Temple of Terror - Attempt 4

In my previous attempts at Temple of Terror, I've had some terrible luck with the dice.  All three games have ended in combat with monsters (the Giant Centipede, the Sand Snapper, and the Giant Sandworm, respectively). For this attempt, I rolled a Skill of 10, a Stamina of 17, and a Luck of 11, which was heartening.  Finally, I had a character that looked like it stood a good chance of making some progress.
After choosing spells from Yaztromo (my usual array of Create Water, Open Door, Read Symbols and Fire), I opted to take the path through Port Blacksand.  On my last couple of games I fully explored the overland path, and I'm pretty sure that one is both more deadly and less rewarding.

Once in Port Blacksand, I allowed myself to be lured into an ambush by some Robbers.  Their loot included a brass telescope and 3 silver buttons, which I was pretty sure would come in handy later.
At the Black Lobster Tavern I had some drinks spilled over me by a pirate, and rather than back down as I'd done in previous games, I told him to watch where he was going.  The pirate reacted by glassing me in the face, and I reacted to that by swording him in the chest.  It was actually a pretty tough fight; the pirate had a Skill of 9, and managed to wound me four times.  On his body I found 2 gold pieces and a pearl.

The next morning I took off on a pirate ship, which was promptly attacked and sunk by a warship.  In previous games I'd swam away from the warship, but this time I decided to take my chances by swimming towards it.  The crew dragged me aboard, and I was surprised to discover that the crew were all dwarves.  (Ships crewed by dwarves a phenomenon that I've only ever encountered in gamebooks, specifically this one and Joe Dever's Shadow on the Sand.  Most other fantasy fiction has dwarves as being distrustful of the water and boats in general.)  I explained my quest to the dwarves, who decided to test the veracity of my story by asking me who was the current dwarven king in Stonebridge.  I answered "Gillibran", and that was enough for them to trust me.  They took me the rest of the way south, replenished my provisions to the maximum amount of 10, and dropped me off on the coast.  (I feel like the identity of a dwarven king should be common knowledge, but Stonebridge does seem as though it's little more than a village.  Gillibran's claims of royalty may be exaggerated, or perhaps he's descended from rulers of an actual kingdom.)

I decided to head south along the coast, where I found a strange pattern of shells on the ground.  I'd been warned away from this area previously (by using my Read Symbols spell), but I was curious to check out what would happen if I continued on.  It turns out that the area is sacred ground, and the shells formed up into a kind of golem or elemental.  I tried to fight it with my sword, but the swirling shells cut me up pretty badly (making me lose 4 Stamina).  I had the option of either diving in the water, or running away by land.  I chose the land option, only to discover that I was far to slow to outrun the shell demon.  It cut me to ribbons, and my adventure was over.

THE POST-GAME

Well, I got too curious in that game, and it cost me.  I really do need to stop checking out stuff that I know is dangerous, but my desire to explore every option gets the better of me.  The most important thing I learned is that I can use the dwarves to replenish my provisions, which means that it doesn't matter how much damage I take in the early going.  I can heal it all with food, knowing that I'll get it all back.

Less beneficially, I suspect that giving the wrong answer to the dwarves results in an instant death.  I think I can get to that point without getting into a combat or making many dice rolls, so I might designate it as my "suicide route".  Long-time readers may recall that I used the quicksand near the Giant Crab to kill a bunch of low-Skill characters in Island of the Lizard King.  It's always handy to have a quick way to die when you roll an unviable character.