Gamebooks

[Barrington Boots]

I've completed the two Lone Wolf books I got for Christmas although I didn't take notes or do a playthrough as I quite fancied a more relaxed read. Unsurprisingly these had a lot of the same pros and cons as the Freeway Warrior series, as they're by the same author - they're well written, with a ton of background, a continuing story where items and choices carry over from book to book and the choices tend to reward thought rather than randomness. On the flipside it's the same annoying combat system (a D10 and a table) and there's a lot of 'false choices' where you're given two options but both will steer you in the direction the story demands.. but my major issue with these is that they were very easy. I rolled good combat skill (although low stamina), made some sensible skill choices and as a result completed both on my second attempt. The sixth sense skill in particular was hugely valuable.

It's weird to complain that a gamebook is easy, especially when it's easy as a result of making sensible choices, but I felt a little short-changed after whipping through both with ease. I wouldn't mind finishing the first 'cycle' but I think I'll stick with FF for my gamebook fix for now. Anyone else got any experience of these?

Oh, and some gorgeous artwork by the sublime Gary Chalk!

[Richard]

I played the first two Lone Wolf books a couple of years ago, but didn't buy any more after that because online reviews of the third book put me off. I also re-read the tenth one, which I got as a teenager.

The first two are pretty easy, but are very well written and did make it feel as though I was exploring a real world. The tenth one is impossibly hard!

[Funt Solo]

Lone Wolf, I found fascinating and loved to play - but the balance was all over the place. The first book has lots of different paths to success, and not too many choices that you'd need for later. It's fun to pick up the Crystal Star Pendant, because that crops up a few times later on [spoiler]as a recognition tool for bumping into Banedon[/spoiler] but isn't vital.

Fire on the Water does have a one-true-path section, which can fuck you up if you don't have the magic item to defeat the particular undead threat. Gaining the Sommerswerd makes you nigh-on invincible in nearly every fight you get into after that point, but then the balance bafflers get muddled in Book 6 and you have to cheat the RNG gods to win.

I enjoyed book 3 (The Caverns of Kalte), and it offers up a couple of important special items - even if it opens with a multiple-Mungo scenario. [spoiler]Don't miss out on the +2CS Silver Helm and the Kalte Firesphere that works as a perma-torch.[/spoiler]

Book 4 (The Chasm of Doom) introduces the idea of you being in charge of a larger force, then drops you into the middle of a major battle, and #5 (Shadow on the Sand) takes all your toys away [spoiler](but you can find them again if you look in the right place)[/spoiler] and has you face off in combat against a major foe [spoiler](Darklord Haaken)[/spoiler].

At that point you've become a Magnakai, and if you're having fun can continue your adventure with super-versions of the Kai Disciplines to collect - and you start with only three of them! You get to visit more distant lands, win a cool magic bow, lose all your stuff again in the Deathtrap Dungeon-like book #7 and get involved in a sort of continent-wide resurgence of the Drakkarim.

After defeating the ultimate evil in the final book (12), you find that (as a Grand Master) there are even more super-powered skills to learn in books 13-20. Amusingly, the things you have to fight in the opening section of Book #13 will eat you up and spit out your bones without breaking sweat - especially if you happen to still be carrying the Sommerswerd. So, y'know, ultimate evils are all about perspective. But Time Bandits taught us that.

And on it goes...

[Barrington Boots]

Cheers Funt, that's actually piqued my interest to try a few more: the Kai atrc sounds fun and I'm always down for more Mungos. I have a revised edition of book 1 which apparently expands the beginning with more fights, and was definitely the hardest part of the book.

After defeating the ultimate evil in the final book (12), you find that (as a Grand Master) there are even more super-powered skills to learn in books 13-20. Amusingly, the things you have to fight in the opening section of Book #13 will eat you up and spit out your bones without breaking sweat - especially if you happen to still be carrying the Sommerswerd. So, y'know, ultimate evils are all about perspective. But Time Bandits taught us that.

This puts me in mind of back when I used to play Warcraft and a new expansion came out. I went from fighting the legendary Witch King and being all powerful to being outclassed by regular monsters. Stupid scaling difficulty.

[Funt Solo]

I'm assuming you know that there is access to most of the original books in an html format (something Joe Dever agreed to when he was still with us) at Project Aon.

