[Let's Play] Fighting Fantazine Adventure #2 - Shrine of the Salamander

[Queen of Swords]

Agreed, wavy lines.

[SGamerz]

As you wander down the corridor you hear the sound of running water, and soon enough you reach a cave on the banks of the subterranean stream. On the other side of the water is a beach, and from there a tunnel leading northwards. You are just pondering how best to cross the stream, when you are suddenly aware of something huge standing behind you. Too late, you try to turn around but a great clammy hand grab you around the throat and throttle you until you lose consciousness...

You awaken in a small cave at the end of a long tunnel. In the distance you can see a faint bluish light. Your throat is bruised and tender - deduct 1 STAMINA point for the effects of being strangled. Your equipment lies in a neat pile to one side, and your hands are tightly bound, so you cannot cast any magic spells. There is a large fire in the centre of the cave, and a thick wooden roasting spit that looks uncomfortably like it has been designed to bear your weight. You hear a sudden sound and look up to see something big and nonhuman stalking down the tunnel towards you. If you have a Knife as part of your equipment and wish to use it to cut yourself free, turn to 11. If you do not have a knife and wish to try and break your bonds using just your own strength, turn to 46. If you want to wait and see what's coming, turn to 134.

Do we take the exact same actions as last time for this whole encounter?

[JourneymanN00b]

My vote will be a yes for taking the exact same actions.

[Queen of Swords]

Yes, take the same actions.

[SGamerz]

A giant lizard-like creature with rubbery skin and a great crest enters the cave, grabs the spit from the fire, and begins to tie you to it. All the while it talks partly to itself and partly to you about how you will die. "First, I'm going to roast the human slowly, till all its outside is black and crispy, but it's still alive. Then I'm going to chop its legs off and eat them, and then I'll suck its eyes out with my tongue. Then..."

For a brief moment, your bonds come free. Will you grab your weapon and attack the creature, or will you allow yourself to be tied to the spit and engage the creature in conversation?

"Wrong, wrong, wrong!" you tell the creature. "If you want to cook me properly, you'll need garlic and lost of it."

"Really?" it says with interest, putting you to one side so it can hear more.

The creature is a GREMOLL - a giant carnivorous humanoid newt, and this one is feeling especially sorry for itself. It explains to you that it used to be held in high esteem by the Horntoads as a master hunter, but the arrival of the Salamander in the halls of the Frog God has put paid to that.

"Curse Xak and all his doings!" it says with feeling. Apparently Xak is the Salamander's name. This is important lore! Like more supernatural creatures, Salamanders can be banished back to their home plane by speaking aloud their true name. If in future you have the chance to speak the name Xak, add twenty to the paragraph you have turned to, and consult this new paragraph number instead.

Meanwhile, the Gremoll is interested in learning more about your recipes for cooking human flesh. You tell it to go to the kitchen of the Horntoads and retrieve some garlic and a lot of other herbs and spices, You solemnly assure the creature you will still be here when it returns. Of course, once the Gremoll has stalked off down the tunnel and out of sight, you rapidly free yourself from your loosened bonds.

Hurriedly, you grab all your equipment and leave the lair of the Gremoll, down a long tunnel that opens, via a hidden entrance, onto the northern banks of the underground river that you came to before. Nearby is the other passage that you spied from the southern shore, before you were strangled by the Gremoll. The beast must have captured you and carried you across the river, thus saving you the trouble of fording it yourself. Suddenly, you hear weird booming cries coming from the river! Knowing that the Gremoll often live in small groups, you quickly enter the adjacent passage and head north.

After a short walk you come to yet another intersection of tunnels, again marked by the primitive runes of the Horntoads. Where will you go next? Bear in mind you cannot return to any place you have already visited, no matter how briefly.

The four vertical bars symbol
The squirming lizard symbol
The frog with a crown symbol

[Queen of Swords]

Four vertical bars, and use POP again.

[JourneymanN00b]

I also vote to go to the four vertical bars and cast the POP spell again.

[SGamerz]

The tunnel arrives at a circular chamber that functions as the Horntoads' gaol. Small doorways barred with iron gates look into several tiny prisoners' cells, most of which are empty. There doesn't seem to be any sign of a gaoler.

