[LP] Virtual Reality Adventure Book: Down Among the Dead Men

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 10:32 am

Tower it.

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 11:21 am

LootInvestigate the tower.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 11:39 am

Tower.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 8:03 am

To the tower, where the loot host must be! We must take everything that isn't nailed down introduce ourselves properly as polite guests!

Despite the thick jungle, you reach the tower quickly by following a stone pathway that leads through the undergrowth. You emerge into a wide grass-covered plaza. Facing you is a white marble palace with a high tower. You move cautiously closer and Oakley runs his hand over the monumental carvings beside the entrance. They show a queen or priestess dispatching her enemies into luridly depicted hells.

'How was this stone brought here?' Grimes wonders aloud. 'I don't think it's local to the island.'

'You're right,' says a woman's voice. 'I brought it here by magic'

Oh crap, magician. Notoriously hard to stab and steal from. And we're not a magical pirate....

She emerges from the shadows of the entrance: a stately figure with skin the colour of burnished oak and hair like a shower of green stars. Her clothing and accent are not those of a Carab native, but seem to evoke the mysteries of an ancient civilization. 'I am Ejada, witch-queen of this isle,' she tells you. 'I demand tribute from all who come to my shores, but my demands are not excessive. All I'll take is the soul
of one of you, to be sacrificed at dawn to my mother the Earth Goddess.'

'Send your own soul to hell!' yells Oakley, snatching up a rock and dashing forward. Ejada calmly sweeps her arm, knocking Oakley to the ground as though he'd run into a tree-branch.

'Return here in the hour before dawn,' Ejada goes on. 'By then you must have decided which of you will give up his soul.'

Helping Oakley to his feet, you return to find the jollyboat sunk deep into the sand of the beach. You try digging it up, but it only sinks deeper. 'That's that, then,' sobs Blutz. 'The witch's magic has trapped us here. We'll have to choose who's to die!'

If you have SEAFARING and want to make a raft, turn to 308. Alternatively, you can go to her at dawn as she told you to or try hiding from her.

Can't run. Confront or hide?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:56 pm

I'd confront her, and hope that Cunning will give us chances to dodge/counter her magic.

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 7:18 pm

I don't think hiding is a real option. Confront.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:28 am

Ejada stands before her palace and surveys you with a haughty eye. In her gilded finery and bejeweled head-dress, with her limbs like a statue's and a star sapphire gaze, she looks every inch a goddess.

She raises a flint knife. 'My mother the Earth is thirsty for a mortal soul. Which of you shall I send to her?'

This is the moment of truth. Will you make a run for it, fight her, each offer a portion of your soul, or use SPELLS against her if you also have a wand?

Again, no magic. Fight, run or give in?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Long Dong Silver
Profession: Swashbuckler
Skills: AGILITY, CUNNING, STREETWISE and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 8
Possessions:
1) Sword
2) Book of charts
3) Monkey
4) Provisions
5) Provisions
6)
7)
8)
Money: 10 doubloons
No. of Deaths: 1

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:19 pm

I suggest we jump her, and hope that Cunning and Swordplay will allow us to shank her before she casts anything. It'll either be the best or the worst outcome, depending on whether or not she can get a spell off.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:11 pm

If you wish to use SWORDPLAY and have a shark's-tooth sword, turn to 402; if you only have an ordinary sword, turn to 419. If you prefer to use MARKSMANSHIP (remember you also need a pistol), turn to 317. If you resort to BRAWLING, turn to 241.

If you have none of these skills, you cannot defend yourself from her strong blows: lose 3 Life Points and decide whether to use SPELLS with a wand (turn to 384) or to just make a run for it (turn to 5).

We have Swordplay, but no Shark's-tooth sword,

which we could have gotten on the first island if we stayed long enugh to encounter the natives.

You drive your sword-point against Ejada's breast in a lunge which is swift, merciless and deadly. But when you step aside waiting for her to fall, you see to your horror that the blade has barely scratched her skin!

'All bark and no bite, eh?' she says with a soft cold laugh. 'My turn now...' And so saying she raises her arm, swiping at you with languid grace. The blow seems effortless but carries the force of a cudgelstroke; you are flung back dazed. Lose 4 Life Points (or only 2 Life Points if you have a feather shield) and decide whether to use BRAWLING, MARKSMANSHIP and a pistol, SPELLS and a wand or try to flee.