These include corrections to some original printed errors, but don't include things like the re-published extended opening sequence in Book 1. Mind you, I prefer the original, low-key opening because it ramps up the threats you meet (providing a narrative mystery), rather than having you in a full-blown battle in the opening scene.

[Barrington Boots]

I have heard a lot of people say the revised start to Flight from the Dark is inferior to the original.
I do know about Project Aon but I really, really like playing these gamebooks as physical things. The posh versions of the revised Lone Wolf books are also things of beauty, but they're about £25 each so I can't buy a load of them, especially when I keep trying to get rare FF books on ebay.

Anyway, I have been playing Dracula: Curse of the Vampire by Jon Green. Having seen the lovely hardback version at FF fest earlier in the year I ordered this from Jon Green himself in a sale before Christmas, and it promptly got nicked off my doorstep whilst I was at work which led to a protracted claims process with Royal Mail, but to cut a long story short I finally got a replacement copy, just a few days after I caved in and bought a paperback copy from a local shop. The point of relating this story is that I have a spare, signed paperback copy if anyone is interested.

The book itself has a whacking 1,000 sections and allows you to play as four characters: Harker, Seward, Mina Murray or the Count himself. If playing as one of the first three you can switch characters at various points should you wish to change the narrative point of view and the story very closely follows the book - the whole book, in fact, sticks very close to Stoker's original work and eschews various cinematic interpretations. This means it's reasonably easy to choose on a correct path if you're familiar with the story, but there's enough new scenes, enemies and choices sprinkled in to keep it interesting. Whilst flicking through I've seen references to Varney the Vampire, Nosferatu, werewolves, and a picture that appears to have both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in it, so there's plenty of stuff to discover.
I have managed to die twice so far - once reasonably early on as Harker by plunging into a ravine attempting to escape the castle, and then after a longer and more satisfying playthrough as Seward, drained of blood and turned into a vampire by Lucy. If only I hadn't listened to Quincy's suggestion to split up..!
I haven't played as Dracula himself yet but in a way that looks the most interesting option.

It's a beautifully illustrated book and if you're a fan of Dracula and gamebooks I think it's definitely worth checking out.

[Funt Solo]

I really, really like playing these gamebooks as physical things.

I hear that. I used to own the first 17 books, but they were sacrificed on the pyre of my emigration. I bought the Mongoose versions of books 1-5, but their maps were pretty muddy (and a different style to the classics), and the covers not great either.

I shelled out for the Holmgard Press versions of Dead in the Deep and The Dusk of Eternal Night, which have beautiful maps on the reverse side of the dustcover. Very expensive, though - and biblically thick. I haven't actually played them, but maybe I'll get around to it before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

[Barrington Boots]

It's the Holmgard Lone Wolf books I have. I can't really afford to get another atm but it's the sort of thing I might ask for as a gift - and they feel gift-worthy tbh, as they are, as you say, biblically thick.

Anyway, it's back to FF for me and I am venturing...

Beneath Nightmare Castle

Three attempts, three deaths so far! Here's my litany of failure.

The intro casts you as a down on their luck adventurer on their way to visit an old comrade in arms, Baron Toldur in his seat at the market town of Neuburg. The book then starts with you immediately getting caught by a gang of 'Southerners' - stock 80s sinister Arab types that you and Tholdur campaigned against - and dragged off to a dungeon which is where you start, blindfolded and tied hand and foot..

As I am coming to, a voice whispers to me in the darkness, offering to aid me and cut my bonds. I shift over and indicated and feel the rope cut from my wrist - removing the blindfold reveals I'm in a cellar, with only some stairs up and no sign of my mystery friend. A search of the cellar reveals nothing, but it does delay me for a fatal amount of time as the Southerners arrive, club me unconscious again and I am dragged off to be tortured to death by barely human, mutated monstrosities. DEATH number 1 in just a handful of moves. And so the tone is set!

