[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 29 - Midnight Rogue

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to search the rest of the room.

[SGamerz]

Searching the desk wins narrowly.

You search the desk carefully. There are some papers relating to business deals in which Brass has been involved recently, but you can't find anything about the Eye of the Basilisk. You may help yourself to a silver paper-knife worth 5 gold pieces, but you find nothing else of interest or value. What will you do next? You can search the rest of the room, leave the room via the window, or leave via the door and investigate the doors at the other end of the landing.

Another ambiguous object, but since a paper-knife is usually small enough to be probably negligible in terms of weight and amount of space occupied, I rule that it doesn't take up backpack space.

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Carmen Garrett
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 16/16
LUCK 10/10
Special Skills: Spot Hidden, Sneak, Pick Pocket
Backpack Items:
1) Provisions
2) Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value)
3) Rope and grapnel (gives CLIMB Special Skill)
4)
5)
6)
Other Items: Shortsword, leather jerkins and leggings, torch, hand-lamp, tinderbox, dagger, lock-picks (gives PICK LOCK Special Skill), key marked with the letter 'L'
Provisions: 10
Gold & Treasure: 14 GP, silver paper-knife (5 GP)
Clues:
1) Look in a place of sleep and a place of work to find dark place of death where we will find what we're looking for (section 289)
2) Brass recently bought a piece of land called Barrow Hill; the Wizard Barbantius "refitted" it according to Brass's instructions (section 90)
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I again vote to search the rest of the room.

[pragma]

Search rest of room

[Beroli]

Search the rest of the room.

[SGamerz]

You search the study rapidly, and turn up the following items of interest: a bottle of excellent brandy, worth 1 gold piece, or you can take up to 3 drinks from it, each restoring 2 STAMINA points; and a miniature painting in a silver frame, worth 2 gold pieces.

If you pick up either of these, remember to note them on your Adventure Sheet. You have also discovered that a safe is hidden in the wall behind the portrait of Brass. What will you do now?

Search the desk?
Investigate the safe?
Leave the room and try the other end of the landing?
Leave the house through the study window?

I think the bottle of brandy should be bulky enough to take up a backpack, space, especially since in contains 3 doses, while our single-dose potion already takes up a backpack space. The painting is more tricky, despite being described as "miniature", one that can fit in a backpack will still be considered miniature compared to a full life-sized portrait. I'm going to rule that it also takes up a slot.

So, besides voting on where to search next, please also vote on whether you wish to sacrifice backpack spaces for the brandy and the painting.

[Queen of Swords]

Take the brandy. I don't think the painting will be all that useful.

And investigate the safe, though I don't hold out much hope we'll be able to crack it.

[JourneymanN00b]

Yes, I vote to take the brandy and painting. I also vote to investigate the safe.

[SGamerz]

Carmen Garrett will take the brandy and look at the safe. There are insufficient votes to take the painting, but as the votes for that are tied, I will leave that open to until Garrett leaves the room. If there are no tiebreakers, the painting will be left behind.

The safe is firmly set into the wall behind the picture; you estimate that the door is about four inches thick, and realize that you wouldn't be able to force it open even if you knocked the wall down around it. It has two locks, one either side of the wheel-shaped handle. If you have a key marked 'L', turn to 273. If you have a key marked 'R', turn to 124. if you have both keys, turn to 55. If you have neither key, you can try to open the safe if you have PICK LOCK skill, you can search the desk if you haven't done so already, or you can leave the study, either going back on to the landing or out of the window.

We do have 1 of the keys listed.

You put the key in the left-hand keyhole, and turn it slowly. If you have PICK LOCK skill, you can pick the right-hand lock with your free hand. If you do not have PICK LOCK skill, turn to 202.

Apparently, we are not given the option to try and look for the other key, and will instantly proceed to use what we have. Thankfully, we do have our handy lock-picks as well!

