[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy #54 - Legend of Zagor!

[ashimbabbar]

"prolonged search" has an unpleasant ring somehow, it implies a lot of things could happen. My vote is for no searching and going directly through the double doors.

[SlyJohnny]

I think prolonged just means we'll have to eat a meal. If this place is deserted, then it's not currently inhabited or subject to regular orcish patrols.

Let's give it a shot and see if we can find an overlooked treasure of some kind.

[SGamerz]

You must eat a meal during your lengthy search, opening the doors to a warren of individual dormitory rooms and living chambers. You don't find anything of value, but you must Test your Skill. If you are successful, turn to 132. lf you fail, turn to 227.

Well, SlyJohnny was right about the eating a meal part.....

Dice roll = 7 (Success).

Standing in one large room and thinking about where lo go next, you hear voices. They are very faint but they're coming from below the stone floor, and you even manage to make out a word or two as you kneel down and put one ear to the floor: 'Down the crawlway...treasure there, sure of it, a chest...trap...dangerous.' Searching around for a loose flagstone, you can't find one, so there's no way of discovering who the whispering denizens of the under-castle may be, though they sounded human.

Leaving the barracks behind, you may open the door opposite you, if you haven't done so already, or else make for the large double doors at the far end of the entrance hall.

Well, we've looked behind both doors, so time to go for the hallway...

If you're wondering about the drill hall.....we didn't miss anything. There was indeed a trap, although not a very difficult one (2 goblins and a net), but the only loot we'll find there is a longbow, which Jallarial can't use.

You stand with your back to the doors at the end of the entrance hall, looking west. Immediately in front of you is another pair of double doors, while to the north a passageway stretches out for many metres; there are two doorways further along on the west side of this north-bound passage and a door at the end of it, and it turns back eastwards far in the distance. To your left, the passage soon turns west. Explore an area you have not entered before. Will you:

Head for the west passage?
Open the double doors in front of you?
Open the first door along the north passage?
Open the second door along the north passage?
Go all the way to the end of the north passage?

Note that the text makes it clear that we won't be able to re-enter any of these doors once we've visited it....

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Jallarial
SKILL 10/10
STAMINA 16/24
LUCK 9/9
MAGIC: 6/7
Equipment: Staff, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, knife, Potion of Stamina (restores half your Initial STAMINA), rope, Plague Antidote, empty glass bottle (x2)
Provisions: 8 Meals
Gold: 3

[SlyJohnny]

Let's check the doors first. First door, north passage.

[Sirocco]

Uh... many options. Start with the double doors? or do you want to save them for last?

ETA: OK, sounds good to me. First door, north passage.

[ashimbabbar]

thirded

[Mr Shine]

1dnp

[Darth Rabbitt]

Sure, let's go with that.

[SGamerz]

The great hearth in the north wall, with its hobs and pots and roasting spits, tells you that this must be the kitchen of the lower castle, though the fire has long been extinguished. To your left there are some hatches in the wall, beyond which is a barely lit chamber peering in, you see that it is a huge Feast Hall, and you guess you could get into it through the double doors in the passage outside. You can't make out much of what is inside the Feast Hall unless you use a Light spell (if you can and wish to do this, tum to 279). You find an empty glass bottle in the kitchen, but nothing else of any use to you, You decide to take a chance on opening the door in the west wall of the kitchen and you find that beyond it lies a small, narrow passageway, off which you see a couple of tiny boxrooms, that the domestic servants must have occupied, and some large larder cupboards. It's highly unlikely that anything edible has been left after all these years, but, if you want to make a search of them, turn to 27. Otherwise, you return to the doorway of the entrance hall to this castle level and choose another area to explore.

Empty glass bottles everywhere!

Do we want to spend Magic on a Light spell? Or search the kitchens?

[ashimbabbar]

I don't think we should waste a Magic Point we will very probably need later.

Also, search the larder like a boss.

[Mr Shine]

Take a magic look in the Feast Hall. We're probably still the only character who can take this option, so there's probably something there for us.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I'd search the larder. The light might alert people to our presence.

[Sirocco]

Larder first, feast hall later.

[SGamerz]

Let's search for some FOOOOOD, Glorious FOOOOOD!

Sacks of mouldy flour, rotted cereals, smashed ceramic pots and decayed food greet you everywhere, but you also find some wax-sealed jars of preserved fruits and garva, a highly nutritious root vegetable from far Crab Island. Add 4 to your Provisions, and gain 1 LUCK point for this fortunate find.

Unfortunately, your pleasure at this discovery is marred when you hear a snuffling and squelching sound coming from the passage. Whatever's causing the noise is between you and the exit, so you move to investigate. What you find appalls and disgusts you: a white lizard-like thing, two metres long, with leprous, purple-ringed yellow blotches all over its skin. Worse still, the horror looks as if it has been stitched together from the body-parts of various creatures - including a human or two, judging from its
hand like front paws. The gross thing hisses and spits a gobbet of filthy yellow phlegm al you. Test your Skill; if you are successful, you avoid the missile, but if you fail, you take a faceful of filth which leaves you choking and sick, and you must subtract 2 from your Attack Strength during this combat.

