[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 70 – Secrets of Salamonis

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes recognized; setting off after the Jib-Jib.

261
You soon lose sight of the running Jib-Jib, and it has stopped howling, so you have no idea where it has gone. Turn to 85.

85
Eventually the tunnel curves around and joins up with another – probably the one from the other branch you didn’t take. They become one tunnel again that soon ends abruptly on one side of a vast, natural fissure in the rock. The crevasse is spanned by a rickety rope bridge. Holding your torch high, you can just see that it links to another tunnel mouth on the other side. Standing on the other side of the bridge at the entrance to the other tunnel, you can just make out a figure. It is a man. He has a dishevelled appearance and a hunched posture, and he appears to be shaking.

Do you want to step out on to the bridge, with the intention of approaching the shivering man (turn to 112) or do you want to double back and follow the tunnels that brought you here and exit the mine (turn to 214)?

Please make your votes before 7:00 PM PDT or a choice receives 3 votes to guarantee that they will be counted.

[Beroli]

"Chase the Jib-Jib" and "follow the footsteps" was the same option. The only alternative was to leave the mine.

Approach the shivering man. Ideally with our weapon ready.

[deaddmwalking]

"Oh you poor, poor man! I'm a hero - I'll save you!"

Yes, let's approach him. I'm sure we'll live at least long enough to regret our noble gesture.

[SGamerz]

Approach the man, especially when the only alternative is to leave.

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes registered; stepping out on to the bridge with the intention of approaching the shivering man.

112
You are about to step on to the bridge when you see the flickering torchlight glint from the blade of a knife in the man’s hand. ‘Stay away!’ he shouts as he takes the knife to one of the ropes holding the bridge up. You change your mind pretty quickly then, but you are not out of danger yet. An ear-splitting shrieking sound suddenly echoes from one end of the crevasse. It is such a horrible sound it makes your heart race, and your own limbs start to shake! If you have some Beeswax, turn to 154. If not, turn to 134.

Lee Miles does not have some Beeswax.

134
The sound is like a cacophony of screams, but they are so loud and terrible and so inescapable that you feel like your ears could start to bleed at any moment, or that you will go mad if you have to listen to the discordant shrieking a moment longer! (Deduct 1 point from both your current SKILL and your Initial SKILL score.) And then the source of the terrible shrieking appears. Turn to 175.

175
Flying along the chasm towards you is a swarm of hideous creatures. At first glance they appear to be fish, with sharp piranha teeth, but they are carried through the cold cave air on ragged bat-like wings. What is even worse is that their eyes are milky white, as if blind, and you can see their bones through torn patches of skin where the scales are missing. These are the Shriekers that are feared by the people who live on the borders of the Trolltooth Pass, for whenever the screaming starts, bloodshed and madness are sure to follow.

Startled and terrified by the appearance of the foul, undead horrors, you do not feel you can take them on and so there is only one option left open to you. You must flee! However, as you do so, the Shriekers swoop down on their rotting wings and try to take chunks out of you with their viciously sharp teeth. Roll four dice. If the total rolled is equal to or less than your STAMINA score, turn to 195. However, if the total rolled is greater than your STAMINA score, turn to 212.

Rolling the dice yielded a 21, which is greater than Lee Miles’ Stamina score.

212
Fear drives you on, but the Shriekers soon catch up with you nonetheless. Roll one die and add 2 to the number rolled, then deduct the total from your STAMINA score. If you are still alive, as soon as you reach the better-lit tunnels closer to the entrance, the Shriekers break off their attack and return to the darkness. But you don’t stop running until you are back outside and bathed in sunlight. Turn to 214.

Rolling the die and applying the appropriate modification yielded an 8, which means that Lee Miles is *not* still alive after being attacked by the Shriekers, and his adventure thus ends here.

Bonus death entry:
As Lee Miles collapses from the many wounds that the Shriekers inflict on him, he screams in agony and despair. Excruciating pain fills his senses as the Shriekers’ teeth slowly remove his flesh with every bite. His last thoughts before being subjected to an eternity of torment and death were that he regretted leaving home for Salamonis and that he would gladly take that decision back and become a simple farmer instead with nothing to fear.

