[Let's Play]HeroQuest Adventure Game: The Fellowship of Four

[SGamerz]

Question! Can we change the Combat Order at any point outside of combat or was it locked in at the beginning of the adventure? And can we trade items?

We can do all these as long as we're not in the middle of a combat, so I think they are allowed in this case (combat hasn't started).

Darth voted to cast COURAGE in the third round, but the text stated that this one has to be cast at the start of combat, so I'll go with Slyjohnny's vote on that. And since he didn't specify a target, I'll go with Darth's suggestion to cast it on the barbarian to compensate for the loss of his weapon. TEMPEST will be used in Round 2 as both have voted.

Barbarian and Elf switch positions, and breastplate is passed to the Elf.

Let's go!

COMBAT:

Fortunato casts COURAGE (the spell takes effect at the beginning of combat, so he gets priority in this round), boosting Asgrim's COMBAT to 5.

Eildonas rolls a 4 and scores a cut on Grim Dugald (BODY down to 9).

Asgrim rolls a 2 and for once hits in the first round, bitch-slapping Grim Dugald with his ham-sized hands, (BODY down to 8).

Anvil rolls a 3 and cuts another BODY point off Grim Dugald (down to 7).

Grim Dugald rolls a 2 and scratches Eildonas with his claws....but glances off the Elf's breastplate as the latter rolls a 2.

ROUND 2:

Eildonas rolls 1 and cuts another chunk off Grim Dugald (BODY down to 6).

Asgrim rolls a 3 (now he keeps rolling low when he doesn't need it) and rips an arm off Grim Dugald (BODY down to 5).

Anvil rolls a 6 and misses clumsily.

Fortunate casts TEMPEST, causing Grim Dugald to automatically miss a turn this round.

Grim Dugald is enveloped by the TEMPEST spell and cannot attack.

ROUND 3:

Eildonas rolls a 6 and misses this round.

Asgrim rolls a 5 and hits thanks to the COURAGE spell, ripping off another arm (Grim Dugald's BODY down to 4).

Anvil rolls a 5 and misses again.

Fortunato casts FIRE OF WRATH and burns Grim Dugald (BODY down to 2).

Grim Dugald rolls a 2 and bites Eildonas, who rolls a 4 and takes the bite on his arm (BODY down to 4).

ROUND 4:

Eildonas casts VEIL OF MIST (sorry, missed that earlier)

Asgrim rolls a 4 and caves in Grim Dugald's face with a punch (BODY down to 1).

Anvil rolls a 3 and finally scores another hit (albeit the most important one) striking down Grim Dugald.

Fortunato cheers and does a victory dance.

Grim Dugald rolls a 1 in his last-ditch effort, but due to also rolling a 2 for the VEIL OF MIST, misses his target, and keels over.

Grim Dugald falls! The floorboards shake with the impact, which sends clouds of dust into the air.

But is he truly beaten? Can you kill one who has already tasted death? Before your eyes, the strong white fingers twitch and a growl of returning strength rises from his black maw.

Quickly - before he reanimates, you must do something. The desperate struggle has left you too weary to fight on. But what alternative is there?

If you open the door and race off into the night, turn to 67.
If you think you have an item that might dispatch him for good, turn to 124.

Might as well take a look at what we have.....

Which item will you use? Do not take too long to make up your mind, as already Grim Dugald is returning to life - or rather, to undeath.

If you use a silver dagger, turn to 134.
If you have the sword Wraithreaver, turn to 11.
If you employ an oak staff, turn to 22.
If you try a phial of holy water, turn to 33.

If you don't have any of these, your only recourse is to run for it: turn to 67.

Alas, we used up the 1 useful item we had: the holy water!

Gasping for breath, you chase in blind panic across the moors. Cold moonlight paints a maelstrom of wild fells, sucking hollows and stunted trees, all of which hurtle past in a blur. Then, as you stagger up the side of a hillock, the distant blare of a hunting-horn echoes out of the distance behind you, and you hear the horrible baying of phantom hounds at your heels.

