Gamebooks

[Blue Cactus]

I googled the art for that book and it looks amazing!

Planning to try it out tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. The interior art is lovely. I hadn't heard of the series but my wife did some research before buying it for me and apparently it is rated quite highly by those in the know. I assumed you folks would know all about it!

[Barrington Boots]

BATTLEBLADE WARRIOR

The story on this one is that I am the prince (or princess) of the city of Vymorna, which has been under siege for six years by an army of Lizardmen. The lizards are trying to conquer Allansia and Vymora is a staunch holdout - although they don't seem to be anywhere other than near Vymora itself, as none of the nearby settlements seem to be under the lizard yoke. Interestingly the Lizard King is mentioned as the commander and whilst this could easily be a different holder of that title, could this be set pre-IotLK? It'd be cool if so as the Lizardmen are a bit of a spent force by then.
Anyway, the King is long dead and my mum, the queen is in charge. With things looking desperate we decide to gamble on some dreams and omens and send me off after the Blade of Telak, a goodly god around these parts, which is held by a guy called Laskar who dwells in the nearby Lion Heights mountains. This, I assume, is the titular battleblade (this was a bit disappointing as I was hoping I'd either be playing a swordsmaster dude or would be getting a novelty magic sword of some kind. Neither of these things happen).

Starting off I'm given the choice of two out of three of the city's magic items - my father's bow and 3 silver arrows, a globe of light, or some healing balm. The first is useful, if no different mechanically from a normal bow, the second is pointless and the third awesome. Obviously I took the bow and the globe however.
My next choice is how to escape the city - sneak out and steal a boat to escape downriver, sneak out on foot, or simply bust out by smashing through the lizard ranks. As the size of the Lizardman army has been emphasised as being especially huge I decide to take the boat. Straight away I bungle my luck roll and end up fighting a lizardman guard, but with him dispatched I'm able to sneak out under the cover of darkness and drift off down the Vymorn River. I decide to stick to the northern bank, as the southern bank borders the horrible sounding Swamplands of Silur-Cha, and am rewarded by a fairly easy journey where all I have to do is dodge some swamp goblin coracles, until a bungled skill roll sees me stupidly taking the boat into some rapids where it gets smashed and all my provisions are lost.
Coming to face down on the bank, drenched but otherwise unharmed, I decide to avoid the open plain where i could be spotted easily and head directly east into the Nightshriek Jungle in order to make the best time. After hours of morale-sapping chopping through the jungle I'm given the chance to scavenge for provisions and load up on local fruits. Some fresh mango restores my spirits and I'm further bolstered by finding a rare black lotus flower. I press on till dark and decide to sleep up a tree to avoid anything coming upon me and eating me in the night. A big panther promptly does climb up the tree in the night: I stay as still as possible as it hauls an antelope carcass up the tree and proceeds to tear it to bits, crunching bones and chewing up gristle mere feet from where I sit. I think I've got away with it as it stands, stretches and makes ready to depart before it stops and stares me straight in the eyes and then bounds off. I get a cryptic clue from this that I never make use of at all, which is a shame as it's a cool scene.
With the panther off I also head off, deviating from my straight path to explore some temple ruins from some long-dead civilisation. Everything here has a panther theme, which seems very ominous.. I recover a small statue of a panther from the idol of the panther god and stick it in my backpack before heading away.
By now I'm starting to worry that I've taken too much time - my city is in danger, after all, so I proceed more directly, stopping only to eat some more papaya and stuff and kill off a bunch of mischievous monkeys that try to steal my sword. By sunset on the second day the ground has begun to get swampy and marshy underfoot so I stop to camp on dryer ground, only to have some gigantic crocodile monster pop out of the swamp and attack me. This is a totally hard fight and I get absolutely battered before 'enjoying' a sleepless night waiting for more horrors to emerge from the muck, but nothing does.

