Unfortunately, the option wasn't so much about whether to help him, but whether to go to his help immediately before checking for possible ambush from whomever attacked him, so that we can be the ambusher instead of the ambushed...
You are about halfway down the slope when a savage Troll-Orc sprints out from cover and races down the hill towards you, a spear tucked under his arm, ready to impale you. If you have some sallow seed oil, turn to 328; otherwise, turn to 223.
...but fortunately, we do have an item that can foil the ambush!
Thinking quickly, you smash the phial of slippery oil on the ground in the Troll-Orc's path. He loses his footing and crashes heavily to the ground, where you dispatch him easily. Cross the oil off your Adventure Sheet, then turn to 181.
I'm not even sure what a Troll-Orc is supposed to be, especially since crossbreeds of Trolls and Orcs in Titan are called Doragars
and were introduced by Robin Waterfield himself in Masks of Mayhem. Maybe it's an Orc who spends its time trolling others on the internet?
Either way, I'm sure we're all glad that we got to 1-shot this guy without a fight.
The man is still alive when you reach him. "It's you," he gasps. "King Jonthane sent me...new information...find...north of here..." He breathes his last. You leave his body for the crows: it is as clean a way to dispose of it as any other. You head north with your incomplete new information.
He didn't even bring any provisions for us to convenient loot off his corpse, so I guess it serves him right that we leave him to the crows! We can sympathize with hungry creatures more.
In the livid glow of a Deathmoor sunset, you come to an ancient door set in the hillside. Although it clearly originates in the lost civilization which once populated this land, you are certain that it is now the entrance to Arachnos' hide-out. You study in particular the three depressions in the door. If you have the three keys necessary to get in through the door, you can work out where to turn to next. Otherwise, you leave to look for another way in.
We only have 2 of the 3 keys, though so entry is denied to us...
You struggle on as best you can as deep night falls and the mists come down, but to no avail. Half-seen, half-recognized shapes loom, eerily glowing, out of the darkness, while fine moisture soaks you to the skin. The ghosts of Deathmoor lure you to your death over a cliff.
It's actually possible to find an alternate entry into Arachnos' lair without the 3 keys, but unfortunately, we did not come by that path.
Well, that puts poor starving Waluigi out of his misery, surprisingly not via STAMINA loss but via sudden death section. We do not have sufficient gold for another resurrection (and even if we do, finding the third key or an alternate entry point requires further rewind anyway, so we're essentially doomed anyway), so this is the end of this LP. I can't recall the last time one of mine had a premature end (but then I usually didn't set limits on the number of rewinds when I first started). This book doesn't feel interesting enough to warrant that many repeated replays, so maybe it's just as well...
This book turns out to have more lethal traps than I remember, even though there aren't many high-stats enemies. Thank you to everyone who played, and for your patience in persevering till this point. Since we didn't finish this one, I won't be doing the usual summary on missed content, just in case someone else wants to run a second take on this, although if you have any particular questions, I'd still answer them in "spoiler" text.