Suddenly, a ruckus starts up in one of the cells. "Let me out! Let me out!" You peer through the bars and see a Black Elf maiden, clad in spiked armour, striking the ground with a scimitar. On seeing you, she rushes to the door of her cells and shakes it violently.

"Please! You've got to let me out of here!" she begs. Unfortunately, the cell is securely locked, and you have no key. You can cast a magic spell:

PEP
POP
YOB

Or you can abandon her to her fate, and return to the junction.

"POP!"

Deduct 1 STAMINA point. Do you have a pebble with you? If not, return to 96 and choose again. if you have a pebble, you cast the spell upon it. Telling the Black Elf to stand back, you throw the pebble at the iron bars of the cell. There is a loud bang, and the door of the cell is blown off its hinges and on to the floor. Don't forget to cross the pebble off your Adventure Sheet.

The Black Elf steps free from her cell, and thanks you for freeing her. Suddenly, her eyes narrow in alarm, and she points her scimitar at you.

"How do I know I can trust you?" she says.

You attempt to convince the warrior maiden as to the worthiness of your quest. Roll two dice and Test your Luck. if you are Lucky, turn to 108. if you are Unlucky, turn to 115.

Dice roll = 6 (Lucky).

To your relief, the Black Elf lowers her weapon, convinced by your story.

"Sorry," she says. "Going a bit paranoid in here. Know what I mean? My name is Verrema. I'm a thief, I mean, an adventurer. well, I was until I got caught by those Horntoads. How about I help you get out of here?"

Verrema will accompany you for the rest of the adventure. While she is with you, watch the paragraph numbers. If there is an asterisk (*) next to the number, substract 15 from that reference and turn to the new paragraph number to see what Verrema has to tell you. Verrema will also join in any battles you face in the caves. Her attributes are SKILL 8, STAMINA 8. If you face only one opponent, you will gain two Attacks (yours and Verrema's), both of which can injure your opponent. If your opponent causes a wound, roll a die: on a 1-3, you are wounded, and on a 4-6 Verrema is wounded (this also applies to Escape penalties if the two of you decide to flee). If you face multiple opponents which you fight one at a time, then you can either attack alternate creatures, or you can both gang up on each opponent as you work your way through the battle-order. Keep a careful check on Verrema's STAMINA score as if she dies then you must continue alone (obviously losing any benefits gained by having the Black Elf accompany you). You can however give Verrema Provisions or a Potion of Healing to restore her STAMINA score if you wish.

For now, you return to the junction, along with your new companion.

Where do we go next?

The four vertical bars symbol
The squirming lizard symbol
The frog with a crown symbol

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: John Constantine
SKILL 7/7
STAMINA 21/23
LUCK 9/10
Equipment: Warhammer, Lantern, Cloth SkullCap, Small Pebbles (x13), Sand (x5), Stone Dust (x3), Rope (x2), Galehorn, Lumps of coal (x5), Potion of Healing (restores STAMINA to initial value), Giant Tooth, Potion of Fire Water
Provisions: 7
Gold: 10
Boons: Galehorn, SkullCap, Giant's Tooth, Potion of Firewater
Notes:
1) Anyone entering the maze of tunnels that forms the Crystal Mine itself, must first turn left and then travel in a clockwise direction if they wish to remain safe.
2) The Horntoads' favourite food is the humble bee. If in future we find ourselves in the presence of a beehive and wish to try and catch some, deduct twenty to the paragraph number we have turned to, and consult this new paragraph number instead.
3) Xak may be the name of the Croaking Caves Salamander? If in future we have the chance to speak the name Xak, add twenty to the paragraph number we have turned to, and consult this new paragraph number instead.
4) Zared the sage dwells in a cavern full of giant fungi. If in future we find ourselves in such a place and wish to contact Zared, add fifty to the paragraph number we are on at the time, and consult this new paragraph number instead.
5) If in future we find ourselves reading a paragraph that begins: "You have defeated the Salamander of the Croaking Caves!", deduct thirty from the paragraph number we are on at the time, and consult this new paragraph instead, in order to deal with the demonic trident.
6) New Companion: Verrema the Black Elf (SKILL 8, STAMINA 8), If there is an asterisk (*) next to the section number we're at, substract 15 from that reference and turn to the new paragraph number to see what Verrema has to tell us. Verrema will also join in any battles we face in the caves.
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I half vote to go to the frog with a crown symbol again.

