Stepping into the chapel you are struck immediately by the scent o{ the place: clean and wholesome and without that rotting smell of decay that permeates the rest of Bloodrise Keep. The chapel is small: just a few pews and, at the far end, an altar draped in gold-edged white linen. On it rests a beautiful ivory statuette of the White Queen. Someone dressed in rich black robes is sitting in front of the altar. It is a middle-aged woman, noble and beautiful. For a moment you stare at each other in fear, until you both realize that neither of you is undead. You tell her of your mission, and she says, 'I am Iola, the mother of Braxis, the castellan He has been taken prisoner and is held in the east tower. Please release him - if you do he may be able to help you destroy the evil Mortis.' You express concern over her safety. 'As long as I remain in the chapel I am completely safe. No Undead can enter here, not even Mortis himself; the power of the White Queen keeps them out. I will aid you in your noble quest, for I know a magic charm that I can teach you: it will disrupt all Undead within hearing, causing their bones to dissolve and their flesh to rot to dust. Use it wisely, however, for it can work once and once only. Now go,' she says. 'I will pray for you and for my son.' She turns to kneel at the altar of the White Queen.
You leave the chapel and continue along the corridor towards the east tower.
As if our Double-damage Spear + Mirror Shield combo isn't overpowered enough against Undead, we just met the Holy Milf who teaches us Destroy Undead (albeit a one-shot one)! Although, oddly, she only
talks about teaching us the Charm, but the text doesn't say anything about her actually doing the teaching. Nevertheless, the power is ours:
You now have the Charm of Disruption. As Iola told you, you can use it once and only once, so choose your moment wisely. When you decide to invoke the Charm, note the number of the paragraph you are reading at the time, then turn to 253.
Essentially, using this charm is similar to the use of the Sleep/Pass Through Rock spells back in the Heroquest gamebook. Section 253 gives us a list of sections where the Charm can be used, and the corresponding sections to turn to. If we choose to use the Charm in a section that's not listed in 253, the Charm has no effect and is wasted. Using the Charm won't be listed as an option in our encounters, we have to decide on our own whether to use it.
So how do you guys want to do this? Do you want me to list it as a blue option every time we come to an appropriate section, or would you prefer zero hints on that and just leave it to you completely to decide when to trigger it? Let me know your preference.
A short distance further on, the corridor opens out into a vestibule, with ragged banners draped along the side walls. Three closed doors of wine-dark mahogany face you. Each has a symbol daubed on it in scarlet: the first (on your left) shows a picture of a poisonous serpent, the middle door has a picture of an upraised sword, and the right-hand door bears a stylized picture of an oak tree.
As you step forward across the hall, you get a sudden shock when you notice for the first time the grotesque figure of a hunchbacked jester sitting, slumped, against the wall. Instead of being dressed in the customary multi-coloured motley, his costume consists of drab patches of black and grey. His clowning stick is lying across his knees: on the end of it is a painted wooden skull with a movable jaw. This macabre fellow must be Mortis's jester; he seems to be asleep.
If you want to shake him roughly awake with the point of your sword at his throat, tum to 77. If you wake him quietly and ask him for directions from here, tum to 233. If you think it is wiser to leave him sleeping, you can press on through either the left-hand door, the middle door or the right-hand door.
What do we try to penetrate next? One of the doorways? The jester's neck? Or none of them?