The Gaming Den

Using your lantern, you descend the steeply cut stone steps to the winding limestone passages below. These twist and turn, and you seem to spend hours travelling with only faint sounds of dripping water for company. You must stop to eat a meal during your travels or deduct 2 points from your STAMINA. Next, you must Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, turn to 388. If you are Unlucky, turn to 85.

Dice roll = 6 (Lucky).

At last your patient travels are rewarded. You turn a corner and, some fifty yards away, you see a pair of iron-railinged gates, set into limestone walls. You have reached your first goal - the entrance to the Iron Crypts!

Yay!

Actually, the trapdoor was NOT a good option....we can get inside Iron Crypts faster and easier if we travel overland. This way, we have to use up an extra meal at least 1 extra LUCK point, AND meet another trial coming up in the next section before we get in.....

You may have found the entrance to the crypt, but the iron bars are a definite physical obstacle to further progress! You can try to bend them by sheer strength if you wish, alternatively, you can just wait, keeping out of sight, to see if anything comes along.

Forced entry or not?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Harry Balzac
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 3/20
LUCK 8/10
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, Jar of Ointment, Message Scroll ('350'), Silver Medallion, Luck Powder (x3, +1 LUCK each), Silver Feather, Ebony Key, 15-foot length of rope, Phial of White Oil
Provisions: 6 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Treasure: 5 Gold Pieces

Can we sit down and gobble up another meal first? Trying to bend the bars probably runs off of STAMINA.

Yes, eat then flex. No reason to believe anyone's coming along soon.

We gobble down a meal and brings our STAMINA up to 7 before trying the bars.

Although if this were a STAMINA test (which is typically tested on 4 dice in FF books), 7 STAMINA isn't going to do us a lot of good....

Trying to bend the iron railings is a very hard test of your abilities. Roll two dice and add 3 to the number you roll. lf the total is less than or equal to your current SKILL score, then you have succeeded in bending the bars apart and you can squeeze through them. If the total is greater than your current SKILL score, turn to 312.

Thankfully, this is a SKILL test, not STAMINA. Still pretty hard by normal standards, though....

Dice roll = 6+3 = 9 (Success.....barely!)

You head north along a limestone passageway, your eyes slowly adapting to the dim light provided by stubby growths of luminous mosses and lichens on the walls. There's just enough light to see by, and you're less likely to be spotted if you don't use your lantern. The passageway eventually bends round to the west and stops at a dead end. But the dead end is suspiciously smooth; as you carefully touch it, you realize that the 'rock' is just an illusion- there is a door here! Keeping your sword ready, you turn the door handle; it gives, so you walk through.

If we've skipped the priest's basement, we would have reached this next upcoming section after just one other uneventful section.

A dirty, cluttered room, crudely furnished and with doors leading in several directions, greets your eyes, but you have no time to take in all the details! There are two Goblins here, and they leap up to attack you. In the doorway, you can fight them one at a time.

First GOBLIN SKILL 5 STAMINA 5
Second GOBLIN SKILL 5 STAMINA 6

If you win, turn to 300.

Weak opponents....which is a relief, since I don't think we can survive a tougher fight with our dwindling STAMINA.

COMBAT LOG:

Goblin#1 15, Harry 16. G#1 is at 3.
G#1 10, Harry 15. G#1 is at 1.
G#1 14, Harry 19. G#1 is killed.
Goblin#2 12, Harry 17. G#2 is at 4.
G#2 14, Harry 18. G#2 is at 2.
G#2 10, Harry 13. G#2 is killed.

The dice didn't even pretend that the goblins had a chance, giving them crappy rolls for the most part (although our SKILL advantage did save us a couple times), and giving us our first flawless victory!

A quick search through the room and the goblin bodies reveals nothing of interest or value save for a pair of bone dice they were playing with. If you wish to take these, add them to the list of Equipment Carried on your Adventure Sheet. There are three other doors in this worked stone chamber, and all appear to be easy to open. Will you take:

The north door?
The west door?
The south door?

Hey, we don't get to take actual dice as loot very often in gamebooks (though we often get to play with them....in taverns).

