The road eventually leaves the plain and enters a valley which narrows quite quickly into a high walled gorge. The road, previously so straight, now begins to twist and turn, and it, too, narrows.
You turn a corner and almost walk into three burly men with short swords moving in the opposite direction. Their leader, a villainous-looking individual whose face hasn't seen the touch of a razor for at least a week, looks you up and down, then turns to grin at this companions.
'Wot 'ave we 'ere, lads?' he asks. 'A young traveller, is it? And one wiv a fine sword to boot, wot any one of us might be proud to own, eh?'
'I warn you, sirrah, keep your hands off Excalibur Junior!' you exclaim proudly, recognizing these vagabonds for the brigands they are.
"'Ere that, lads,' grins the leader. 'This one thinks to give us trouble!'
At which point all three begin to giggle.
Only one way to get past these louts, Pip, and that's to teach them a severe lesson: like death. If you elect to fight, each Brigand has 15 LIFE POINTS, hits on 5 or better and does +2 damage with the short sword. You will have to slaughter all three of them before you can continue north at 79. All three belong to the Brigand's Union and are consequently immune to a Friendly Reaction, even if magically induced. Fooling them in any way will not work either, by reason of their experience: even if you were to feign death, they will not let you pass. In short, the only way north is to kill them.
But there's nothing stopping you running back south, of course, since you're faster than they are and will easily escape. If you do so, you will eventually reach the fork in the road where you can go south at 37, south west at 70 or examine the hanging corpse at 10.
The fight isn't impossible, but because Pip is at low LP right now it's still dangerous.
Do we want to fight? And do we want to use the Sleep Globe if we do?
If we don't fight, then our options are:
1) backtrack, then south and take the cattle track
2) backtrack and check the corpse
3) backtrack, then northwest and take the probably-impossible 25-on-1 fight because we don't have the Right of Passage Token
4) Go to Merlin's house and see if there're equipment available
QUEST JOURNAL:
Pip's LIFE POINTS: 16/51
Permanent Life Points: 15
EQUIPMENT CARRIED:
Excalibur Junior (hits on 4, damage +5)
Sleep-globe (puts x enemies to sleep for 12/x rounds)
Yarrow
Small golden disc
Scrap of parchment ("ZMXRVMG OLIV HVVP GSV TRZMGH WZMXV TLOW WRHX ZXGREZGVH")
EXPERIENCE POINTS: 4
ENEMIES DEFEATED: 1
3 Peasants
PUZZLES SOLVES:
No. of Deaths:
None yet