[LP] Fighting Fantasy 46 - Tower of Destruction (Take 2!)

[Darth Rabbitt]

Investigate.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, check it out, because random footprints are always important.

[SGamerz]

Inching along, you make your way carefully down, but soon you see that the drop leads over a fairly steep rock overhang. Do you have climbing gear? If you have, tum to 190. If you haven't, tum to 322.

Being helpful to our fellow villagers paying off here...

You scramble easily down the slope md observe a semi-conscious figure spread awkwardly on the ground you go over to see how he is; turn to 248.

And of course, also to see what loot he might have if he's dead.

The half conscious man lying here is a local, a fur-clad barbarian. Judging by the bloodied feathers at his belt, he's a clansman of the Bloodied Eagle tribe, one not noted for its friendly attitude to outsiders. But he is in pain, concussed and with an ugly wound to his head. He's very shaky and vulnerable. Will you:

Dress his wound and then leave him, climbing back up to the trail?
Clean his wound and stay with him to make sure he's all right?
Kill him and steal his belongings?

How nice (or evil) do we want to be?

[Thaluikhain]

Clean and stay.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Help and stay. Honor is literally a stat here, be honorable.

[SGamerz]

Slowly the barbarian recovers and gulps the water you offer him from his flask. He looks at you suspiciously at first, but then he discovers that you have patched up his head-wound and he understands that you are friendly. His name is Torsten, he confides; after thanking you for your help, he says he was pursued by Ice Ghosts, terrible creatures made by evil wizardry from the remains of human bodies. You wonder whether this is true: barbarians have vivid imaginations about spirits and suchlike - but on the other hand, it takes a lot to make one run! You help Torsten back up the slope, taking a lengthier route than before. He wants you to come back with him to his tribe's camp, to thank you properly for rescuing him. This means staying overnight and having a thundering hangover in the morning,
but it would give offence to refuse. Will you accompany Torsten or say goodbye and head off towards the Sphere?

Strangely no Honour gain thus far....

Do we accept his hospitality?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Hmm, thought for sure it was going to be a "gain/lose/neither" choice for sure. I'm sure that refusing will lose us Honor though.

Follow Torsten, he might have vital clues that make up for the probable time loss.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think it's our responsibility to see him safely home. Accompany.

[Thaluikhain]

Waste time with him.

[SGamerz]

Torsten leads you some distance to the west, where his tribe have pitched their tents and tethered their livestock. His story of your kindess brings murmurs of approval. and you are plied with hot food and akvavit, the throat-scarring iced clear spirit, flavoured with caraway seed, which the
barbanans favour You ask about Ice Ghosts and the Sphere, and the mood grows sombre. The tribe's chieftain speaks softly, with barely controlled anger.

"The Sphere brings fire and death because of a wizard, the spirits say. The wizard has lived many lives in the past, each more evil than the one before. He is within the Sphere, and yet not there. He consorts with things of the Pit, with Demons and stalkers in the night. He creates Ice Ghosts from the bodies of the slain to be his servants. They are flesh and ice, blood and snow. bone and frost. The wizard has brought the Sphere forth by a song of blood and nightmares, a, song with a deeper and darker harmony which has the cadences of destruction within it." The chieftain's voice is shangely altered; these are not the words of a simple barbarian. You remember that this tribe believes in communicating with the spirits of the dead, and surely a spirit is speaking through the mouth of the chieftain now. "We are headed to our Spirit Grounds, to talk with our forefathers, to learn what must be done." the chieftain says, to murmurs of affirmation from his fellows. This sounds fine, except that you have the nagging feeling that, by the time they've done this, it may be too late . . .

The mood of the barbarians relaxes as the chieftain emerges from his trance. They reach for the hollow walrus tusks which hold the akvavit, and start talking and joking again. A cheer goes up as a figure approaches: not a barbarian but a merchant with the familiar patter of a man of Zengis selling his wares. He is making a goodly sum selling akvavit, for sure! But he does have some other items you may want to buy, if you have the cash. If you have anything you think you could sell him, turn to 369. If you want to consider buying something in return, turn to 7. If you're not in the mood for buying and selling, and just to settle down for a night's sleep, turn to 280.