[Queen of Swords]

Agreed, let's deal with the Salamander.

[SGamerz]

*

You follow a wide tunnel that opens up into a huge chamber that can only be the shrine of Furlakk the Frog God, Lord of Amphibians. An immense stone statue of Furlakk - in his guise as a Horntoad, obviously - stares down balefully from an altar that has been piled high with skulls. The vaulted ceiling is supported by crooked pillars inscribed with the carvings of fanged demons and horned toads. There are smoking braziers and burning candles everywhere, and the air is so thick with the sweet stench of incense your eyes start watering.

There! You spy it! At the foot of the altar lies the plain and simple, yet utterly sacred Idol of Verlang, a bearded, helmeted smith with a hammer and an anvil. You move towards it but are brought up short by the sound of an ancient voice, rich in evil, which booms out across the shrine.

"Not so fast!" The speaker is none other than the SALAMANDER of Daddu-Yadu, stalking out across the floor of the shrine. It stands three metres tall on its back legs, with a long tail trailing behind, and its skin is a mixture of black, yellow, and red, all wreathed in fire. Great dark eyes regards you inscrutably from a broad wedge-shaped head, and in its hands it holds a flaming iron trident of outlandish design.

"You have done well to make it this far, blacksmith!" says the Salamander contemptuously. "But now you face no croaking Horntoad, no Gremoll newtling. You face me, and I cannot allow you to take the idol. My people made it eons ago, at the behest of Verlang, before you humans stole it from us, and now I am taking it back to its rightful place in the City of Brass."

"This is sacrilege," you yell at the Salamander. "The idol is ours, and I have come to collect it."

"Well, smith," says the Salamander quietly, dabbing at its eyelids with a long pink tongue. "Come and get it then."

Will you fight the Salamander of Daddu-Yadu or will you cast a magic spell:

XAK
WOK
YOB

Verrema gives her input:

"Oh, flippin' heck, not you again!" says Verrema upon seeing the Salamander. "Of all the rotten luck..."

The Salamander laughs. "So priest, you have joined forces with the renegade Black Elf? I was going to devour her later, but you brining her here no has saved me the trouble! Much obliged!"

"Shut it, lizard!" shouts the Black Elf maiden. "The only thing you'll be devouring here is your own tail, when we force-feed it down your throat after cutting you into pieces!"

It seems these two have history! Return to 188 and choose as to whether you will fight the Salamander or cast a magic spell.

I think I can safely assume that we use the Salamander's real name to banish it again:

"Xak!" you howl at the Salamander. "Xak, I speak your true name and banish back to the Plane of Fire forthwith! Begone fiend, and trouble these lands no more!"

The Salamander utters a low drawn-out scream of horror, but it is too late! A jagged tear in the fabric of space and time rips open behind the beast and engulfs it in a black void. Still screaming, Xak the Salamander is dragged back to the flaming plains of its homeland on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Just as suddenly, the hole in reality seals itself back up and winks out of existence, leaving behind only the Salamander's trident, which clatters harmlessly to the floor of the shrine. Add 1 LUCK point for your victory here, turn to 137.

But we know it's not yet over...

*

You have defeated the Salamander of the Croaking Caves! You rush over to the altar and pick up the sacred idol. You have retrieved the Idol of Verlang! Your quest is over.

Suddenly and completely unexpectedly, there is an agonizing pain in your back, as if you have been stabbed with a giant flaming spear! And again! And again! Blood is already pouring from from your gaping wounds, as you turn around to confront your assailant. It is none other than the Salamander's trident, now hovering in the air of its own accord, like some horrific metal hornet. Again it strikes, wounding you grievously in the stomach this time, and you collapse to the now blood-stained temple floor, cradling the idol protectively to your chest. There no mercy from the flying trident however, for it stabs downwards repeatedly until your brutalized corpse is as still as the idol you were carrying...

But this time we've been forewarned!

