As you rush up the stairs, the guards strikes a hidden bell and attacks you. You must fight her.
TEMPLE GUARD SKILL 6 STAMINA 8
If you win, turn to 255.
The fight itself doesn't look hard. What's more worrying is the fact that she struck the alarm bell and we couldn't stop her.
COMBAT LOG:
Temple Guard 15, Captain D 12. Captain D is at 11.
Guard 12, CD 21. Guard is at 6.
Guard 15, CD 15 Tie.
Guard 11, CD 14. Guard is at 4.
Guard 10, CD 11. Guard is at 2.
Guard 10, CD 17. Guard is dead!
Just short of a flawless.
As the stricken woman slides down the temple steps, leaving a trail of blood behind her, you are dismayed to see Hawkana, the raven-haired High Priestess. She lets out a scream of invocation, calling on the power of her Goddess. A pillar of flame engulfs you as the power of Fell-Kyrinla is unleashed. You are burnt to a cinder.
As Dr_Noface clearly predicted, the alternative option wasn't a good one either. Pretending to bring a message to Hawkana only skips the fight, but still gets us fried by the priestess. (To be fair, the authors did warn us by having the Paladin appear in our dreams and literally telling us that we need the Thieves' help, so while the design of this quest isn't that great I wouldn't say the auto-fail is unfair)
So what's the difference between the two options? Basically, getting killed in normal combat doesn't get us ressurected, as we are about to be below:
Your spirit floats gently towards the Valley of Death. The featureless, wind-blasted plain stretches away endlessly, beyond the horizon. The souls of the dead wander there aimlessly, in solitude. Just as you approach the edge of the valley, an ethereal wind gets up and your soul is wafted away. Soon you feel yourself in the presence of the two who summoned you to this fantastic world of magic. The eyeless being in robes of shifting hues says, "All is not yet lost." You understand the words without hearing them. "If your spirit is willing, we will reunite it with your body and turn back the wheels of time." The other being offers you a choice: "If you wish it, I will send you back in time. You will be at the lip of the Rift again." Do you wish to go back in time to attempt the quest again? If you do, he lays a hand on your shoulder. They disappear. You are alive again. Your wounds are healed and you have 10 Provisions. You have only the equipment with which you began the adventure, including the Talisman of Death, if you had lost it. Anything else you picked up on the way has disappeared and will have to be crossed off your Adventure Sheet. Your SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK are at their Initial levels. Suddenly you are on the surface of Orb once again.
This basically means we're back at the point where the adventuring group just handed us the Talisman. In fact, the next paragraph directs us back to this familiar section:
Dark Elves and Cave Trolls are pouring into the cavern, attacking the Shield-Maiden. As the Paladin and Priest rush to her aid, you see a huge shadowy form looming behind the sea of Elves and Trolls. The Paladin's glittering sword cuts through the horde, but the Dark Elves are using magic and the Shield-Maiden falls beneath their onslaught. The huge fiend howls triumphantly, just as the wizard completes his spell.
Even though the text forgets to mention it, I'm going to rule that we get our 10 gold pieces back as well, even though we didn't technically start with them. After all, it's still possible for us to take the option that involves us distracting the Orcs with our spilled money pouch, and that wouldn't make any sense if we didn't have any gold!
All in all, it might not have been too bad a thing for us to die (and get ressurected) when we did. We missed 2 encounters in the city, either of which would have helped get us safely out of the city after regaining the Talisman from Hawkana, so restarting now may save us another wasted trip later.
So how do we want to do this:
1) Re-roll our character completely and hope we get a higher SKILL?
2) If not, how much to we want to re-tread our old path? Or do we take a completely new route this time?
Here are the spots off the top of my head that we could have done differently, in chronilogical order:
- Go through the woods instead of the open ground right at the beginning?
- Give an alternative answer to the warrior women when they questioned us (instead of telling them the truth)?
- Try to escape before meeting Hawkana?
- Go down a different street after being robbed and thrown out by Hawkana?
There may be others that I've left out. If you want to rewind to a different point, just point out where.
