The Gaming Den

Other north door.

Agreed.

Eat some Provisions or oatmeal first. Otherwise agreed.

A small plaque above the depressions et into this door carries the legend: 'Chamber of Meditation'. If you have a wooden casket with four gems inside it, you can place the gems into the depressions in the door and so gain admittance. If you have the gems, take the initial letters of their names and rearrange them to form a word. Take the numbers corresponding to those initial letters (A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc.) then add them together. Turn to the paragraph with this number. If you do not have these gems, you cannot open this door; turn to 41 to search elsewhere.

Sadly, we don't have the required plot coupons.

That leaves us with only one option:

You push open the door and find yourself in a bare antechamber. There is a door to your right, and before you lies a pair of crystalline doors: they have images of War Dragons engraved on them and bizarre locks with keyholes crafted in yellowed bone set into the crystal. If you are Braxurs, turn to 113 now. If you want to open the east door here, not having done so before, turn to 314. lf you want to try to open the crystalline doors, turn to 135.

Which door now?

East door isn't a guaranteed insta-kill but is a one off event, so check that out first.

Sounds reasonable.

I realized there was an earlier vote to take some provisions, so we do so before we enter the next door (STAMINA now up to 19).

In a small, bare chamber behind the door a figure clad head to toe in lacquered black plate mail confronts you. 'Prepare to die,' he says emotionlessly as he hefts a great, two handed sword to strike at you. Terror grips you: you must do battle with the Dark Knight of Castle Argent. If you have an onyx staff with you, tum to 241. If you do not, fight on!

DARKK NIGHT SKILL 11 STAMINA 17

If you win, and if you are Braxus, turn immediately to 46. Otherwise, turn to 396.

Finally, an opponent without special attack rules......and he has SKILL 11. :/

Fortunately, there's a blue option!

The onyx staff has four symbols on it: Lion, chevron, goblet and star. If you have spent a Magic Point to activate the staff (or if you do so now), you may be able to use it to deal the Dark Knight a mortal blow. If you know which symbol can defeat it, and if you have also found a heraldic design on a chest with that symbol on it, you know how many symbols were on that chest, and what colour they were. Convert the letters of the colour into numbers using the code A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. Add the numbers together then multiply that total by the number of the symbols you found on the chest. (Thus, for example, if you think that the goblet defeats the Dark Knight, and you had found two white goblets inscribed on a chest, you would tum to paragraph 130: WHITE = 23 + 8 + 9 + 20 + 5 = 65, and you would multiply that by 2.) Turn to the paragraph you have calculated; if the name of the symbol isn't the first word you read in that paragraph, you are wrong and should return to paragraph 314 to continue fighting. You should also do this if you have the staff but do not know which symbol defeats the Knight.

Which symbol defeats the Knight, and how many have we found?

The Knight can be detroyed by the lions within the green;

[...]you find as you open it that the chest here is not a Tower Chest but has a heraldic device painted inside its lid; this shows seven red lions on a green background.

(18 + 5 + 4) * 7 = 27 * 7 = 189

(Well, it seems I was partially wrong about not running into something nastier than the Hellhorn Champion... at least this guy doesn't have special attacks.)

Lions are the bane of the Knight. You raise the staff and concentrate on the symbol of the lion, and from the tip of the staff a magical, glowing red lion forms and leaps on to the Knight. The Knight automatically loses 2 point from his STAMINA every Attack Round, and you may also subtract 2 from his Attack Strength, since he's trying to fend off the magical lion as well as you! Return to 314 to continue the fight.

I think this is the best assist from the staff yet. His SKILL is now effectively below ours, and since he's getting hurt every round, and our STAMINA is actually 2 points higher, we certainly don't need any extra help to win this!

COMBAT LOG:

Dark Knight 13, Jallarial 14. DK is at 13.
DK 15, Jallarial 17. DK is at 9.
DK 16, Jallarial 17. DK is at 5.
DK 18, Jallarial 17. Jallarial is at 17, DK is at 7.
DK 17, Jallarial 18. DK is at 3.
DK 14, Jallarial 17. DK is defeated.

The only treasure here is the Dark Knight's two-handed sword which only Anvar can use. If you are Anvar, this sword counts as a magic weapon (some creatures may be struck only by magic weapons, so it may prove useful). Now you leave and head north for the crystalline doors; turn to 135.

Unfortunately, no reward for us. The sword would have been Braxus' "ideal weapon", but there's nothing for the wizard.

These doors can be opened only if you possess both sets of Dragonbone Keys. If you have these, you know how many keys you have; turn to the paragraph with that number. If you don't have both sets of keys, you must return to the Bronze Stride and search for then. You may re-enter the east or west wing even if you have been there before, though you should no open again any door that you've opened already in either wing.