The next day the jungle seems less foreboding, until I'm attacked by a vast gang of Tarzan-like panther warriors, all wearing adorable furry hats with ears. Luckily they suck at fighting, so I make short work of these goons and eventually break from the foliage to see the mountain range ahead of me. There's a lizardman here flapping about on a Pteranodon but I've got my father's bow, so I shoot him out of the sky. Then it's mountain climbing time, where I pass by a rudimentary illusion and finally reach the summit to find Laskar waiting for me.
Laskar is an old hermit, old, wild-bearded and shabbily dressed. He claims to have been expecting me and leads me back to his cave where he gives me some stew and says Telak came to him in a vision too and told him to aid me when I arrived. The next day he leads me to a vast ravine wherein lies the ancient, ruined city of Kharnek, once home of some fabled warrior kings, where obviously I must venture (alone, because Laskar is too old to face the 'deathless ones') to find not only the sword of my quest, now named as 'The Arm of Telak' but also The Eyes of Telak, something Laskar doesn't know anything about. We climb down the ravine and he points out a portion of collapsed courtyard with twisting, dark, spooky tunnels leading off it. "You go in there" he says "And I'll climb up to the ruined temple to wait for you." Ok mate. I duck into the tunnel and am given the option to wait and watch Laskar before descending and when i do I see he's immediately ambushed and escorted off by a bunch of lizardmen!
Another bunch of lizardmen are heading my way so I make haste into the ruined passages. The cool, dark tunnels below are something of a maze with a bewildering number of passages. As ever I always look to take the left-hand path when negotiating these catacombs, finding little but ancient remains and dusty statues of long-dead warriors. Finding a room full of thousands of skulls, organs and other specimens in jars I'm prompted that something seems a bit off given this is a fabled lost city of supposed goodliness. That's further reinforced when the next room I enter begins literally bleeding, with blood trickling through cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling to pool around my feet. Trapped in this nightmarish chamber I'm accosted by the lizardmen who have presumably been tracking me and have to fight them, but they're little match for me and eventually I make my mistake. Now tired, slathered in blood and presumably stinking and squelching I navigate more tunnels and eventually make a long climb to a room where I spot Laskar himself waiting.
Once again I am given the option of hanging back, so I do and to my complete lack of surprise some lizardmen come in and begin chatting amiably with Laskar. Laskar has betrayed me!
The book now asks if I have the arm of Telak. I don't. I'm overpowered by lizardmen and Laskar, it seems, has the sword himself! He chuckles evilly and gloatingly asks if I have the Eyes of Telak. I don't. Going left sucks.  With an evil laugh, Laskar orders the Lizardmen to cut me down. My adventure, and the hopes of Vymora, end here.

ROUND 2

This time I decide to try a different way out of the city and choose the option to sneak out under cover of darkness. Shrouded in night and wrapped in a cloak I slip past burned out buildings and into the lizard trenches that encircle the city. The trenches themselves are choked with bodies and debris - disease must be running rampant in the lizardman ranks, surely? I'm thinking here that stealth is paramount so I do my best to avoid detection and fights, staying close to the walls. On the one occasion I am challenged, by a lizardman standing above, I haul him into the trench by his foot, breaking his neck and leaving him amongst the dead. At another point I duck into a tent to avoid being spotted only to come face to face with a lizard lady reclining in a horrible slime bath, but I'm able to blag my way out by bowing and babbling nonsense before the alarm is raised. After the trenches I make my way carefully through the tents and baggage train of the siege to the edge of the army camp, where a number of riding lizards are kept - ideal for me! There's no way to do this without raising the alarm that I can see, so I just jump on one and speed off with a gang of lizardmen chasing after me.
I head north into across the Axehead Plains, but the pursuit is relentless. Eventually I try to duck into some trees, only for an arrow to come whipping out of them and kill my stolen mount stone dead. The shooter is some kind of tough looking ranger dude with a demented look on his face - he doesn't say much but indicates we should ambush the pursuing lizardmen. I've got my bow, and between us (and this guys pet sabre tooth tiger!) we make short work of them with only a couple escaping. He introduces himself as Julius Lecarte, an adventurer in search of his father. I get the feeling I should know who this guy is - is he from another FF book or similar? Anyway, he suggests I head to the town of Capra, but before we do that he decides to set a trap for any more pursuit and promptly assembles a big pile of wood, soaks it in oil and adds gunpowder ('Flashpowder from Sardath' - the first use of gunpowder in non-sci fi FF?) and when the lizards come back with reinforcements we blow them all sky high!
Lecarte and I, and his tiger, head to Capra for an overnight and then we're off again (i thought this would be a new location to explore, but it's done in two paragraphs). Lecarte is heading west whilst I must go north, then east, but before we part he disguises me as a non-human with, essentially, mud and tells me to find a man called White Eye who will help me out.
I head north into the mists. Surprised by the tolling of a bell, I investigate and find a small group of mourners gathered around a funeral bier. Getting closer, I find the mourners are orcs - one being a shaman, who is throwing entrails and bones about, whilst the others are weeping and looking super solemn. For an inexplicable reason I join the queue of mourners who are queuing up to bite the corpse, for it appears in Vymora, orc tradition is that one must leave their teeth marks on the dead. Against all odds my mud disguise is holding up so I dutifully take a big bite of orc and lose a bunch of stamina. I then have to greet all the old orcs. There is much orc hugging, an orc asks me my name and I totally blag it, and then I am passed a mug of dreaded orc ale which I end up drinking and lose even more stamina. The orcs are by now all drunk and laughing and singing, and I crawl off and pass out on a hillside.
The next day I wake up with a splitting hangover that reduces my skill badly. Feeling like absolute crap I stagger north where I link up with a young woman called Kayta, who I meet on the road. She is a messenger from a place called Coppertown far to the north, come south to request aid from Vymora against trolls and lizardmen. Obviously they haven't heard of the SIX YEAR SIEGE that we've been under from an army big enough to block out the sun. I break the news to her and she looks crushed, but we decide to press on together - perhaps after I get Telaks sword and smash the siege I can hop up to Coppertown and do the same there. Her horse immediately dies from the hard ride. We continue on foot and are almost straight away captured by snakemen from the desert of skulls (we try to hide, but upon seeing them Katya leaps out with her sword, then faints in horror). The snakemen stake us out in the sun to die, which Katya duly does with no ceremony whatsoever marking her as the most short lived and useless companion for a while (this is a shame, as there could have been a bit of pathos here, but as it is we barely knew her)
I lie staked out a bit in the sun, slowly dying of exposure, test my luck but my luck is rubbish due to loads of checks back at the roc funeral bit, fail and die. The birds pick my bones clean and Vymora gets crushed by lizardmen. Game over.