After five minutes, soon there is nothing left of Lee Miles but a scattered mess of broken bones.

Ouch. That was a seriously painful way for Lee Miles to go. Unfortunately for him, he made quite a few suboptimal choices that made surviving this adventure extremely difficult for him. The biggest mistake that was made were when Lee Miles did not go to the Slime and Swine Guttery when he had the chance to do so at the Grand Parade. By declining to take on that messy work, our hero missed the opportunity to get up to 4 Amonour points.

So, this brings us to the life lesson that this adventure can provide for everyone here: Taking the worst of jobs is often the only way to get forward in life. I took that lesson head on at the beginning of 2021, when I decided to take a night shift data entry job. Having failed to get any job in 2019 and 2020, I decided to perform this completely unskilled job to end my unemployment gap. After wallowing myself in the dispiriting nature of the job’s tasks and enduring health declines due to irregular sleep hours for seven months, being able to list this role allowed a future employer to see that I needed a chance and offered me a much better position with higher pay, better hours, and tasks that I was better suited towards accomplishing.

With that cringeworthy lecture out of the way, I hope to see all of you in my next Let’s Play, which will be Shadow of the Giants. The gameplay is somewhat decent and not a bad way to round out the entire Fighting Fantasy series. If I can get around the recurring 500 Internal Server Errors that are currently plaguing the website, I should have a new thread up for the book quite soon.

Adventure Sheet
Lee Miles
SKILL: 7 Initial Skill: 7
STAMINA: -1 Initial Stamina: 12
LUCK: 6 Initial Luck: 6
AMONOUR: 7
MONEY: 10 Salacoins = 1 Gold Piece
0 Gold Pieces
0 Salacoins
PROVISIONS REMAINING: 0
ITEMS OR EQUIPMENT CARRIED:
Clothes
Trinket
Backpack
Short Sword
Spare Clothes
Purse
Holy Symbol
Longbeard’s Legends of the Windward Plains
Adventurers’ Permit
Rock Grub’s head
SPECIAL SKILLS:
Spelling
THE WHEEL OF THE WEEK:
Stormsday
NOTES:
If at 115, turn to 467 to visit the Testing Grounds in the Forest of Spiders
If at 115, turn to 357 to have Ruznik teach Spelling for 4 Gold Pieces
If at 115, turn to 150 to join Nanoc escorting Velenore Musek’s caravan
Inspection of the dead Shrieker attack: 50 CLUE points
Girl’s statement: 10 CLUE points
Examination of attack scene: 24 CLUE points

[deaddmwalking]

Thanks for running it.

Where would we have found beeswax? Dealing with the Slime and Swine Guttery?

I'm reminded of This Comic

Hopefully our misadventure will make the next successful one all the sweeter!

[JourneymanN00b]

Appreciate the thanks. Getting beeswax required purchasing it for 1 Gold Piece at the Bazaar, which could be reached by directly taking the Pest Control quest or the Collect Cauldronweed quest.

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for running this.

(Ouch, we did pretty badly)

[Dogopolis]

I've read this book and I think JN was pretty over optimistic If s/he thought that it could be completed RAW, no rewinds. Although this one ended pretty early there are a few counterintuitive but necessary decisions later if you want to win. A couple spoilered here.

You need to buy something expensive at the bazzar, from some guys who are only there the first time you're there. You also need to pay Pennypincher at the same time so you need 13 gold the first time you go and the inclination to buy a particular item from a list of others.

When taking the unicorn quest if you ask Ruznik for help, (who has been nothing but straight with you) it becomes impossible as you cannot pick up a quest token needed for the endgame.


Some of the skills you can learn before becoming an adventurer are OP

Choosing the temple of Logaan basically means you never need to test your LUCK again, if you're asked to do it you're always lucky and don't need to reduce your LUCK. You can also reroll 3 times at your discretion. By contrast even if you'd given the right answer World Lore which you would have got from the Halls of Learning is pretty useless.