If the pedlar told you how he got away from Dugald's hunt, turn to 90.
Otherwise, turn to 101.

Alas, no, we were too busy doing our shopping!

You try to struggle on, but to no avail. Terror takes all the strength from your legs, and you fall in your tracks with an exhausted groan

The hounds come sweeping down on you in a tide of evil. Their grisly panting covers you in a charnel stench, hot breath rasps your flesh, gory slobber scalds you - and you are too weak with fear to even look up.

As they swirl about you, you hear the whinney of a horse and a short sneering laugh of unutterable cruelty. Huge hands seize you then, and Grim Dugald rides back home with his bag......

Your adventure ends here.

Damn.....I really wasn't expecting us NOT to win in the first attempt, since there were so many different ways to reach the end, but we seem to have taken the wrong combination of choices.

So, how do we want to do this again? The most straightforward choice (least retcons) would be to pretend we didn't use the holy water on the coffin.

So, options:

1) Pretend we still have the holy water and use it with the wine before combat?
2) Pretend we still have the holy water and use after combat (which means we fight Grim Dugald again at COMBAT 5 (thanks to Garlic) and BODY 18)?
3) Rewind even further back to explore the rest of the manse?
4) Rewind even further back to take a different route to the manse?
5) Rewind almost to the beginning and buy different stuff from the pedlar?
6) Rewind almost to the beginning and ask the Pedlar for exposition instead of shopping?

[Mr Shine]

Don't get CARFAX, don't pick up the wine, don't abandon Warrior's sword, fight Grim at 5/18 using same tactics.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I'll agree to Mr. Shine's plan, with the caveat that I'm incredibly curious as to how the wine/holy combo works (and would like to hear what it does.)

Also, I suggest we cast Sleep on the bats instead of/before fighting them in melee.

EDIT: fixed suggestion

[Mr Shine]

Sleep is better, as we know that bypasses the fight entirely

[Darth Rabbitt]

Oh, right. I completely forgot that. That's what I get for posting when not awake.

[SGamerz]

Okay, so we rewind back to where we killed the 4 Undead Brides and choose to not use the holy water. We also choose not to take the wine from earlier so that Asgrim doesn't have to discard his sword for the torch.

But there's one more thing we need to drop: since we're keeping the holy water, we need to free up an equipment slot for the Bronze Key which we must pick up to free Perdita.

What do we drop?

Adventure Sheet:

Asgrim the Barbarian
BODY: 8 7
MIND: 2
COMBAT: 5
SPEED: 3 2
Battle Order: 1
Items Carried:
1) Bastard Sword
2) Garlic
3) Jewelled Breastplate (wearer takes no damage on a roll of 1 or 2 in combat, -1 SPEED)

Anvil the Dwarf
BODY: 7 6
MIND: 3
COMBAT: 4
SPEED: 2
Battle Order: 3
Items Carried:
1) Battleaxe
2) Money pouch (6 silver)
3) Holy Water

Fortunato the Wizard
BODY: 4
MIND: 6
COMBAT: 3
SPEED: 3
Battle Order: 4
Items Carried:
1) Dagger
2) Torch
Spells: HEAL BODY, ROCK SKIN, PASS THROUGH ROCK, GENIE, SWIFT WIND, TEMPEST, FIRE OF WRATH, BALL OF FLAME, COURAGE

Eildonas the Elf
BODY: 6
MIND: 4
COMBAT: 4
SPEED: 4
Battle Order: 2
Items Carried:
1) Sword
2) Rope
Spells: SLEEP, WATER OF HEALING, VEIL OF MIST

[SlyJohnny]

Money pouch.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Yeah, that sounds like our best bet.

[SGamerz]

The heroes have officially lost their party sugar-daddy as the dwarf drops all his silver for some bronze. They then leave and take the boat to the next landing, where they encounter the bats. This time, the Elf uses his spell, and we turn to section 81:

Upon hearing you pronounce the words of the spell, the ferocious bats flutter gently to the walls and promptly fall asleep, hanging upside-down with wings folded tightly around them.