ROUND 3

Re-rolling that luck check gets me rescued by an old trader in a caravan who nurses me back to health. It turns out he is none other than White Eye, the very guy I was looking for, but although he is sympathetic to my quest he will only trade me info on Laskar for some kind of valuable and proceeds to list all the cool stuff I picked up in the jungle in playthrough one, like the panther statue and the lotus flower (I assume the info is that Laskar is a dick).
White Eye bids me farewell and drops me off by the jungle, at which point I pick up the narrative from playthrough 1, fighting the swamp monster and eventually finding Laskar and heading into the catacombs. I take a slightly different route and wind up falling into a pit of vipers. Escaping that with a bundle of rags I find at the bottom I open the rags to reveal a beautiful bejewlled sword - surely the Arm of Telak! The sword has something missing from the hilt, so like a fool I carefully stow it in my backpack instead of using it against the occupant of the next room - a long dead warrior king, animated and out for blood. I finish this fight on 1 stamina.
The warrior king at last sent to rest I scavenge his crown - or more precisely the two emeralds embedded upon it. Popping them out with my knife reveals them to be two halves of the same stone. I put these in my backpack. Naviagting some more passages I come upon a big altar to Telak with a huge ruby set on it. This looks like an obvious trap to me, and indeed when I investigate some undead spider demon guys rush out and make mincemeat of me with my puny stamina.

ROUND 4

Now I know what I'm doing I take the short route back. This time avoiding the altar takes me straight to Laskar, but this time I do have the Arm of Telak. Do I hve the eyes? I'm asked which of a number of gemstones I should put into the hilt: I think the clue is that the only one that's more than one stone is the emeralds (and I don't have any of the rest) and lo and behold this is correct. Adding the emeralds to the sword imbues it with holy power and with a cry to Telak I leap out and chop the traitorous and defenseless old man in two. His lizardmen cohorts cower before Telak's sword as it pulses with holy might. About me forms begin to coalesce from the air - a thousand golden warriors weilding golden weapons. They make short work of the lizardmen and with Telak's sword aloft I lead them south to smash the lizard army and free my city. THE END.



It was all fun, but also a bit meh at the end, and the problem is that the first half of the book was infinitely better than the second. Escaping the siege is a lot of fun as is exploring the plains and jungle, but then the dungeon bit is just a lot of left / right choices and it's all a bit cliche. The ending is the ultimate deus ex machina and it's a bit unsatisfying - suddenly a legion of dudes appear, you win - a whole book about breaking out of the siege would have been great, or perhaps instead of finding Laskar and going into his dungeon the reader could have reached another city, had a bit of politicking and then leading an army back to rescue their people. The politic / army stuff in Way of the Tiger was great, but what we've got here felt a bit flat.

Other than that, the writing is strong and this was fun although (so long as you have at least Skill 10, as there are two unavoidable fights that need that) it was pretty easy. There are way more provisions than you need and hardly any items to collect until you reach the end. The setup is really good, feels well thought out and deep in the lore (Marc Gascoigne wrote this, so perhaps expected) and the pre-dungeon bits are all interesting and read well, plus the non-linear nature of it makes it interesting to replay should you need to. Even the dungeon isn't actually bad tbh - it's neatly written and it at least feels like a ruined complex, as much of it is abandoned and not stuffed with weird monsters for no reason. We joke about Mungos but Katya really is the most Mungo-y FF companion yet as she joins you and then dies within a couple of paragraphs having done nothing of use or interest at all! The orc funeral is a great bit so it's a shame that it's totally optional.

The art is credited to David Gallagher in my edition but it's clearly Alan Langford, following on from Island of the Lizard King which means the same awesome looking, toothy, slightly yampy lizardmen and dinosaurs as that book. Most of the art is of lizardmen, and it's a bit of a shame they more or less fade out of the book in the second half. There's a sexy lady lizardman in this one and she's no City of Thieves snake queen.

