[Let's Play] GrailQuest 4: Voyage of Terror

[SGamerz]

What an imposing edifice. Corinthian pillars, flying buttresses, Grecian arches, bas reliefs, tiled mosaics, fluted columns and baroque murals are all featured in the structure, certain indication that the architect was drunk. But drunk or not, it has a certain grandeur and it must have cost a fortune to erect.

There are no guards that you can see, nor is there any sound from within. Should you enter?

If you decide to do so, turn to 96.

If not, you can always return to 39 and try another destination.

Shall we go in?

[MisterDee]

Go in.

[Omegonthesane]

'course we go in.

[SGamerz]

As you step forward, the tiled floor beneath your feet feels peculiar, as though it were far rougher than it looks. Nonetheless you continue forward to an arching doorway. You knock politely and the door falls in. This is very peculiar.

You find yourself within a towering entrance hall with a high, domed ceiling of such magnificently sweeping proportions that it makes you slightly dizzy. You lean on the wall to steady yourself and the wall shakes.

There is something badly wrong with this structure, however fine it looks.

Are you sure you still want to investigate it? If so, turn to 78.

If not, you can still return to 39 and find a new destination.

Are we sure we want to continue?

If not let me know if you want to finish exploring the cottage.

[Omegonthesane]

Let's go into the rockslide.

[MisterDee]

Always forward.

[SGamerz]

Frowning, you step forward, your feet echoing on the floor. At once the entire place caves in, giving you a fleeting glimpse of a ramshackle, jerry-built structure, not at all what you had been looking at, before you plunge headlong to the dreaded 14.

And with that, we've officially died twice as many times as we did in the last 3 books combined!

The book doesn't make it clear whether we still keep all the keys if we die again after getting killed by the Mummy.....but I'm not going restart this whole thing when we've already cover 90+% of the book.

Do you guys still want to examine the rest of the "cottage" or shall we just do the retcon to the endgame now?

[Omegonthesane]

I recall advocating that we pretend we still had one of the pig spell or the instakill and explore the island anyway, so 1 vote to retcon the endgame.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Retcon to endgame.

[MisterDee]

Yeah, that one is kind of done. It's really a two-playthrough book, you need to know where to grab the right instakills for the otherwise unbeatable bosses.

Kind of excited to see the next book - it was my first gamebook and I wonder how well it'll hold.

[SGamerz]

Alright, re-rolling for LP before we finish this off:

1st roll = 8.
2nd roll = 3.
3rd roll = 7.

Pip's new LP = 8x4+15 = 47.

Not very impressive this time, but since we're retconning cheaters we'll be facing a wimpy transformed pig, we should be fine!

I've decided to retcon the use of the pig spell instead of the insta-kill blade because the blade still requires us to roll a double-6 to hit the Mummy even once. I'm ruling that turning it into a pig removes its magical protection as well!

So Pip sails back to the Lost Island, open the door with his keys again, gets nagged at by Merlin some more, and confronts the Mummy.

Casting spell roll = 8 (Success!) The Mummy is now a pig!

Pig rolls 6, Pip rolls 4. Pig goes first!!

COMBAT LOG:

Pig rolls 11 and hits for 5-2 = 3 damage (Armour check = 7 - doesn't shatter). Pip is at 44.
Pip throws his spear and rolls 8, hitting for )+10 = 10 damage! Pig is at 5 and is knocked out!

And a single successful spear throw later it's over!

THE SAXON INVASION

The sun glints on the armour of the massed armies facing each other across the sweeping plain. The only sound to be heard is the soft clink of the harness for the great warhorses and the occasional creak of armour binding as the knights move restlessly, waiting for the signal.

On a rise above the battlefield, King Arthur leans disconsolately on a large (but definitely unmagical) broadsword. By his side is faithful Sir Lancelot and the old warrior King Pellinore. The faces of all three are deeply troubled.

'Many good men will be killed this day,' Arthur remarks sadly. 'Whichever side emerges victorious.'

'Mais oui,' agrees Sir Lancelot, who sometimes reverts to his native tongue when he is particularly nervous.

'Pity we couldn't find that old fool Merlin,' says King Pellinore. 'A little magic would have gone a long way in this situation.'

'He's never around when you need him,' sighs the King. 'I suppose I'd better give the battle signal. However much I regret wars, we really can't have the Saxons overrunning the whole country.'

He turns away from his companions and raises his sword high above his head. At once there is an answering cheer from the men below (and a roar of outrage from the warriors across the plain). Like opposing tides, the two great armies begin to sweep towards each other, weapons flashing, bent on slaughter.

And a lightning flash of brilliant orange explodes across the plain between them!

The leading cavalry on both sides rein in with much plunging of the horses. On the instant, a stunned silence falls across the plain. In the wake of the gigantic lightning flash, a small figure carrying an ebony staff (and very curiously dressed in a Grecian-style tunic) has appeared between the two opposing armies.

'Who is it?' asks Pellinore. 'I can't see from here.'

'The build looks familiar,' frowns Sir Lancelot.

'By George!' exclaims the King. 'I think it's Pip!'

The men of King Arthur's army seem to have come to much the same conclusion, for a massive cheer goes up, rolling to the heavens like a sudden thunderclap.

The small figure takes three steps towards the startled Saxons, then strikes once with the heel of the ebon staff upon the ground.

For a moment, nothing more happens, then, softly as distant thunder, a low rumble swells from somewhere deep beneath the feet of the two opposing armies. The noise grows louder, a rolling vibration which shakes the very ground until the land itself moves!

