[Let's Play] ACE Gamebooks - Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu - What Dreams May Come

[Beroli]

Stand and fight.

[deaddmwalking]

149

“Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war!” you declare as the inhuman hunters emerge from the broken tombs to surround you.

If you want to use The Pen is Mightier special ability, cross off one use and turn to 209. If not, turn to 129.

[Thaluikhain]

Use The Pen is Mightier.

[Beroli]

Use The Pen is Mightier.

[deaddmwalking]

209

An eerie howl echoes across the cliff-top and the creatures encircling you suddenly all look towards the source of the sound. Then, a moment later, accompanied by a chorus of yelps and guttural growls, they lope away into the encroaching night, vanishing between the broken tombs, no doubt returning to the subterranean tunnels beneath the charnel stones from whence they first came. You have no intention of following them and head, at speed, in the direction of the castle instead.

However, as you are setting off, your eyes fall upon one tomb that has fallen in on itself. Among the mouldering bones that lie within, you can see what appears to be a scroll of ancient vellum.

The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl, and spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves is fast approaching. If you want to stop and retrieve the scroll to take a closer look, turn to 152. If you would rather leave well enough alone, turn to 132.

[Beroli]

Take the scroll.

[Thaluikhain]

Take the scroll.

[deaddmwalking]

152

You unroll the scroll and discover that it is covered in an unintelligible cuneiform script as well as curious glyphs. But now you have it in your hands, you feel an inexplicable compulsion to keep hold of it. “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool,” you say to yourself, unable as you are to make head nor tail of the strange writing.

Record the Pnakotic Scroll on your Adventure Sheet and gain 1 Madness point, then turn to 132.

132

The more recent burials are contained within the boundary wall of a formal graveyard. You can see an old grave-digger, with a crooked back, shovelling the earth from a rectangular hole in the ground. As he does so, he sings to himself:

“A pickaxe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.”

If you want to stop and speak with him, turn to 172. If you would rather keep going for the castle without delaying further, turn to 225.

William Shakespeare
Agility: 10 [10]
Combat: 10 [11*] (includes +1 from sword)
Endurance: 15 [15]
Madness: 4
Meals: 0
Where There's a Will: 3 [4]
The Pen is Mightier: 3 [3]
Props: Doublet & Hose, Quill, Manuscript, Breastplate (50% chance to reduce damage by 1 point), Sword, Cloak, Pack, Pnakotic Scroll
Stage Directions Obtained: An Evil Sign; Fortune's Fool; Graves All Gaping Wide; Guilty Mind; Star-Cross'd; Strange Fellow;
Stage Directions Possible to Acquire: A Flattering Tongue; A Most Exquisite Lady; An Armed Head; Book of Riddles; Cunning Man; Double, Double Toil and Trouble; Dreadful Minister; Exit, Pursued by a Bear; Fell and Wrath; Foul Fiend; Give No Words But Mum; Give't to thy Crone; Good Mother; His Commandment; Horned Man; Ignoble Traitor; Instinct is a Great Matter; Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?; King of Infinite Space; Knavish Sprite; Maiden Pilgrimage; Murder Most Foul; My Honour'd Lady; My Verse Astonished; Prince of Cats; Servant-Monster; Speak the Speech; The Charmed Pot; The Ides of March; The Spirit of Banquo; The Worst Rank of Manhood; Unspeakable Deserts; Yellow Gold; Yellow Hue; Yellow Melancholy; Yellow Sands

[Thaluikhain]

Half vote to stop and speak.

[Beroli]

Speak to the gravedigger.

[deaddmwalking]

172

“What man dost thou dig it for?” you ask, peering into the half-excavated grave.

“For no man, sir,” the grave-digger says.

“What woman, then?”

“For none, neither.”

“Who is to be buried in’t?” you press him.

“One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.”

As he thrusts his spade into the claggy earth once more, it rings as it strikes something that isn’t mud. Bending down he tugs an object from the earth.

“Here’s a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years,” he says, tossing it to you.

You catch it deftly. “Whose was it?”

“A whoreson mad fellow’s it was. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a’ poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.”