CORPSE LIZARD SKILL 7 STAMINA 9

If you win, you notice that the monster has left a slime trail behind it as it moved. If you want to track the route the monster took to get here, tum to 116. If you would rather search elsewhere in the castle. tum to 376.

Why do all evil wizards have some obsession about creating monsters out of dead parts.

Dice roll (for Skill test) = 8!

Well, since we avoid the Attack Strength penalty, and its SKILL is lower than ours, I assume you guys will want a normal fight without spells, as has been the trend thus far.....

COMBAT LOG:

Corpse Lizard 15, Jallarial 20. CL is at 7.
CL 13, Jallarial 22. CL is at 5.
CL 19, Jallarial 18. Jallarial is at 14.
CL 14, Jallarial 20. CL is at 3.
CL 17, Jallarial 17. Tie.
CL 15, Jallarial 20. CL is at 1.
CL 14, Jallarial 18. CL goes back to being a real corpse.

It got a bite on us......but all the food we found makes up for it, I think.

Do we want to follow the sticky trail?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Jallarial
SKILL 10/10
STAMINA 14/24
LUCK 9/9
MAGIC: 6/7
Equipment: Staff, Leather Armor, Shield, Lantern, knife, Potion of Stamina (restores half your Initial STAMINA), rope, Plague Antidote, empty glass bottle (x3)
Provisions: 12 Meals
Gold: 3

[Sirocco]

Nice haul. Follow the trail to the monster's lair, we might find more loot.

[SlyJohnny]

Yep, and then search the Feast Hall with Light if we can.

If we can't, what was in there?

[SGamerz]

Yep, and then search the Feast Hall with Light if we can.

If we can't, what was in there?

Nothing useful. Just lots of rats in the feast hall. We don't even get a fight, so it's a completely pointless option to trick you into wasting Magic.

The slimy trail of the Corpse Lizard heads north outside the doors to the kitchens and leads to the point at which the passage turns east. There is only one door along this passage and it is on your left - but the slime trail goes in a straight line to the end of the passage and stops at the wall! There must be a secret door here, and indeed you find one, flush with the end of the passage. However, since lizards aren't usually able to close doors behind them, this suggests that something - or someone - intelligent must have despatched the lizard and closed the door behind it. Opening the secret door may well lead you to a smart and probably powerful enemy. If you decide to open the secret door, tum to 171. If you prefer to search elsewhere you head back west and south.

Actually, wasn't it mentioned that the lizard thing had human-like hands? Maybe it could have closed the door itself.

Open the secret door?

[Sirocco]

Undoubtedly.

ETA: Nom.

[ashimbabbar]

Since we're down to 14 Stamina, I vote for using one of our meals to raise it to 18 and then go through the secret door.

( dead corpse lizards make Jallarial hungry )

[SlyJohnny]

We're at 12 meals now, so I vote to eat before we go in. But we should go in, as there's likely to be loot.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Agreed. Eat then go into the secret door.

[SGamerz]

Nothing like an encounter with a gross mutated corpse to raise one's appetite! Jallarial consumes one of her newly-found jars of preserved fruits.

A chiseled set of stone steps, leading north, lies behind the secret door. There is a sticky, slimy substance on the floor so you descend carefully. It is dark here so you need a lantern (or a Light spell) to light your way. If you do not use one or other, you will stumble and fall heavily, losing 2 STAMINA points. The steps end at a landing with a single door opposite you. The door doesn't look very strong, nor is it locked, but there is a glowing pattern of magical runes on it. If you are Sallazar Jallarial, you can read these runes; tum to 386.

Time for our wizardly education to be put to use!

The runes are a magical warning to keep out, and you judge that there is a Dark Elf element In their design. You are also slightly puzzled because they don't look like standard wizard's runes; this makes you uncertain about the kind of spell-using creature that might have put them here. Test your Spot Skill. If you are successful, tum to 25. lf you fail, you can cast an Open spell on the door, open it normally or think better of it and search elsewhere.

Jallarial gets a +2 bonus when testing her Spot Skill....which means she can't fail!

There's a strange twist to these runes - what they are is a trap laid against magical entry! You realize that, had you cast an Open spell, you would have set off the trap. This tells you that whoever is behind the door is scared of wizards in particular! You can now open the door normally or decide to leave and search elsewhere.

It's afraid of wizards, and we're a wizard......doesn't seem to be any apparent reason that we wouldn't want to go in......but I still have to ask: are we sure we want to go in?

[SlyJohnny]

Let's take a crack at it.

Let's NOT cast a light spell and just eat another meal before going in. We can already cast Create Food and get a better exchange rate than 1 magic point for 2 Stamina.

[Sirocco]

Agreed on both counts.

[ashimbabbar]

I agree with the No Light Spell and with the Entering partsL

I think we have Stamina enough for an encounter, so I'd say no eating this time.