[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 28 - Phantoms of Fear

[JourneymanN00b]

I'm thinking this dream is a test of courage of some sort, so I vote NOT to struggle and see if we get anything for passing this courage test.

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, normally struggling would be a given, so half vote for the obvious thing and struggle.

[SGamerz]

I waited an additional day to see if we could get a clear advantage, but it looks like we'll have to make do with a half-vote would determining the winner: not struggling wins.

If your POWER score is 14 or more, turn to 49; otherwise, turn to 20.

Our starting POWER was higher than that, and it's only gone up since.

You know the virtue of staying within a dream, however strange or lethal it may appear: after all, it is happening in your mind, so you can come to little actual harm. Although the dream is frightening, you manage to stay asleep. When your eyes are pierced, it is true that you are blinded to that dream world, but instead your eyes are opened to another world, and the dream abruptly changes.

Not having high enough POWER means we wake from the dream entirely as normal people would from such nightmares. Struggling would have led to the same result, only slightly worse because our real world body start tossing and turning and cause us to fall out of the tree for some damage in the process.

You are standing alone on the plain; you know, in your dream, that it has taken you years to get here. The plain stretches without features to the horizon in all directions. Will you wait to see what happens, or start walking.

Watch or walk?

[JourneymanN00b]

Start walking. Our hero has had enough staying still from the last dream.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Though our body be idle, let our mind wander far.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Walk.

[SGamerz]

Since there are no features to make one direction more attractive than another, it takes a surprising amount of will to start walking. But no sooner have you made that effort of will than things change drastically. You are standing in a clear spot - the eye of the storm - while all around you rages the most terrible storm, as if the gods themselves were at war, or the sky were trying to separate from the earth. The storm seems to be pressing in towards you. Will you run for your life or stay where you are?

Go back to staying still? Or do we want more exercise by trying to outrun a storm?

[Thaluikhain]

If we are surrounded by a storm, we can;t run except to run into it. Suggest staying still.

[angelfromanotherpin]

How many choices in this book are do something vs nothing?

This time nothing.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Stay still.

[JourneymanN00b]

Stay where we are, of course. Running into the storm is suicide.

[SGamerz]

While you watch in amazement from the clear spot, the chaos of the storm subsides a bit and you begin to be able to make out certain distinct features. Arrayed from right to left in front of you are three types of storm: lightning flashes on your half-right, rain lashes down directly in front of you, and an immense hurricane is boiling up to your half-left. You spin around to find exactly the same arrangement. While you look on in awe, a feeling of great calm descends on you, but it is the calm of sloth. At the same time you know, as if a voice had spoken inside you, that the eye of the storm is formed by wind, water and fire in this way. Gain 2 POWER points and turn to 253.

POWER is now at 19!

You wake up. While you were dreaming, you had a feeling of certainty, invincibility and knowledge. But when you are full awake, that feeling is gone; although you remember the details of the dream, you are uncertain what it means or what it could have to do with your quest. You judge from the night sky that dawn is still a couple of hours away. Will you go back to sleep or resume your journey?

Does Dickolaus need more beauty sleep?

[JourneymanN00b]

Go back to bed. Maybe we can restore more STAMINA points or get some more dream clues.

[Queen of Swords]

Since we already got a boost from sleeping, we might not benefit from more. So... vote for resuming the journey.

[Thaluikhain]

Traveling the scary forest at night seems unwise, back to sleep and see if we dream up something useful.

[SGamerz]

For a while nothing happens. Then you see the most bizarre and unrealistic series of images. You are standing in the middle of a sort of ravine, whose sides are made out of...well, you suppose they are buildings of some sort, since many weirdly dressed humans are coming and going through the doors. But you cannot even begin to guess what stone the buildings are made of; they are filled with unnatural light as well, but the worst thing is that they tower to the sky and threaten to fall on everyone's heads. You shout to the strange people to run, but it soon becomes clear that they can neither see nor hear you. You can see, but cannot hear; you are surrounded by rush, but it all takes place in eerie silence.

Then a new horror becomes apparent. The smooth path you are standing on is suddenly filled by dozens of monsters. They are made out of metal and glass, it seems, and move at a terrifying speed. Each of them has at least one of the humans in it, who are obviously prisoners, and often have grim, tortured expressions on their faces.

You wake up from this nightmare; you can bear no more of it. Is this some other world altogether, or is this to be the future of Titan? Is the earth to be controlled by metal monsters, with humans for slaves? And where were Elves, Dwarfs and other races? You find tears springing to your eyes in fear for your race, for you know that no Elf could live in such a place. But now you are awake, you must get on with your mission.

Ok, that horrifying scene can't possibly be a view of "some other world". That must have been one of those prophetic dreams which foreshadows what would happen if the world gets conquered by Ishtra, since only a Demon Prince can possibly have a warped, twisted enough imagination to manufacture a terrible world like that. No way any sane mind could have created such a world by design. If it really is some other world, it must be one already ruled by demons, or worse. Let's hope we never have to live in a world like that!

You have to decide about what direction to take. You know from your experiences yesterday that west is roughly the right direction, so you must choose between northwest or southwest.

Which way do we go now?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Southwest is the leftest available direction.

[JourneymanN00b]

Hmm ... southwest is getting a little too close to the culture and connotations of the Deep South. I vote to go northwest, as that is the purest left direction in my opinion.

[Queen of Swords]

Completely random choice, so I tossed a coin. Go northwest, young man...er, elf.

[Thaluikhain]

Would vote for south west, but that'd result in a tie, so half vote for southwest.

Oh, and that dream sequence. Did anyone ever think that sort of thing was clever? Outside of writers, that is?

[SGamerz]

Northwest wins by half a vote...

In the mid-morning of this further day of travel through Affen Forest, you enter a valley, formed by sheer crags towering on either side. The tops of the crags are wooded, but there are fewer trees on the floor of the valley. As soon as you enter it, you feel that this is a special spot - but special to whom and for what reason, you do not know. Will you cast a Finding spell, to see what that tells you, or will you preserve your POWER and either continue through the valley or retreat out of it and find another route northwest?

Forest opportunity to use a spell! Spend the POWER? Enter the valley or not?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Cast a spell!

[Queen of Swords]

Sure, let's try a spell.

[JourneymanN00b]

Sure, cast the Finding spell and find out what is so special about this spot.

[Thaluikhain]

Use magic, that being part of the appeal of this book.