Turn to 100.

This leads us straight back to the section where we unlock the door and free Perdita. We then head back out of the cellars to confront Grim Dugald, wave the garlic at him:

Grim Dugald was a monster even when he was alive - but the weakness of the flesh have been stripped away, and he's now nothing but the quintessence of evil. Looking into his ghastly corpse-lit eyes, you know that you can never expect quarter form such a foe. This is a fight to the finish......

GRIM DUGALD: COMBAT 6 5 BODY 18

There is room for up to three players to fight him at one time ( a fourth player could of course cast spells at him, if any). If you have acquired the sword Wraithreaver, it inflicts double damage on him - that is, two points per blow rather than one.

If you flee out of the manse, turn to 67.
If you succeed in overcoming Grim Dugald, surviving characters turn to 78.

We fight him using the same strategy as before as voted, Elf wearing breastplate as tank w/ Veil of Mists, but this time Wizard boosts Barbarian's COMBAT to 6 (since he still has his weapon), making sure that he'll hit every round!

We'll probably take more rounds to kill Grim Dugald this time due to the extra BODY points, but instead of waiting for another round of votes I'll just decide what the Wizard does after the first 3 round (basically more offensive spells if no one needs healing, HEAL BODY if someone needs it).

REMATCH!

Round 1:

Fortunato casts COURAGE, boosting Asgrim's COMBAT to 6.

Eildonas casts VEIL OF MIST.

Asgrim hits automatically thanks to his boosted COMBAT, chopping Grim Dugald's BODY down to 17.

Anvil rolls a 1 and cuts another BODY point off Grim Dugald (down to 16).

Grim Dugald rolls a 2 as he scratches at Eildonas with his claws....but misses due to VEIL OF MISTS as he rolls another 2.

ROUND 2:

Eildonas rolls a 5 and misses his strike at Grim Dugald.

Asgrim hits automatically (Grim Dugald's BODY down to 15).

Anvil rolls a 3 and chops another BODY point off Dugald (down to 14).

Fortunate casts TEMPEST, causing Grim Dugald to automatically miss a turn this round.

Grim Dugald is enveloped by the TEMPEST spell and cannot attack.

ROUND 3:

Eildonas rolls a 6 and misses again this round.

Asgrim chops Grim Dugald's BODY down to 14.

Anvil rolls a 5 and misses again.

Fortunato casts FIRE OF WRATH and burns Grim Dugald (BODY down to 12).

Grim Dugald rolls a 1 (bites Eildonas), then rolls a 6, and takes the Elf's BODY down to 5 (Elf rolled a 5 and breastplate didn't protect him).

ROUND 4:

Eildonas rolls a 3 and finally score a hit, bringing Grim Dugald's BODY down to 11.

Asgrim chops another BODY point off Grim Dugald (down to 10).

Anvil rolls a 2 and hits (Grim Dugald's BODY down to 9).

Fortunate casts BALL OF FLAME (his other pure offensive spell), Grim Dugald rolls a 6 and fails to dodge it (BODY down to 8).

Grim Dugald rolls a 2 to hit and a 6 to successfully navigate through the VEIL of MISTS, but Eildonas' rolls a 1 and takes the blow on his breastplate!

Round 5:

Eildonas rolls a 5 and misses.

Asgrim chops another BODY point off Grim Dugald (down to 7).

Anvil rolls a 6 and misses.

Fortunato summons a GENIE and takes another BODY point off Dugald (down to 6).

Grim Dugald rolls a 3 to hit and a 6 to successfully navigate through the VEIL of MISTS (Eildonas' BODY down to 4 - he rolled a 4 as well and breastplate didn't protect him).

ROUND 6:

Eildonas rolls a 2 and hits, Grim Dugald is down to 5 BODY points.