“This skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once,” you observe, holding it up and staring into its empty eye-sockets. “Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment?”

(If you want to take Yorick’s Skull with you, record it on your Adventure Sheet.)

Bidding farewell to the sexton, you set off once more for the castle. Turn to 225.

225

You join the cavalcade of people passing through the barbican of the castle, doubly portcullis’d with black iron. You are not really sure why you have come here, but perhaps someone in authority will be able to aid you in your quest to return to England.

Beyond the gatehouse you enter the outer ward of Elsinore, where all visitors are corralled before being admi􀀪ed to the inner ward by the soldiers on duty here. The cobbles of the courtyard are filthy with straw and horse manure, while stacks of barrels, crates, oilcloth and rope lie stacked up in every corner.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are here, patiently waiting their turn to be processed, as is a troupe of players, dressed in their pied clothes, accompanied by tumblers, nimble jugglers, and a fire-eater. The entertainers are practising their art even now, eliciting laughter and applause from those gathered within the courtyard and even the occasional gasp of wonder.

How do you want to pass the time while you are waiting to be admitted?

Talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Turn to 207.

Parleying with the travelling players? Turn to 193.

In silence in your own company? Turn to 238.

******************
In addition to deciding your action, please decide whether you are keeping the skull.

If it helps, in the play, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were once friends of Hamlet's, but are now in service to his uncle, the current king, who killed Hamlet's father and usurped his throne, as depicted in the Lion King. In the play they take Hamlet to England bearing a letter for his execution, but Hamlet replaces the letter with one instructing the king of England to kill them, instead, and he escapes back to Denmark where he later learns of their death. So while that might seem to indicate that they would be worth speaking with, in Hamlet, Hamlet also hires a troupe of actors to perform a play where a man murders another man using subterfuge (not quite as depicted in the Lion King) so as to force his uncle to recognize that his crime is known and force a confession/confrontation.

[Thaluikhain]

Take what, to the character, is a random dead guy's skull. Half vote for talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the hope of useful exposition beyond quotes from Hamlet.

[Beroli]

Abstain on taking the skull (creepy). Talk to the travelling players.

[deaddmwalking]

Rolling to decide between taking and leaving the skull (1-3, keep, 4-6 leave). Roll: 4 (leave)
Rolling to decide between talking to R & G (1-3) or the players (4-6). Roll: 1 (R & G)

207

Approaching the two noblemen you address them: “My excellent good friends… how do ye both?”

“As the indifferent children of the earth,” Rosencrantz replies.

“Happy, in that we are not over-happy,” groans Guildenstern. “On fortune’s cap we are not the very button.”

If you have the Stage Direction Graves All Gaping Wide ticked off, turn to 147. If not, what do you want to ask them while you are waiting, so as to make conversation?

Why they have come to Elsinore Castle? Turn to 187.

Who is it that sits upon the throne of Denmark at this time? Turn to 167.

******************
You have Graves All Gaping Wide.
******************

147

“The earth doth weep,” agrees Rosencrantz. “The world’s poor people are amazed at apparitions, signs and prodigies, whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed, infusing them with dreadful prophecies.”

Guildenstern looks pale. “’Tis said the soldiers, watching on the walls have seen a figure, like the King that’s dead, and at the dead hour, with martial stalk hath he gone by their watch.”

“In the most high and palmy state of Rome, a little ere the mightiest Julius fell, the graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,” says Rosencrantz.

“As harbingers preceding still the fates and prologue to the omen coming on,” says the other, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Turn to 134.

134

And then it is with no small sense of relief that you find yourself standing in front of the soldiers on duty at the entrance to the castle’s inner ward.

“State your name and your trade,” says a clerk, armed with a roll of parchment and a quill.

Which identity do you want to go with?

Antonio, a Venetian merchant? Turn to 181.

Doctor Cornelius, a physician? Turn to 191.

Will Shakespeare, an actor-turned-playwright? Turn to 201.

[Thaluikhain]

I think it best to be honest here, probably nobody wants to kill random English playwrights.

[Beroli]

Okay, be honest. And I abstained from voting on the skull, we should have it.