Starting afresh, this time I flee the cellar at once, recovering my sword on the way. I'm in a tower on Neuburgs east gate, but from what I can see the place is deserted and silent, with not a soul to be seen and no sounds of bustle from the formerly busy town. The gatehouse itself is locked and I lack the strength to simply batter the door down, so instead I wait and ambush my captors when they open the door instead, cutting them down to a man (although I do take 2 wounds from a guy with skill 4) and fleeing into the town. There I do see signs of life, but the few people I do see are hastily barring their doors and windows. I find a tavern of my past acquaintance and after banging on the boards gain entry. The innkeeper, friendly once I reveal my link to the Baron, promptly fills me in on the tale of doom. The Baron returned from his last trip South with a bunch of sinister foreigners in tow and since then has secluded himself in his castle. Meanwhile people are vanishing throughout the town, and at night unknown things stalk the streets leaving strange tracks: the townsfolk hide in terror as those out after dark simply disappear, although sometimes odd tracks, or pools of blood, are left behind..
He urges me to remain indoors at night, and tomorrow to go visit Old Huw at the ruined temple. Obviously I don't do this, instead climbing out of my room at the first chance to stalk the deserted streets where I encounter the source of the townsfolks terror: eyeless, hairless clawed beasts, like huge dogs, but with bulbous distended stomachs and a mass of tentacles where a mouth should be. I kill two, but this leaves me on a single point of stamina so I climb back up into my room and hide under the covers until dawn.

The next day brings a hearty stamina-restoring breakfast and I decide to look about the town instead of heading straight for Tholdurs keep (the titular Nightmare Castle, one would assume) to find Old Huw in the temple district. Huw found (and he is old indeed) he fills me in with more exposition: Neuburg was once the site of a battle between the priests of Oiden (a nice god) and Xakhaz, archmange of the evil gods of Zagoula. Xakhaz was defeated and his spirit sealed beneath the castle: all was well until Tholdur took it into his head to visit Zagoula and came back with a wizard and some warriors in tow. It seems that Tholdur has fallen under the influence of said wizard and Xakhaz is on his way back, baby. Huw suggests I go up to the keep and sort it all out before Xakhaz powers up and that I would be well served to also locate the Talisman of Loth, a relic of Oiden that was last seen in the possession of the last guy to head up to the keep and stop Xakhaz.
Hiuw also mentions there could be a fragment of a powerful magic weapon in the junk stalls of Neubrug, so after getting some blessings from Oiden I head into town and off to the market. In the light of day things seem a little more normal here: I'm robbed by a child pickpocket (I do not give chase, as I have been told of the infamous section where you are set upon by, and must kill, a gang of starving children) and buy what looks like a garden fork, but is obviously the top of a trident, from an old goblin pedlar who gives me a hint that the shaft of the trident can also be found beneath the castle, as it was swallowed up by the earth in the battle there against Xarkhaz. I also pop down to the docks where the Southerners are unloading crates, one of which contains a mass of animated severed limbs - a true horror that I seal back in once I have fought them off.
This done I head up to the keep, where taking Huw's advice I avoid the front gate and instead take a side-entrance into an overgrown garden. It's here that I find a statue that, when a mechanism in it is activated, dispenses a strange green liquid. I drink some, only to discover it is concentrated magical fertiliser and I transform into a tree. DEATH #2

Third attempt: this time I follow more or less the same path, but I don't go out of my room at night, and when I get down to the docks, I push the crate of limbs into the canal without opening it. Heading back into the garden I encounter a sinister tree - another victim of a fertiliser accident, I suspect - who warns me off two of the towers around the garden and directs me to the gardener in a third. I enter the tower and kill a frenzied ogre wearing a funny hat, which upon close examination seems to be some sort of horrible alive gelatinous brain-eating parasite. Putting the ogre down enables me to free the gardener, who after we share some food reveals that I do indeed have part of a weapon (The fabled Trident of Skarlos) and not a garden fork, as well as showing me a secret entrance into the cellars.
Descending the dank, dripping tunnels below I am offered a choice of two paths - a dark tunnel into the cellars or a door held shut. I figure the rest of the trident is likely to be off the beaten track, so I take the door and head down further still into a moist, warm cavern complex. I kill some kind of blind bat monster, then climb up into cobwebbed, long deserted corridors and eventually find a cell containing two emaciated prisoners, chained and hooded. I free the first but when she opens her mouth tentacles erupt from it and she attacks me. I put the pitiful thing out of its misery and lock the door behind me.
Continuing on I navigate an obvious illusion trap (and a pit) and find myself at a door guarded by a pair of masked and riobed southern fighters. I have few options here and have to fight them: they are tough opponents and some poor dice rolls sees the second defeat me, cutting me down in the corridor. DEATH #3.