Asgrim hits and Grim Dugald is down to 4 BODY points.

Anvil rolls a 2 and chops Dugald down to 3 BODY points.

Fortunato is out of useful spells (ROCK SKIN only works at the start of combat).

Grim Dugald rolls a 2 to hit, but then rolls another 2 and loses his way in the MIST.

Round 7:

Eildonas rolls a 3 and cuts Grim Dugald down to 2 BODY points.

Asgrim follows up by cutting him down to his last BODY point.

Anvil rolls a 5 and fails to get the job done.

Fortunato starts an inspiring chant to cheer his teammates on.

Grim Dugald rolls a 4 to hit, but then rolls a 3 and loses his way again.

Round 8:

Eildonas rolls a 3 and strikes Grim Dugald down (stealing the kill from the barbarian, who would have hit anyway).

Asgrim chops the still-twitching corpse just for the heck of it.

Grim Dugald rolls a 4 followed by a 3, and fails to find his opponent before he's cut down.

Whew, that took a lot of dice-rolling! Fortunately, the VEIL + Breastplate combination was quite effective to minimize the damage we took, and the Barbarian's automatic hits probably sped it up quite a bit.

Now, we get rid of the body with the holy water we saved:

The water has an astonishing effect when you pour it over the twitching corpse: it literally washes it out of reality. Wherever the drops land, it's like rubbing out a pencil sketch - a void appears in Grim Dugald's body and you can see through to the bare floorboards underneath.

As realization of his fate dawns on the reviving vampire, he gives vent to a macabre howl and rolls his eyes in terror. But you harden your heart against pity, for his acts of evil deserve no other reparation. You continue to trickle the holy water over him until he has entirely vanished, with only a patch of damp on the wooden boards to show where he lay.

Turn to 32.

....huh, I've never quite seen a vampire's body destroyed by holy water being described this way. Still, it works.

You have seen the final dissolution of Grim Dugald's spectre. Now you can justifiably turn your attention to his treasure. Your eyes alight on a large chest beside the front door. It wasn't there when you came in, so presumably Dugald was just in the act of dragging it somewhere when you ascended from the cellar. You go over and take a look at it. There is a large padlock, but fortuitously Dugald has left the key in this.

If you want to open the chest, turn to 44.
If you are not interested in material reward, you may as well return to the village: turn to 113.

Convenient! Do we want to open the chest?

[Darth Rabbitt]

The chest seems a bit too convenient to me.

Cast Summon Genie and have it tell us what happens if we open the chest (the "foretell the future" option).

[SGamerz]

I used the Genie in the battle, but I guess it's okay to retcon that bit since that was my own decision and not the players' votes.

I won't have to re-roll the battle, since the Barbarian's auto-hit would have killed Grim Dugald in the same round anyway.

Don't have the book with me now, will update when I get home...

[SGamerz]

The Wizard summons a Genie to foretell the immediate future:

If the dwarf is still with the party, turn to 56.
If not, turn to 68.

....not much of a future, is there?

I think we can go ahead to the next section, since it indicates that the dwarf probably has a solution to whatever consequences we may face for opening the chest.

The dwarf, by virtue of long familiarity with intricate mechanisms, immediately spot a trap. The comprises a spring-loaded needle - almost certainly coated in poison - built into the hasp of the chest. Once detected, the trap is easily disarmed, and you open the chest to discover a lavish hoard of gold, silver and precious gems. You draw your breath in awe as the torchlight sparkles on this prize and reflects lustrously back into your eyes. To the victors, as they say, go the spoils.

If you've rescued the girl, Perdita, turn to 79.
If Perdita is not with you, turn to 91.

Once again, the dwarf is a problem-solver of the group.

In this case, he actually saves the Elf's life, as the poison needle would have insta-killed the first person in the Battle Order.

We have rescued Perdita.

Perdita lays a hand on your arm. "This is faerie treasure that Grim Dugald extorted as tribute from the moor goblins and suchlike," she cautions. "if you are greedy and take too much, you are sure to suffer bad luck forevermore. But if you take only a moderate amount and leave the rest for its rightful owners, things will turn out better in the long run."