1) Do we take the dice?

2) Which door do we take after that?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Harry Balzac
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 7/20
LUCK 8/10
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, Jar of Ointment, Message Scroll ('350'), Silver Medallion, Luck Powder (x3, +1 LUCK each), Silver Feather, Ebony Key, 15-foot length of rope, Phial of White Oil
Provisions: 5 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Treasure: 5 Gold Pieces

Take the dice, head west.

Take the dice, and west is as good a direction as any.

Beyond the door, a passageway stretches out before you, ending at a T-junction. From here you can go either south or north.

Yay, more random directions!

North.

You head north along the passage until you come to an eastward passage. Opposite this is a faintly carved wall-carving of some kind. Will you:

Look closely at the wall-carving?
Follow the passage north?
Take the passage east?
Retrace your steps back south?

Hey, there's actually a choice to turn back in an FF dungeon exploration! It's a amazing how infrequent such opportunities are in these books.

These kinds of choices are usually fake outs. That being said, let's see if we can do the same if we go south (twice, once back to the previous section and then south from there).

Sure, we're not on any particular clock.

You press on south, ignoring a turning to the east which only leads to the Goblins' room.

The choice to turn back seems legit, although it doesn't give us complete freedom.....

You head south along the passageway, which then turns west and opens into a chamber lit with flaming braziers. Standing in the doorway, you can just make out steps that lead upwards at the far end of this chamber, and a lar8e stone statue standing before them. The statue, sculpted in stone, is nearly ten feet tall, and has the head of a horned bull atop a man's body. It is not moving and, as you creep into the chamber, it does not react to you, Your heart beats strongly as you enter - will the statue attack?

A bull-headed humanoid statue.....why don't they just call it a Minotaur?

As you set foot in the chamber, the statue raises its right hand and grates out, 'Give me a gem.' Will you:

Attack the statue?
Give the statue a gem, if you have one?
Do nothing for the moment?
Try to run past the statue to the stairs?

.....and sadly, there's no option to turn back here, despite us not having the required plot coupon (we didn't buy the gem from the tribe earlier).

What do we do now?

Running is probably a LUCK test. Run.

Man, what is with FF and their gem-loving minotaur statues? Attacking the scenery is stupid and standing around rarely has good results. Running isn't great, but I think it's the best of the available choices.

You try to dash past the statue. As you attempt this, it strikes out at you and hits you; deduct 2 points from your STAMINA. Now roll two dice. If the dice-roll total is less than or equal to your current SKILL score, turn to 68. If the total is greater than your current SKILL score, turn to 286.

Another SKILL test when we were expecting another stat. But this is a good thing since it's higher than our LUCK at the moment, and we don't have to deduct SKILL for testing it.

Dice roll = 6 (Success)!

You dodge past the statue and race up the stairs. Behind you, you hear no sounds of the statue following you. You breathe a sigh of relief and ascend to the passageway beyond.

This will be the general pattern of this book: there will be plot coupons to collect, but generally they aren't strictly mandatory, they just help to make the quest easier, and usually the lack of them just means a fight or a stat test (or sometimes stat loss). Which makes this a more lenient/easier book than most....

You ascend to an east-west passageway. It is dark and you must use your lantern. You see that the western passage soon turns south; if you want to take this path, tum to 218. If you prefer to head west, tum to 106.

.....but unfortunately the abundance of generic dungeon/random passage design also means that it's usually not terribly exciting. :/

Which way, again?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Harry Balzac
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 5/20
LUCK 8/10
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, Jar of Ointment, Message Scroll ('350'), Silver Medallion, Luck Powder (x3, +1 LUCK each), Silver Feather, Ebony Key, 15-foot length of rope, Phial of White Oil, Pair of Bone Dice
Provisions: 5 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Treasure: 5 Gold Pieces

West, why not?

Now the passageway branches. You can continue on eastwards or you can lake a side-turning to the north. Daylight gleams faintly from the northern passageway, but you can also hear faint rending sounds that are not at all pleasant coming from that direction. If you want to go east, turn to 253. If you wish to go north, turn to 155.