There is a click, and the safe door swings open. Inside, you find 20 gold pieces, a ledger with Brass's accounts for the last two months, and a letter. The letter talks about 'fitting out your property on Barrow Hill', and is signed with a strange symbol, the type that wizards use. The ledger shows that Brass bought some land on Barrow Hill not long ago, and baside the relevant entry there is a penciled note reading 'E.O.B' This is an important clue - make a note of this paragraph on your Adventure Sheet. What will you do next? You may search the desk if you haven't already done do, leave the room via the window, or leave via the door and investigate the doors at the other end of the landing.

The clue basically contains very much similar information as what we found at the Merchants' Guild, except there's a more definite hint that the Eye of the Basilisk is there.

Do we still think it's worth checking the rest of the house before we leave?

Note that we're leaving this room either way, so if you still want that miniature painting, speak out before we do.

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Carmen Garrett
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 16/16
LUCK 10/10
Special Skills: Spot Hidden, Sneak, Pick Pocket
Backpack Items:
1) Provisions
2) Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value)
3) Rope and grapnel (gives CLIMB Special Skill)
4) Bottle of Brandy (3 doses, +2 STAMINA each, worth 1 GP)
5)
6)
Other Items: Shortsword, leather jerkins and leggings, torch, hand-lamp, tinderbox, dagger, lock-picks (gives PICK LOCK Special Skill), key marked with the letter 'L'
Provisions: 10
Gold & Treasure: 34 GP, silver paper-knife (5 GP)
Clues:
1) Look in a place of sleep and a place of work to find dark place of death where we will find what we're looking for (section 289)
2) Brass recently bought a piece of land called Barrow Hill; the Wizard Barbantius "refitted" it according to Brass's instructions (section 90)
3) Wizard "fitted out" Brass's property on Barrow Hill. 'E.O.B' penciled on ledger of Barrow Hill's purchase by Brass (section 335)
[/spoiler]

[Queen of Swords]

I think we should leave. We've already got the good stuff.

[Beroli]

Take the painting and leave by the window.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Leave with the painting. I figure that the other place is just where we'd have found the "R" key.

[Thaluikhain]

Can't we always ditch the painting later if something nicer is found? If so, nick it.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to leave the room by the window.

[pragma]

Leave by window with painting

[SGamerz]

Carmen Garrett slips the painting into his pack and goes to the window:

Quickly and quietly, you open first the bars and then the window itself, and let yourself down to the ground. You hurry through the darkened streets, leave Brass's house behind you. As you go, you consider what to do next. You can try to find the Eye of the Basilisk, if you think you have enough information, or you can look for more information in the Merchants' Guild, if you haven't been there before.

And we didn't even need CLIMB/the rope to get down safely from the second-storey window.

Only one place left to go!

You think about the information you've collected and the obstacles you've overcome. You must be close to the Eye of the Basilisk by now - at least, you now know where it is hidden. You do know, don't you? Where will you look for it?

Clock Street?
Singing Bridge?
Lord Azzur's Palace?
Barrow Hill?

While the answer may be obvious for us by this point, I still the votes on this.

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Carmen Garrett
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 16/16
LUCK 10/10
Special Skills: Spot Hidden, Sneak, Pick Pocket
Backpack Items:
1) Provisions
2) Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value)
3) Rope and grapnel (gives CLIMB Special Skill)
4) Bottle of Brandy (3 doses, +2 STAMINA each, worth 1 GP)
5) Miniature silver-framed painting (worth 2 GP)
6)
Other Items: Shortsword, leather jerkins and leggings, torch, hand-lamp, tinderbox, dagger, lock-picks (gives PICK LOCK Special Skill), key marked with the letter 'L'
Provisions: 10
Gold & Treasure: 34 GP, silver paper-knife (5 GP)
Clues:
1) Look in a place of sleep and a place of work to find dark place of death where we will find what we're looking for (section 289)
2) Brass recently bought a piece of land called Barrow Hill; the Wizard Barbantius "refitted" it according to Brass's instructions (section 90)
3) Wizard "fitted out" Brass's property on Barrow Hill. 'E.O.B' penciled on ledger of Barrow Hill's purchase by Brass (section 335)
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote Barrow Hill, of course.