If you think that is just so much superstitious nonsense, turn to 91.
If you abide by a her folk-wisdom, turn to 102.

For someone who had only been kidnapped earlier this evening, Perdiat seems to know an awful lot about Grim Dugald's business. Either that or she must be well-versed in faerie-lore to be able to distinguish faerie treasure from normal treasure.

Do we listen to her?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Heed her warning.

[SlyJohnny]

Sounds legit. Heed her warning.

[Mr Shine]

This gold be ours, bitch.

[Omegonthesane]

We do not fuck with goblins and such without damn good cause. Heed Perdita's warning.

[SGamerz]

You take just as much treasure as you can fit into your purse. Then, with Perdita skipping happily on ahead, you return across the moors to the village.

By the time you reach the edge of the moor, the purse has grown noticeably heavier. Unable to restrain your curiosity any longer, you take a peek inside. Instead of the random scatter of gold and silver you filled it with, it now contains nothing less than gleaming platinum and fat sparkling diamonds. You are richer than you could have dreamed!

You close the purse and quicken your pace to catch up with Perdita. There is a merry tune on your lips as you walk into the village and - considering the night's many horrors - a blithe lightness to your step.

Turn to 135.

Our purse? But all we had was the dwarf's single money pouch, and he dropped that for the key! I suppose he could have sailed back to get it again after freeing Perdita, since he obviously doesn't need the key again.

If we tried to take the entire chest, we will find out that all the treasure had been replaced with dead leaves and twigs.....after we'd taken the trouble of lugging it all the way to the road. Upon this discovery, our heroes literally break down and weep.

However, that's mainly flavour text. We still get directed to the 'winning' end section as long as we've managed to rescue Perdita.

You march back into the village in triumph. The sun rises, casting a warm gold light that sparkles on the dew and does much to dispel the memories of the appalling experiences of last night.

The villagers unbolt their doors and emerge into the day. On catching sight of you, they raise a cheer and surge forward to surround. Then you are lifted up on their shoulders and carried to the village square, where they begin a celebratory breakfast to your honour.

The elders of their village try to make you accept a reward, but you know they are poor people and you will have none of it. "Keep your silver," you tell them, "for your thanks are reward enough."

In any case you know that, in an adventurer's life, a bag of gold and a goblin are always just around the next corner!

Hmmm...seems like the book finally decided that, since we actually rescued the girl, we're more heroes than mercenaries, after all!

Anyway, congratulations for reaching the 'good' ending!

I will post abut some of the things we missed on the playthrough tomorrow, but first I'll just reveal what happens if we used the wine/holy water combo, as Darth requested. It's actually the best option:

You look at the bottle you took from the cellar: Chateau Guignol - an opaque red wine of unspecified vintage. Rapidly uncorking it, you add a measure of holy water into the contents and then pretend to drink.

Grim Dugald steps closer, each step shaking the floorboards. But he pauses when he sees you taking a swig of wine, and a bestial growl wells up from his inhuman throat. Suddenly, a teeth bared in a mad grin of fury, he thrusts out his hand to take the bottle.

"Aye," you say, "if we're to duel, then to the death it is! Let's drink to it, eh?"

His huge hand snatches the bottle and takes a deep draught, draining it all. Then he smashes the bottle into a corner and, wiping the crimson juice out of his beard, strides forward to do battle.

Suddenly he stops, his titanic frame locked rigid. He starts to raise his arms but they seem to weigh him down like blocks of lead. His eyes start from his head, and his veins show grey against the sallow flesh. Then, with a hideous wail escaping his lips all the while, he slowly fades away like a nightmare at the coming of dawn.

Yes, that not only saves us the trouble of a combat, but actually destroys his body at the same time so that we don't even need any of the other items for that after beating him the conventional way!