Decent but nothing special would be my verdict on this one.

[JohnW]

I am the prince (or princess) of the city of Vymorna,

Be who you need to be.
No one here is judging you.

[Richard]

What a detailed write up! I enjoyed reading that. I have this book but I remember nothing about it, but I'm tempted to give it another go now.

[soggy]

In case you are unaware, there is currently a kickstarter running for a board/card game based on four of the Fighting Fantasy books

http://kck.st/46s586z

[Barrington Boots]

I wasn't aware of that - cheers! I'm not sure this KS is going to be a success. Martin Wallace is a good designer but the game itself looks very bland. I appreciate that it's mentioned that the example game and art shown is generic and not based on one of the FF books, but without the classic art (or reimagining of it, as I assume it will be) it underlines how generic this looks and lacking in 'FF-ness'.

Postage looks brutal outside of Australia too.

[Barrington Boots]

SLAVES OF THE ABYSS

Finished this one last week. It was my first experience of it, and it is a great book. It's my first one by Paul Mason who I know did a few well-regarded ones and was very interesting and eloquent at Fighting Fantasy Fest. I have the notes for a full writeup but I'm hesitant to do it as I don't want to spoil it if others haven't played it yet.

It's set in Kallamehr, which is in the Arabic Southern part of Allansia, and you play a famous adventurer summoned to help against an invading army. You're given the choice of three tasks which is a bit of a non-choice really as one is a death choice and the second quickly becomes the third, but from there things get really interesting as the threat is not as it appears and the book moves from a race against time to a mystery to a slightly surreal venture into another mysterious plane of existence. In a nice touch, because you are already a famous badass, if you roll double six in combat you auto-kill your enemy in one hit unless told otherwise.

It's a very well written FF: the settings and challenges are fairly unusual, and the plot doesn't spoon-feed you information, but a few playthroughs and paying attention enables you to join the dots yourself as to what is going on in the background and why certain characters react the way they do towards you, or who is committing certain nefarious acts. The inventory is quite small and it's more about figuring things out than finding a checklist of stuff. It just felt like quite a fresh and interesting experience throughout. The Riddling Reaver makes a cameo which is a good or a bad thing depending on how you feel about him.

It's not all great: there's a very drawn-out death sequence where you get lost in a forest, each paragraph costs you 1 stamina, and you bounce between six entries with no way out until you die which is maddening. On the next replay I realised that there's a clue very early on that shows you how to avoid this, but I'd have preferred a single 'you're lost and die' paragraph rather than that protracted death, despite its cleverness. There's also a fight against a tough opponent that ends as soon as he hits you once, because he's a villain who has poisoned his sword. This did for me a few times but eventually I won through with the double six auto kill. Finally, the book uses a time track, with a couple of paragraphs marked on it to turn to when you hit that point, and my printing didn't include that time track at all. It's available online, luckily.

That's all by the by though. I really enjoyed this and despite multiple deaths was always keen to pick it back up: combats aren't hard on the whole, so the book isn't a slog (I'd say Skill 10 minimum though) and it rewards thoughtful choices and paying attention, which is the gold standard for these imo. Art is by Bob Harvey who I have a great fondness for, but the art isn't the high point here (although there's a cool picture of a monster in an oubliette). I've seen people moaning online about the cover but I think it's a good one - really stands out from the pack. Perhaps it's because it makes it look a bit sci-fi.

Overall, I really recommend this one. Next book for me is Sky Lord, which I think is in the top 3 worst ever FF books!

[Richard]

Slaves of the Abyss is a brilliant book! Looking forward to your full write-up, if you do one.

Also I've just discovered that Usborne has started a line of new gamebooks; four of them so far. They look pretty good. (Aimed at ages 9+ so might be too easy, but still, I'm glad they exist.)

https://usborne.com/gb/books/series/adventure-gamebooks

[Blue Cactus]

Slaves of the Abyss is a brilliant book! Looking forward to your full write-up, if you do one.

Also I've just discovered that Usborne has started a line of new gamebooks; four of them so far. They look pretty good. (Aimed at ages 9+ so might be too easy, but still, I'm glad they exist.)

https://usborne.com/gb/books/series/adventure-gamebooks

Played one of these, Shadow Chaser, it was good fun. Fast paced and with some more child-friendly puzzles here and there using illustrations, but it was an intriguing adventure and it didn't feel too simplistic or childish in the writing. Maybe slightly younger than FF, sure, but I wouldn't say the choices you have to make are obvious or anything. I still got killed so will need another go at some point! I have a second one, Curse Breaker, waiting for a first play through too.

