[Let's Play] Storytrails #6 The Stone of Badda

[Thaluikhain]

Bag

[SGamerz]

Sorry for the delayed update. Didn't have access to the internet for the whole of yesterday...

****

I was sitting at the pool by the river. I felt sure that I had been asleep and dreaming. I could not remember the dream, yet why else would I be thinking that Ka was dead and that I might have been the cause of it! I could not see the raven. I called, but he did not come.

I heard the crunch of footsteps in the frozen snow. I turned to see Harath coming towards me. He was carrying a leather bag.

“Is this yours?” he asked, holding up the bag.

I was sure that I had seen the bag somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where. I told Harath that it wasn’t mine.

“It’s a good bag,” Harath said, opening it and looking inside.

He tipped the bag up and a thin stream of red powder poured from it onto the snow.

“Nothing of any value,” Harath said, “but if it isn’t yours, I’ll keep it. It should be useful for something.”

Harath pushed the bag into his tunic.

“I supposed you know that your raven’s dead?”

I had a sickening feeling in my stomach.

“Ka?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Harath. “He’s lying up on the bank. You’ll probably want to bury him before the wolves get him.”

“But he was here,” I said, “not long ago. I was talking to him!”

“Ah! Well!” said Harath. “It’s this terrible cold. If the spring doesn’t come, it won’t be just the birds and animals that die. I wouldn’t feel too badly about your raven. He was very old.”

“How do you know that?” I asked him.

“He told me so,” said Harath. “I shall miss him myself. He was a great story teller was that raven of yours – tales about the Old One who lived in the high rocks and about how the valley got its pink flowers. He told me that he once belonged to a great magician.”

“What was the name of the magician?” I asked.

Harath thought.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m sure it was Badda.”

So...yes, that was clearly a bad ending. The way the choice was presented was (perhaps deliberately) misleading presenting as choosing between the bag or Aygar. The text prior to that did state that if a rockslide is started by Ka's pulling at the back, it may bury both Ka and Aygar, and while the player may not care much about Aygar (besides, since he's already dead, he can't be killed by rockslides), the real danger is that allowing Ka to keep pulling the bag may cause its death as well.

The transition to this section may seem a bit abrupt. I think it's partly because there's more than one way to reach this particular bad ending section.

I will rewind and post the alternative fallout in a separate post.

[SGamerz]

Some of the rock near to Aygar still looked quite firm. I braced myself against it and began to pish at the rock which was trapping Aygar’s leg. Aygar did the same.

The rock began to move, but so did the others around it. I put out my hand to grab Aygar, but he was already sliding down the slope. I lost sight of him in a cloud of dust. I looked down to the place where I had seen the bag. It too had gone.

The dust had begun to clear and the first thing that I saw at the bottom of the slop was Aygar. He was standing, free of the rocks. He was also holding something in his hand, the leather bag.

As I started to slide down the slope, Aygar began to run again, this time in the direction of the gateway and the bronze doors. By the time I had scrambled to the bottom of the slope, Aygar had almost reach the doors. Now, he was facing me and walking slowly backwards.

There was a sudden flash of light from one of the bronze archers. I looked from one to the other. The archers were turning to face Aygar, and I could see the bronze arms pulling back on the bowstrings!

I shouted a warning to Aygar, but he took no notice. He kept moving backwards. I was nothing that I could do.

I saw the arrows leave the bows and strike Aygar in the back. He fell to the ground and didn’t move again. I had started to run forward when I saw that the bronze archers already had another arrow in their bows. I did not want to meet the same fate as Aygar.

Perhaps I did not need to go through the bronze doors. Perhaps I could climb the walls, but unless I could get to where Aygar lay, I had lost the first three stones!

I threw a piece of rock towards the archers. Their arrows split it in mid air. I already knew that their aim was deadly, but now I knew something else. The archers would fire at anything which came near to them.

I folded the woollen cloak so that Ka might hold it in his claws and tol him what he must do. Ka took the cloak, circling until he had gained enough height. Once he was high in the air, he flew towards the archer. As he passed above them, he dropped the cloak.

As the cloak fell between them, the figures turned with amazing speed. I saw the arrows leave the bows, each passing through the cloak and striking the figure opposite.

The figures swayed and then, breaking off above their metal feet, toppled to the ground. The great doors were swinging open. I ran to the gateway. I could see a courtyard within and, beyond that, a second gateway also closed by bronze doors.

For an instant, I had forgotten the stones. I turned back to where Aygar lay with the bag still clutched in his hand. The figures of the bronze archers lay on either side of me. Then I saw that within the broken feet of each of the fallen giants was something which gleamed red in the sunlight.

