Island of the Lizard King - Attempt 1

Can you save the young men of Oyster Bay from the evil Lizard Men?

Kidnapped by a vicious race of Lizard Men from Fire Island, the young men of Oyster Bay face a grim future of slavery, starvation and a lingering death.  Their master will be the mad and dangerous Lizard King, who holds sway over his land of mutants by the strange powers of black magic and voodoo.  Will you risk all in an attempt to save the prisoners?

Island of the Lizard King, written by our old mate Ian Livingstone and illustrated by newcomer to the series Alan Langford, is the seventh Fighting Fantasy gamebook.  I've mentioned before that I've labelled the first three books in the series (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Citadel of Chaos and The Forest of Doom) as the Original Fighting Fantasy Trilogy.  There's a certain sense of newness, discovery and just plain weirdness that marks them out from their predecessors.  What I haven't mentioned before is what I call the Second Fighting Fantasy Trilogy, which begins with City of Thieves, continues into Deathtrap Dungeon and culminates in Island of the Lizard King.  It's an unbroken run of three Ian Livingstone books, where each book begins in the location of the previous book, and it takes the first tentative steps in establishing that the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks operate in a consistent world.

I never owned Island of the Lizard King as a kid.  If I wanted to read it, I had to borrow it from a friend, so I don't have the same level of familiarity that I had with books 5 and 6 (not that it helped me much with Deathtrap Dungeon).  It's never been one of my particular favourites.  As I remember it, it's pure baseline Ian Livingstone, with very little deviation from his standard formula.  It's a formula that I find entertaining, though, so I expect to have some fun regardless.

BACKGROUND

The book begins with the hero residing in Fang, the setting of Deathtrap Dungeon, the previous book in the series.  It's quite unlikely that he's the same fellow that won the Trial of Champions, though, as there's no mention of the 10,000 gold pieces he should be carrying.  Unless he blew the lot gambling on knifey-knifey, which seems unlikely.

Said hero decides to journey south to Oyster Bay, a quiet fishing village, only to discover that the men-folk have been taken as slaves by the Lizard Men of Fire Island.  Fire Island was once a prison colony run by one Prince Olaf, using Lizard Men as guards.  When Olaf decided that the whole venture just wasn't worth it and pulled out, the Lizard Men took over the island under the auspices of their self-proclaimed Lizard King.  The Lizard Men want more slaves to work the island's gold mines, so they've been raiding coastal villages, and that's where our hero comes in.

Not everyone from the village was taken, though: the hero's old buddy Mungo is there, planning to sail to Fire Island alone to rescue his buddies.  The hero agrees to join him, and thus the adventure begins.

THE RULES

The rules in this book are as basic as it gets for Fighting Fantasy.  It's all the usual stuff: Skill, Stamina, Luck, ten provisions, and a choice of three potions.  The hero begins with a sword, some leather armour, and a backpack - he's definitely not packed for a trip to a tropical island.

CHARACTER CREATION

I rolled a Skill of 11, a Stamina of 14 and a Luck of 11.  This is a great character, despite the low Stamina.  I remember that this book has more than a few tough, unavoidable combats.  Even so, I feel like my character stands a good chance of completing the book.

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

Mungo and I set sail on his small boat, and as we travelled Mungo told me how his father (a circus strongman) died in Deathtrap Dungeon.  You may recall that, during my own attempts to complete Deathtrap Dungeon, one of my characters had his Skill score reduced to -1, and got torn to shreds by Flying Guardians.  I've retroactively decided that that was Mungo's dad.  R.I.P. Mungo Sr, forever in our hearts.

I'm not sure Mungo is wearing any undies.

(I like Mungo.  He's rather lovable, and nothing seems to dampen his spirits.  Surely nothing bad will happen to such a positive individual.)

Eventually we reached Fire Island, and landed on a beach at the eastern tip of the island.  From there I had the choice of climbing rocks to the left, or climbing rocks to the right.  (Already the signs are here that this book isn't going to be of the same calibre as Deathtrap Dungeon.  In both books the first meaningful choice is whether to go left or right, but Deathtrap Dungeon has little details like footprints to help the reader come to a decision.  This book provides no guidance at all.)

Scrambling over the rocks to the left, we emerged on a golden beach with an abandoned hut at the far end.  I was eager to investigate the hut, so Mungo and I crossed the beach.  It was to prove a fatal decision.  As we walked over the beach, a Giant Crab rose out of the sand and grabbed Mungo in a pincer.  I decided to help Mungo (he's just too damn lovable to be left to die).  The Crab was tough (Skill 10, Stamina 11), and reduced me to 6 Stamina before I was able to kill it.

It has a mouth.

I wasn't quick enough to save Mungo, however.  The Crab's pincer had crushed him to death, though he had time to deliver a final speech: "A lot of use I've been.  Make sure you get the Lizard King for me, won't you?"  Cheerful to the end.  He's not wrong, though: he bloody well was useless!  I buried Mungo in the sand, marking his grave with his sword and consigning him to the standard-issue fate reserved for all gamebook sidekicks.

(I have to give some mild praise to Ian here for putting such a tough battle right at the start of the book.  It's an instant signifier that you'll need a high Skill score to win, and serves to weed out the characters that just aren't strong enough.  If there absolutely have to be unavoidable combats with enemies of Skill 10+, I'd prefer there to be one at the beginning rather than waiting until the end.)

The hut was littered with broken furniture, but under a rug I discovered a trapdoor.  Unable to resist my natural curiosity, I opened the trapdoor and found a recess beneath that contained a wooden box.  Inside the box was a corked jug and a note.  The note was from a fellow named Baskin, who had come to the island seeking solitude, but left once the Lizard Men showed up (so they're not native to the island).  The note also told me that the jug contained a potion that would protect me from the poisonous plants native to Fire Island.  With no reason to disbelieve the note, I downed the potion and ate some provisions (restoring my Stamina to 10, and leaving me with 9 provisions).