We have the keys!

You slip the two long Dragonbone master-key into the locks in the crystal doors and they open. In front of you a great wooden stairway rises in a graceful curve to an archway high above. The great Jaw Archway is aptly named: it appears to be crafted from the jawbone of some impossibly vast, reptilian monster, a deathly leprous yellow-white in colour, forbidding in its sheer size and grim appearance. You step forward and, as you do, the doors behind you slam shut. A gloating, eerie laugh mocks you as it resonates around the high-vaulted chamber of the stairway; Zagor awaits you, and you will not return alive unless you have slain him! You stride forward grimly and begin your ascent of the stairway.

Some minutes later, you throw open the great doors below the Jaw Archway and grit your teeth as you sense the treacherousness of what lies before you. A corridor stretches out some twelve metres into the distance, and its walls are lined with skulls set into the stone. The walls look as if the skulls where thrown into liquid stone which then congealed, trapping them on its surface. The effect is deeply disturbing and, as you edge forward towards a chamber you can see ahead, you have to fight back a rising sense of panic. Clearly some magic here is affecting you, making you sweat and tremble with fear! If you can (and wish to) cast a Jump spell here, turn to 261. If you cannot, or do not wish to, do this, tum to 296.

Do we want to use a Jump spell here?

I'm not sure what this 1 MP will net us... maybe bypassing a Skill or a Luck test. Or maybe we escape being devoured by a horrible monster.

I say save the MP for the upcoming battle with Zagor -- we're going to need everything we have.

ETA: Also, are we now in the Great Tower? does the bonus from the WotH come into play?

Sirocco wrote:ETA: Also, are we now in the Great Tower? does the bonus from the WotH come into play?

The text doesn't make it very clear, but I'm interpreting that we get the bonus after we finish this stretch of corridor and enter the central chamber (where the words "Great Tower" is actually mentioned in the text).

It is desperately hard going, dragging yourself even half-way down this corridor. Your feet feel as if your boots are lined with lead, and your calves ache abominably. Test your Luck. lf you are Lucky, you keep trudging on as normal, but if you are Unlucky you must lose 1 from your Current SKILL score for as long as you are in this corridor. You must now Test your Luck again! If you are Lucky, tum to 261. If you are Unlucky, turn to 317.

So the Jump spell would have saved us 2 LUCK tests (and therefore 2 LUCK points), and potentially a temporary SKILL point. I would say the Magic would probably have been well spent. Our Luck test records haven't been very good....

1st test roll = 9 (Unlucky!) We're at 10 SKILL for the rest of the corridor.

2nd Luck test = 5 (Lucky).

(We avoid a pit trap and some minor damage.)

You are halfway down the corridor, and it seems to have taken an eternity getting this far. As you strain your eyes to see what lies ahead of you, a shambling figure in rotting bandages lurches along the corridor to attack you. The most powerful of the castle's undead guardians, the Great Mummy's rotting arms reach forward to strangle the life out of you! If you can, and wish to, cast a Fireball spell at the Mummy, tum to 356. If you have a lantern and you decide to throw this at the Mummy, turn to 379. Otherwise, tum lo 288

Do we want to use the spell or our lantern (or neither)?

"The most powerful of the castle's undead guardians" sounds pretty dangerous. Roast it! Let's put to work that MP we saved in the last section.

Also, half a vote to drink that Luck potion we have. If I read the adventure sheet correctly, we are now at 5/9 LUCK.

Agreed with both the above.

Same.

Luck potion. Would've gone for lantern throwing myself but hopefully we'll save more MP on Light this way.

I was on the fence for lantern throwing myself.

Actually; if we have other sources of illumination; throw the lantern.

The only other Fighting Fantasy Mummy I've seen tended to be brutal in a fight; or one-hit KO's when you throw a torch or lantern at them.

This is likely the same.

^ If that's the case, I assume magical fire works at least as well as non-magical.

First, we quaff the Luck potion:

Die roll = 6! We regain the full 3 LUCK points (now at 8)!

We now prepare a Fireball spell at the Mummy.....speaking of which, here's a picture I forgot in my last update:

Your fiery attack spell will cause extra damage to the Mummy (deduct 8 points from its STAMINA) and it will set the monster alight, so that is loses 2 STAMINA points in each Attack Round until it expires, burnt to ashes! Turn to 288 to fight the monster.

Even without looking at the stats, I think we should have a sure-win after this.

Deduct any points from the Mummy's STAMINA if you have already struck it with a fiery attack.

GREAT MUMMY SKILL 10 STAMINA 22 14

If you win, you press on along this accursed corridor towards a cavernous chamber beyond. As you approach, swirling patterns of light flash from the chamber, and you have to screw up your eyes in a squint to see what is inside.