I had found the fourth and fifth pieces of the stone. The leather bag which had the first three was still clutched in Aygar’s hand where he lay upon the ground. He seemed dead, yet if he was already dead, then how could he be killed?

“He only sleeps. He will be returned to his cave where he will wake with no memory of what has taken place.”

The speaker had appeared from nowhere. He was tall, his air and beard long and snowy white. He was dressed as I had seen Harath dess for ceremonies of magic – in robes of purest white and feet sandalled in the whote skin of a kid. In his hand, he carried a twisted staff, topped by a crescent moon fashioned in silver. Resting between the horns of the moon was a red stone.

“I,” he said, “am the sixth guardian of the stone. Defend yourself as best you may.”

The words were softly spoken, but I drew my sword. He lifted his staff and struck it upon the ground. Where he had been standing, was a wild boar!

I jumped aside, bu not before one of the tusks had caught my leg and drawn blood. I swung around to see the boar turning in a tight circle to make its second charge. I leapt aside, thrusting with my sword. The boar squealed, stopped twisted about and came at me again. I jumped into the air, turning my sword downwards. Doing this, I might land on its back, but the sword would be through its body. The sword struck only goround. The boar had vanished!

A cry from Ka made me look upwards. There was a shape, black against the sky. It was not Ka. I saw the great wings open, the legs come forward, the claws spread, the talons pointing towards me head. It wa an eagle! I threw myself to the ground, rolling sideways as the talons skimmed the ground and the bird lifted away. My hand was touching metal. It was the bow of one of the bronze archers. An arrow lay nearby. As the eagle climbed, I fitted the arrow to the bow and took aim. The arrow flew straight and true but, suddenly, the blue sky was empty! I looked into the courtyard to see what creature would next appear. The courtyard, too, seemed empty.

The courtyard was not quite empty. Ka was on the ground, not far away. I looked again. I could see, not one, but two ravens standing on the ground, a little way apart. Each looked like Ka. I called Ka’s name. Neither bird moved, not answered.

I had seen that the magician could change his shape. If he had changed himself into a raven, then the other bird was Ka, perhaps held silent by some magic spell. The arrow which I had fired at the eagle had fallen to the ground beside me. If I must kill the magician to gain the sixth piece of the stone I could have no better chance than this. I picked up the arrow and futted it to the bow – but which bird was the magician, and which was Ka?

I moved nearer, but a ring of fire sprang up around the two birds, so that I could step no closer. I drew the bow and took aim at the bird on the right. It did not move.

I could shoot the bird on the right, or the bird on the left, or I can shoot neither. I I shot the wrong bird, I killed Ka. If I failed to kill the magician, whatever creature he might next become could well kill me!

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to shoot neither, as this could be a trick to force our character to make a "devil and the deep blue sea" choice that will result in Ka's death. I think our hero needs to take their chances with the next creature that the magician will take.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, that makes sense,

[Queen of Swords]

Agreed, in the absence of any clues, don’t shoot either bird.

[SGamerz]

I stared at the two birds. Feather for feather, they were exactly alike. I could not shoot one, for I could not tell which one of them was Ka. I thought that one of the birds moved. No! Both birds had moved. One of the birds began to preen its feathers. The other bird did the same. I could no longer see the ring of fire. I blinked my eyes, hard.

Ka was standing on a rock and I was watching his reflection in water below him. I was sitting at the pool, the pool by the river, in my own balley of Leshka!

I asked Ka if I had been asleep. He said that I had been silent for some minutes. I could have been asleep, or I could have been day dreaming.

I felt sure that I had had some strange and frightening dream, but I could remember nothing of what the dream had been about.

"What were we walking about?" I asked Ka.

"When?" he replied, carefully putting one of his feathers back into its place.

"Before I fell asleep," I said.

"I think," said Ka, "that you were talking about Harath."

"What about Harath?"

"You were telling me," said Ka, "that Harath thinks there is an ice demon come to live in the valley, but Harath doesn't know how to find it."

Something was coming back to me. I looked at Ka.

"You told me that the Old One would know. You told me that you could take me to the Old One."

Ka stopped preening his feathers and cocked his head to one side.

"You have been dreaming!" he said. "Why would I tell you that? There is no such person as the Old One. It's just a story that mothers tell to their naughty children."

"But you said that she lived in the high rocks."

"That proves you were dreaming," said Ka. "No one lives in the high rocks and no one goes there, not even ravens."

Well, at least in this ending no one died. But since we didn't liberate the valley from lasting winter, this is clearly not the best ending either. Looks like we need to take the risk on shooting one of the two ravens...

[JourneymanN00b]

Okay, I vote to shoot the right bird to signify our hero's stance against fascism.

[Queen of Swords]

Sure, try the right bird.

