When my last post ended, I had just reached a large dining hall that was lined with paintings and suits of armour. This is a sort of choke point for the adventure: every path eventually leads here, and most of the really deadly encounters take place after this point, as a lead-up to the confrontation with Balthus Dire. My adventurer was basically unscathed, and armed with an Enchanted Battlesword that made him pretty fearsome. I was pretty sure that I could handle any battles that came my way. Unfortunately, battles are the least of the obstacles to be encountered in the Black Tower.
I decided to ignore the suits of armour: Fighting Fantasy adventurers traditionally stick with leather armour, and besides that I was a wizard! I studied the paintings instead, finding a portrait of Balthus Dire. Continuing the grand tradition from The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, looking at the painting cost me 1 Stamina point due to fear. I'm imagining some kind of rad Vigo the Carpathian-style painting here. It did add 1 to my Luck, though. Not that I needed it.
Two staircases provided egress to a landing above, and I made my way up using the one on the right. Nothing untoward happened to me, so I assume that the other one was trapped. On the landing there were three doors, and I chose the left-most one. It was locked, but I was able to open it with my copper key (which I had earlier murdered some fellows to obtain, if you recall; it was all in self-defense).
Inside was an opulent bedroom, wherein a lovely lady was lying in bed. Immediately she shouted at me and fired beams of liquid fire from her eyes, which is standard procedure for women whose bedrooms have been invaded. Especially so for Balthus Dire's wife, Lucretia.
Unfazed by the approaching eyebeams, I coolly told her that I had a gift, and proffered the Gark's hairbrush. (Again, obtained through violent means; again, I plead self-defense.) Immediately she dispelled her eyebeams and set about combing her hair in the mirror, not seeming to care that I could now see her in her pyjamas. While she did so, I nicked a golden fleece from her bed with a successful Luck test and dashed out the other side of the room. Never leave adventurers unattended around golden objects, people, no matter how large and unwieldy.
I found myself at the bottom of a staircase, and climbed until I reached two doors. I opened the right-hand door into a sort of plush living room, the walls of which were lined with animal heads. Balthus Dire's man-cave, perhaps? I thought that this might be a good place to wait in ambush for him, until the head of a dog started barking at me, and a carpet flew from the floor and clipped my ear. Then one of the chairs turned into a dude and asked what I was doing there. There was far too much weirdness going on in there for it to end well, so I got the hell out of there and tried the other door.
It opened into a room with a deep pit. There was a chest on a platform inside the pit, and a coil of rope near the entrance.
Now this was a lot easier to take in. I had read about the Doompit Trap in a library book earlier, so I decided to leave this room and carry on.
More stairs led upwards to a door, which opened into a dark room. Then suddenly: GANJEES!
Just seeing that dude made me lose 1 Skill, 2 Stamina and 1 Luck point. Which is fair enough, because that's pretty much how I feel every time I look at the illustration, another of Russ Nicholson's nightmare-inducers. I hunted around in my backpack for an item to use, and by chance my hand closed on the jar of ointment I had looted earlier in my adventure. The Ganjees recognised it as "The Ointment of Healing", and agreed to let me pass if I gave it to them. I'm not sure what these ghostly figures could do with this ointment, but that face could do with a bit of moisturising. I flung the ointment at them and high-tailed it out of there.
More stairs up, another door. Inside the next room was a terrible foe: a six-headed HYDRA! And a metric ass-ton of dead adventurers!
Spurred by my previous success, and operating on a rudimentary knowledge of mythology, I reached into my backpack and pulled out the golden fleece. The Hydra snatched it from my hands and slunk away, as I bolted from the room. This sequence of events had "end-game" written all over it.
At the foot of the stairs this time there was a sign: "HALT. None may pass but by order of Balthus Dire." He really should put that sign before the bloody Ganjees and the Hydra; anyone who has managed to get past them isn't going to be deterred at this point. I climbed the stairs, and came to a stop at an impregnable door with a combination lock. Remembering my spot of research in the library, I turned the numbers and opened the door, prepared to confront Balthus Dire.
No sooner did I enter than a bloody great trident came hurtling at my throat. I stopped it with a Shielding spell, and came face to face with the demi-sorcerer himself.
I don't care what anyone says about Balthus Dire's haircut, he is totally rad. Just check out his spiked wristbands, they are so metal. The first thing he did was call me an "impudent peasant", then he sicced a CLAWBEAST on me, a hairy brute with four arms that ended in vicious hooks.
While it looked fearsome, I was able to defeat it by casting a Weakness spell and casually running it through. I decided to press my advantage and cast an ESP spell on Dire. A few images jumbled through my mind, the most interesting being a ring on his finger and a razor-edged sword. The images didn't last long, as he blocked me from his mind, then caused an earthquake by slapping the ground. I countered with a Levitation spell, and rose into the air. There were a number of places I could float to, but I opted for the window. Again remembering my library research, I grabbed a curtain and pulled it down. Sunlight streamed into the room, and Balthus Dire slowly died beneath the sun's wholesome rays. Huzzah, I was a successful assassinator! I burned Dire's battle plans and prepared to return home in victory.
Except... I had no Levitation spell left. If I had one, I could have floated out of the window and down to the ground with ease. (So why couldn't I have floated up the same way?) Without it, I would be forced to try and escape through the Citadel. But never mind that, I still got to paragraph 400 and succeeded in my mission: that counts as a victory regardless of the unknown fate that awaits me.
Those bloody ganjees!!!
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