[Let's Play] Virtual Reality Gamebooks: Necklace of Skulls

[SGamerz]

Yeah, retreat, that seems to be the only option that might lead to something positive now that we know tackle doesn't work without the appropriate skill.

I'm just worried that there might not be any good option for us since I can't imagine any of our skills helping us in this game.

I'm vindicated for voting both AGILITY and UNARMED COMBAT at the beginning.

[Darth Rabbitt]

With a breathtaking lunge he catches up with the ball and strikes it a sweeping blow which sends it thudding up against the scoring zone. Put a cross at the bottom of your Character Sheet.
The ball rebounds towards you. Unless you have CHARMS and an amulet, you are unlucky and it catches you a hard blow on the side of the head, inflicting a 1 Life Point wound.

On a signal from the chief courtier, both teams return to the end zones of the arena. It is your turn to serve again. You raise the ball and consider your best tactics. The first team to reach seven points wins the contest.
Do you think it is time for a long shot, or do you prefer to be cautious and go for a safe point?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Evening Star
Skills: CHARMS, FOLKLORE, SPELLS and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 10/10 (immortal)
Possessions:
1) Magic Amulet
2) Magic Wand
3) Sword
4)
5) Charcoal
6) Rope
7) Parcel of Salt
8) Jade Bead
Money: 5 cacao
Codewords: Sakbe, Venus
XX

[SGamerz]

Might as well go for the long shot, we're 2 points behind and playing normally seems to require skills we don't have.

The closest thing to a luck-based skill is CHARMS and we have that. Probably doesn't work that way, but we might as well try our luck.

[Darth Rabbitt]

You aim the ball high up on the wall, so that it strikes the angle where the slope meets the vertical. As it rebounds in a long arc that carries it far out across the arena, you run forward and deflect it against the high-scoring zone on the opposite wall. Record your two points by putting two ticks at the bottom of your Character Sheet.
The ball ricochets off towards your opponents, who leap in to seize possession. (We have 6 or fewer ticks on our Character Sheet.)

You were just beginning to feel confident, but now the shadow men make a daring play which abruptly turns your hopes to bleak despair. You watch aghast as they launch the ball in a smooth trajectory which carries it through the stone ring at the top of the wall. It is a one in a thousand shot, and by the rules of the contest it means that they have won.
Necklace of Skulls’ pronouncement falls like an icy wave across the arena: ‘The losers’ lives are forfeit.’
A flat metallic twang builds rapidly in the dry air. There is a sour taste on your tongue, and you can feel your hair standing on end. You glance at your partner just in time to see him explode in a blossom of silent white sparks, leaving nothing but a scorched black patch on the dusty ground.
Necklace of Skulls has vaporized him — snuffed out his life with a casual flick of sorcery! You are horrified by the callous murder, but you cannot waste time brooding on it now. If you don’t act quickly, you will be next.
Lose the codeword Venus if you have it.

You have time to take a single step towards the black pyramid, then a howl rings out from the shrine — a howl of such gruesome fury that your sweat runs icy on your brow. The courtiers abandon any semblance of human form and, transforming into wild dogs, scatter with yelps of fear.
The shadow men dissolve as Necklace of Skulls draws all his power back into himself. There is a rumbling from deep within the pyramid. The roof of the shrine trembles, then splits apart as something rises up through it. The pillars topple; masonry blocks crack open. Necklace of Skulls stands revealed atop the pyramid.
He is twice the height of a man — a parody of human form with dead grey features and grotesquely long limbs with too many joints. The eyes are deep sockets under a caul of shrivelled flesh. His robe is sewn from ragged strips of blood-drenched skin; you realize with a shudder they are the flayed skins of men. Around his neck hangs a long chain of gore-spattered skulls, each with living eyes filled with eternal torment.
Necklace of Skulls stands in the rubble of his shrine like a loathsome insect just emerged from a chrysalis. He points a thin finger at you. ‘Evening Star,’ he hisses. ‘Now you will know the taste of death.’
You can use TARGETING and a blowgun or SPELLS and a wand. If you have neither of those, you had better close in for melee —either by charging straight at him or zigzagging as you run.

Adventure Sheet:

Name: Evening Star
Skills: CHARMS, FOLKLORE, SPELLS and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 10/10 (immortal)
Possessions:
1) Magic Amulet
2) Magic Wand
3) Sword
4)
5) Charcoal
6) Rope
7) Parcel of Salt
8) Jade Bead
Money: 5 cacao
Codewords: Sakbe
XX
II

[Omegonthesane]

fuck.

Zigzag, bcos I suspect his next attack will not target hit points.

[Darth Rabbitt]

That's a good call.

Charging in a straight line is another attack that's strong enough to beat our immortality.

As you race along the arena and up the steps of the pyramid, Necklace of Skulls conjures down a storm of blazing meteors. Lose 3 Life Points (unless you have AGILITY, in which case you move too fast for him and need only lose 1 Life Point).
If you are still alive after that, you close with your foe for the final battle. (We do not have the codeword Venus.)