[deaddmwalking]

Okay, be honest. And I abstained from voting on the skull, we should have it.

Noted. I thought you were abstaining from taking it, not abstaining from voting on taking it.

201

“Ah, so you’re with them,” says the clerk, ushering you through along with the Players.

Not wanting to disabuse the man of that belief, you hurry into the inner ward before he can change his mind.

Turn to 211.

211

From the inner ward you enter the keep itself and, finding yourself in an impressive, stone entrance hall, follow the wide passageway as it leads deeper into the castle. Reaching a crossing of the ways, you almost bump into a dour-looking young man for his head is buried in a book. He is clad in the attire of a nobleman, but those same clothes are all black.

“What do you read, my lord?” you ask him.

“Words, words, words,” comes his distracted reply.

It is only then that he actually takes the time to look you up and down. “I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.” He seems to be talking to himself.

“Are you one of them?” he asks, suddenly animated. “Are you part of that merry company?”

How will you answer? In the affirmative (turn to 161), or in the negative (turn to 231)?

William Shakespeare
Agility: 10 [10]
Combat: 10 [11*] (includes +1 from sword)
Endurance: 15 [15]
Madness: 4
Meals: 0
Where There's a Will: 3 [4]
The Pen is Mightier: 3 [3]
Props: Doublet & Hose, Quill, Manuscript, Breastplate (50% chance to reduce damage by 1 point), Sword, Cloak, Pack, Pnakotic Scroll, skull
Stage Directions Obtained: An Evil Sign; Fortune's Fool; Graves All Gaping Wide; Guilty Mind; Star-Cross'd; Strange Fellow;
Stage Directions Possible to Acquire: A Flattering Tongue; A Most Exquisite Lady; An Armed Head; Book of Riddles; Cunning Man; Double, Double Toil and Trouble; Dreadful Minister; Exit, Pursued by a Bear; Fell and Wrath; Foul Fiend; Give No Words But Mum; Give't to thy Crone; Good Mother; His Commandment; Horned Man; Ignoble Traitor; Instinct is a Great Matter; Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?; King of Infinite Space; Knavish Sprite; Maiden Pilgrimage; Murder Most Foul; My Honour'd Lady; My Verse Astonished; Prince of Cats; Servant-Monster; Speak the Speech; The Charmed Pot; The Ides of March; The Spirit of Banquo; The Worst Rank of Manhood; Unspeakable Deserts; Yellow Gold; Yellow Hue; Yellow Melancholy; Yellow Sands

[Beroli]

No. We are not fae or ghosts. Should he mean mortals, the fact that we don't know who he's asking about means we're not that either.

[Thaluikhain]

That makes sense, but I wonder if the book is pushing us to pretend to be one of the actors, which he might mean by players.

[deaddmwalking]

*******
It might be worth keeping in mind that during the course of the play Hamlet was either insane or PRETENDING to be insane, so if his questions make no sense, that's probably to be expected.

231

The young man looks surprised and slightly disappointed. “Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.”

Then his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“I know the good king and queen have sent for you. Shall we to the court?”

How do you want to respond to this question?

“To what end, my lord?” Turn to 476.

“I’ll wait upon you.” Turn to 212.

[Beroli]

Say we'll wait upon him.

[Thaluikhain]

I would have preferred to ask to what end, but ok, I'll go with that.

[deaddmwalking]

212

The troubled youth leads you to a certain chamber and draws aside a heavy curtain. “My mother, Queen Gertrude,” he says in a hushed voice. He ushers you inside, but then promptly leaves.

You find yourself in a small audience chamber where, seated upon a carved oak chair, is a handsome woman, in her middle years, made gaunt and pale by worry, a worry that is betrayed by her gaze.

If you have the Stage Direction Give No Words But Mum ticked off, turn to 224. If not, turn to 239.

******************
You do not have that stage direction.
******************

239

“Who are you?” she asks imperiously. “Are you here to help my son, Prince Hamlet?”

How do you wish to reply?

“Pleaseth your highness, ay.” Turn to 164.

“No, your majesty.” Turn to 184.

[Thaluikhain]

Half vote to say ay.

[Beroli]

Tell her no.