[Barrington Boots]

Here's my Slaves of the Abyss playthrough! As Richard fancied it...

Covered the background in the last post, so straight into it. I'm an adventurer of some renown, who has answered the call put out by Lady Carolina of Kallamehr. Said state is in a grim way: with the armies of nearby  of Bei-Han massing on the border for invasion, Kallemehr's forces have been sent to defend the mountain route into the country leaving bandits and the like to run riot. I am summoned by name by Lady Carolina, and arrive at the palace to find she has assembled almost a dozen mercenaries and adventurers including myself.
Carolina explains that her champion, the awesomely named Ramedes the Invincible, is on a quest for a relic to aid the beleaguered realm, hence she and her council have summoned us. A second invading army has crossed the border - this one believed to be barbarian raiders from Kulak Isle - and there are reports of towns and villages found empty, all souls vanished. Carolina needs a volunteer to head north and summon back half her forces from the border, a second to go east and scout the new invaders, and the remainder to stay and assist the city defences. At present her council consists of her fat cousin Madhaerios; Dunyazad, the wealthiest woman in the state; the sage Sige the Silent and the serious Albudur (this stuff is important for later)

I volunteer to go East. At a pre-scouting feast, a page slips me a note stating I am being watched 'by a hundred eyes' - could treachery be afoot in the palace? Madhaerios tells me I should take no action but scout and return, whilst Dunyazad is trying to map out my route. Finally, Sige visits me and has her servant, a hooded and deformed fellow, pass me a magical pomander of rare herbs that will remove my need for sleep.
I head off and ride all day. At night, I have no need of sleep, true to Sige's promise, but my horse does, totally negating any point to having it! As I'm lying about a bunch of dark elves try to mug me, so I pretend to be asleep before ambushing them and cutting them down. They have a golden statuette on them in the shape of a fist, which is now mine. I am an adventurer working out of charity, after all..
I ride the whole of the next day, passing through several villages where I am received in an unfriendly, almost hostile manner by the villagers. I decide to stop at the Temple of Fourga, as per Dunyazad's advice, but when I do the monks accuse me of being a villain who has returned to the scene of the crime - obviously I deny this and when asked, I empty my backpack to reveal their stolen golden statuette. It's off to prison for me, where luckily I don't languish long before I am released - apparently Dunyazad has intervened.
I'm now given the option of going cross country or sticking to the roads. Dunyazad told me to stick to the roads, but she also told me to stop at this temple where I was blatantly set up... although she did also secure my release. However, I'm also on a timer, and am worried I have lost too much time, so I go with the road route. A few hours in I pass a panicked oxen, and not long after I find a crashed cart with the corpse of a second ox still attached with something horrible feeding on it: a hooded, inhuman monster. Upon seeing me it runs off with a peircing shriek. I check the cart, finding the ox has been partly digested by some kind of acid... and worse, a wax mask that turns out to be an exact copy of my own face. What is happening?
That evening I stop at a village, where the villagers seem to think I'm some kind of savior and lock me in a hut. Bizarrely I am rescued by none other than the Riddling Reaver in his airship. It's a weird little interlude, especially as it has nothing to do with the rest of the book - worldbuilding or shoehorning a pet character? Anyway, I'm back on track, and to boot the RR gives me a fish-shaped bottle that he says contains a stolen sense of humour. "You'll be needing this!" he says before zipping off.
Next morning, I ride on (RR has also rescued my horse) and find the atmosphere growing humid and the air beginning to smell fetid and rotten. I arrive at a village only to find it mysteriously deserted. At the local herbalists hut there's a note written to someone suggesting 'they stay hidden until danger has passed' and instructing the reader to go their parents village when safe.
Further searching turns up a sticky green footprint in front of a cupboard. Putting two and two together with the note, I open it gently and so don't get a blowpipe dart in the face from the small girl hiding within. Her name is Mema and she is covered in green sticky goo. She reveals she is the apprentice of the enchanter Enthymesis, who performed a troubling divination a few days back that led him to go and seek guidance from Aletheia the sage in the twisting forest. Before he left he applied the green goo to her for protection and told her to stay hidden. Sure enough a terrible din soon came upon the village, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the townsfolk before silence. All have vanished..
Being the good sort I am, I decide to backtrack and drop Mema (still covered in gunk) off at her parents. En route the foul stench in the air grows stronger and my horse shies in terror. Off to the left I can see a huge army approaching - and this army is truly huge, covering the hills like ants, far bigger than the forces of Kallamehr. As i try to get closer for a look I see that the air above the army is covered by what at first seems to be thick mist but is soon revealed to be huge hornets. I've no choice but to flee this unnatural army in terror. Luckily for me the green goo Mema is covered in is enough to keep the buzzing horror away and I outpace them easily and reach her village where I drop her off and tell them to evacuate and at speed.
I've now got the choice of scouting the army further, going to look for Enthymesis, or going back to Kallamehr to warn them. This is a tough choice as all three seem very sensible. I choose the latter as I feel the others can be done later, but the city is in real danger here. I push my horse to the very limits, but eventually need to stop at the town of Kamadan to give it a rest. I too, am in need of a rest - my body is in agony from not sleeping for several days and the pomander is starting to feel like hindrance rather than help. I figure I'm here for the night anyway, take the pomander off and immediately fall asleep... only to wake up to find my room on fire! Gagging on smoke I stumble to the window and open it and recoil in horror, seeing a hooded figure hovering outside it. A thick buzzing sound fills the air, and the fire reflects off hundreds of eyes beneath the hood. It sweeps upwards and I scramble out the window to escape the flames. Feeling a presence above me I look up, I hear a high-pitched scream that turns into a gurgle as something vomits a load of acid into my face, killing me instantly, horribly and painfully.