[pragma]

Barrow Hill

[Beroli]

Let's look for Nicodemus at Singing Bridge!

(No, seriously, Barrow Hill, of course.)

[SGamerz]

You know that the Eye of the Basilisk is hidden somewhere around Barrow Hill, but do you know how to get there? You should have three numbers written on your Adventure Sheet, representing three clues: one from the Noose, one from the Merchants' Guild and one from Brass's house. If you have all three numbers, take the first number of the clue from the house, then the first number of the clue from the Guild, and then the first number of the clue form the Noose, and put them together in that order to give you a fourth number.

For example, if the clue from the house is 123, the clue from the Guild is 234 and the clue from the Noose is 45, you get the number 124 by putting together the first number of each clue.

When you have found the number, turn to that paragraph to continue the adventure. If you do not have all three clues, or if you have the wrong ones and end up at a paragraph which doesn't make sense, you have failed your test, and must start again from paragraph 1.

I think using the numerical reference for section numbers to check whether you've picked up all the clues is a fine mechanism, although it's strangely presented here, since none of the clues actually tell you how to get to Barrow Hill. In fact, the sum of all 3 clues from the 3 locations pretty much only tells you that the Eye is at Barrow Hill and probably guarded by defenses which were set up by a wizard.

This book doesn't have too many delayed Game Overs ("if you didn't do this/pick up this time/learn this information 50 sections ago, YOU FAIL"), but this can be one of the few. I think most of you might have noticed that we were never given the option to visit the Noose again after section 1, so if that wasn't the first place we visited, then there'd have been no way for us to find all 3 clues (even though the clue there really just point to the other 2 locations), which would have led to insta-fail here. We DID manage to find all 3, though, and thus we're able to proceed to section 392:

You leave the city by the Field Gate, slipping past the guards like a shadow. Soon, you see Barrow Hill rising out of the night ahead of you. As you climb the hill, you see the ancient barrow from which it got its name. Not far away is an overgrown garden, all that remains of a great house built here a century or more ago. They say that the family who lived there were dogged by ill-luck until they abandoned the house, and soon after they left it it burnt to the ground. You wonder what Brass has done to the site, where the Eye of the Basilisk is, and how it's protected. Where will you start looking?

By the barrow?
By the house?

It's always nice to have some flavourful background information for your setting, which is actually sadly lacking in a lot of FF books, but it's also kind of confusing that the PC will suddenly be aware of all that information when it was implied that he didn't even know about this place before he found the clues. He certainly didn't have the time to do any research on the matter!

[Darth Rabbitt]

By the barrow, the place of death.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to start looking by the house, as it is more likely to have helpful items for our thief.

[Beroli]

I think using the numerical reference for section numbers to check whether you've picked up all the clues is a fine mechanism, although it's strangely presented here, since none of the clues actually tell you how to get to Barrow Hill. In fact, the sum of all 3 clues from the 3 locations pretty much only tells you that the Eye is at Barrow Hill and probably guarded by defenses which were set up by a wizard.

This book doesn't have too many delayed Game Overs ("if you didn't do this/pick up this time/learn this information 50 sections ago, YOU FAIL"), but this can be one of the few. I think most of you might have noticed that we were never given the option to visit the Noose again after section 1, so if that wasn't the first place we visited, then there'd have been no way for us to find all 3 clues (even though the clue there really just point to the other 2 locations), which would have led to insta-fail here.

Yep, that was what I meant with 'I am, at least, sure I remember the very first "choose right or fail for no good reason" choice.'--not leaving the Noose without getting a largely meaningless "hint" from Madame Star.

Go to the barrow. In addition to it being the place of death, the house burned down long ago; there isn't going to be anything useful there.

[pragma]

Barrow, though I wonder if the house contains a secret entrance or something.

[Thaluikhain]

Huh, there was a lot of content that we missed getting up to this part, including 2 times that having the Climb skill wasn't such a great thing.