Using holy water without the wine only weakens him (it "washes out" portions of him like the way we can do on his corpse, but not enough to destroy him completely), and take 2 points off his COMBAT score.....but then we'll still need something else to destroy his body after killing him.''

Anyway, besides the holy water, the other ways to destroy the body all involve piercing his heart with various implements. A silver dagger works, as does a magic sword (Wraithreaver). An oak staff can be sharpened into a wooden stake and used as the most traditional tool of vampire-killing.

But killing Grim Dugald isn't even a requirement to finishing the book (which is unusual for traditional monster-slaying gamebooks)! The real objective of the book is to rescue the girl. We don't even have to fight the vampire at all, and fleeing from him is actually a legitimate choice....but only if you talked to the pedlar (ask him what he saw on the moors) to learn from him that he had escaped from Grim Dugald's hounds by crossing running water. As long as we make it back to the village with the girl, we get directed to the final winning section, and the villagers don't seem to mind that the evil vampire lord is still there terrorizing the place.

On the other hand, even if we kill the vampire but fail to find the girl (or rather, fail to find the key to free her), we leave the village in shame after being scorned by them (despite the possibility that we might not even have known about her in the first place, AND despite the possibility that we could have liberated them from the local undead evil lord by killing it).

I'll post more on other stuff we missed tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for playing!

[SlyJohnny]

I think the discrepancy is that the heroes got really, really drunk, because the people here party today because they may be dead tomorrow and "celebratory breakfasts" in this part of the world are like Mardi Gras everywhere else.

During the festivities, the dwarf (normally a sour, miserly mercenary sort) drunkenly grabs an elder round the neck and spends five minutes telling him that he loves him and his village, expounding on what a great guy he is and promises him half the platinum. In the cold light of late afternoon and a hangover, this gets downgraded to "not charging them for the rescue", but the drunken conviction that he is a hero remains.

[SGamerz]

I think the discrepancy is that the heroes got really, really drunk, because the people here party today because they may be dead tomorrow and "celebratory breakfasts" in this part of the world are like Mardi Gras everywhere else.

During the festivities, the dwarf (normally a sour, miserly mercenary sort) drunkenly grabs an elder round the neck and spends five minutes telling him that he loves him and his village, expounding on what a great guy he is and promises him half the platinum. In the cold light of late afternoon and a hangover, this gets downgraded to "not charging them for the rescue", but the drunken conviction that he is a hero remains.

That......actually makes a lot of sense!

Anyway, due to the length of this game, there really isn't much that we missed. As mentioned, asking the pedlar about what he saw on the moors will give us the information to escape from Dugald's hounds if we couldn't kill him for good (and still win the game). Of the 3 routes leading to the manse, we certainly took the best one (the only one that gets us useful loot). However, if we managed to offend the 2 ghostly knights by taking sides in their arguments, they will both attack us, and they are probably the toughest fight in the book besides Grim Dugald (both at COMBAT 5, BODY 6). The story between them was that they were fighting as ally against a witch's forces, but one of them got tricked by an illusion and led away from the battlefield, allowing both forces to get divided and conquered. Basically, each blames the other for the loss of the battle and destruction of their force.

The lichway takes us to some barrow mounds where we can fight our way past 3 Barrow Dwellers, but there's no real treasure in there. There is a cursed sword with a snake handle that will latch on to a hero's arm and cost him the loss of 2 COMBAT for the rest of the game. The only way to get rid of it is to use the Elf's Sleep spell and put the snake to sleep. There is also a Spriggan in the mound who will try to get trick the heroes into trading one of their items for the cursed sword. Again, the best way to deal with it is to put it to Sleep. If we kill the Spriggan or put it to sleep, we find a gold arm-ring, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't get used in the rest of the game, and just costs us equipment space.

The third route to the manse takes us past a faerie creature called a 'trow', who will try t lure one of the heroes into quicksand. We can save the hero's life with a rope, or an oak staff (although the staff will be lost as a result), or by catching the trow (SPEED test) and forcing him to save our companion. Again, no real reward from this route.