I followed an old goat track up the side of a cliff, and by the time I reached the top it was dusk.  After an uneventful night's sleep I plowed forth into the jungle.  It was slow going, and I had to use my sword to cut my way through.  Eventually I came to a great tree, and decided to take a rest.  A sweet smell surrounded me, and I started to feel drowsy.  As I was nodding off, a vine lowered itself from the branches above and looped around my neck.  I was being choked to death, and needed to Test My Luck to see if my sword was in reach.  It was, and I was able to use it to cut myself free.  The vine had severely injured my neck though, causing me to lose 1 point of Skill and 2 points of Stamina (leaving me with Skill 10 and Stamina 8).

As I pressed on, I started to feel as though I was being watched, and soon enough three dark-skinned men stepped onto the trail ahead of me.  They were dressed in furs and wielding clubs, and all three had shrunken heads attached to their belts.  The Headhunters attacked me one at a time, but I showed off my prowess by defeating all of them without taking a single wound.  (One of the unfortunate aspects of the series having been written in the 1980s is that you get portrayals of native people like the one above.  There's nothing malicious intended, I'm sure; it's far more likely that Ian was using tropes drawn from various books and movies he enjoyed.  Those tropes come from an uncomfortable place, though, and Island of the Lizard King is one of the worst FF books in this regard.)

The Headhunters had some bananas and coconuts, which I devoured (restoring my Stamina to 9).  I climbed a nearby tree to see if I could locate their village, and could see some smoke rising from the south-west.  After climbing back down I decided to head north-west to avoid the smoke (and hopefully the Headhunters' village).

Struggling through the jungle, I encountered a skeleton on the ground.  Lying nearby was a hand-axe and a coil of rope, and I took both.

Further along I noticed a crude platform halfway up one of the trees, with a vine hanging down to the ground.  I started climbing up, but an old man popped his head over the side of the platform and told me to go away.  I ignored him and continued to climb, so the old bugger started pelting me with coconuts (reducing my Stamina to 8).  Once I reached the top, the old man was nervously holding a bamboo staff, ready to defend himself.  I didn't want to offer him provisions (mostly because he'd been throwing his own food at my head), so I tried to wrest his staff away from him.  The old man dropped his staff and clambered higher into the tree, where I was unable to follow.  I shrugged my shoulders, climbed back down, and continued on my way.

Along the way I was randomly attacked by a Giant Dragonfly.   It hit me twice before I was able to kill it (reducing my Stamina to 4).  (This is the thing I hate the most about the way Ian designs gamebooks: unavoidable, meaningless combats.  They irk me.)

Close to the Dragonfly's corpse I saw a rotting log with a large clump of fungus growing on it.  The inexplicable urge to eat the fungus came over me, but I resisted.  Instead I ate another provision (restoring my Stamina to 8), before continuing through the jungle.

Veering to the west, I came to a clearing with a large green crystal in the centre.  I touched the crystal, and a warm healing glow radiated through my body (restoring my Stamina to 11).  Thinking that it might be a good idea to take some of the magic crystal with me, I tried to chip some off with my sword.  No, not the hand-axe I was carrying that would have been far better suited to the task.  I used my sword, and it snapped in half (reducing my Skill to 8).  Armed now with only half a sword, I left the clearing.

Once more I started hacking my way through the jungle (I don't feel so bad about using my sword for the task now that it's been snapped in half).  Before I could react, I found myself surprised by six Pygmies, all aiming blowpipes at me.

Yeah, it gets worse.

I tried talking to them, but I wasn't able to speak their language.  They indicated through gestures that they wanted me to give them something.  Given that I had some strange aversion to using the thing, I decided to give them my hand-axe.  The Pygmies were very pleased with the gift, seemingly regarding it as some sort of religious artifact.  (Christ, can we get this encounter over with so I don't have to write about it anymore?)  Feeling audacious, I asked for something in return.  The Pygmies were amused by my request, and handed me some nuts and berries.  I ate them gratefully, and they restored my Stamina to 13.  A noise from the jungle startled the Pygmies into flight, and I was relieved to be able to continue my journey.

The trees thinned out and the ground grew softer, and soon I found myself at the edge of a large swamp.  A small, humanoid creature ran past me, moving easily across the marsh.  I called out to it, and realised that it was a Marsh Hopper, a creature that pretends to lead unwary victims safely through a swamp, only to lure them into the lair of a carnivorous predator. 

I decided to follow the Marsh Hopper for a time, struggling to keep up.  The Marsh Hopper turned south, and I decided to follow it for a little longer.  It turned out to be a bad choice, as a huge two-headed Hydra rose out of the mire to attack.

The Hydra wasn't excessively powerful (Skill 9, Stamina 9), but it had two heads that attacked me simultaneously.  I downed my Potion of Fortune before the fight began (raising my Luck to 11), and set about spamming my Luck score in order to defeat the Hydra.  I was able to kill one head, but the double attacks wore me down.  I wasn't strong enough to defeat the second, and my adventure ended in the swamps as I was devoured by the Hydra.

THE POST-GAME
As usually happens when I play a gamebook that I haven't read for a while, I fell afoul of my own curiosity.  I should always remember that, in any given situation in Fighting Fantasy, there is but one positive option to choose.  Once I'd been healed by the crystal, I should have known that chipping it was a bad idea.  Still, I wanted to see what would happen anyway.  It's a curse.

Then, of course, there was the Marsh Hopper.  I remembered the encounter, and knew that the best thing to do was follow it for a while before veering off on my own.  I followed too long, and paid the price.  I'll know better next time.