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

[SGamerz]

What is even more surprising is that when you approach the deer, it does not run away. It merely looks up at you and continues munching. But all too soon you realize that this is not surprising at all: the deer is actually a Shapechanger! As is the way with its kind, when you are within range its greed gets the better of it and it is revealed in its true, hideous form. What you thought was the placid munching of the deer turns out to be the monster's forked tongue licking its lips in anticipation! The Shapechanger hurls itself at you; its wicked claws are poised to rake your flesh. If you have a companion, turn to 396; other wise, turn to 307.

The Shapechanger probably ties with the Bloodbeast as the most well-known cover monsters created by FF, both of them often being cited as a top reason why several readers have bought FF3 and FF6 as a result. Though the artwork here differs quite a bit from the more popular one on the cover of FF3:

And yes, that Wild Man could have joined us as a companion if we hadn't killed him earlier....

The Shapechanger's insatiable greed lends fury to its onslaught. This fight will test your skill.

SHAPECHANGER SKILL 10 STAMINA 10

If you win, turn to 146.

COMBAT LOG:

Shapechanger 19, DVS 19. Tie.
SC 18, DVS 19. SC is at 8.
SC 19, DVS 21. SC is at 6.
SC 12, DVS 22. SC is at 4.
SC 18, DVS 23. SC is at 2.
SC 14, DVS 23. SC is killed.

Despite this being statistically the toughest monster we've faced so far, we actually got through this fight with a rare flawless victory!

However, there's no reward to this fight. The next section just moves us ahead to the same one as if we didn't stop to investigate the deer, so yes, this was just a simple trap option, and the deer was better left alone.

Late in the afternoon, you are resting against the trunk of a rotten tree. You are convinced that you are close to your goal. The feeling of oppression weights down on you like a physical force, but you have more direct evidence than that. Chaos is beginning to taint the forest. You have seen a two-headed weasel scurrying through the putrid leaf mould; you have seen ivy with a trunk as thick as an ancient oak; and at one point the ground itself heaved underneath you - you didn't wait to see what caused it!

Suddenly the tree you are leaning against gapes and tries to engulf you; but you leap away from it in time. That puts paid to your plan of resting before the final push towards your goal: you are not going to stop for anything now. You pick up your backpack....and freeze! A guttural call disturbed a raven from its branch, and the call was answered by another behind you - and another, and another! You are surrounded, and you don't yet know by what or whom. If you have a companion, turn to 323; otherwise, turn to 229.

This, unlike the previous one, is a mandatory encounter, and it's here where we really see the major downside to having killed that potential companion earlier.....

It soon becomes clear what you are up against. A raiding party of six Dark Elves is closing in on you, flitting from tree to tree. As soon as you see them, your Wood Elf blood boils. These warped Elves mock the goodness of the other Elven races; this scum deserve to die. Will you stand and fight, or run to try to break through their ever decreasing circle?

Considering the long-established traditional animosity/hatred between Wood Elves and Dark Elves, its actually somewhat curious that the PC didn't immediately recognize what he was facing upon hearing that "guttural call". Surely if any other race can recognize Dark Elf language, it's Wood Elves....

Fight or run?

[Darth Rabbitt]

6 on 1 is typically a death sentence in Fighting Fantasy, so run.

[JourneymanN00b]

My vote is to run to try to break through their ever decreasing circle, like Burt Stanton did. Taking on six Dark Elves at once is suicide.

[Thaluikhain]

However, there's no reward to this fight. The next section just moves us ahead to the same one as if we didn't stop to investigate the deer, so yes, this was just a simple trap option, and the deer was better left alone.

Oh I don't know, 5 years after The Thing, fighting that monster is sorta cool.

...

Anyhoo, run away from Dark Elves who could be more Thing inspired shapeshifters.

[Queen of Swords]

We could have had an axe crazy Wild Man as our companion? Damn, we missed out.

But anyway, run.

[SGamerz]

This is your best course of action: it will enable you to have a running battle with your opponents, rather than face them all at once. The rules for this running battle are as follows. Fight each Dark Elf in turn. If the combat with the first Dark Elf lasts longer than four Attack Rounds, the second Dark Elf will have reached you, and will have free strikes against you for however many rounds it takes to finish off the first one. When you have finished off the first Dark Elf, turn to fight the second; the third will then have free strikes against you, if you fail to defeat the second within four rounds. Any free strikes against you will reduce your STAMINA by the usual 2 points. Continue this procedure until you have defeated all six Dark Elves - or until they have defeated you!

First DARK ELF SKILL 8 STAMINA 6
Second DARK ELF SKILL 7 STAMINA 6
Third DARK ELF SKILL 7 STAMINA 8
Fourth DARK ELF SKILL 8 STAMINA 7
Fifth DARK ELF SKILL 6 STAMINA 6
Sixth DARK ELF SKILL 6 STAMINA 8

If you win, turn to 392.