[SGamerz]

Unfortunately, shooting the bird on the right leads to...the same bad ending that we got when we grabbed the bag and triggered the rockslide.

It hasn't been that long ago, so I won't repost the same section. Instead, let's just proceed with the only remaining option left, shooting the left bird:

I turned the bow to the bird on the left, but before I could release the arrow, the bird had vanished. The ring of fire was gone and the bird on the irght fluttered towards me. The magician reappeared as I had first seen him.

"The context is over," he said, "if you can answer one question. Why did you choose the bird on your left?"

"Because," I told him, "as the boar and as the eagle, each time I was about to kill you, you vanished. When I aimed at the bird on the right, it did not move. I knew that it must be Ka."

"You have answered well," he said. "Take my staff. Take from it the sixth stone. Go to the inner doors of bronze and use the staff to strike upon them. Within the doors, you will meet the seventh and most terrible of the guardians. Fortune go with you."

The sixth guardian was gone and, with Ka on my shoulder, I walked to the bronze doors and struck them with the magician's staff.

The doors opened. I held I sword before me, not knowing what terror might lie beyond.

I was in a great hall of many pillars and lit by flaming torches. I heard the doors close behind me. The hall seemed empty, but for a table at its centre, a table laid with many strange foods and wine, as if for a feast. I did not move forward but stood, peering into the shadows cast by the flickering light of the torches.

"I am Boal, Lord of the Horsemen of Darkness, a Prince of the Otherworld and seventh guardian of the Stone of Badda." The voice was all around me, echoing and re-echoing from the shaodws.

"You have done well to come this far on your journey. Rest now. Take meat and drink from my table, you and your companion. When you are rested and have eaten, then will we speak again."

"Where are you?" I shouted.

There was no answer, only the echoes of my own voice. I walked to the table, I was both tired and hungry.

I looked at the food upon the table. I wanted both to eat and drink, but I feared that it might be some trick to test me. Ka hopped down from my shoulder and began to eat.

"It is good," he said, "very good!"

The food was the finest that I had ever tasted. I ate my fill, washing it down with a sweet wine which tested faintly of honey and smelled of flowers in a summer meadow.

As I drained the last of the wine from my cup and set it again upon the table, the cup vanished from my hand. I saw Ka fly up. The table, and all that was upon it, was fading like the smoke caught in the breeze. The floor was empty. I grasped my sword.

"Put away your sword! You have no need of it."

Boal was back. I could hear the voice, but still I could see no one.

"What can't I see you?" I shouted.

"There is no need that you should see me. You come because you seek the seventh and last piece of stone from the Tablet of Badda. I will give it to you in exchange for something which you hold dear."

"I have nothing," I said, "nothing of any value."

"But I think you have," said Boal. "Give me the black bird, the raven which you call Ka."

"I cannot," I said. "Ka is not mine to give. Ka is his own master."

"I am old," said Ka, "and I cannot be with you forever. You must think of the valley. Take the stone and I will stay with Boal."

"The bird speaks wisely," said Boal. "You must think of the valley of Leshka. Why else did you come upon this journey?"

"What if I refuse?" I asked.

"You have heard my terms. I will give you the stone, but only in exchange for the raven."

"I will stay," said Ka.

"No!" said Boal. "Your master must say that he is willing. He must give you to me."

I thought of the valley. Did I give Ka to Boal, or did I refuse?

[Queen of Swords]

Refuse, maybe this is a secret test of character.

[JourneymanN00b]

I also vote to refuse.

[SGamerz]

"No!" I told Boal. "I love the valley, but I will not buy the stone with the life of my friend."

"Your choice is good," said Boal, "but now I cannot give you the stone. You must take it if you can. You asked to see me. Now you shall."

The torches in front of me seemed to be seemed to be going dim. Something was forming in the air before them and blotting our the light. A grey body was taking shape, huge, like some monstrous toad. A thin, leathery neck carried a wide, flat head which swayed from side to side as webbed feet shuffled across the floor towards me. The air was filled by a foul smell.

I could see neither claws nor teeth. I drew my sword, slashing upwards at the gaping, toothless mouth. A tongue of blue flame shot from the monster's throat. The light dazzled my eyes and a searing pain cut across my face. I reeled to one side as a second stream of fire burned the sleeve from tunic and scorched my flesh. My sword hand was charred and useless. I changed the sword to the other hand and moved again towards the monster.

The hair was gone from my head, and now one eye was almost blinded - and still I had not struck one single blow. I felt Ka fly past my head and saw him rising in the air in front of me. He was flying straight at the monstrous jaws. I saw the head lift and follow him as he rose. I plunged the sword deep into the neck.

The head of the monster fell with a slap upon the floor and the grey body slumped into a lifeless heap. Where was Ka?

