The Gaming Den

Blackness...The sound of marching feet...The musty odour of decay. Somewhere in the void which envelops you, a voice cries out. The pounding feet fade away and sparks swim before your eyes. Nausea grips you. You double up; your head thumps against stone. The numbness retreats from your limbs and, as your senses return, you feel the cold stone slabs which entomb you. You panic, flailing desperately. Your hands strike the slab above you and a flash sears your vision. As your sight returns, you see the lid of your sarcophagus hurtle upwards. It smashes against a high ceiling and disintegrates, raining stone shards and dust down upon you. Silence descends.

You drag yourself out and collapse weakly. You are in a round, high-domed chamber, festooned with rich tapestries and glittering ornaments, each carefully stacked and ordered. A faint golden radiance suffuses the treasure, dimly illuminating the chamber. The sumptuous marble floor is shot through with black veins, but its perfect surface is flawed by a series of fine cracks. Along one of these a thin rivulet of crimson seeps across the dust towards you. You look up. A broken body lies among the rubble, a trickle of blood oozing from its head. You back away, scrabbling across the marble to the base of your tomb. Beyond it is another identical sarcophagus, but you are too bewildered to pay any attention to it. Tracing your hand over the carved surface of your own tomb, you struggle to make sense of the weird designs covering it. But their significance eludes you, leaving you with only the vaguest feeling of recognition. The whole chamber seems filled with echoes of your past, but their meaning is lost to you- All you are left with is a terror which grips your innards and gnaws at your mind.

Something makes a noise. You tum towards the sound, grasping the lip of the sarcophagus for support. Just as you are struggling to focus, the crushed body twitches. Then a silvery snout pokes out from behind it and a pair of startled eyes meet yours. Shaken into action, you pull yourself to your feet. Will you:

Attack the silvery creature?
Approach cautiously?
Retreat to the other sarcophagus?

(As you can see, this one starts you in medias res. No, I didn't cut out the normal character creation process--it's not here. However, for the benefit of anyone who hasn't read or participated in a Fighting Fantasy Let's Play before, I'll attach the standard rules in a...currently not functioning...spoiler.)

[spoiler=Rules]
Combat
SKILL and STAMINA scores are given in the text for each adversary that you face.

The combat sequence is then:
1. Roll two dice for your opponent. Add the total rolled to its SKILL score. This is the Attack Strength of your enemy.
2. Roll two dice and add the total to your own current SKILL score. This is your Attack Strength.
3. If your Attack Strength is the higher, you have wounded your opponent: deduct 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA..
If your opponent's Attack Strength is higher, it has wounded you: deduct 2 points from your own STAMINA.
If both Attack Strengths are equal, you have avoided each other's blows.
4. Begin the next Combat Round, starting again at step 1. This procedure continues until either you or your opponent has a STAMINA score of zero. If your opponent's STAMINA score reaches zero, you have killed it and can continue with your adventure. If your own STAMINA score reaches zero, you are dead.

Often you will have to fight more than one opponent at a time. Sometimes you will treat them as a single opponent; at others, you will be able to fight them one at a time; and sometimes all of them will be able to attack you, while you defend yourself and may attack only one of them. Specific instructions will be given whenever you meet more than one opponent.

Using Luck in Combat

You can use your LUCK in combat to inflict a particularly serious wound, or to minimize a wound that has been inflicted on you.

Whenever you wound an opponent, you may Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you have inflicted a severe wound: deduct an extra 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA. If you are Unlucky, you have merely grazed it, and you deduct 1 point less than normal from its STAMINA.

If you have been wounded, you can Test your Luck in exactly the same way. If you are Lucky, the wound upon you was only a glancing blow and you can deduct 1 less point of STAMINA than usual. If you are Unlucky, the wound is serious: deduct 1 extra point from your STAMINA.

Eating a Meal restores up to 4 points of STAMINA; you may only eat one Meal at a time. In this book you may eat whenever not in combat. You start with no Meals.[/spoiler]

Approach cautiously.

Ooof. Black Vein Prophecy. That book has its share of problems, but its story is compelling. I was actually considering running that book in the distant future, but I unfortunately do not have a copy with me at this moment. As a result, I forgot a lot about this story, including what the hero is supposed to do.

Anyway, I vote to retreat to the other sarcophagus.