We could have gotten that shield off the cannibal island, too.

We don't have any other Skill that we can fight with, and we're down to 4 Life points after that punch from her, so we're forced to run for it....

We actually stand a chance against her if we had Brawling.

Ejada responds with a cry of rage and a sorcerous gesture. Immediately a hail of red-hot stones pours down out of the sky to pelt you as you flee. 'Craven mortals,' she thunders. 'I gave you the chance to leave here with honour, but you spurned my kindness. Now suffer the consequences.'

'Kindness, she calls it?' gasps Blutz as he struggles to keep up through the battering rain of stones. 'She's killing us with her kindness!'

Lose 6 Life Points (lose 2 less than this if you have CHARMS and an amulet, and 2 less if you have a feather shield). If you survive, turn to 195.

We don't have enough Life points to withstand the damage, so it's Game Over. Again.

So, how do we want to take it from here?

1) Pretend we chose to flee straight away and proceed with 2 Life points remaining (without taking the damage from trying to fight her)?
2) Rewind and skip this island completely?
3) Rewind to the first island and stay to meet the natives?
4) Rewind even further and take a different path after leaving Skarvench's ship?
5) Rewind all the way to the beginning and take different supplies from the ship (or try to eavesdrop)?
6) Restart with a new character and new Skills (we haven't really proceeded very far in this one, so it's not that far-fetched)?
7) End this playthrough?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Long Dong Silver
Profession: Swashbuckler
Skills: AGILITY, CUNNING, STREETWISE and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: -2
Possessions:
1) Sword
2) Book of charts
3) Monkey
4) Provisions
5) Provisions
6)
7)
8)
Money: 10 doubloons
No. of Deaths: 2

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:41 pm

End the playthrough. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Just kidding! I vote for 3 -> Meet the natives on the first island and get the ph4t l00t.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:17 am

Told you we should've taken Brawling and been a pirate-ninja.

I'll agree with option #3.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:46 am

Alright, so we rewind back to Red Skull Island, picked the coconuts, and press in further inland...

Making your way towards the sound of running water, you push the thick undergrowth aside to discover a sparkling stream. After slaking your thirst you follow the stream inland until you come to a clearing where an ancient stone monolith stands surrounded by creepers and green-filtered sunlight. Tiny gnats flit about like motes of golden dust as you inquisitively scrape away the moss covering the monolith to examine the carvings beneath. Although weathered, some of the carvings can still be made out, although none of you has any idea what they represent.

The forest is full of eerie sounds. Blutz looks about nervously. 'Shouldn't we be getting back to the boat?' he says.

Ominous!

You return to the cliffs to find a dozen islanders standing at the top of the vine ladder. They wear grass skirts and each has a red skull-like mask painted across his face. 'That's how the island got its name,' mutters Oakley out of the corner of his mouth.

'Maybe so,' whispers Grimes. 'Or maybe they're headhunters.'

You approach cautiously, uncertain of the islanders' intentions. They watch you in silence and one of them bares his lips in a ferocious grin. Blutz gives a small moan and goes weak at the knees, and you have to catch his arm to support him. To your horror, the islanders' front teeth are filed to sharp points!

If you try to fight your way past them, turn to 363. If you offer them gifts, turn to 382. If you ignore them and just start to descend the ladder, turn to 400.

Fight a dozen guys, bribe them or walk off like we own the place?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Long Dong Silver
Profession: Swashbuckler
Skills: AGILITY, CUNNING, STREETWISE and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 9
Possessions:
1) Sword
2) Book of charts
3) Monkey
4) Coconut (provisions)
5) Coconut (provisions)
6)
7)
8)
Money: 10 doubloons
No. of Deaths: 2

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 12:34 pm

Offer them the monkey.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:56 pm

Offering the monkey sounds good.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:23 pm

Have some sweet, sweet monkey flesh! It tastes better than ours! Honest!

They cluster round, eager to see what items you have. You must give them one of the following: a sword, a pistol, an amulet, a wand, a crucifix, a toolkit, or all your money. Decide which of these (if any) you are prepared to part with and amend your Adventure Sheet accordingly, then turn to 417.

If you are not prepared to lose any of the above items, the natives begin to get angry and you will have a fight on your hands; turn to 363.

Nope, they're not interested in the monkey. Picky eaters....

It's either our sword or our all our money.

Do we want to give them either of these?

Or fight them?