You have defeated the Salamander of the Croaking Caves! But you also remember the warning of Zared the Hermit, and spin around just in time to see the Salamander's trident rise up off the floor and streak towards you like some horrific metal hornet. It is extremely fast, but if you can hit it a couple of times then you will break the enchantment that animates it and render it inert. Defend yourself one last time!

TRIDENT OF DOOM SKILL 10 STAMINA 4

There is no Escape from here! If you destroy the demonic Trident, turn to 200.

There's actually a minor problem with the opening text of the section: we got here because we were told to subtract 30 from the previous section after seeing the opening text "You have defeated the Salamander of the Croaking Caves!", but since this section also open with the exact same sentence, theoretically we should subtract yet another 30 from this section, but I'm pretty sure that's not what the author intends here.
'
So, the Final Boss has a 3-point advantage in Attack Strength, but we have much more STAMINA, and only need to get lucky on the dice twice (whether by hitting it twice or testing LUCK on our first hit) to win, and we also have a slightly more SKILLed companion fighting beside us.

Do we want to use LUCK for this battle?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: John Constantine
SKILL 7/7
STAMINA 21/23
LUCK 10/10
Equipment: Warhammer, Lantern, Cloth SkullCap, Small Pebbles (x13), Sand (x5), Stone Dust (x3), Rope (x2), Galehorn, Lumps of coal (x5), Potion of Healing (restores STAMINA to initial value), Giant Tooth, Potion of Fire Water
Provisions: 7
Gold: 10
Boons: Galehorn, SkullCap, Giant's Tooth, Potion of Firewater
Notes:
1) Anyone entering the maze of tunnels that forms the Crystal Mine itself, must first turn left and then travel in a clockwise direction if they wish to remain safe.
2) The Horntoads' favourite food is the humble bee. If in future we find ourselves in the presence of a beehive and wish to try and catch some, deduct twenty to the paragraph number we have turned to, and consult this new paragraph number instead.
3) Xak may be the name of the Croaking Caves Salamander? If in future we have the chance to speak the name Xak, add twenty to the paragraph number we have turned to, and consult this new paragraph number instead.
4) Zared the sage dwells in a cavern full of giant fungi. If in future we find ourselves in such a place and wish to contact Zared, add fifty to the paragraph number we are on at the time, and consult this new paragraph number instead.
5) If in future we find ourselves reading a paragraph that begins: "You have defeated the Salamander of the Croaking Caves!", deduct thirty from the paragraph number we are on at the time, and consult this new paragraph instead, in order to deal with the demonic trident.
6) New Companion: Verrema the Black Elf (SKILL 8, STAMINA 8), If there is an asterisk (*) next to the section number we're at, substract 15 from that reference and turn to the new paragraph number to see what Verrema has to tell us. Verrema will also join in any battles we face in the caves.
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to use Luck to deal extra damage for this battle.

[Queen of Swords]

Agreed.

[SGamerz]

COMBAT LOG:
Trident of Doom 15, John Constantine 17, Verrema 12. Luck Test roll = 6 (Lucky). ToD is defeated!

John Constantine is lucky enough to score a hit in the very first round, and after a successful LUCK test, the battle is won!

*

Now you really have completed the quest entrusted to you by High Priest Gulanti of the Copperstone Caves. You step forward and claim the sacred Idol of Verlang, the holiest treasure of your order, and place it carefully in your backpack. You have also destroyed its demonic trident accomplice. It will be some time, if at all, before the Horntoads of the Croaking Caves rise to power in these parts again. Well done, and congratulations! Upon your return, your rapid promotion through the ranks of the priests of Verlang (not that you have far to go of course!) is assured!

Ah...about your return to Daddu-Ley. You remember the words of Captain Unzana of the good ship Schoolfish. You are to leave the caves, climb to the top of the cliffs, and light a signal-beacon. The ship will then return for you, and pluck you off the beaches before sailing away to safety. Leaving the caves may be a problem however. You are tired and exhausted, and there's an army of Horntoads between you and the exit. Whether or not you make it back through the Croaking Caves and light the beacon to be rescued us a tale for another time. Perhaps you should have a rest here first, in the shrine of the Salamander...

