying of bloodhounds and the yelps of wardogs. Will you:

• Skirt the castle and run towards the Goblin's Teeth Mountains that tower above it?
• Run south towards the Sea of the Star?
• Head for the city of Druath Glennan?

(I think this is still the only map we have. The Island of Tranquil Dreams is SW of Doomover.)

[MisterDee]

Let's head to Druath Glennan, perhaps we can grab a boat there to cross the sea.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Yeah, heading to a city seems like a good idea for now.

[angelfromanotherpin]

You cover the many miles to Druath Glennan in a few hours, arriving soon after the peasants have begun their day's work, harvesting in the fields. Just inside the city gates, nestling among the wooden houses with their brightly painted balconies, is the Hydra's Heads Inn.

• Go in and order breakfast after the rigours of your night raid?
• Continue along Bung Hole Road towards the quarters of the well-to-do?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Wait, is it really called Bung Hole Road?

How can we not follow it?

Alternately, we've stayed in the shanty town parts of this place before and it ended with our enemies trying to burn us out, so we should head to the homes of the rich and famous.

[Korgan0]

Go into the Bung Hole!

[Omegonthesane]

Bring TP to the Bung Hole.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Bung Hole Road climbs steadily away from the Hydra's Heads Inn and the area of the All-Mother hostel into a part of the city where the streets are wider and where many of the houses have gardens full of yellow All-Mother-Splendour and moon lilies. You catch sight of a priest who worships Vile, the evil brother of your own god, Kwon, and turn a corner out of his sight.

As you walk along, a white dove lands on your shoulder. It bears a small bead in its beak, which it drops into your palm before flying off. On inspection, you find that the bead is hollow and you pull its halves apart to find a ball of parchment. Unravelling it reveals a cryptic message.

Flee, flee as fast as you can.
Flee the city in the direction least expected –
You are being watched.

You swallow the parchment and look around. There is no-one in sight.

• Walk on through the city?
• Run to the northern wall of the city and climb out over it?
• Run to the harbour gate to see if you can stow away on a ship?

[Starmaker]

Yay for ambiguous messages!

Let's try climbing over the wall, on account of it being least useful otherwise. Plus we know climbing.

[Omegonthesane]

If this book is big on reverse psychology bullshit tricks like Fighting Fantasy, then climbing is a trap because they's expectin' you to have an optional skill.

I don't think the book is big on reverse psychology bullshit, so climb.

[angelfromanotherpin]

As you make the easy climb over the city wall, at a point where a rotted caravan rests against it, you hear someone whispering somewhere in the shadows. At the top you look round and catch sight of a young woman with a face cleverly made up to look like a cat's. She smiles at you, but turns away and walks back into the city, and you let yourself down the twenty feet to the ground below.

You are not far from the city when a band of horsemen leave the west gate. You decide to take an unexpected route towards the Goblin's Teeth Mountains. As you skirt through woods, knowing that this will slow the horses, the baying of hounds tells you that the men from the Keep are hunting you. As the hounds close in, you run towards the mountains, hoping that you will be able to climb where they cannot and escape west through the peaks.


As you climb into the foothills, the note of the hounds' baying changes. They have been set free on your trail. The going is tough as you climb into the mountains, but you know that if you reach a rock-face, you can climb away from all pursuit, for a while anyway. You are struggling towards a wall of dark rock, illumined in the first rays of a grey dawn, when the ground shifts suddenly beneath your feet and you are tumbled down a tunnel.


There is a grinding noise as the stone trap-door above you moves back into place. You light a torch which shows you that you are in a narrow tunnel. You climb up to the trap-door, but it is too heavy for you to move. Descending to the tunnel once more, you have no choice but to follow its meandering down into the depths beneath the Goblin's Teeth Mountains.


Your torch spits as you pace silently along the tunnel, the edges of which are chipped and cracked. It must have taken the work of many hammers to mine, but little care has been taken to smooth the walls. After a while, your sharp ears catch the hum of chattering voices, and a vague smell of offal reaches you. There is a glow cast on the tunnel wall ahead from what must be a large opening. You inch your way towards it.

• Look through the opening?
• Hurry quickly past?

[hogarth]

I'd suggest hurrying past, considering how little healing there was in the previous book.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Yeah, run.

[MisterDee]

Agree with the fleeing. The stench of offal is probably a clue that these aren't nice civilized dwarves.

[angelfromanotherpin]

(Sorry about the delay, got kidnapped into a river-rafting trip.)

You slip quickly past the opening, shielding the flame of your torch behind your body, but your ears tell you that a horde of beings inhabit what must be a large cavern, or so you judge by the resounding echoes. You hurry on down the tunnel.



The tunnel bends downwards and a set of steps leads on ahead. You hurry down them into a cave with a great square of rough-hewn rock at its centre. Beyond the rock is a precipice, so deep that your torch cannot light its bottom. A tunnel leads on beyond the cave.

• Examine the rock?
• Hurry past the precipice?

[Darth Rabbitt]

I'm tired of running.

Examine the rock.

[hogarth]

That sums up my opinion, too.

It's unfortunate that this book series seems to mostly reward running away from or sneaking past bad guys (since they're often just drains on your precious supply of hit points).

[angelfromanotherpin]

(Avenger does not know for sure what type of creature lives in these caves.)

You run quickly to the rough-hewn block of stone and in the light of your torch you can make something out, carved into the grey rock. It looks like an amoeboid mass of jelly and glob-like tentacles, with many eyes floating in the body of the being. The carving is crude, but the likeness is enough to suggest something truly hideous and the eyes seem to claim your attention as you strain to see if one of them is moving to look at you. Your scalp crawls. The carvings beneath it show that what must be goblins are sacrificing their own people to it, in the absence of victims of other races.

The evil fascination which the altar exercises over your spirit is broken as two goblins clad in greasy leather aprons walk into the cave. They cry out and run back up the tunnel, and you decide to continue on your way, down the opposite tunnel, which leads deeper into the mountains.


You can run faster than the bow-legged goblins, but they know the tunnels which are their home. You turn a sharp bend, and your torch shows a wooden doorway on your right.

• Open the door and slip through, hoping to evade your pursuers?
• Continue along the tunnel you are in?