The Dervish Stone - Attempts 5 & 6

Another weekend, another couple of cracks at The Dervish Stone, Paul Struth's adventure from Warlock #4.  To be honest, these failures are starting to get to me.  I mean, I finished Caverns of the Snow Witch on my first go, and I can't beat this thing?  It's an embarrassment is what it is.

ATTEMPT 5

Speaking of embarrassments, let's get on with Attempt 5.  I rolled a Skill of 10, a Stamina of 18, and a Luck of 8.  I chose the Potion of Fortune, but none of this is important because this adventurer was incredibly ill-fated.  I went through the usual routine in Alasiyan, avoiding trouble and buying a magic sword, until I had to camp for the night outside.  The Night Ghoul attacked me as I slept, and just as he had in Attempt 1 the bastard hit me four times and paralysed me.  All this despite it having a Skill of 8, and me having an effective Skill of 11.  Now, if I was being pedantic I could point out that the adventure simply says you're paralysed after four hits, but it doesn't say what happens after that.  It doesn't give you those dreaded words "your adventure ends here" or "your quest is over".  Maybe the Night Ghoul wanders off and lets you live?  It's possible.  Maybe it curls up asleep next to your paralysed form, like a dog?  Maybe it transforms into a beautiful woman and... nah.  This is Fighting Fantasy.  It totally just ate me alive, and no pedantry can change that fact.  Bugger it.

ATTEMPT 6

Okay, let's try that again.  This time I rolled a Skill of 11, a Stamina of 17, and a Luck of 12.  It doesn't get much better than that.  With such a high Luck, I opted for the Potion of Strength instead.  The book has plenty of Luck bonuses, so I decided to go for a Stamina boost instead.

Starting off, I found the Potion of Human Control and used it to make my way into Alasiyan without being bothered by the guards.  I bought some items from the dwarf nomad (a magic sword, a glass eye, and a gas capsule) and made my way through the town ignoring pretty much everything else.  When the Night Ghoul attacked me I made short work of it, and it was time for the adventure proper to begin.  (At this point I had been reduced to 14 Stamina, and had 2 gold pieces remaining.)

I chose the flat path into the desert rather than the rise, and soon came across ten nomads struggling to control a giant centipede-like creature that they called a sandcrawler.  I offered my help, and together we were able to stop it from burrowing away.  (This required a roll of two dice totalling less than my Stamina, which was impossible for me to fail.)  The nomads were grateful, and rewarded me with 5 gold pieces, bringing my total to 7.  They warned me not to go further into the desert, so I followed the sandcrawler's tracks.

Soon I came to a road, where I could see a cart approaching.  Three lizard-men were driving the cart, but rather than hide I decided to hail them with a friendly greeting.  I ought to have known better: the Lizard Men attacked!  Luckily for me they attacked one at a time, and despite a pair of wounds I was able to kill them (with my Stamina now reduced to 10).

Inside the cart were four humans and a goblin, chained together as slaves.  I freed them, and asked if they knew anything about the Stone of Shanhara.  None of them had heard of it, but an old man said that I should seek the advice of Kuperan the Fire Giant - provided I could survive his castle and courtiers.  Thanks for nothing, geezer!

I made my way through a gully, avoiding a nomad ambush due to my glass eye, and soon came to a castle.  At this point night was falling, and I had lost a lot of strength due to extreme hunger.  (My Stamina dropped from 10 to 5 here, because I had forgotten to eat after leaving Alasiyan.  I'm not sure when I should allow myself to eat provisions.  The rules at the start say you can do it whenever you want, as long as it's not in the middle of battle.  The adventure, however, tells you when you can eat provisions, much as in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.  In that book, you could only eat when instructed.  So which is it in The Dervish Stone?  I guess the rules and the instructions on when you can eat aren't mutually exclusive, I just find it a little odd to have them both.  I'd been waiting for the book to tell me when to eat, but from now on I'm just going to let myself eat whenever.  In this instance, I used a dose from my Potion of Strength to return to my initial Stamina of 17.)