Actually not as bad as it could have been, since no more than 1 Dark Elf can have free strikes against you at a time. If the rule were "after every 4 rounds a new Dark Elf joins in and starts getting free strikes" it would be a lot worse. At least none of them have high SKILL, so DVS with his SKILL of 12 has a pretty fair chance despite the numbers disadvantage.

And yes, as expected, fighting them directly is a straight Game Over.

COMBAT LOG:

Dark Elf#1 18, DVS 19. DE1 is at 4.
DE1 19, DVS 19. Tie.
DE1 14, DVS 17. DE1 is at 2.
DE1 18, DVS 19. DE1 is killed.
DE2 17, DVS 21. DE2 is at 4.
DE2 13, DVS 21. DE2 is at 2.
DE2 17, DVS 19. DE2 is killed.
DE3 14, DVS 17. DE3 is at 6.
DE3 15, DVS 18. DE3 is at 4.
DE3 15, DVS 22. DE3 is at 2.
DE3 14, DVS 18. DE3 is killed.
DE4 18, DVS 16. DVS is at 15.
DE4 12, DVS 22. DE4 is at 5.
DE4 16, DVS 21. DE4 is at 3.
DE4 17, DVS 15. DVS is at 13. DE5 joins the fight.
DE4 12, DVS 19. DE4 is at 1. DE5 gets a free strike and DVS is at 11.
DE4 11, DVS 16. DE4 is killed. DE5 gets a free strike and DVS is at 9.
DE5 17, DVS 18. DE5 is at 4.
DE5 16, DVS 21. DE5 is at 2.
DE5 9, DVS 15. DE5 is killed.
DE6 16, DVS 18. DE6 is at 6.
DE6 11, DVS 18. DE6 is at 4.
DE6 16, DVS 22. DE6 is at 2.
DE6 18, DVS 16. DVS is at 7.
DE6 11, DVS 15. DE6 is killed.

The 4th Dark Elf gave some trouble by stubbornly staying alive for 2 more rounds than he should and forcing DVS to eat some free strikes, but the Defender-Shaman of the Tribe comes out on top. STAMINA is a little on the low side, so I'd have him consume a meal immediately and bring it up to 11.

Add 2 LUCK points for surviving this extremely dangerous encounter with the Dark Elves. You also gain a disguise: since you reckon that there will be many of Ishtra's troops underground, you don the clothing of a Dark Elf. Not long afterwards, but after night-fall, you come to the entrance to Ishtra's pit. It is not what you expected. Two grand pillars of ivory flank the mouth of a tunnel, which slopes underground and is lit by guttering torches on the walls. Your dream was being symbolic, not literal, when it showed you a collapsed pit. These are probably natural tunnels which Ishtra has taken over and restored. You draw a deep breath, let it out slowly and step through the Gate of Ivory. A flock of bats, disturbed by your presence, flap noisily out into the night.

LUCK is back to full.

As soon as you step between the pillars, your trained sixth sense picks up an important feature of Ishtra's underground domain: this is a place where the dream world and the real world overlap. You can travel through these tunnels in either world. Thus throughout this final lap of your adventure, you could try to get to Ishtra entirely in the dream world, or entirely in the real world, or you could flip from one world to the other. Most remarkably, when you travel in the dream world in Ishtra's domain, your physical body moves too. It is not like being asleep, when your body remains in the same place; it is rather that, even though you are actually walking along, your awareness is only of the dream world - you are like a sleep-walker.

Apart from the different adventures the two worlds offer, it should be noted that there are advantages and disadvantages to them both. For instance, you cannot expect to acquire physical artefacts in the dream world; on the other hand, while you are in the dream world, your physical body is invisible (but not immaterial) in the real world. It should also be noted that when you cross from the dream world to the real world, you may be disorientated and not know exactly where you are in the tunnels.

Whenever a 'real-word' paragraph is marked by *, you can choose to flip to the dream world by subtracting 20 from the paragraph number and turning to that new reference. Whenever a 'dream-world' paragraph is marked by #, you can choose to flip to the real world by adding 50 to the paragraph number and turning to that new reference. You can flip from one world to the other in this way whatever other choices the paragraph offers. You will be offered the opportunity to flip only when it is feasible to do so. For now, you step cautiously down the tunnel ahead of you.

Since STAMINA is still rather low, another meal is consumed here (unless there are objections) to bring it up to 15.

And the very next section we come to has an '*' in it....

*

You come to a fork in the tunnel. At the point where two passages meet yours, a large stone statue faces you, which you recognizes as a Crio-Sphinx, a ram-headed sphinx. As soon as you draw near, portcullises slam down to block off the ways onward, and the Crio-Sphinx speaks in a stone-cold voice: "The left route leads further, the right to sudden death." You know that Sphinxes' words are never quite what they see. Will you take the path to your left or to your right?

Apparently, the Crio-Sphinx also holds to the belief that Left is always Right.....

.....but do we, this time?