Approach cautiously.

Approach.

And yeah, not played this, but this book has a certain infamy.

The silver-furred creature eyes you suspiciously as you approach. Its long snout twitches at you, sniffing you out. You observe that a leather cord
attached to its collar tethers it to the wrist of its dead master. Warily, you examine the corpse. The man is dressed simply, but his leather jerkin is fitted with pouches and pockets, all bulging with gems and small jewellery. A long, blunt, pocket knife is gripped in one hand; a gem-encrusted tiara lies, centimetres from the other. You realize that he must have been killed by a vicious blow from behind, his murderer having caught him by surprise. You flinch involuntarily and scan the darkness for his killer.

Leave the chamber now?
Have another look at your sarcophagus?

Peer at our sarcophagus for clues.

I vote to have another look at the sarcophagus for possible items and clues.

Look at sarcophagus.

The morbid glyphs on your tomb exert a strange fascination. Without thinking you begin to trace the rough contours of these symbols. With the numbness gone, you pick up the faintest tremor: there is meaning and energy in the glyphs, but despite that familiarity you cannot unlock these forces. Reluctantly you draw your hand away from the stone face and furn around. You meet the reverent gazes of a hundred robed figures. The chamber is filled with a silent retinue. At their head a hawk-nosed man fixes you with a penetrating stare. He opens his mouth to speak.

You stagger as the chamber shakes. Chips of rock rain down and you cower from them, shielding your face. There is a popping in your ears and a dull ache builds in your temples. When you look up, you are alone once more. The chamber shakes again and at your feet a crack in the marble begins to widen. You dodge fist-sized chunks of stone as they crash to the ground. Pressure grips you; breathing becomes hard and your heart beats wildly.

Jump back into your sarcophagus?
Flee the chamber?

There's no shelter in a lidless sarcophagus, and even if there were, we'd probably just be buried alive. Flee!

I vote to flee the chamber.

Agreed, let's flee the chamber.

The terrible pressure on your head threatens to engulf you as you force your way out of the chamber, barely able to keep your eyes open. You pass through a small opening and the pressure eases, but you stagger on. You crash into something hard and clutch your knee in pain. Your sight returns in time for you to see a smooth, white, human figure toppling over. It hits the ground and cracks open like a hollow eggshell. A skull rolls out of it and away into the chamber. You look up.

Before you stand row upon row of smooth, white, motionless figures. Each holds a simple spear but wears no armour. The low ceiling of the enormous chamber adds to the feeling of oppression, and you step cautiously between the serried ranks. The sensation of pressure increases once more, and the white statues tremble faintly, producing a hollow ringing noise. You notice the familiar traceries of cracks appearing in the marble floor and a haze of dust wafting down from the ceiling.

Hurry through the chamber to the far end?
Stop to examine the white statues more closely?

With the statues trembling and cracks appearing everywhere, I think it's a strong indication that we need to hurry through before the whole building collapses on us.

I vote to hurry though the chamber to the far end, as sticking around is just asking to get killed.

I think the risk is worth it for the potential of precious information. Examine!

I think we should GTFO.

Your head is swimming, but you still have your sight as you race between the silent white statues. In your haste, you send half a dozen toppling and they smash on the marble floor, scattering their bony contents.

At the end of the chamber is a pair of huge doors, which you heave open. Just beyond them is a huge, red wax barrier, sealing the archway. A circular hole large enough for you to climb through has been burned through. The familiar pain nags at you once more. Behind you there is a creaking, rustling sound.

Turn to see what is making the noise?
Squeeze through the opening?

I vote to squeeze through the opening, as looking back has never been good for the hero traditionally.

We probably just heard some pillar creaking right before it's going to fall on top of us. Continue to GTFO.

Yes, get out of there.

Keep escaping.

Beyond the wax seal you find yourself in darkness. The pain in your temples recedes, and you pause briefly to catch your breath. Tentatively you edge forward, arms outstretched. Just as your eyes begin to accustom themselves, a brilliant flare of colour bursts from the blackness. It dies away, but in the fading light you can see that the rough floor is pockmarked. An acrid smell reaches your nostrils as the glow dissipates.

Press on into the darkness?
Wait by the entrance?

Wait by the entrance... for what? Another flare of color to appear?

Press on.