Yeah, doesn't look too bad. If we hadn't just taken a SKILL penalty, this would have been even easier.

COMBAT LOG:

Great Mummy 20, Jallarial 14. Jallarial is at 15, GM is at 12.
GM 17, Jallarial 20. GM is at 8.
GM 16, Jallarial 16. GM is at 6.
GM 12, Jallarial 22. GM is at 2.
GM 20, Jallarial 14. Jallarial is at 13, GM is destroyed.

What you see in this middle chamber of the Great Tower almost defies belief; the sheer scale of it is gigantic breath-taking. Hovering some twenty-five metres above you is a giant stone platform, more or less square in shape with a cupola above it and arches on all sides sculpted in the shape of enormous dragon jaws. A turbulent vortex of air whirls below the platform, drawing up dust and debris into a spinning cone which rises to the base of the platform. Trailing from the platform down to ground level are four rickety-looking rope-bridges. From the top of the cupola a beam of milky light ascends to the ceiling, where a white arch almost out of your range of vision stands, close lo the top of the tower.

And then there is the War Dragon...Reclining on the platform, the monster appears to be asleep. It must measure forty metres from snout to tail, and you're going to have to kill it.

Think carefully about what you wish to do before you choose how to ascend to the platform. If you have an onyx wand, turn to 260. The Dragon will be the most powerful foe you have faced in Castle Argent, so you must do all you can to improve your chances of victory. Then you must decide how to get up to the Dragon. If you have at least thirty metres of rope to tie together, you can use a bow (or a Magic Arrow) to fire a line up to the platform and then clamber up the rope; if you wish to do this, tum to 49. If not, will you:

Use a Potion of Flying (if you have one)?
Climb one of the rope-bridges?
Enter the swirling vortex, hoping to be carried upwards?
Decline to climb up, and instead challenge the Dragon?

....you know, I think we should have saved that Fire-resistant potion for this big guy.

Still, at least we have the onyx staff that should help cut it down to size!

The onyx staff has four symbols on it: lion, chevron, goblet and star. If you have spent a Magic Point to activate the staff (or if you do so now), you may be able to use it to deal the Dragon a mortal blow. If you know which symbol can defeat it, and if you have also found a heraldic design on a chest with that symbol on it, you know how many symbols were on that chest, and what colour they were. Convert the letters of the colour into numbers using the code A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. Add the numbers together then multiply that total by the number of the symbols you found on the chest. (Thus, for example, if you think that the chevron defeats the Dark Knight, and you had found six white chevrons inscribed on a chest, you would tum to paragraph 390: WHITE = 23 + 8 + 9 + 20 + 5 = 65, and you would multiply that by 6.) Turn to the paragraph you have calculated; if the name of the symbol isn't the fifth word you read in that paragraph, you are wrong and should return to paragraph 180 to decide what to do here. You should also turn to 180 if you have the staff but do not know which symbol defeats the Dragon.

Ok, you know the drill: which symbol do we use and how many have we found?

Besides that, please then proceed to vote on how you want to get to the Dragon. There actually aren't many options open to us. We don't have enough rope (we bought a 10-metre rope, and I believe we found another when we came to Caste Argent.....but we're still 10 metres short), and even if we do have enough, we can't use a bow, so we can't use it to shoot the rope up. We also don't have the flying potion. So the only options are to use the bridge, use the vortex or challenge the Dragon!

Oh, and before I forget: yes, we're officially in the Great Twoer, so we now have an effective SKILL of 13 in combat!

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Jallarial
SKILL 11/11 (+1 from Ebony Wand)
STAMINA 13/23
LUCK 8/9
MAGIC: 7/9 (+2 from Ebony Wand)
Equipment: Staff, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, knife, rope, Iron rod (-1 to Die roll when opening doors via Skill Test), Golden Talisman (x2), Silver Dagger (x9), Magical Oil of Enchantment (enchants non-magical weapons for one combat), Jailor Keys (70), Wand of the Hawk, Onyx Staff, Oatmeal x3 (counts as 1 meal each), Orc-slaying Sword, Plague Antidote, Dragonbone Keys (277), Orb of Power (adds up to 3 SKILL points for duration of one combat or Skill test, all 3 can be used at once all at different times)
Provisions: 1
Treasure: 13 GP, Moonstones (worth 10 GP), Silver Pendants & jewellery (worth 10 GP)
No. of Deaths: 2

Additional bonus from Wand of the Hawk: 1) [color=blue]+2 Attack Strength once Jallarial's entered Great Tower[/color], 2) enchants weapons, 3) restore Magic OR STAMINA to full once

Yea, probably right on the fire resistance potion... ah well.

so:

The War Dragon falls to the yellow-cloistered stars

the Tower Chest here has a small shield on its lid, showing eight green stars on a yellow background

(7 + 18 + 5 + 5 + 14) * 8 = 49 * 8 = 392

Other than that -- I have a hunch that giving up our advantage (stealth) is stupid, so let's not challenge the dragon. Also, walking into a vortex is...perhaps not the ideal form of transportation, and might also result in our death. Since we're missing all the plot coupons, I think braving the rope bridges is the only reasonable thing to do. Unless you guys are feeling lucky and want to try the vortex... I think I'll give half a vote to rope bridge.

re: strategy, with a skill of 13, I think we' re fairly safe. Still, if the dragon is tougher than expected, I say use 1 or maybe 2 of the SKILL points in the orb. (Can we do that as soon as we get a look at its stats, or do we have to activate it beforehand?)

Also, definitely eat at least a couple of meals. I call it stuff-face healing. (Dibs on copyright.)

Assuming that the dragon doesn't wake up when the onyx staff is used against it, sneak up one of the rope bridges. Defer decision on Orb of Power until we see what we're rolling against.

Eat meal, use staff, take rope bridge.

I realized I made a mistake in the text in that last section. Because the sections about using the staff had been almost identical every time, I mostly copied and pasted from the older ones and made minor adjustments. Apparently I left out one small part: there was actually instruction to deduct 100 from the total after we've converted the letters to numbers. So the section we should be turning to is 292, not 392.

The reason I bring this up is that, interestingly, that was actually an error that existed the original text in the older publications of the book (the instruction to deduct 100 was left out, so it was a pretty major bug). The bug was fixed in the Wizard publication that I now own, but I thought it was pretty funny that my laziness inadvertently led to a repetition of the old bug.

Anyway, after munching down a meal (STAMINA up to on to 17) we move on to 292:

A whirl of green stars will fly from the onyx staff upon command, circling the Dragon's head and burying themselves in it, causing great pain. One star will be impaled in the Dragon's head each Attack Round, up to the eighth (if the combat lasts that long). Each star will cause the Dragon to lose 2 STAMINA points. After the first star has struck it, you may subtract 2 from its Attack Strength due to its pain and confusion. If you have spent a Magic Point to activate the staff, you can unleash this effect as soon as you get on to the Dragon's platform - but how will you get there? Will you:

Use a Potion of Flying (if you have one)?
Climb one of the rope-ladders?
Enter the swirling vortex, hoping to be carried upwards?

Seems like our character at least has the sense to wait till we get close before using the staff.

Weirdly, 2 of the options that were in the last section has disappeared. Fortunately, the one we chose (rope ladders) is still here.

You must Test your Luck twice during your ascent. If you are Unlucky either time, the Dragon will wake up and its huge head will breathe fire over you. If you are Unlucky on the first dice roll, the Dragon breathes on you twice; you must lose 6 STAMINA points from each attack! If you are Lucky the first time but Unlucky the second time, you suffer only one attack from the Dragon's breath; lose 6 STAMINA points. If you are still alive, you get to the platform at last; tum to 313.

So if we're Unlucky on the first try do we still need to roll for the second? This book has so many special rules but isn't very clear about a lot of them. I'm going to rule that we don't have to, since if the Dragon is awake there's no more need to test Luck for stealth.

1st Dice roll = 3 (Lucky)

2nd Dice roll = 7 (Lucky)

Good thing we drank that Luck potion before we came in. That's some hefty damage we just avoided!

The huge War Dragon fights with the fury and might that decimated Castle Argent's defenders. Can you possibly survive its fury? If you do not have a magic weapon, you cannot affect the War Dragon, and you will perish here!

WAR DRAGON SKILL 15 STAMINA 20

When the War Dragon wins an Attack Round, roll one dice to determine \he type of attack it has used and the damage it inflicts.

Dice Roll Attack and Damage
1-2 Claw strike: lose 2 STAMINA points
3 Bite: lose 3 STAMINA points
4 Tail sweep (glancing blow): lose 1 STAMINA point
5-6 Fire breath: lose 4 STAMINA points

If you win, turn to 262.

After the first round, thanks to the onyx staff, it will be at the same SKILL level as us. If it wasn't for the extra damage from fire breath and bite I'd say we can definitely last long enough to beat it (the staff can take out 16 points of STAMINA in 8 rounds). But with the possibility of getting breathed on if we're Unlucky, do we want to use the Orb to increase our odds?

Take one point from the Orb of Power, because hopefully we won't need to both cast SKILL and use all 3 points from it as a maximum stats wizard to defeat Old Man Henderson Jr Zagor himself.

Wow, 15 SKILL? Good thing we have the staff.

Yeah, let's spend 1 SKILL from the Orb.