I entered the castle, and was confronted by a pair of bugbear guards.  One of them wounded me (reducing my Stamina to 15), but with some deft swordplay I was able to kill them both.  (Strictly speaking, I was probably meant to take the option here that asks if I have a gas capsule.  I didn't notice it until after I'd fought the bugbears already.)

Walking down some stairs, I came to a rowdy hall filled with monsters.  A fire giant introduced himself as Kuperan, monarch of the sands.  Feeling somewhat cornered, I whipped out a gas capsule and threatened to kill everyone in the room if they didn't answer my questions.  Kuperan claimed to know nothing about the stone, or the Lost Cave of the Dervishes, but he suggested that the Hermit of the Hills might.  He also politely invited me to stay for the night, and I told him to sod off because monsters can't be trusted.  No wait, I... stayed the night?!?  (Seriously, why would I do this?  Maybe the desert is dangerous at night, but it still seems like a ridiculous decision, and not one I would have opted for if I'd been given a choice.)

Rather then going to sleep among the monsters, or investigating a nearby bronze statue, I decided to assassinate Kuperan in his sleep.  Unfortunately I failed to follow Assassination Rule #1: Don't Trip Over a Bloody Lizard Man.  The Lizard Man died quickly, but not before the other monsters were woken up.  Kuperan summoned Talus, his personal Bronze Golem, and I had another fight for my life on my hands.  For every blow I struck I would be sprayed with its molten blood, but luck was on my side, and I was able to destroy the golem with but a few wounds and burns.  (Every time I wounded the golem, I also took 1 point of damage, so I used my Luck score to kill him as quickly as possible.  It still dropped me to 8 Stamina before I beat it, but a post-battle bonus brought my Luck back up to 12.)

I was dragged off to a cell, where I ate one of my provisions (restoring my Stamina to 12).  Then I went to sleep, but while I did some "hellrats" ate another of my meals.  (What's a hellrat anyway?)  In the morning I was dragged outside, where some guards awaited with a pack of griffin mounts.  I was going to be sacrificed to an Earth Demon, apparently.  I was placed on my own griffin before we took off, with Kuperan riding a blue dragon (!) in the rear.  (Pretty sure I would have noticed that dragon before we took off.  Also, does anyone else get really annoyed by the spelling of griffin?  It's a GRIFFON!  With an O!  There shall be no variance in the spellings of mythological beasts!)

I stayed on my griffin, and eventually we reached a pit in the sand, with a huge mouth at the bottom.  (Oi, I thought I told you to stop it with the Star Wars references, Struth!)  My griffin dived and tried to fling me off, but I was able to hold on (with a successful Luck test that reduced my score to 11).  A cat-like guard flew in to attack me, but I was able to pull him from his saddle and fling him into the maw of the Earth Demon.  (This was a weird one.  I had to roll two dice, with success being a result equal to or less than my Skill.  The failure result, though, was a result higher than my Stamina.  It was probably just a typo, but which way?  Should it have been a roll against Skill or Stamina?  The former seems more likely, and that's what I went with.)

Tim Sell really didn't want to draw the body of that Griffin.

The cat-man's griffin fled out across the desert, and I decided to follow it.  At that point Kuperan's dragon breathed a bolt of lightning right at me, and I was burned to a crisp without warning.  My adventure was over!

THE POST-GAME

Ugh.  Both of those deaths were pretty annoying, and out of my control.  The first one I don't mind too much: dying in combat is a part of the FF experience, and bad dice rolls are bound to happen at one point or another.  I couldn't even tell you what I did wrong in the last game though.  I was given the choice of going after the griffin or not, and there wasn't a lot of context given aside from that.  Instant death paragraphs are also a part of the FF experience, but I feel like there should be at least some sort of warning or sign of danger.  I didn't realise I was fleeing, or I wouldn't have done it.  The only other option I had was seemingly "do nothing", and that didn't seem worthwhile at all.  Ah well, I guess I have to play this stupid gamebook again.  Curses!