THE END?

I think that qualifies as a successful ending, even though the text implies some doubt about whether the PC will make his escape successfully. The good ending for The Citadel of Chaos (FF2) had a similar undertone if the PC doesn't have any Levitation spells remaining, and it's clear that this author enjoys Steve Jackson's works.

BUT there's also an asterisk in this section, which means that we can also unlock an even better hiddden ending:

"Well, priest," says Verrema the Black Elf who has been searching the dark alcoves at the back of Furlakk's shrine. "You can rest here and recuperate and whatnot, but I've found me a secret staircase leading upwards, so I guess I'll be lighting that secret signal-beacon you keep banging on about. Unless of course, you want to join me?"

You rush to investigate whether she is telling the truth. There, behind a secret panel of carven friezes, is a rickety iron staircase leading upwards in a tight spiral to the top of the cliffs. You can even glimpse the faint smudge of daylight right at the summit of the hidden shaft. Both you and Verrema immediately begin ascending the stairs.

Some time and a ridiculous number of steps later, the two of you are standing at the top of the great jagged cliffs that form the Earth End Coastline warming your hands against a blazing fire, and waiting for the telltale light of a ship bobbing up and down on the darkening waters. Seabirds glide and call on a strong brine-scented breeze that ruffles through the grass and snaps about your robes. The sun has set over the lands of Kakhabad, the velvet night sky above the sea is studded with a thousand gleaming stars, and this well and truly is

THE END!

The author even marks the completeness of this ending with an exclamation mark instead of the question mark that he used for the earlier ending. So congratulations on reaching the most successful ending!

As usual, there will be a brief sum-up later about the adventure in general, although I believe our playthroughs covered most of the significant parts. Feel free to ask if you have any further questions regarding this adventure.

Thank you to everyone for playing!

[Queen of Swords]

Thanks for hosting this!

Where would we have ended up if we'd tried the squirming lizard symbol?

[JourneymanN00b]

Thank you for running this, SGamerz!

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for running.

I imagine this one won't be remembered for good or for ill. Except maybe for an companion with annoying dialogue who beat the odds and didn't die.

[Queen of Swords]

Except maybe for an companion with annoying dialogue who beat the odds and didn't die.

I wondered why she was wearing "spiked armour" if she claimed to be a thief.

[pragma]

What was the good thing that was missed by bit going east at the start of the caves?

[SGamerz]

Where would we have ended up if we'd tried the squirming lizard symbol?

The Salamander's hatchery. There's nothing important there, but a bunch of Salamander spawnlings to fight (one young Salamander and several hatchlings). If we kill them all, we destroy the rest of the eggs and get 2 LUCK bonus for it. The young Salamander is SK 6 ST 7, and the hatchlings are about the same level as the Horntoad tadpoles, so the fight shouldn't be too hard (especially if you have Verrema helping you).

****

Anyway, I mentioned before that this adventure can actually be completed with minimum stats, and the reason for that is because the Final Boss Fight against the Trident of Doom is actually the ONLY mandatory combat in the entire adventure. Every other encounter is either avoidable or can be resolved with with the appropriate spell/item/knowledge. Of course, you're not likely to find the optimal route on your first attempt (that would have been too easy anyway), but the design isn't really that complex, so it shouldn't take you more than a few tries to figure out what not to do.

The optimal order for the 4 main locations to visit is of course the one we took from the start: Crystal Mine (stock up cash) --> Under-temple (buy all the info and items there with accumulated cash) --> Tunnels of Ooze (unlock vital information) --> Croaking Caves (endgame location).

TEL as a spell is useful for first-time players to learn the information about how to navigate the mines - and the info is legit, although it can be interpreted in another way that wasn't what the author intended, as we found out: to remain safe, we were supposed to travel in a clockwise direction around the the outer rim of the mines, so basically after the first left turn, we should pretty much go straight all the way until we can't, and then turn right, and straight all the way again. Besides this, and being used to lower the bribe price at the temple, TEL isn't much use, and since the information about the mines isn't locked/protected by hidden sections or codewords, a player doesn't ever need to use the spell again on his replay attempts, he's completely free to use that knowledge for his navigation in the mines without it (incidentally, I got really lucky and took all the right paths in the mines the first time I played this without ever using the spell).