I feel I'm on the right track here, but on resetting, I look at the other options. Staying to defend the city is (as expected) an auto-death so I try going north to find the army. This time I'm not given the pomander or the mysterious note. I'm riding north when I find a body, that turns out to be Sophia of Blacksand, one of the other heroes (and a friend of mine) who'd been dispatched on my previous mission to scout the enemy army. She's been partly dissolved by acid...
I'm starting to get a picture of what's happening now. This is obviously the wrong route, so I ditch this playthrough, restart, and follow my first playthrough all the way back to the burning inn. This time I do NOT look up but when my assailant is above me but throw myself from the window, getting badly acid burned in the process, as the cowled creature flies off.

As the inn burns down I'm found in the crowd by another old friend of mine: the blademaster Bartolo, now retired and sporting a wooden leg. He offers to teach me the 'spitting fly' (an ominous name, considering) technique - a lethal move for throwing a sword, although a desperate move as it would leave me disarmed. Bartolo also gives me a buckler for extra Skill in a fight. Yes! This has been a useful, if highly contrived, meeting.
After this it's more hard riding until I reach Kallamehr. I'm denied entrance to the palace and when I protest, saying Lady Carolina herself needs to hear my warning, she inform me that she is DEAD. This is a disaster. I bribe my way in, where I'm greeted by Dunyazad, flanked by bodyguards and another of the heroes Carolina summoned - Luthaur, a shifty looking type. I tell my story only to have it immediately contradicted by Luthaur who says he has been scouting East too, saw no army, and the empty villages were just due to villagers running away! We bicker and Dunyazad says she is too busy organising the funeral to waste time on us, breezing out and saying she will divine which of us is correct. Fuming, I am sent off to a sparse room for the night, but sleeps eludes me - which is a good thing, as I hear a faint, familiar buzzing sound from outside! Leaping to the window I spot a dark shadow rising up and flying away from the keep. If it wasn't before, it's obvious to me now that there is a traitor here. Carolina has been murdered and this flying, insectoid horror has been out and about sabotaging things - it killed Sophie, and, I suspect, is what set me up at the temple by wearing a mask of my face as well as trying to kill me off in Kamadan. Determined to investigate, I slip out into the night...

Will have to finish this one tomorrow. This book is GREAT.

[Richard]

Great write-up! I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

You definitely made the right choice after dropping off Mema, by the way. I remember reading some online reviews where nobody thought to go back to the city (even though Madhaerios specifically tells you to do this); the other options lead to death!

[Barrington Boots]

Cheers dude!

That post-Mema rescue decision is a good example of one of the things I really liked about this book - it rewards thinking about the choices you make. I feel like in a lot of FF books riding back at this point would kill the reader but thinking about what's best in the situation - plus the fact that right at the start you were told this was your mission, as you say - is what led me down that path and to (eventual) success!

[Barrington Boots]

Slaves of the Abyss Part 2 (of 3)