Or do we try avoid the whole issue by finding out what happens if we shift to the dream world?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Dickolaus Von Scrotunheim
SKILL 12/12
STAMINA 15/19
LUCK 10/10
POWER: 21
Equipment: Telessa (sword), Leather Armor, Backpack, Water Flask, Potion of Strength (restores STAMINA to Initial value), Wild Boar's tusks, Antler-horn (12 branches), Elder Tree Branch (22 branches in the tree)
Provisions: 3

[JourneymanN00b]

First of all, I have no objections to the Provisions being consumed. It is how I would have played that. Second of all, the "Sphinx's words are never quite what they seem", makes me very suspicious of the Crio-Sphinx's words "The left route leads further, the right leads to sudden death." Meaning if we were to go to our left, a "fuck you" ending almost certainly would be the end result.

So, it is with great reluctance that I vote to take the path to DVS' right. *Shudders at taking the fascist route*

[Thaluikhain]

We can try to solve the riddle, or use our new dream ability which is one of the gimmick for this book. I vote dream.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I will bet anything that the first chance to use that ability is a trap for the over-eager. Go right. 'Sudden death' isn't necessarily our death, while 'leads further' doesn't mean 'further towards our goal.'

[Darth Rabbitt]

Go right, since "sudden death" + "never quite what they seem" probably means it's the way to go.

[Queen of Swords]

Well, if the Sphinx's words are never quite what they seem... right. *braces for impact*

[SGamerz]

You think that the trick in the Sphinx's words is that, since it is facing you, what is left from its point of view is right from yours, so you approach the tunnel to your right. The portcullis rises, you step under it with bated breath...and proceed down the tunnel. You are safe, for the moment. There is the tramp of marching feet up ahead, but the sound is getting fainter. You will not have to test your disguise immediately.

The tunnel ends at a large well-lit cavern; there are several other tunnels leading off the cavern. While you wait and watch, a company of Orcs emerges from one tunnel, crosses the cavern and goes down another tunnel. You watch for ten more minutes, and two more patrols pass through the cavern. There is a large pile of ancient bones close to one wall of the cavern. Will you go over to them or carry on watching?

Turns out that there was a quite literal interpretation of the Crio-Sphinx's words after all. Left is still Right, but only from its point of view!

"Sudden death" on the Crio-Sphinx's right is quite literally the PC's death as he gets crushed by falling portcullis. There is even an * that allows players to try to escape into the dream world only to be told that dreaming here only makes them invisible, not immaterial, so they still get crushed!

Trying to get into the dream world without responding to the Crio-Sphinx's riddle doesn't kill us, but it's a dead end option, since our bodies are still too material to pass through either of the portcullis.

Are we interested in ancient dead remains?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Ancient bones are going to be either undead or loot. We have no need to get into fights with the former and are pretty good on the latter so let's keep watching the Orcs.

[Thaluikhain]

Huh, that makes sense.

Anyways, watch.

[JourneymanN00b]

Go over to the pile of ancient bones. Surely there is something useful to be found in them dry bones, right?

[Queen of Swords]

Three patrols have passed by already, so let's take a chance that there won't be a fourth. Go over to the bones.

[SGamerz]

Votes are still tied 2-2....

[Darth Rabbitt]

I'll change my vote in favor of checking the bones.

[SGamerz]

Once you are fairly well hidden behind the bones, you start to wonder what they are doing there. They are too old to be the refuse of the tunnels' present occupants. You see cloven skulls and other signs that these people did not die peacefully in their sleep; you also see that the skeletons are mainly human.

It dawns on you that these must be the remains of a force that fought against the legions of Evil in the Great war which ravaged Khul centuries ago. In the past these tunnels have seen bloody combat. It heartens you that these underground warrens were once home to such heroes; maybe there are traces of Good left in this nest of Evil. It could be worth you while to explore a bit. Add 1 LUCK point and turn to 84.

Our LUCK was already full, though.....

*

You cannot stay here for ever. You can easily find a time when the cavern is empty of patrols to enter one of the other tunnels, but which one? There are four to choose between, not counting the one you have recently come from, and by now you have seen patrols either emerging from or entering all four tunnels.

While you are pondering the matter, two patrols emerge from two of the tunnels and go down the other two. You reckon that the tunnels they have just come from are now likely to be more clear. Will you take the northern tunnel or the western one?

Which way to go now?

Note that there is an asterisk for this section so we have the additional option of flipping into dream world.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Dream it up!

[Thaluikhain]

Try the dream option.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Dream.

[Queen of Swords]

Perchance to dream.

[JourneymanN00b]

Enter the dream world!

[SGamerz]

The view before you twists and heaves. Is it the entrails of some immense monster or the coils of a serpent? And then, while you watch, it changes again into a sinister landscape of wild country with waterways running through it. It strikes you that what you see here parallels the real world of tunnels, but on a much larger scale: a narrow tunnel becomes a wide river; the solid rock between tunnels becomes bizarre and bloated countryside. While the dream world retains this much similarity to the real world, you had better choose which way to go. Will you follow a river which runs west, east, north or north-east?

As the text states, the 4 directions probably corresponds with the 4 tunnels in the real world, except while in the dream world we have the option to take one of the 2 tunnels that we presumed are more likely to be occupied (and hence could not pick those while in the real world). Now our options are expanded.

Which way now?