If the dwarf wasn't there to help us find the secret way into the manse, we will have to fight 4 Banshees before we find the entrance, during which we will also have to roll for MIND tests to avid getting paralysed by them during the combat, which can be really nasty for guys like the Barbarian and his low MIND score.

he floating tiles bridge also require SPEED test to be crossed safely, but can also be navigated safely with a rope (which we had). There's no direct entrance on the other side, however, and the only way to enter beyond is for the players to realize that the Wizard can cast PASS THROUGH ROCK, allowing him to open the doors from the inside.

That's actually the only really useful place for the spell. The Wizard can also use it to pass into Perdita's jail cell, but he can't open the door from the inside, so the only thing the spell does there is to help confirm that Perdita is in there (we absolutely need the bronze key).

There's really only one major scene we missed in this playthrough, and I'm not quite sure if it's a good or bad thing that we chose not to explore the upper storeys of the manse before going down to the cellar. We missed the chance to pick up the handy magic sword Wraithreaver (the best magic weapon in the game), but we also missed a pretty bullshit sequence that's far more likely to have killed off at least one of the heroes and still miss the chance to get the sword anyway.

Searching upstairs will allow us to find a portrait of Grim Dugald. Searching the ground floor (through the archway) will bring us to a study where we will find a mirror and a diary. Part of the diary has words written backwards, which will prompt the Wizard to use the mirror to try to read it. Or the heroes can simply choose to examine the mirror. Either way, using the mirror will cause a demon to appear and trap the hero using it (the Wizard if he's reading the diary, or just the first person in the Battle Order) into the mirror.

There are 2 reasons why this sequence is bullshit:

1) The Wizard technically can escape the prison himself by casting PASS THROUGH ROCK when the readers turn to section 130 (where the prison is described and you are told that it's Game Over), but he doesn't get to do so as long as there are other players still outside! The readers are ONLY told to turn to 130 if EVERYONE is trapped. If the rest of the players give up in trying to save the trapped players, the trapped players are presumed lost, even the Wizard. And if EVERYBODY ends up trapped, only the Wizard gets to escape with his spell (he can't bring others with him), and pretty much has to continue alone.

2) So how about the other players freeing their companions from outside? It leads to another bullshit sequence. The players are getting the options to smash the mirror (which dooms the trapped players forever since the gateway is lost), threaten the mirror demon (which only leads to another payer getting trapped) or use an item.

The only item that will help here is Grim Dugald's portrait, but it is not listed in the first list of items you can use. Instead, you get the option to try garlic (useless), holy water (banishes the demon and destroys the mirror but does NOT free the trapped players), and a pot of ink (blackens the mirror and blocks the demon from trapping anyone else BUT STILL DOES NOT FREE ALREADY-TRAPPED PLAYERS).

The correct thing for the players to do is choose NOT to use any of the items, after which they get directed to a section where they are given the option to go upstairs to search the gallery, OR make one last attempt to free their companions. If they choose the latter, they get the list of options to threaten/break mirror/use item again, but this time choosing to use items leads to a different section where the portrait finally gets listed as a usable item (along with holy water...the ink and the garlic are no longer listed). I have no idea if this stupid sequence is deliberate or some editing errors, but either way players are highly unlikely to find the correct sequence in their playthrough without cheating.

Anyway, showing the portrait to the mirror demon will trick the short-sighted creature into thinking that we are its master, and after it frees our trapped companions, we can order it to either heal us, replenish the use of one spell for both the Wizard and the Elf, or to give us a magic weapon. The third option is what gives us Wraithreaver, which gives us double-damage against Grim Dugald and also can be used to destroy him completely afterwards.

So yeah, as you can see, I wasn't really too upset to have missed that last encounter, even if it's kinda annoying to have to miss the magic sword.

That's pretty much for the stuff we missed in this book. Once again, thanks to everyone for joining this game! Hope you still enjoyed it.