Acquiring some rope and stealing stealthily across the roof of the palace keep, I'm able to rappel down each of the four walls and spy into the windows. The first window shows Madhaerios having a midnight snack: he seems frightened, hiding under his bed and jumping at slight sounds. Through the second I spy Dunyazad who seems to be packing clothing and jewelry into a trunk. Suspicious... the third window I spy into I see Sige meditating, and pushing small tokens across a map of Kallemher as she does so. Before I can check out window number four a patrolling guard appears. I'm given the option of hiding or, if I have a bow (I don't) shooting the poor chap but it seems to me he's only doing his job so I drop down the rope into the courtyard and am about to make a dash for my room when I hear the sound of a bolt being drawn back from across the gardens and sink into a shadowy corner. I'm unable to see who enters the courtyard, but I can identify the voice of one of the men as they pass - that of Luthaur, who embarrassed me in front of Dunyazad. They're talking about Ramedes, Carolina's champion, and how he 'fought like a dozen men' but 'the other will be much easier'. That's enough to cement Luthaur as a bad guy for me.. and also to pretty certain that another attempt on my life is about to be made. I slip into the doorway they just exited and follow the twisting passage down to the palace dungeons. The cells are empty, but in the floor in the centre of the room is set a vast oubliette, and as I get closer I can see a man hanging from the grill, whilst below him sinister sucking and slithering noises come from the darkness below.
I rush to open the trapdoor, identifying the hanging figure as I do so as Ramedes, but as he's painfully inching towards me across the grill someone comes up behind me and punts me into the cell below instead. I land with a bump next to the thing in the pit - a Quagrant, some kind of huge shoggoth-like lump of flesh, all eyeballs and mouth. I need to act quickly, and don't fancy disarming myself with the spitting fly move so instead I whip out Mema's blowpipe (I'd forgotten I had this) and blast a load of poisonous dust into the things biggest eyeball. It recoils and I'm into it with my sword, chopping the horrible thing into greasy chunks (this is only the second fight of my playthrough!)
With that thing dealt with I turn my attention to above where the jailer stands in shock. I figure now it's time for the spitting fly - I hurl my sword up, through the grill and impale him, dropping him onto the bars where Ramedes is able to grab hold of his keys and before long the two of us are out of the pit.
Ramedes reveals he had returned from his quest only to be drugged, beaten and hurled into the dungeon. He's keen to go deliver the artifact he found to Lady Carolina, and when I break it to him that she is dead he flies into a rage. "I must have revenge immediately!" he roars and rushes off, stopping only to pass a pouch containing the artifact (that he'd carefully hidden) to me for safety. Obviously this is my time to leave but caught up in the moment I rush to aid him and we cut our way through the palace guards only to be brought down and killed by a volley of crossbow bolts. Oops!
Appalled at my stupidity I rewind to when Ramedes gives me the pouch and steal away as he goes on his suicide run. The pouch he gave me contains a locket of some description set with blue stones, but I'm unsure of its purpose.

The next morning is the funeral of Lady Carolina. Madhaerios, Dunyazad, Sige and Albudur take their places on a platform for a public display of mourning before the body as the commoners gather to pay their respects, tearful and wailing. As I approach the open coffin I note the villainous Luthaur amongst the bodyguards of the nobles. It is time to act! I leap onto the platform and cry out to all to listen to me. "Assassin!" cries Luthaur as he moves to block me, sword drawn.
I must fight Luthaur. His skill is lower than mine, but when he draws blood I discover his blade is poisoned and I collapse and die with a curse on my lips. This is a very tricky fight - he's got 17 stamina so I need 9 hits on him without losing one round of battle. I die three times here in total and am beginning to think this bit sucks when I roll double six, remembering the auto-kill rule for this book, and run the villain through.
As Luthaur sinks to the ground dying, I call out to all concerned that there is a traitor within the palace and detail their treachery. A direct accusation against the four nobles is too dangerous, but had previously known of a folk tale that, should a murderer kiss their victim upon the lips, their skin will blacken and therefore I must insist that one of them undertake this mark of respect - but who? I suspect I've got one chance at this.
Madhaerios seems beyond reproach: he's the DeFacto ruler now but doesn't give the impression of being anything other than a bit useless. It's got to come down to Dunyazad or Sige. The former was seen with Luthaur, is preparing to do a runner, and told me to visit the temple where I was detained. The latter gave me the pomander, a dubious gift - but her meditation last night seemed suspicious and, more importantly, it was she that has a sinister hooded servant. I know that the insect assassin was in the palace at the start of the book due to the note I got at the feast... I think it's her.
I ask Sige to pay her respects. She slowly approaches the body, then hesitates and cries out that she doesn't need to do what a lying upstart says. The crowds against her though as she has no choice. She bends to kiss the body - then whips around and attacks me with Carolina's sword of state. She gets the drop on me with a vicious cut but is no match for my swordsmanship.
Sige drops to the floor, slain, and as she does so the air is filled with a deep rumbling. To the horror of all a tendril of thick black smoke emerges from her corpse, taking on the rough shape of Sige herself, and flies at me. I fling up a hand to ward her off and feel a terrible pain. As the smoke disperses and the pain eases to a dull ache I see I am afflicted with the wound that changes colour, my hand shrouded in a soft light that shifts from green to yellow to orange to red.
The nobles, shocked, look to me for leadership. I quickly establish that the other heroes are all dead, mysteriously slain or vanished. Sige and Luthaur are dead, but the city remains in dire straits with the army approaching, so after some instruction I'm heading off again, this time to finally look for Enthymesis.