.....or do we want to backtrack to the previous option and walk away?

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:23 am

Give them the sword; I sense in our future a better weapon.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:44 am

The grisly sharpened-tooth grins on their faces as they accept your gift leave you uncertain of how you stand. While the gift is passed around for inspection, Oakley says: 'Quick now, lads - let's get back to the jollyboat before these savages turn nasty.'

You make a hasty descent of the cliffs, but before you are even halfway down a rock comes sailing past your head. 'They're bombarding us!' you shout to the others. 'Move it, or we're all done for!'

More rocks come dashing down, and you can now hear a horrid chortling from the natives as they watch their missiles bruise and buffet you. Somehow you manage to keep your hold on the ladder despite this fearful barrage, but by the time you reach the bottom you have blood streaming from a dozen cuts. Lose 4 Life Points. (Exception: if you have CHARMS you can protect yourself from being hit, and lose only 1 Life Point.)

If still able to move, you race back to the boat and cast off, rowing away from the shore as fast as your weary limbs will allow.

'Let's hope we have more luck on the next island,' says Grimes. Turn to 116.

No replacement weapon for us. These natives are dicks.

You know, I'm starting to see Starmaker's points about the flaws of this series' design. The book is designed for replayability, and various Skills and the multiple paths to success contribute to that. But in a way, each individual path tends to get rather narrow since specific Skill sets are designed to fit certain paths better, and it becomes easy for the player to miss what is required to get the best out of one path. This book is still relatively lenient in that there's still a way to win even if we miss all the good stuff on the islands...but our options will be more limited, and not as fun.

There are multiple ways to beat Ejada, but our starting Skill-set narrows it down to just getting the Shark's tooth sword in order to have a chance of success. And again, there are multiple ways to get stuff from the natives, but with our current Skills, the only way to do that is to

walk away from them, which gives us the chance to use CUNNING.

Anyway, the next paragraph brings us to the volcanic island, but we already know who we'll meet there, and we also know we can't beat Ejada. We've already done one rewind, so I understand if you don't want to do that again. Do we want to proceed now (sans our sword that we just gave to the natives for nothing), in which case we might as well just bypass Ejada's island? Or do we want to cheat and rewind one more time to get the loot? Neither choice looks particularly appealing, I admit.

As mentioned before we don't HAVE to beat Ejada or get all the loot from the islands to win, but it opens up more choices later.

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 7:07 am

Come on, somebody vote. I keep making the wrong decisions.

I *really* want us to take that damn sharktooth sword, but rewinding without us dying is bordering on cheating...

Half a vote for rewinding just a bit to where we meet the natives and just walking away.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:28 am

Let's walk away. I'm curious about this sharktooth sword now.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 12:37 pm

The natives watch in unfathomable silence while you smartly descend the ladder of knotted vines. Apparently they are not ready to launch any assault as yet, since no boulders or spears come hurtling down at you from above. Then you see another group of natives striding along the beach towards you. These are also daubed in blood-red warpaint and carry spears and clubs studded with splinters of volcanic rock. There are far too many of them for you to have any hope of fighting your way past to the boat. As they draw nearer, they begin to utter a low chant which is full of ominous intent.

'Cannibals, or my bones are bleached wood!' mutters Grimes. 'They mean to stuff us in their cookpot.'

If you have the codeword Fetish, delete it and turn to 22. If you don't have that codeword, decide whether to offer them a gift (117), use CUNNING, use SPELLS, or just make a dash for the boat.

Finally, a Skill that we can use!

As the cannibals close in, things look bleak indeed. Can you possibly outrun them and get the jollyboat out to sea before you are overwhelmed? Then you remember seeing fragments of coloured chalk further up the beach. 'Come on,' you say urgently, pulling your companions after you, 'I've got an idea.'

The cannibals follow in sullen silence as you retreat along the beach. Pretending to stumble, you gather pieces of pink chalk as you go and use these to daub spots on your skin. At first the others think you've lost your wits, but then Blutz sees what you have in mind. 'They'll think we're plague-ridden!' he cries. 'They certainly won't want to eat us then!'

The four of you crouch shivering beside your boat as the cannibals come striding up. At first the look on their faces is one of ravenous glee, but this soon changes to horror when they get close enough to see the ugly blotches on your skin. The shivering helps to make it look as though you have a fever, but in fact there is no need for pretence - you really are quaking in fear by now.