A fountain of brilliant violet light surges upwards from the ebon staff, then curls down and spreads swiftly to embrace the entire Saxon army. The mighty warriors are limned with a sparkling violet aura, then it fades abruptly. For an instant all is still.

Softly at first, but increasing, the low grumbling begins again, like the approach of some gigantic juggernaut. And this time the land surges up for all the world as though it were a tidal wave at sea.

'Earthquake!' screams someone in the ranks below the King. But the ground by Arthur's army remains rock steady.

The wave begins to move, rushing forward at a gesture from the small figure with the ebon staff. The Saxon army erupts in noisy panic.

Howling with delight, King Arthur's men surge forward--and the Saxons break and run... pursued by the great wave which, though it has swelled to mountainous proportions yet passed over Avalon without the slightest hint of damage.

'It's a rout!' exclaims King Pellinore. 'The invasion has been halted with not a drop of blood shed!'

'Pip has done it again!' roars the King and leaps upon his horse to ride down and greet the greatest hero his realm has ever seen.

And thanks to Pip's timely return (despite all the time spent from being killed 4 times), the Saxon Invasion has been repelled! But of course, as usual there's more work to do for Pip, since Excalibur has still yet to be recovered. That, however, will have to next till the next book. For now, congratulations to everyone who played, especially those who actually persevered through this entire lengthy, death-filled playthrough!

Pip's quest to recover Excalibur will commence in the next book...which will probably begin a couple days later (I'm considering using some house rules to alter a certain annoying mechanism that we will constantly be encountering in that book in order to cut down on arbitrary insta-deaths).

One small piece of good news (not much of a spoiler): EJ comes back to Pip in the next quest, so we can take some comfort in that!

QUEST JOURNAL:

Pip's LIFE POINTS: 44/47
Permanent Life Points: 15

EQUIPMENT CARRIED:
Piece of Driftwood (weapon, +2 damage)
Sword (hits on 6, damage +3)
Spear (hits on 6/thrown 8, damage +5/thrown +10, only attack once every 2 rounds/thrown once every 3 rounds)
New Dagger (hits on 6, damage +1, attack twice per round)
One-piece armour (worn) (damage -2, shatters on 12 after taking the 1st hit in every combat)
Spare armor x2 (damage -2, shatters on 12 after taking the 1st hit in every combat)
Rope (50ft coil)
Grappling hook
Backpack
Flint and steel (for lighting fires)
Ceramic lamp
Box of biscuits
Golden Key (x11)
Bottle of Grog
Axe
Ebony Staff

MONEY: 7730 GP

EXPERIENCE POINTS: 14
ENEMIES DEFEATED:
Old Sea Dog (2x)
Poisonous Spider
Ship's Cook (2x)
19 Guards
10 Scoundrels (3x)
Rock Thern (2x)
T-Rex
Greater Spotted Pondoozlewazzle Bird
Hecate
4 Shadows
Cyclops
Harpy
Ram
Phantom Archer
Mummy Pig
PUZZLES SOLVES: 5

No. of Deaths:
1) LP drained by Shadows on Skull Island
2) Devoured by a T-Rex on Dragon Island
3) Killed by Mummy on Lost Island
4) Caved-in under a ramshackle, jerry-built structure magically disguised as a mansion

[SGamerz]

So, just a bit more about the few remaining stuf that we missed for this playthrough:

If we'd refused to accept the old lady's treat at the "farm", we get attacked by her 12 chickens, which turned out to be 12 Giant Ferrets because of course they are. Pip and Jason fight 6 each. This is the fight where the text specifically says if Jason dies, we also go to section 14! And then we have to kill the witch herself.

The reward of that encounter is some healing potion, some anti-poison antidote and a caul that gives Pip immunity from drowning.

Based off my memory, there's only one more powerful aid left to be found in the "cottage" that we didn't finish exploring. It's an illusion spell that will auto-kill all enemies in a fight it we successfully cast it at the start of the fight by rolling 11 or 12. The best thing about this spell is that it's not a 1-shot that can be used up. It's permanent, except we can only try it once per fight. If we'd had this when we encounter the Mummy, and since we can instantly return to that fight if we lose for that encounter, that means we could have just instantly restarted the fight over and over again until we get lucky and rolled an 11 or 12.

I remember being pretty excited when I first played this and discovered that we have an entire crew (even if the fights would have been extra tedious with all the additional dice rolling for everyone). I really wish this were designed more like Starship Traveller (FF4....which is actually one of my least favourite FF book, strangely), where Pip gets to choose to bring a limited number of crew members with him for each island. Oh well.....

Kind of excited to see the next book - it was my first gamebook and I wonder how well it'll hold.

As mentioned earlier, I'm really tempted to make some "house rule" adjustments regarding one annoying aspect of the book:

the bit where you have a 1/6 chance of getting insta-killed every time you revisit Merlin's house.

When I played it on my own, I decided to pretend that I was doing a "Sleep" roll every time I roll a '1' on returning to Merlin's house. this way, Pip doesn't die automatically, but he goes into Dreamland and will have to encounter some risk too. I found it more tolerable than auto-kill and less "cheaty" since Pip will still be in danger for rolling the 1.

What do you think of that? Do you have a better suggestion? Or would you prefer to stick with the original rule?

[Thaluikhain]

IIRC, sticking with the original rule would make the game more or less impossible. Goddamnit getting killed by the die (literallyish) all the time was a stupid idea.