Really no reason to at least check the shopping and trading lists, so I'll just list what can be sold and/or bought. We don't have much cash at the moment, so let's see what we may have to sell first:

The merchant will buy a flask of brandy, if you have one, for 2 Gold Pieces. He's also keen to buy a Silver Fox if you have that; if you want to sell the pelt, he'll give you 4 Gold Pieces for it. If you want to buy something from him, turn to 7; if you want to turn in for the night, turn to 280.

We have both the brandy and the Fox (although there's a minor bug in the text - it's only possible to have picked up a Snow Fox, and nothing in the text mentions that it's Silver). If we sell both, we'd have a total of 9 gold. If we only sell the Fox, we have 7. If we only sell the brandy, we have 5.

Let's look at what's available to buy:

Cobrun the merchant is a bit of a swindler and a whining little fellow, but eventually you pin him down to the following prices. If you want to buy a potion for him, turn to 146 lo check the effects of the potion.

Potion of Stamina 5 Gold Pieces
Potion of Skill 5 Gold Pieces
Potion of Luck 6 Gold pieces

Other items you could buy are:

Provisions 2 meals for 1 Gold Piece
Crowbar 1 Gold Piece
Crossbow and 10 bolts 4 Cold Pieces
Heavy mace 4 Gold Pieces
Bag of salt 1 Gold Piece
Climbing gear 3 Gold Pieces

The climbing gear consists of a rope, some ice picks, and a small hammer. If you buy a crossbow, you must keep track of how many bolts you use and how many you have left. You must pay for everything here, and no cheating! Items bought can be added to your Possessions, and money spent must be deducted from you Treasure. When you have finished making your purchases, you can either reconsider selling something to Cobrun or settle down to sleep.

To save the time of typing up section 146 for the potions' effect: we already have a Potion of Stamina and Cobrun's works just like the one we have. The Potion of Skill and Luck both restore the relevant stats to Initial values, nothing complicated here (and no, until some other books, the Luck potion here doesn't raise our initial value by 1).

We certainly can't afford everything here (although we don't need to buy another climbing gear, since we already have some), and I don't think we're meant to anyway. The only other way of getting gold is to loot our village earlier, but we only find 2, which is EXACTLY the same value as the brandy we get for helping the villagers anyway, so it's NOT an improvement. I don't think we could have gotten here any richer than we already are.

What do we buy (and sell) here?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Jefferson Tallpipe
SKILL 12/12
STAMINA 24/24
LUCK 10/12
Honour: 7
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Lantern, Backpack, Blanket, Climbing Gear, Flask of Brandy (2 doses, +4 STAMINA each), Tasrin's Ring, Potion of Stamina (restores 1/2 of Initial STAMINA), Snow Fox
Gold: 3
Provisions: 8/10
Time Elapsed: 4 days

[Whiysper]

No preference on selling - but a Crowbar sounds like a damn handy tool to add to our pack. Maybe the salt, too.

[Thaluikhain]

Crowbar and salt, yeah.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Sell both things. I don't object to salt or crowbar, but my first priority is that crossbow.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Sell all the things. Buy crossbow, crowbar, salt, and potion of fortune. High stats and a bunch of Provisions means Jefferson doesn’t have to worry too much about Stamina loss, Skill penalties are usually rare, but refreshing Luck is very useful since it goes down whenever you test it.

[Thaluikhain]

I agree with Darth Rabbitt's logic.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I don't agree because his logic has us spending 12 out of 9 gold.

[Thaluikhain]

On second thought, I don't agree with Darth Rabbitt's logic. Skill the potion?

[SGamerz]

We can't afford Darth's shopping list, so we'll have to go with angel's. We sell the brandy and the Fox and buy the crossbow, salt and crowbar before we turn in.

You sleep peacefully in the barbarian camp, and next day they generously give you up to 3 portions of Provisions to help you on you way They also give you a flask of akvavit (add this to your Possessions). This is stunning stuff and it has the following effects: you regain up to 5 points of lost STAMINA, and drinking it gives you such amazing confidence in your own prowess that you can add 1 to your SKILL for the first combat after drinking it, but for this combat only! You can empty the flask at any time except during a combat. Thanking the barbarians for their gifts, you make your way back to the hail leading to the valley of the Sphere and, soon after midday, you find yourself back on it.

Provisions back to full again, and we also got an upgraded beverage that not only heals us more but boosts our fighting prowess (and no intoxication penalty, too)! Well worth the sidetrack.