You give a ghastly moan and start to foam convincingly at the mouth. This is more than enough for the cannibals. Flinging down their weapons, they run off. Once they are out of sight along the beach, you get up and examine what they have left behind. Along with a profusion of spears and clubs, you find a feather shield and a wooden sword studded with shark's teeth. Record anything you want to take on your Adventure Sheet.

The others have lost no time getting the boat into the water. Hurrying in case the cannibals should realize they've been tricked and return, you put to sea.

Apparently, in addition to being uncivilized savages, the natives are also really, really, stupid.

Other ways we could have gotten the loot include:

shooting them with MARKSMENSHIP, because they've never seen firearms before, or beating their shaman at magic using SPELLS, both of which will convince the natives that we're some kind of gods, and shower us with gifts.

Anyway, we pick up both the new fancy sword and the shield and then continue our journey to the volcanic island, during which we eat one of our coconuts, and then proceeded to gather more provisions on that island, gaining 2 more units. We hide and get away from Skarvench rather than confront him.

We lose another Life point from fever as we continue the journey to Ejada's island, eating our second coconut, and go on the island, heading straight for the tower.

Fasting forward to our showdown with Ejada, this time with our new sword:

As soon as she lays eyes on your strange sword, Ejada's scornful confidence dissolves into uncertainty. 'The prophecy!' she gasps to herself. '"A sword not mined from any rock nor forged on any anvil!'"

You lunge in, scoring a bloody gash across her cheek. 'Defend yourself, witch, or die,' you tell her.

Raising her knife, she strides forward and matches you blow for blow. Lose 7 Life Points - unless you have a feather shield, in which case lose only 3 Life Points. If you are still alive, turn to 328.

We have the shield, and emerge victorious from the fight with 5 remaining Life points.

After a hard-fought battle you finally get in a killing blow. To your amazement, Ejada does not fall like any mortal opponent. Instead she gives a deep groan and sags forward like a puppet with its strings cut.
Green sap spurts from the wound you've made above her heart, and her long vivid tresses wither like plucked blooms.

'Blow me down if she wasn't some sort o' plant!' says Grimes, touching her cheek. 'Feels like wood rather than flesh.'

You shrug and sheathe your sword. 'She did say she was the Earth Goddess' daughter.'

A hasty exploration of Ejada's palace soon uncovers several treasures: a magic wand, a potion of healing, a ship in a bottle, and a black kite. The potion can be drunk once at any time to restore your Life Points score to normal. The other items may or may not come in handy later.

Woo! More loot!

We only have 1 item slot left, though, so let me know which items you want to drop in favour of any of the loot here (if you're going to take more than 1).

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Long Dong Silver
Profession: Swashbuckler
Skills: AGILITY, CUNNING, STREETWISE and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 5
Possessions:
1) Sword
2) Book of charts
3) Monkey
4) Provisions
5) Provisions
6) Shark's-tooth sword
7) Feather Shield
8)
Money: 10 doubloons
No. of Deaths: 2
No. of rewinds/retcons: 3

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:26 pm

SGamerz wrote:You know, I'm starting to see Starmaker's points about the flaws of this series' design. The book is designed for replayability, and various Skills and the multiple paths to success contribute to that.

This was the first book in this series I played, and I won it (the swindle version of the new release, actually -- perhaps rebalanced but without the pictures and the hints in them) on the first try with a caster. Wait until you get a credit card and play sportsball with Venus, that part was pure asshattery.

SGamerz wrote:Apparently, in addition to being uncivilized savages, the natives are also really, really, stupid.

Yeah, I find it highly unlikely that natives who have lived for generations on a small island don't know the basic properties of noteworthy resources they have on the island. As for being uncivilized savages,

partly it's the characters' prejudice talking, and partly it's the natives having had little contact with the outside world (as previously pointed out by Oakley); trying to trick the people on the other island leads to trouble.

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:33 pm

Hm, drink the potion and get the wand???

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 2:07 pm

I'll just point out that the wand is a regular wand that all characters will SPELLS will start with. And no, finding a wand doesn't automatically give us that Skill. It's probably meant as a replacement for characters who started with SPELLS but lost their wand somewhere during the adventure.

Sirocco · Post by **Sirocco** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 2:10 pm

Edited. My order of preference is black kite and ship, but I'll back any suggestion to save time.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 2:20 pm

Are you willing to drop anything to take both of them? We have 1 free slot.