Loving this book. The atmosphere is totally different from previous books: Neuburg is very Warhammer old world-esque, and there's more than a creeping hint of both Howard and Lovecraft about the backstory, whilst the various horrors are more than a little Cthulhu mythos. The battles are not too tough - I was both unlucky and clumsy to die when I did - and the book feels logical so far rather than arbitrary. Best of all the plot feels compelling - it's quick moving but engrossing, atmospheric, more than a little gruesome, and the book is well written enough to be both creepy and slightly lighthearted with it's turn of phrase in places with it. Art is amazing. I'm going straight back to this when I have some free time later this week.

[Richard]

Great write-up, it takes me back! I love this book, I'm glad you're getting into it. I love how unpleasant and grisly it gets in some places. I might skip to this book next and then come back to Creature of Havoc!

The artist's depiction of the tentacle-mouthed woman was deemed to be too unpleasant for a children's book, so it was left out. You can see it here though:

[Barrington Boots]

That's a great image. I don't actually think it's worse than some in the book - the barrel full of heads, for example, or Xakhaz himself. It's definitely no worse than some of the images in Falcon: Rack of Baal! As a kid I think the only image I found a bit scary was the hanged dude in House of Hell. I think I would have loved this one.

And yeah, totally into this book. It's gory and atmospheric but it's also loads of fun to play. I did have another go yesterday, thought I was doing better but ended up getting absorbed by a horrible chair / blob. I feel like this and Creature of Havoc have been a real high point.

[Barrington Boots]

So I've picked up a damaged copy of the two-player FF set Clash of Princes. The books are in a manky state, with ripped pages repaired with tape etc, but they're readable and playable.
Anyone fancy giving it a go?

[Barrington Boots]

So I've picked up a damaged copy of the two-player FF set Clash of Princes..

I should clarify, I thought it might be a laugh to try this with someone on here. I'll post one of the books out (they're in a tatty enough condition for me to not stress if they get lost) and we can give it a crack..? I'm not sure how in depth the two player nature of it is, tbh: I don't think they're interactive like Duelmaster.

Anyway, I have completed Nightmare Castle and I have to say this is one of my very favourite FF books played. Not only is it a creepy, gory, cool story but it's not excessively difficult  (I died a lot, but the path through is there is you pay attention, for the most part) and it's very inventive with a lot of ideas we haven't seen before (the mirror is brilliant).
I'll write up the rest of my playthrough when I get a chance. I found my Redeemer playthrough and I might stick that up here too.

[Richard]

I don't think I'm up for playing Clash myself, but I would be interested to read a review or a playthrough about it (ideally by each player!).

Looking forward to your write up of Beneath Nightmare Castle.

[Barrington Boots]

Looking forward to your write up of Beneath Nightmare Castle.

Thanks dude, glad someone is!

With that in mind I'm going back Beneath Nightmare Castle!


