The Dervish Stone - Attempts 3 & 4

To be honest, I had assumed that The Dervish Stone would be a one post job.  A short adventure in a spin-off magazine, from an author I'd never heard of?  Easy pickings, I figured.  After a couple of attempts, I still don't feel like it's too difficult, but it's apparent that when you play by the rules even the simplest FF gamebooks can be difficult.

ATTEMPT 3

Which brings me to my third go at the adventure.  I scores were Skill 10, Stamina 21 and Luck 10, a very capable and well-rounded character.  I chose the Potion of Fortune, and it was off to the races.  My goal this time was to explore some different avenues in the town of Alasiyan, and to that end I was going to be a bit more belligerent and, quite frankly, a bit more stupid.

After finding Jakor One-Eye's note, I ignored his hidden potion and walked down to Alasiyan.  When a pair of guards came up to me asking to look in my backpack, I refused, and they drew steel.  I made short work of the two, and made my way into town.

While in town I bought three items from a dwarf nomad: a magic sword, a glass eye and a gas capsule.  This left me with 2 gold pieces.

Further along I saw a building guarded by a pair of hobgoblins.  I tried to enter, but the guards told me I'd need an invitation from the governor.  Still confident from the spot of guard-murdering I'd done earlier, and newly armed with a magic sword, I attacked.  One of the hobgoblins wounded me (reducing my Stamina to 19), but I was able to defeat them with ease.  One of them had a bronze key, which I used to unlock the door.

I think this goes here, but it's hard to tell with so many paragraph entries per page.

I entered the building, and found a hallway with stairs leading up.  There was also a door, with the sounds of raucous partying coming from behind, but I decided to take the stairs instead.  In a room at the top of the stairs I saw a fat man in rich robes, with another hobgoblin at his side.  As soon as I did, the man pointed at me, blasting me with a lightning bolt from his finger (and leaving me with 15 Stamina).  Then his bodyguard attacked me, and was revealed not as a hobgoblin, but as a Thoul, a strange hybrid of Troll, Hobgoblin and Ghoul.  (How does that even happen?)  Had he wounded me four times, I would have been paralysed.  Because I'm amazing he wounded me no times, and I was able to lay this abomination to rest.

The man introduced himself as Gumpas, Sorcerer-Governer of Alasiyan, and then immediately shot a fireball at me.  (That's some Ric Flair heel shit right there.)  I was able to dodge (with a successful Luck test), but he turned invisible and attacked me.  I was able to strike him one with a lucky blow, but the invisible sorcerer proved to much for me.  Perhaps I should have stuck to my quest instead of getting in fights with wizards.

THE POST-GAME

What I just said.  Maybe this encounter gives me some awesome treasure or something, but I have the suspicion that it's a pointless side-track.  Gumpas has a Skill of 10, but Paul Struth pulls his favourite weird trick of giving the enemy an Attack Strength bonus (due to invisibility) that give him an effective Skill of 12.  My Skill was 11, so I should have been competitive, but it was a rout.  Even using my Luck heavily, I was beaten with ease.

ATTEMPT 4

This time I rolled Skill 10, Stamina 18 and Luck 7.  There was no doubt about taking the Potion of Fortune this time.

Once again I ignored the potion, but when the guards came up to me I happily let them look in my bag.  Upon seeing my Potion of Fortune, they asked me to accompany them to their office while they talked to their master.  I was ushered into a building, where a scribe took one look at my potion and had me thrown in a cell.

In the cell with me was an "elfin-like young man", who I had a good long chat to.  He told me I'd be released soon, but my potion would be confiscated.  Apparently the governor of the town was a sorcerer (REALLY?), who had already taken the young man's potion of longevity.  He offered to help me steal it back later if I met him at the Den of Thieves that night.  I thanked him and waited for half an hour until I was released (losing my potion, which left me with a Luck of 6).

In Alasiyan I bought a magic sword and a glass eye from a dwarf nomad, leaving myself with the 5 gold I knew I'd need later.  I also ignored a building guarded by some hobgoblins, and made my way to the One Safe Wall Inn.  There I took a seat by myself, and was confronted by a goblin who wanted to know if my name was Snurd Hideflayer.  I said that it wasn't, and he walked away cursing this Snurd, whoever he was.  After a short time I left the inn and walked out of town.

By this time night was falling, so I made my way to the surprisingly-easy-to-find Den of Thieves.  The young man stole my potion back, and returned it to me in exchange for 5 gold pieces.  (I have to say that I'm a little disappointed with this section.  I was hoping this burglary would be a little more involved.  Anyway, this left me with 0 gold, but restored my Luck to 7.)

I went to sleep in some huts outside of town, and had to kill a Night Ghoul in order to get some rest.  The next morning I went out into the desert, taking the flatter path.  After I time I encountered ten nomads, who were struggling with a giant centipede-like creature that was trying to burrow away and escape.  I stopped to offer my help, and the nomads explained that the creature was a sandcrawler.  Rather than trust the nomads I tried to talk to the creature, but it could not understand me.  It got away from the nomads, and they eyed me with disgust as I left.  (I had a number of misconceptions in this encounter.  First, I thought the nomads were fighting the centipede, which I was wrong about.  Then I thought that maybe the centipede would be an intelligent creature, and that if I spoke to it and helped it escape it would help me in turn.  Nope, it was a dumb animal, and I couldn't talk to it without a magic ring. This reduced my Luck to 6.)

I decided to follow the sandcrawler's tracks, and they led me to a road where I could see a cart approaching.  I hid from the cart, and it passed by.  (In actual fact, I threw a gas capsule that I forgot I didn't have.  Earlier, I bought the capsule, not remembering that I'd need the money for the thief.  When I met the thief it was assumed that I had the money, so I did a retcon and crossed the capsule off my equipment list.  For whatever reason, I then forgot that I didn't have it, and used it to indiscriminately murder the occupants of the cart: three lizard-men, and four humans chained together with a goblin.   I found some stuff in the cart, but none of it was used later on, so I'm just going to retcon it again and say that I hid from the cart.  I'm really not with it today.)

Soon I came to a gully, but using my glass eye I was able to spot some ambushers and avoid them.  Beyond the gully I saw a castle, but rather than approach it I decided to sleep for the night in some rocks.  I lost a lot of my strength due to hunger and exposure to the cold.  (I'd forgotten to eat since leaving Alasiyan, and lost a whopping 5 Stamina.  Instead of, you know, just pulling out a meal and eating it then and there.  I lost a further 2 due to exposure, which left me with 11.)

During the night I was attacked by a huge Rock Toad.  In terms of pure combat prowess I was more than a match for it, but the creature kept pulling me in with its tongue and biting me with its vicious teeth.  There was nothing I could do, and the Rock Toad killed me.

THE POST-GAME

So I fell prey to my biggest weakness when playing gamebooks for the blog: the desire to explore new pathways.  Some of them, like being thrown in a cell in Alasiyan, were fun, and gave the book a little more texture.  Others, like sleeping in the desert, were deadly.  That Rock Toad fight is brutal: every round it has a 50/50 chance of drawing you in with its tongue, dealing 4 points of damage.  It only takes a few failures to die, and I copped three in a row.  In a straight fight I would have won, but that's not what I was up against.  Next time, I think it's time to knuckle down and take a serious crack at finishing this thing.