So the best spell to start with, and in fact the most useful spell throughout the whole book, is actually HUF and the Galehorn. It can get you out of 3 encounters without any issues another than the 1-point cost in STAMINA for casting the spell. We know about the Sand Golem, and I've also stated (in spoiler text) that it would also have worked to save us from the quicksand. Using the Rope successfully saves us the 1-point STAMINA cost if it works on the first try, but for low-SKILLed characters who may fail the SKILL test for the Rope multiple times, HUF was by far the safer option, so we didn't even really need the rope.

The other place where HUF would have worked well is the initial encounter with the Dark Goblin guards: it blows them right off the cliffs and saves us a fight entirely. It does mean that we can't loot the 3 Gold Pieces they have, but there's more than enough cash to be found inside the mines if we know where to look. In a way, this is similar to the spell options (HOT or ROK) against the Boss: one option nets you more cash, but the other one is likely to save you some STAMINA, and neither is entirely better or worse, partly depending on your stats and condition.

PEP is also seldom the optimal choice, at least on the optimal path (although in some cases they work as well as any other - for example, it doesn't really matter which spell you choose to use to free Verrama - all 3 spells will work). The one place where we should have used it (although we didn't have the component, which means we should have bought it from Hagla for the optimal route) if when we were freeing the prisoners from the mines. PEP allows us to free the prisoners so quickly that their wardens have no chance to interfere, and the freed prisoners overpower the Dark Goblins and Rhino-man by themselves, saving us a combat against the latter.

If we take the completely combat-free route I described above, we will come out of the Crystal Mines with 24 Gold Pieces to spare (spending our original 5 on the Potion of Firewater from Hagla). The important information and items from the Under-Temple cost 10 GP (6 for the Potion of Transformation, 2 each for researching on Horntoads and learning about Zared). The research on Salamanders isn't necessary since we can learn the info from the (unavoidable) encounter with the Gremoll. So even if we roll the maximum amount required for bribing the priests to let us enter (6), we should still have more than enough to spare for all the important stuff and still buy the useful Healing Potion. We don't really need cash after this.

(Fighting the priests to force entry into the Under-temple and looting it is just flat out bad choice, btw - not only are the fights difficult, we also lose the chance to find out the vital information on Zared.)

The Tunnels of Ooze only serves 2 important purposes (and of course a nasty trap for players who didn't take the optimal route to potentially enter the Croaking Caves via the Horntoads' latrine): the necessary information from Zared, and of course catching the useful (but not strictly essential unless you didn't buy the Potion of Transformation) Jar of Bees. Of the other 2 entrances that we didn't take, one of them leads straight to the Tarator (missing out on the bees), and the partially-submerged path takes us through 3 potential hostile encounters, but none of the fights are essential to win, and we have the option to flee from all of them straight to the quicksand chamber. The first is a Giant Clam that we don't actually need to fight, but must pass a SKILL test to avoid getting clamped by it (and must free ourselves using a spell or our weapon if we fail). The second is a normal combat against a Sand Squid, and the third is an encounter with a Mud Dragon (which we can use spells to deal with). As I said, we can flee from all of them, but if we persist in pushing our way through all 3, we find a treasure chest belonging to someone named Kullion the Crab (a character who also appears in at least one of the author's other mini-gamebooks). There's only a little cash (and a signed IOU) inside, but we also find a chainmail hauberk that gives +1 bonus in Attack Strength and a 1/3 chance of halving the damage of every hit you take in combat (but it also makes certain tasks more difficult, as we saw - like pulling ourselves out of quicksand).

The one really beneficial encounter that we missed in this book is the east-turn that we avoided after getting past the Horntoad Guards at the Croaking Caves. I have stated before that the author seems to be a fan of Steve Jackson's work: the magic system from Sorcery, the companion and hidden section reference mechanisms similar to Creatures of Havoc, the similar undertone to the successful ending of Citadel of Chaos...even the combat loop (which we thankfully avoided) similar to the ones employed in Creature of Havoc all seem to indicate that. But it also appears that he's a fan of BOTH Steve Jacksons' works, as there are also tributes to US Steve Jackson's creations. One of them is an encounter with the Giant Clam mentioned above that bears some similarity to the one in Demons of the Deep.