The raven lay a little way off. With every feather burned from his body, he looked very small in my hands. Ka was dead.

I looked at the monster. Blood dripped slowly from the wound in the neck. For such a monster, there seemed to be so little blood - and the pool on the floor was not getting larger, but smaller!

I put out my hand and touched it. It was quite cold and quite hard. I was touching the seventh piece of the Stone of Badda.

As I placed the seventh piece of stone into the leather bag, I saw that there was no longer a stone floor beneath my feet, but a white carpet of snow. I was standing at the pool by the river, in my own valley. I wished that Ka had been standing with me.

I emptied the stones from the bag onto the snow and began to piece them together. They fitted so perfectly that, when I had finished, they looked like a single tablet of stone. The stone was covered with writing, but I could not read it! What was the use of a secret that I could not read?

Anger rose inside me and tears began to run from my eyes. I stood up0, raising my face to the dark clouds in the sky above me.

"Boal!" I shouted. "You have cheated me! You have taken the life of my friend, and you have cheated me with a worthless stone!"

I hurled the tablet of sto0ne into the pool and saw it sink beneath the icy waters.

Through the dark water, I could still see the red colour of the stone. It looked bright, and now was getting brighter. It was glowing with a light of its own, the light spreading wider and wider through the water. The surface began to heave and to bubble. Something broke the surface of the water, something big and black, which shot towards the sky on great black wings. As it broke through the clouds, shafts of sunlight poured down on the valley. Ice began to melt from the trees and green shoots sprang through the melting snow.

There was a rustling on the ground beside me. As I bent down to see what had made the sound, a tiny bird hopped onto my hand, a young raven. I was wishing it had been Ka, when the small bird opened its beak and dropped into my hand a pink flower.

I remembered the words of Aygar, the robber: "there is no way out of the Otherworld - not unless you're lucky enough to be reborn."

"Ka?" I said.

The tiny bird looked up at me and cocked its head to one side.

And there, finally, we made it to the best ending! Congratulations.

There are 5 ending sections in total for this book, and we'd seen 3 of them (although we hit one of the bad ones twice). Agreeing to Boal's trade offer basically also reveals what we found out in the best ending: that the spell is written on the stone in a language we can't understand, so we can't use it. Harath would also reveal that Ka (being the familiar of a wizard) would probably have been able to read it if he were there, confirming that Boal had cheated the PC. But in that ending, the PC doesn't throw the tablet into the pool, and the valley remained under winter. Feels kind of weird that the failure and success of the PC doesn't quite hinge on the choice the player made - unless the reborn Ka had something to do with the tablet working in the good ending, and if we gave him to Boal, he would clearly be trapped in the Otherworld instead of being reborn.

The last bad ending that we never came across is on the path where we climbed into the forbidden place by scaling the wall. In this case, we take apart our woollen cloak and use the thread for rope. Unfortunately, we left the rope behind after we got in, and Aygar uses it to follow us and snatch the bag. In this case, since we're already inside the courtyard, he opens the outer bronze door from inside and waits at the entrance for us to fight him for the stone. If we choose to fight him, he will keep on retreating. The bronze archers will turn to aim at him initially, but as we get closer (and Aygar gets further away) they turn to us instead and shoot us. This is the only ending where the PC actually dies (I guess while the arrows put the already-dead to sleep, they are still lethal to living people). He wakes up as a one of the dead and finds Aygar still waiting for him - Aygar is happy because now they can keep fighting over the stones forever since neither can die.

If we don't advance to fight him, the bronze archer turn and shoot Aygar - except since he was standing right between them, the arrows pass through his body and hit the opposite archers as well, and we get the fourth and fifth stones from the remains of the archers.

The second guardian actually takes a completely different form if we decided to spend the night at the Old One's place. It first takes the form of a snake, and after we spot it and chuck our sword at it, it takes the form of the Old One and picks up the sword to use it to attack us. The PC is initially reluctant to fight back against what appears to him to be the Old One - until Ka tells the PC that it's not the real Old One, and that the Old One is dead. The PC then fights back and kill her with a burning branch to get the second stone.

If we chose not to fight Aygar with our sword back at his cave, we come up with a strategy inspired by the thought that the dead people can see anything they want to see. The PC claims that he has a black dog which he calls to attack Aygar from behind. He describes the dog vividly and convincingly enough that when Aygar turns around, he starts slashing at the air like he can see the dog and has to fend off its attacks. Then he lost his balance and fell off the cliff to the road below, and the PC get the chance to loot his cave for the third stone.

There's not much other stuff that we missed (since this is a short book). Thanks to everyone for playing, and I hope you enjoyed this one.

[JourneymanN00b]

Thanks for running this, SGamerz.

[Queen of Swords]

Thanks for hosting this!

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for running this.