The Dervish Stone - Attempts 7, 8 & 9

Due to a lack of posts around here, one commenter has asked whether I've been swallowed up and lost in my quest for the Dervish Stone.  Nothing like that I'm afraid.  What I have been lost in is moving house, and some other pretty significant life changes.  The move means that I now spend about five hours a day travelling back and forth to work, so blogging time has gotten scarce.  I'll still be sticking with it, but perhaps a bit less frequently than I have in the past.  So, without further preamble, here are my next three attempts at beating The Dervish Stone.

ATTEMPT 7

For this game I rolled Skill 7, Stamina 23 and Luck 11.  A fortunate fellow, but as most readers will know there's only so much that Luck can do to offset having the lowest possible Skill.  I had little hope for this particular adventurer.

I've settled into a routine for the early stages of The Dervish Stone: find the potion of human control, use it to get past the guards into Alasiyan, buy some things from the Dwarf Nomad (the magic sword, the glass eye and a gas capsule), and ignore everything else in town.  The only thing I haven't done in Alasiyan that I'm aware of is defeat Gumpas, the sorcerer-governer.  For the moment, I've decided that he's not a crucial encounter.  Maybe if I roll a Skill of 12 I'll go back and give him what for.

Once out of Alasiyan I camped for the night, only to be attacked by a Night Ghoul.  I almost died right here; the creature hit me three times, and only through extensive use of my Luck was I able to scrape through without being paralysed.

The next morning I headed into the desert, and chose to take a rise rather than the flat path.  Eventually I could see a camp of cat-men named Laupers below, but while spying on it with my glass eye I was ambushed by another Lauper and a War-Cat.  Luck couldn't help me here.  I killed the War-Cat, but the Lauper killed me in return.

THE POST-GAME

That Skill of 7 was a guaranteed death-sentence.  That said, I should have taken the flat path.  It has no difficult encounters, and I don't think either path gets me anything useful.

ATTEMPT 8

With a Skill of 9, a Stamina of 16 and a Luck of 9, I had a somewhat more viable character.  I chose the Potion of Fortune and was off.

As before I blasted quickly through Alasiyan, and fared a bit better against the Night Ghoul: by the end of that battle I was left with a Stamina of 11, which I raised back up to 15 by eating a provision.

I chose the flat path through the desert, encountering some Nomads struggling to corral their Sandcrawler.  I helped them out, and was rewarded with 5 gold pieces (raising my total to 7).

Following the tracks of the Sandcrawler, I came to a road where I could see a wagon approaching.  I hid from the wagon until it passed. Further along, I used my glass eye to avoid some bandits, and eventually came to a castle which I grimly entered.

Two Bugbear guards accosted me, but I killed them both with a gas capsule.  I pushed on, coming to the court of the giant Kuperan, Monarch of the Sands, who forced me to do battle with his Bronze Golem, Talus.

The Bronze Golem was a strong foe, whose molten blood was a danger I could not avoid if I hoped to win.  With a great deal of luck, I was able to prevail (leaving me with 10 Stamina; my Luck would have been reduced to 6, but a bonus after the fight brought me back up to 9).  Kuperan had me dragged away to a cell, declaring that I'd be food for the Earth Demon tomorrow.

In the cell I ate a provision (restoring my Stamina to 14) and went to sleep.  While I slept, "hellrats" ate another of my provisions.  (I'm starting to think that losing Stamina by staying awake may be better than losing a provision.)

The next morning I was taken outside and loaded onto a Griffin.  Other guards were riding Griffins, and Kuperan was there mounted on a Blue Dragon.  The lot of us took to the skies, heading for the Earth Demon, a huge mouth in the ground with a tongue snaking out from it.  I decided to play along for a while until I could make my escape.

My chance came when my Griffin dived toward the Earth Demon and tried to throw me off.  Luckily (requiring a Luck test that reduced my score to 8), I was able to catch the Griffin's wing and pull myself back into the saddle.  A Griffin-mounted Lauper flew in to attack me, but I flung him from his saddle as he passed.  (I'm still unsure of the correct rule here.  Success is a roll under my Skill, but failure is a roll over my Stamina?  One of those is incorrect.  Currently, I'm doing it as a Skill roll.)

The Lauper's Griffin went shrieking out across the desert, but I ignored it.  As I pulled my own Griffin around, an Orc leaped a full 25 feet from the back of the Blue Dragon to attack me.  I was unarmed, and the Orc struck me five blows before I could knock him unconscious (leaving me with 4 Stamina).  While my Griffin flew erratically, I took the time to loot the Orc of his sword and boots.  (This required a roll against my Skill.  Why I'm taking the Orc's boots, I have no idea, but doing so restored my Luck to 9.)

Another Griffin flew by, carrying two Goblin archers who peppered my mount with arrows.  The Orc chose that moment to wake up, and make an attempt to leap to safety.  With a confused look on his face, he tumbled down into the maw of the Earth Demon.  I decided to try to make my own leap to safety, as it was pretty obvious that my Griffin was done for.  Much to my surprise, I made the jump to safety; the Orc's boots were actually Boots of Leaping.  Armed with these magic boots, I made a bold leap onto the back of the Blue Dragon, reasoning that the Goblins wouldn't risk firing at their own leader.

Three of Kuperan's guards attacked me as I landed: two Nomads and a Bugbear.  I took care of the Nomads with ease, but the Bugbear was too much for me in my weakened state, and my adventure was over.

THE POST-GAME

That's the furthest I've gotten so far, but once again the dice killed me.  I'm starting to think that I should be taking the Potion of Strength rather than Fortune, as the book has plenty of Luck bonuses throughout.  With that, I might stand a better chance of getting through the gauntlet of battles against Kuperan's forces.  Also, I'm a little worried that I made the wrong choice by jumping onto the Dragon's back, but either choice seems bad to me.  Riddled with arrows, or blasted with dragon breath?  Those are the risks I'm choosing between.

ATTEMPT 9

This time I rolled Skill 8, Stamina 16, and Luck 9.  I chose the Potion of Strength.

I'm going to skim over this game pretty quickly, because I made pretty much all the same choices as in Attempt 8.  I killed the Night Ghoul without being wounded.  The Bronze Golem was a real pain, and I was left with only 1 point of Stamina at the end of that.  I used a dose from my Potion of Strength to restore my Stamina, and stayed awake for the night.  Staying awake reduced my Stamina to 16, but it stopped the hellrats from eating one of my provisions, so it's probably a better choice.

During the battle over the Earth Demon I was doing well, until the Orc leaped onto my Griffin.  Without a sword, my Skill against him was 5, compared to his Skill of 7.  What resulted was a massacre, as he dropped me from 16 Stamina to 0 without me landing a single blow.  I tried to use my Luck to survive longer, but it did no good.  My Skill was against me, the die was against me, and possible fate itself was against me.

THE POST-GAME

Not much I could do about that, I'm sorry to say.  It's becoming apparent that I need a decent Skill score to have a chance.

I'm getting a little sick of The Dervish Stone: it's far too linear for its own good.  That said, the fight in the skies is rather exciting and well done, and reminds of the sort of set-piece battles that Joe Dever excels at in his Lone Wolf series.  Hopefully next time I'll get past it, and put this adventure to bed.