But it's the other one that's the more obvious one: an encounter with a half-fish humanoid Swordmaster that's almost completely identical to Cyrano the Swordfish in Demons of the Deep! It appears that Cyrano has a clone or some relative that lives in the Croaking Caves and the encounter with him is almost exactly the same as the one with Cyrano. Calling himself Merkurio, the Swordfish will ask you whether you are there to take a lesson in swordsmanship from him (charging you 2 Gold Pieces). If you don't have the money, he will decide to teach you anyway "for the love of the art" (much like Cyrano would do) because he knows what it's like to be penniless. The 2 of you then have a duel in which the first to hit 3 times wins (no risk of dying - like Cryano, he will offer a drink from his flash that will either raise your STAMINA to 10 or restore a further 2 points if it's already higher than that). Losing the duel is more beneficial, as your Initial SKILL goes up by 2 points from it, but even winning the duel will raise it by 1, because (again like Cyrano) Merkurio is a teacher of even masters. If instead of accepting his lesson, you decide to fight him to the death (SK 10, ST 10), you don't gain the SKILL bonus, but you can loot the healing drink (with the same above-mentioned effect) off his body.

So even for a character with minimum SKILL of 5, there's potential for him to reach the Boss Fight with up to +4 bonus in SKILL/Attack Strength (although the chainmail hauberk probably isn't worth the risk), which should give him fairly reasonable odds against the Trident of Doom, since he only needs 2 hits to win (one if he tests his LUCK successfully) and may have a companion helping him in the last fight. Since there are no other mandatory fights, the only STAMINA drains are from spell-casting, and there are more than enough Provisions (not to mention the affordable Healing Potion from the temple) for him to reach this fight with full STAMINA to outlast the Trident.

Even LUCK tests are mostly avoidable. The only one really necessary to reach the best ending one to determine whether Verrema trusts you. If you fail that roll, she attacks you, and one of you has to die. So you should reach the boss fight with either full or close to full LUCK too.

The Whortle Soup in the kitchen is indeed the only food that has any negative effect - but even for that one, it only has a 1/6 chance of giving us a SKILL penalty due to allergy, and it still restores 2 STAMINA points regardless.

[SGamerz]

What was the good thing that was missed by bit going east at the start of the caves?

The encounter with Merkurio the Swordfish, who is a tribute/parody of Cyrano the Swordfish from Demons of the Deep (FF19). See my last post for details.

[Thaluikhain]

I have stated before that the author seems to be a fan of Steve Jackson's work: the magic system from Sorcery, the companion and hidden section reference mechanisms similar to Creatures of Havoc, the similar undertone to the successful ending of Citadel of Chaos...even the combat loop (which we thankfully avoided) similar to the ones employed in Creature of Havoc all seem to indicate that.

What was the combat loop?

(Oh, and just noticed that it seems after the rewind due to dying you sometimes had us back at Skill 9. Not that I'm criticising, especially as I didn't notice that myself until now.)

[SGamerz]

I have stated before that the author seems to be a fan of Steve Jackson's work: the magic system from Sorcery, the companion and hidden section reference mechanisms similar to Creatures of Havoc, the similar undertone to the successful ending of Citadel of Chaos...even the combat loop (which we thankfully avoided) similar to the ones employed in Creature of Havoc all seem to indicate that.

What was the combat loop?

(Oh, and just noticed that it seems after the rewind due to dying you sometimes had us back at Skill 9. Not that I'm criticising, especially as I didn't notice that myself until now.)

If we fail the second item check for the Transformation Potion or Jar of Bees, we get stuck in an endless combat loop against one Horntoad after another. (And therefore, if we have only one of those 2 items, we need to not use it on the first check with the 2 guards outside and save it for this second check instead.)

(Yes, when we rewind I usually copy-paste the Adventure Sheet from that point, so there may be copy-pasta errors. When I realized the error I tend to just correct it in the latest AS, but didn't go back to correct them. There was no error with any of the combats or SKILL tests, since that's when I tend to double-check the stats again.)