After my last go I think by now I have mapped out the optimum route to the castle itself: get out the dungeon, don't go out in the street, get the head of the trident and so on. I follow that same path, go through the gardens avoiding drinking the fertilizer, meet the gardener and use his secret entrance to get into the cellars beneath the castle.
This time I ignore the blocked off door and continue down the passage into exactly what the dwarf gardener said it would lead to - the castle cellar, and a wine cellar at that. I decide it's time for a drink and have a glass of delicious ruby wine, which restores some of my stamina but reduces my skill, due to being drunk. Appropriately I'm standing in the cellar enjoying the warm feeling of being slightly off my face when a bunch of red-robed swordsmen burst in. Their superior numbers are emphasised and I'm given the choice of surrendering: considering my skill penalty, I do and am roughly hauled off to face the Baron himself.
My old friend Baron Tholdur is seated upon a grandiose throne, looking drugged or otherwise out of it - pains are taken to describe the formerly austere hall as now being decadently decorated with cushions and thick carpets, crowded with sinister southern soldiers and merchants being attended by slave girls, whilst beside the Baron himself a mysterious figure in a heavy cloak and hood whispers advice into his ear. It is clear the Baron has fallen under the influence of a sorcerer from Zagoula, just as Old Huw feared!
I am denounced as a foreign spy but with the wine in my system I immediately begin shouting at Tholdur, imploring him to remember who I am and our time together as comrades in arms. It seems my words have some effect: Tholdur wavers, whilst his advisor whispers urgently in his ear, but when I reveal the ring the Baron gave me as proof of our friendship it seems his old vitality returns and he clasps my hand in friendship. The guards slink back, unsure of themselves, but I can see the vizier is unhappy and I am badly outnumbered here, so I take the opportunity to nip out of the throne room and into the castle itself.
At this point the viziers guards are onto me. Ducking into a room I encounter a weedy, weeping gnome who complains that he has to deliver some stew from an orc cook to an orc guard, both of whom beat him. I've never heard of orcs working for the Baron before, but this seems a good cover so I volunteer to take the stew up to the guard and promptly do him in whilst he is eating it and let myself into the treasury. Unsurprisingly the place has been ransacked: all valuables and treasure gone save a potion, which I have a swig of only to discover it is an appetite supressant (for a Baron on a diet) and stops me eating any provisions - a definite issue as I'm still feeling the mild effects of the wine. A secret door hangs open within the treasury and I descend the steps into the darkness.. arriving back in the room with the emaciated prisoners from my previous playthrough.
This time I free the young man instead of the young woman - he begs me to release his sister, but his mouth seems oddly full and I catch a glimpse of more than one tongue so I get out the room quick and shut the door behind me.
I'm now back in the corridor offering an illusion or the soldiers that ended my last attempt. Instead of attacking I bluff my way through, claiming I have orders from the Baron, and am met by a Southern serving girl called Senya who escorts me into a luxurious antechamber. Apparently the Barons Vizier is willing to meet with me! My head swirling with wine, perfume and young ladies in silks, I am unable to resist as she pushes me into a comfortable chair and tells me to rest. Hypnotised by a flickering ruby at her throat I let myself sink into the chair - literally, as it moulds itself around me, for it is no chair but some hideous creation of Xakhaz, and Senya is really Senyakhaz, the sorceress and illusionist from Zagoula. The chair slowly absorbs me, draining my fluids whilst I stare unaware. DEATH #4

The book has been repeatedly asking me at this point if I have the talisman from Huws mate or the trident, so I seem to have missed something. I decide to restart at the garden but this time I head the opposite way and venture into one of the other towers. This contains a giant compost heap with a hidden room underneath it, where I find a strange glass orb. I am also attacked by hundreds of fat hairy spiders. With the spiders dealt with I discover the globe has begun to heat up and glow until it promptly blows up obliterating the tower, the garden and me with it. DEATH #5. Seeing as I'd just restarted I pick another option and stick the orb in my backpack, gambling that it is light that set it off - thankfully this works and it goes dormant again instead of blasting me to bits. This is a new development, so I continue round the garden until I wind up back at the gardeners tower.
I have the orb but still no trident, nor the talisman, and I'm confident I've missed nothing so I follow the same route to the Baron - this time drinking some 'wine' that is a hundred times worse (it was embalming fluid. The barrel was full of severed heads) but doesn't leave me drunk, but this time I stay sullen and silent instead of talking to the Baron. This time I'm hauled off to the dungeon on the spell-addled Barons judgement but the stupid guards make no attempt to take my sword or backpack!
Prompted to look at the head of the trident, I notice it is glowing and using its help I am able to raise some flagstones and discover a secret tunnel beneath the cell. I ease myself down a horizontal shaft into a tunnel that terminates at three doors. The trident's glow indicates I should go through one, and using it's head as a key, I enter and after a slight misadventure that involves me turning the lights out and nearly falling to my death I arrive at the base of an ancient staircase and a sarcophagus containing the second part of the trident of Skarlos! The trident is awesome - it's +2 SKILL, double damage against humans and quadruple damage against non-human enemies as well as restoring my flagging luck and willpower. Feeling suitably empowered I return to my cell (after a slightly confusing sequence where I fight another monster to get some keys that open the door I've just been in- I thought I'd messed this up at first, but going back over it, having the trident head negated the need for the keys. Anyway)
Back in the cell I wait confidently for my captors to arrive, only to be surprised by none other than Cernic, Huw's missing priest. He is in a terrible state, near frenzied from fear, and cannot wait to pass the talisman on Lolth onto me - he has been hiding in the dungeons for the castle is full of soldiers and there are worse in the depths (don't I know it). He does confirm that the Baron is under the spell of a Zagoulan wizard (Senyakhaz) and that Xakhaz is now alive and slowly building his power beneath the keep - and oddly that I should never look in a mirror whilst wearing the talisman. He is desperate to be away and I let him go, following him down the passage... and I'm back to the corridor that leads to Senyakhaz's quarters again.
This time I have both Talisman and Trident. Boldly I walk in, confront Senya, fail a luck test and hand over the trident. I'm absorbed again! DEATH #6. Aaargh!