The afternoon passes slowly; you soon work up a sweat as you stumble along paths littered with treacherous rocks half hidden under a blanket of snow. The smoky, hazy valley of the Spheres seems never to get any closer, and you haven't made much progress by nightfall. But you do manage to find a cave, and within it is a little dry wood, a flint and some tinder. You bless the traveler who left this here for others to find, and soon you have a small fire cheering you with its warmth. You can even warm the Provisions you use for the meal you must eat here. Soon the warmth of the fire makes you doze off, and you get a good night's rest.

Down 1 meal again, and we've now taken 6 days.

In the morning, you must eat a meal. Then you go outside to stretch your legs and the first thing that catches your eye is a winged shape in the sky, just to the south. It looks sizeable and, if it’s a White Dragon, then it is a formidable beast indeed. You decide to wait for an hour and then look again, but when you venture outside once more, the creature is still there, circling in the sky. What are you going to do? You can set off outside and head north or stay inside the cave.

Down another meal. This is similar is Master of Chaos where Provisions get consumed at the pretty fast rate. Fortunately, we're still close to full.

Do we want to risk running into the dragon?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Jefferson Tallpipe
SKILL 12/12
STAMINA 24/24
LUCK 10/12
Honour: 7
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Lantern, Backpack, Blanket, Climbing Gear, Tasrin's Ring, Potion of Stamina (restores 1/2 of Initial STAMINA), Crowbar, Bag of Salt, Crossbow (w/ 10 bolts), Flask of Akvavit (+5 STAMINA, +1 SKILL for next combat only)
Gold: 3
Provisions: 8/10
Time Elapsed: 6 days

[angelfromanotherpin]

Take the risk.

[Thaluikhain]

Take the risk.

[SGamerz]

You set off in a northerly direction, hoping that the creature flying around behind you won't notice you. Now you must Test your Luck. lf you are Lucky, you can press on northwards; If you are Unlucky, the creature flies down to investigate you.

Dice roll = 10 - We're barely Lucky enough to avoid the dragon!

You must eat a meal at the end of the day, and you manage to find somewhere secure to sleep. In the morning, when you must eat another meal, you find that you are on a clifftop, overlooking the valley. The smoke is clearing and in the valley lies the large rocky Sphere, still spitting forth gouts of fire and plumes of filthy black smoke. There are a few, small, human-sized figures around the Sphere. You are going to have a tricky climb down from here. Roll two dice and add 2 to the total rolled, unless you have Climbing Gear; if you do have Climbing Gear, you may subtract 2 from the total rolled. If the adjusted total is greater than your SKILL, you will stumble, grazing your limbs, and suffer various knocks and scrapes; deduct 4 points from your STAMINA. If the total rolled is less than or equal to your SKILL, you get down safely enough.

Now you stand a few hundred metres from the Sphere, creeping forward through burnt and blackened tree stumps and rocks. Unfortunately, you have little cover, and you are soon spotted by two guards. They look like animated corpses, but they are blue-skinned, the water in their bodies is solid ice, and what seems to be breath is frosting on the air before them. Their eyes are vacant and their faces expressionless. You have to fight the two Ice Ghosts here, together. Each Attack Round you must roll dice to determine the Attack Strengths for yourself and both your opponents. The combatant with the highest Attack Strengths is the one who gets in a damaging blow that round.

First ICE GHOST Skill 7 Stamina 7
Second ICE GHOST Skill 7 Stamina 6

When you first strike one of the Ice Ghosts, turn to 106. If you kill on€ of the Ice Ghosts, turn to 165. If you win, turn to 297.

Since we have the Climbing Gear to remove the -2 penalty, it's impossible for us to fail the SKILL test, so we got down safely.

Targeting the Ghost with less STAMINA first....

COMBAT LOG:

Ice Ghost#1 19, Ice Ghost#2 12, Tallpipe 16. Tallpipe is at 22.
IG1 14, IG2 17, Tallpipe 22......

Unfortunately swords don't do as much damage as you would expect. The bodies of the Ice Ghosts are frozen solid, and a piercing weapon doesn't work as well as normal. Roll one die. If you roll 1-3, your blow does only 1 point of damage to the targets STAMINA. If you roll 4-6, your blow does the usual 2 points of damage.