I head north into the mountains and eventually find myself at the edge of a vast forest - one that seemingly appeared out of the desert plain by magic. In I go.
This is where the book temporarily broke down for me. I'm given some left / right choices, have a couple of encounters (including one with some comedy ogres and goblins that leaves me perilously low on stamina and gorging my provisions) and eventually move onto a twisting network of pathways. Each path I take resulted in my losing a point of stamina, and once I began noticing the same paragraph numbers cropping up I mapped things out and discovered that I was caught in an inescapable loop, destined to move around the forest until my stamina ran dry. This was a frustrating and unwelcome death.
Figuring I must have missed something I retracted my steps from the beginning and was appalled with myself when I discovered that when rescuing Mema, not only did Enthymesis's note warn Mema against entering 'the shifting forest' but also said that if she did, she should 'follow the brush bearers gloves' or be lost forever. I had made no note of that, but I DO remember the forest description mentioning foxgloves. Skipping myself forward each paragraph in the forest does mention foxgloves - quite subtly, within other description. It's a very subtle little trap / solution.

ANYWAY - taking the right route through the forest leads me to a clearing where lies a crude mud hut standing on spindly legs. I waste some time scouting around (my time track is still ticking away) and eventually get myself inside to discover a single room, empty but for an aged woman in a rough shift. Her hands are raised and above them is a shimmering vision of a void containing a wall of cells fall of disheveled, panicked people - the same as the cover of the book, in fact. The woman reveals these are souls, trapped in the abyss, and challenges me to name her. I don't think she's Enthymesis - who was it he was seeking? I flick back to the paragraph and correctly name her as Aletheia.
Aletheia smiles - I am correct. She introduces me to her familiar, Caduceus, a large snake, and compliments his wisdom. The souls, she says, are in thrall to one named Bythos, who must be stopped if they are to be saved - Enthymesis, she says, has gone on ahead to attempt this and I should follow. The key to this awfulness is the black hornets that follow Bythos's army, for they are cursed creatures whose sting steals souls and imprisons them in his domain, leaving the body a mere shell to be puppeted by Bythos.. meaning the invading army is none other than the soulless bodies of the vanished people of Kallamehr themselves. This is such a novel - and horrible - concept. Aletheia also notes that I still carry Sige's pomander and tells me it is a powerful talisman - the herbs within, eaten in the abyss, will protect me from 'the masters crystal breath'.
To reach Bythos I must pass the soul-stealing hornets: a seemingly impossible task. Aletheia says I can kill them with the scent of burning Jheera leaves. Luckily a Jheera tree grows in the forest - unluckily, it appears to have been uprooted. In my wanderings earlier I spotted a troll with an uprooted tree, so I'm off to find him. Aletheia tells me she will allow the forest to let me pass, but I should never return as I will not find her welcoming a second time.
I find the troll trying to dig up a burrow of some sort with the tree, but failing. As he seems relatively benign I suggest he removes the leaves from the tree to make it a more efficient tool. I'm stuffing the leaves into my pockets and chuckling at my cleverness when the troll finally digs up some kind of porcupine, tries to eat it and blames me for the ensuing mouth pain. Combat ensues.
With the troll now an ex-troll I am able to leave the forest and soon am in sight of the invading army again. It engulfs the plains below, its numbers swelling with every town and village it comes across. Atop the multitude I can see palanquin, held aloft by the people, and swarming above it the thick cloud of hornets.
I light my Jheera-leaf torch and ride down towards the army but the wind is against me and pushes the smoke away. Panicked, I hide in a cave and as the hornets attempt to swarm in after me they choke and die on the smoke until the cave floor is choked with their bodies.
Now safe, I approach the army, trying to keep a brave face. The blank eyed hordes of the soulless part before me as I approach the palanquin and from it steps an imposing man, unsmiling, dressed in rich robes and deeply scarred across the face. He begins threatening me for killing the hornets, but as he does I uncork the bottle the riddling reaver gave me all that time ago and he dissolves into helpless laughter. Quick as a flash I use the spitting fly technique to hurl my sword into his chest. Bythos is dead! But wait! As with Sige before him, a thick smoke rises from his corpse, twisting about until it takes on his form. "I am Bythos, Lord of the Abyss" he monologues, boasting that although I have slain his earthly form he will be back - and he still holds the souls of the people of Kallemehr in thrall. He vanishes, leaving me standing dejected, surrounded by the unmoving husks that were once the citizens of my country.

Still more to come on this one! It's a huuuuuge writeup - there's so much happening in this adventure! If you read all this, I salute you!

[Blue Cactus]

Got to applaud your efforts with these write ups!

[Trooper McFad]

Boots as I've told you before I'm not a "games book" player but these write ups are peeking my interest and your descriptions bring the game play to life. You might eventually get me to try one 😳.

(Not to put pressure on but I hope you are thinking of a good one for the later in the year 🎅🏻)