Having come so close I reroll that luck test. The trident crackling I spring to my feet, facing no serving wench but the dark-eyed sorceress herself. She sneers at me and escapes in a cloud of smoke but I rush after her and witness her vanishing through - and into - a mirror, magically transporting herself away. I leap after her and die horribly as the mirror cracks and breaks, transporting half of me across space and time and leaving the other half a bloody mess on her floor. DEATH #7. FFS!
Restart. This time I take the another route following the smoke escape and this time encounter Senyakhaz preparing her escape via a magic box. She attempts to distract me with the sudden appearance of a giant spider, but I gamble this is a further illusion and it pays off. Fearful, Senyakhaz draws a knife from her sleeve. I triumphantly whip out the talisman and she cowers back, begging for mercy before twisting aside and leaving me staring straight at the mirror. The reflection of the talisman melts my eyes and burns my head black. FFS again! DEATH #8

I'm close now and don't fancy starting again so this time I DONT get out the talisman and press my attack. Senyakhaz is a skilled knife fighter but no match for the trident, and before long the sorceress lies slain at my feet. Her hold over Tholdur and his people now broken, but one threat remains... Xakhaz himself. Taking up the strange box from her hand I switch the setting to 'Z' and, as expected, it activates the mirror. I step through... and find myself in Zargoula.
Now at this point I'm given the option of wandering off into Zargoula, but this seems to be a trap: Xakhaz is in Neuburg, not here, so I step back through the mirror (this, it turns out, is the right choice) only to come face to face with a shocked Senyakhaz - I have come back in time to a few moments before! This time, once she is defeated, I switch the setting to 'X' (it's obvious now) and step through the mirror once more into an underground chamber.
The room is dark at first, before a door opens and a figure enters the room - glowing softly and clad in thick platemail and surcoat, it identifies itself as Skarlos in a flat voice and demands I leave or die. I have the trident, and I am suspicious of this Skarlos, so I avoid combat, taunting and dodging the figure whilst it repeats itself for a few moments before stopping still. Its voice is replaced by a shrill, eerie tone from beyond the door, inviting me to face Xakhaz himself. An inspection reveals there is something truly horrible in the armour, but nothing like what waits me beyond the doorway.
Xakhaz chamber is piled high with corpses in various states of dismemberment, limbs scattered and stinking across blood-slick floors. I stand appalled in the midst of the carnage as the voice taunts me, mocks me and promises me death. To my horror and disgust what I thought was a mound of bodies shifts and reveals itself to be Xakhaz himself, a fused, horrible pile of limbs and torsos, heads and mouths and tentacles all slithering and slapping across the floor towards me as I stumble away, tripping over severed limbs that grasp blindly for me. I reveal the Talisman, which boosts my resolve but its light does not stop Xakhaz's advance. At this point I remember the orb - pulling it from my back I hurl it like a grenade in an attempt to wedge it into the mound of flesh that is Xakhaz. I totally miss, but the globe goes off anyway, blasting me across the room and obliterating fiully half of Xakhaz's bulk. He continues to come at me, a stinking and bloody ruin, but his previously horrific stats are much reduced and although I cannot risk taking even a single hit from him I finish him off withe the trident and end his menace forever.
From there its back through the mirror, shell-shocked but triumphant, where I find the Baron evicting the demoralised southerners, no longer under the spell of their wizard. Huw arrives and claims the box, saying it contains the remnants of Xakhaz's spirit and the priesthood (ie him) will keep it safe. I don't care - there is general rejoicing, and I have defeated the horror Beneath Nightmare Castle!

This was awesome.
And after all that, I never met the woman on the cover!

[JohnW]

The chair slowly absorbs me, draining my fluids whilst I stare unaware.

This pretty much describes my weekends of late, only in my case it's a couch rather than a chair, and there aren't so many fluids involved – mercifully.

God bless your energy, Boots. If I were a younger man I'm sure I'd be running around nightmare castles and deathtrap dungeons right alongside you.