If you have a heavy mace, you may now switch to this weapon. Doing this taker a whole Attack Round (during which time one of the Ice Ghosts will strike you, so you must deduct 2 points from your STAMINA. The heavy mace always causes 2 points of damage when it strikes a Ice Ghost. Return to 53 to finish the combat.

We don't have a heavy mace, so this would take a little longer....

COMBAT CONTINUED:

....Tallpipe rolls 3 and does 1 damage. IG2 is at 5.
IG1 10, IG2 18, Tallpipe 16. Tallpipe is at 20.
IG1 13, IG2 15, Tallpipe 18. Tallpipe rolls 5 and hits for 2 damage. IG2 is at 3.
IG1 16, IG2 11, Tallpipe 20. Tallpipe rolls 2 and hits for 1 damage. IG2 is at 2.
IG1 11, IG2 16, Tallpipe 21. Tallpipe rolls 5 and hits for 1 damage. IG2 is killed.

One down!

The peculiar, Undead creature slumps forward. From its gulping throat the spirit imprisoned within rises into the air in a frosted wisp, a faint moan of torment left hanging in the air by its passage. The Ice Ghost clutches at your legs in a final convulsion and its filthy claws rake at your legs; deduct 2 points from you STAMINA.

That was cheap....at least the text doesn't say we have to lose another 2 STAMINA when we kill the second one so presumably we're smart enough to avoid the same trick. Jefferson's STAMINA now at 18.

COMBAT CONTINUED:

IG1 17, Tallpipe 21. Tallpipe rolls 1 and hits for 1 damage. IG1 is at 6.
IG1 10, Tallpipe 20. Tallpipe rolls 3 and hits for 1 damage. IG1 is at 5.
IG1 13, Tallpipe 21. Tallpipe rolls 5 and hits for 2 damage. IG1 is at 3.
IG1 14, Tallpipe 16. Tallpipe rolls 2 and hits for 1 damage. IG1 is at 2.
IG1 17, Tallpipe 21. Tallpipe rolls 2 and hits for 1 damage. IG1 is at 1.
IG1 12, Tallpipe 14. IG1 is killed.

Took a bit of grinding, but we finally got them both down! Once again starting with SKILL 12 paying dividends, since the Ghosts actually rolled better than Tallpipe most of the time, but not enough to overcome the gap in SKILL.

You are now heading straight towards the Sphere, and there isn't a great deal of cover directly ahead. You can continue in the same way or sweep around to approach the Sphere from the other side, where there appears to be better concealment for an approach.

How do we approach the Sphere?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Jefferson Tallpipe
SKILL 12/12
STAMINA 18/24
LUCK 9/12
Honour: 7
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Lantern, Backpack, Blanket, Climbing Gear, Tasrin's Ring, Potion of Stamina (restores 1/2 of Initial STAMINA), Crowbar, Bag of Salt, Crossbow (w/ 10 bolts), Flask of Akvavit (+5 STAMINA, +1 SKILL for next combat only)
Gold: 3
Provisions: 6/10
Time Elapsed: 7 days

[angelfromanotherpin]

Since in the previous run being sensibly stealthy is a trap, drive headlong across the open ground.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Misread the fox as being worth 7 gold instead of 4. My bad.

Agreed with angel on the plan.

[SGamerz]

You edge forward behind what little rock cover there is, and you manage to get to within a few metres of the Sphere. It now seems smaller than you remembered; maybe only ten or twelve metres across. But it lies in an area of shattered rock and melted snow and ice, and it radiates evil as well as heat and stench. You can see what could be an entrance to one side of it: it looks like a wedge cut into the surface of the Sphere, but all is blackness inside. So you wait for cover of darkness, and at dusk you creep forward towards the Sphere, right up to the entrance; then, with a deep breath and a prayer to the Gods of Good, you step inside.

Taking the other way means we'd have to fight on extra guard, although with our stats it shouldn't make too much of a difference.

You walk a few stealthy paces down a dimly lit passageway with smooth black walls, looking out for guards - but you see none. You soon come to a three way junction within the gently humming, warm and slightly smoky body of the Sphere. It is obvious that each of these passages continues for some distance; the interior of the Sphere is clearly bigger than the outside size would seen to indicate was possible. This is obviously a very magical creation! Will you:

Take the right-hand passage?
Take the left-hand passage?
Head straight on?

Classic random direction choice! Which way do we go?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Left is always right.