[Let's Play] Virtual Reality Gamebooks: Green Blood

[Thaluikhain]

Is underwhelmed by the pic.

Anyway, get between it and the tree, I guess.

[SGamerz]

We didn't come all this way just to watch these guys cut down the Tree. Go stop the machine.

[Darth Rabbitt]

You must decide how you will face this monstrous machine of destruction. If you have SPELLS and a wand you can use them. You can face it bare-handed or with UNARMED COMBAT. (We do not have SWORDPLAY and a sword, nor do we have CHARMS and an amulet.) Or you can try something else.

I think the blue option takes priority, and we got a pre-emptive vote for it so I'll go with that.

"Trying something else" is a Game Over, anyways.

The Infernal Statue belches steam as its sword arm rises and falls like a piston. You review the spells you can cast against this terrible weapon of destruction.
Vanish allows you to disappear and move unseen. Choking Fog creates a cloud of poisonous gas. Visceral Disruption causes crippling stomach cramps. Shield of Defence is a defence against manifest magic attacks. Bafflement confuses your foe. Tower of Will subdues your enemy, who will then do your will. The sword continues to drive into and out of the trunk of the Tree of Life.
Decide which spell you will cast and then turn to the paragraph number indicated in brackets by its name.

[Omegonthesane]

The only ones of those I'd expect to actually disrupt its penetrative thrusting are Bafflement and Tower of Will. Of those Bafflement is the weaker effect, so by Video Game Logic it's probably either easier to cast, harder to save against, or both.

So cast Bafflement.

[SGamerz]

Vanish and Shield of Defence are the obvious useless options here: the Tree is the target, not us. Choking Fog is unlikely to be effective against a machine that doesn't breathe. Even if there's a human inside the machine who's vulnerable, the belching steam will probably blow the fog away.

Even the other 3 spells should only work if there's an actual human operating the machine from inside. If the machine were controlled remotely then nothing would work, so I guess we must work on the assumption that there must be a mind or a stomach that we can target effectively with those spells.

A possible trick might be that our spell cannot touch the machine directly but will affect the men around it? In that case I think Tower of Will might be better, if we can control one of the men who actually happen to know the machine's weak spot and disable it?

[Zaranthan]

I've always said go big or go home, and today is no exception. One vote for Tower of Will.

[Darth Rabbitt]

And that breaks the tie in favor of Tower of Will!

You summon all your willpower and try to grapple with the machine in a battle of minds, even though your resolve is weakened by the nagging fear that the machine doesn't have a will of its own.
To your surprise your magic tells you there is a mind within the machine--it belongs to the man who is controlling it. He is busy working the machine, and the machine grinds to a halt as he is hit by your psychic assault.
The operator switches his attention to you and focuses his mental powers. You hold the machine motionless for long moments without managing to overpower the will of the man inside it.
How will you follow up your success?
Cast Choking Fog?
Cast Bafflement?
Cast Visceral Disruption?

[SGamerz]

Okay, now that we've confirmed that there's a mind within the machine, use Bafflement! Hopefully, it'll not just cause it to stop targeting the tree, but actually make it hack at the other Westermen out of confusion.

[Omegonthesane]

I voted Bafflement the first time, Imma vote Bafflement the second time. Although, again, on the basis that it'll presumably be harder to resist than simply having your will overwritten.

Though it would be funny if Visceral Disruption was the solution now we know there is a stomach inside the bot as well.

[Darth Rabbitt]

You speak the word and the spell wings its way to the Infernal Statue. It doesn't shake its head or rub its brow as a man affected by this spell might but it takes a great step backwards and falls into the deep blue pool.
There is a rush of steam like a geyser, followed by an explosion underwater as the machine tears itself apart. The Westermen cry out in alarm and begin to retreat, harried by the arrows of the elves.

The Westermen are routed. They have faced a dragon, the elves and a hero among mankind and they have had enough. They are easy to pick off as they flee through the forest much more slowly than the elves can follow. In their panic, they break into smaller and smaller groups and the elves have no difficulty in killing them. They show no mercy: the Westermen die in their tens of thousands. They will leave the forest, never to return. The Tree of Life lives on and Elanor and the elves will tend it till it has made a full recovery.
Without you, the elves and the whole forest would have been doomed. Without the forest the whole world's atmosphere would have been thrown into imbalance. Elanor greets you as the saviour she had always known you would be. Now everything that grows in the great Forest of Arden is your friend. You will not be famous when you return to the lands of men. No one will ever know what great deeds you performed here, but it doesn't matter. You know you are a hero.

And that's the book. I think I need a break from running these but I'll answer any questions people have.

[Thaluikhain]

Is it just me, or does the ending seem a bit abrupt? Though, the whole thing seemed a bit meandering, but that could just be me.

[Zaranthan]

That's pretty much how CYOA books always end. They've got a dozen endings to write, so even the "You Win" ending is a single page.

That said, I am curious how many opportunities we had to Refuse the Call and doom the planet. I'm always impressed when a CYOA actually lets you say "fuck Fate, somebody else is saving the world today."

[Darth Rabbitt]

That said, I am curious how many opportunities we had to Refuse the Call and doom the planet. I'm always impressed when a CYOA actually lets you say "fuck Fate, somebody else is saving the world today."

Off the top of my head, there's getting rid of the ring that Elanor gives you, but that's not a game over nor does it actually make it impossible to win. If you fail her test, you get one of two different game overs (it's one of those "there's no choice that isn't a Bad End" sections which I tend to hate in gamebooks) where she refuses to help you and leaves you to die in the woods, where days later you find the bodies of the elves and realize everyone's dying because the forest has been destroyed (nice one, Elanor). For a book about saving the environment this book is actually rather interested in making the pro-environment side massive jerks for no real reason. See also: the elves.

Going with the innkeeper that we rescued from the slavers would be a game over in that vein, as would asking the dragon for power (he decides to start by casting a sleep spell on you, and spells made to make dragons to sleep knock out mortals for a century or so.) Asking for his treasure makes him magic a metric fuckton of gold onto you out of spite and, weighted down by this absurd display of wealth, are killed by a forest dweller on your way to return to civilization. Actually, most of the game overs are just "something in the forest kills you." I know there are a few "you get lost in the woods and either die or live long enough to see the forest burn," and that's second most common.

But there's no real bad end where you just decide to Refuse The Call entirely rather than just get screwed over for being somewhat greedy while answering the call or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It also seems like a wasted opportunity that there isn't a "join the Westermen, burn down the forest and have that fuck you all over in the long run" bad end.