Well, at least there's slightly more information that just random direction, this time.

Which way now?

North, because it's the only one we get a description of.

Yeah, seems interesting.

The daylight grows clearer as you make your way up the passageway towards the tunnel. Now you hear the noise more clearly, it sounds as if something or someone is being ripped limb from limb by some snarling monster. Undeterred, you decide to move in and find out just what's in there!

There's no option to turn back. :/

Since there's obviously some sort of monster ahead, I'm going to have Harry eat a meal so that we have at least a slightly better chance at surviving a potential monster fight.

STAMINA up to 9.

You enter a chamber which has a high, rocky ledge at the north end on which a bird sits, ripping at some bloodied mess (you can make out a humanlike rib cage). The bird isn't very big, but its beak looks razor-sharp and is long, cruelly pointed, and stained with blood. It squawks and flies Lo attack you!

RAZORBEAK BIRD SKILL 8 STAMINA 7

If you win, tum to 26.

At least it's weaker than us, if only slightly.

COMBAT LOG:

RAZORBEAK BIRD 17, Harry 16. Harry is at 7.
RB 18, Harry 16. Harry is at 5.
RB 15, Harry 17. RB is at 5.
RB 12, Harry 16. RB is at 3.
RB 13, Harry 17. RB is at 1.
RB 15, Harry 15. Tie.
RB 16, Harry 16. Tie.
RB 17, Harry 20. RB is killed.

Looking around, you see that there is just one passageway from this chamber - leading south - but surely there is something useful to be found in all this debris? You sift through all the bloodied bones and feathers and find nothing of any note, then you look up at the ledge. It's a good 18 feet up, and the rock surface is very sheer. You'd have no chance of climbing this normally. Do you have a grappling iron and a 15-foot length of rope? If you do, tum to 162. lf you don't, you must take the south passage, so tum to 42.

We have the rope, but not the grappling hook.

You head south, back to an east-west passageway. To the east, a pall of black smoke blocks your path. The choking fumes make that way impassable, so you must head west and then follow that passageway as it bends southwards.

So yeah, it was a sort of wasted trip....the next section is where we would head to if we turned south after passing the statue.....

Just a little way past the southern twist in the passageway, you can see two doors next to each other, one on each side of the wall, to the east and the west. Will you:

Open the east door?
Open the west door?
Ignore the doors and carry on south?

Which door do we try first, if any?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Harry Balzac
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 5/20
LUCK 8/10
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, Jar of Ointment, Message Scroll ('350'), Silver Medallion, Luck Powder (x3, +1 LUCK each), Silver Feather, Ebony Key, 15-foot length of rope, Phial of White Oil, Pair of Bone Dice
Provisions: 4 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Treasure: 5 Gold Pieces

West door.

You open the door effortlessly, but now you must Test your Luck! If you are Lucky, tum to 179. If you are Unlucky, turn to 195.

Dice roll = 7 (Lucky)

You leap aside just as a spear hurtles past you, triggered by a trap linked to the door. The spear impales itself in the door opposite you; moments later, you hear sounds to the north, so you decide to set off southwards!

You guys keeping missing the options that brings you the plot coupons! The other door actually contained something helpful, and we had the right item to open it (the oil)!

It is dark to the south, and you must have a light source to see by (your lantern or a Magical Sword if you have one!). Your footsteps crunch on chips of stone, and as you look down you see other footprints leading this way! Vigilantly, you walk quietly on. Soon you see a small side-passage to the east which ends at a wooden door with a small iron grille in it. You can investigate this door or continue south.

The constant mentioning of light source has never meant anything, since the book never ever says what happens if we don't have one. (Not that there's ever a reason we'd want to throw away our lantern, anyway)

And yes, one of our early options meant that we missed a glowing Magic Sword (with +1 bonus).

Check out the door?

Investigate, lest we miss more plot coupons.

Peering through the grille, you can just make out two slumped human bodies lying on a pile of filthy straw inside a dank, unlit cell. Will you try to open the door and help these people or turn back and go south?

Do we go in?

Smells traplike, but helping is heroic.