Agility continues to be the most useful skill in the book, but it's moot because of our immortality. If we managed to win the ball contest (more on that later) Morning Star would tag team Necklace of Skulls with us, earning us an easy kill.

Necklace of Skulls towers over you, his grotesque head looming like a pallid mushroom against the deep blue bowl of the heavens. His sword descends in a jagged sweep, and you throw yourself to one side. You hear it clash against the stone steps. At the same time as fighting you physically, he also uses his magic — unleashing tendrils of poisonous gas from his throat and enchanting the skulls hanging at his chest so that they strain on their cords to snap at you.
Lose 9 Life Points. The following skills will help in the battle, causing you to lose 2 fewer Life Points for each of these skills that you have: SWORDPLAY (and a sword), CHARMS (and an amulet) and UNARMED COMBAT. (So if you have two of those skills, for example, you will lose only 5 Life Points.)

You have defeated the sorcerer. His monstrous body topples onto the steps of his black pyramid and begins to seethe with putrid vapours. With the magic that sustained him unnaturally throughout the centuries now broken, Necklace of Skulls decomposes into dank grey dust.
The walls of the palace begin to stir. You can feel the ground trembling underfoot. You hurry back through the courtyard and out of the gates. After a dozen paces you cannot resist the urge to look back. The pyramid and surrounding buildings are sinking into the sand. In minutes they have vanished entirely, and there is no sign to show that this was the spot where Necklace of Skulls once dwelt among his bestial courtiers. You look around for the courtiers, but see only a pack of malnourished dogs slinking off amid the dunes.
It is over. You turn your face to the east. You have a long journey back to civilization. If only you had been able to save your brother…
You dismiss such thoughts with a shrug. It is too late for regrets. At least you avenged Morning Star’s death and rid the world of an evil monster.
One of the dogs gives a howl. You look round, into the glowering darkness along the western horizon that marks the boundary of the Deathlands. That is where your brother is now.
You look east, then west again. Civilization – or further adventure? Only you can decide which way your destiny beckons.
   

THE END

If we won the ball contest (and therefore still had the codeword Venus) we'd get a better ending since our brother would still be alive.

So that's the book. I'll go over other paths in a bit, as well as how to win the ball contest (which is possible even our skill selection, but made much easier with AGILITY and/or UNARMED COMBAT, as well as the codeword Poktapok which we missed). For the path we went through the ideal skill set is probably AGILITY, UNARMED COMBAT, SPELLS, and the last skill could be one of a few things but I'd probably go with FOLKLORE.

[Darth Rabbitt]

(Also, this looks like a good place for Morris to have put his disembodied head monsters)

I've been waiting the whole LP to say this, but he did. It's called the Nightcrawler and it's attached to a woman's shoulder:

You can defeat it by smashing its head against a tree with UNARMED COMBAT, or, if you either have FOLKLORE or have been warned about it beforehand (codeword Calabash), with SPELLS, CUNNING, or the parcel of salt and the lobster pot (this specifically doesn't use up all the salt, but is the only use for the lobster pot, which you trap the creature in and then drown in a river.) Or by attacking the woman it's attached to, although this kills her and she has useful advice to give as thanks for saving her. She's the other person who can let you know about the giant (she gives the codeword Olmek, and interestingly enough mentions that "one hundred thousand million and seven" is not the true number of stars in the sky, but the giant wouldn't believe the true one--she never states what that would be).

So, the ball contest. As the book says, the two ways to win the contest: scoring 7 points or getting the ball through the stone ring. If you're going for 7 points you need AGILITY and the codeword Poktapok (which you can get in the beginning if you request an audience with the priest of the war god). Shooting for the stone ring requires Morning Star (and therefore his skull and SPELLS or one of the two items we didn't have) and the hydra blood ball. The first serve doesn't actually matter to an immortal with the blood ball, and for a mortal it only matters for avoiding damage. When it gets to be the opponent's time to serve, you let the enemy player past, then stay in mid arena. With the hydra ball and Morning Star you can opt to risk everything on getting the ball through the stone ring. The victory literally empowers us, restoring our Life Points (which wouldn't have mattered to us) and our magic, and Necklace of Skulls wouldn't have been able to kill Morning Star. From there you're guaranteed a happy ending: either you can leave with your brother (Necklace of Skulls realizes he's been totally beaten and agrees to never threaten humanity again, then he flees to the underworld) or just kill the sorcerer (he can't put up a fight against both Star brothers).

There are a few different routes that intersect with each other. There's a jungle area we missed (which has the gold diadem, one of two items that can resurrect Morning Star in case you don't have SPELLS. the other is the Chalice of Life), but we can also go through the afterlife. That actually has two entrances: one in the starting city (if we had either the serpent bracelet that can be gotten from the old man we avoided in the beginning, or the codeword Cenote which can be gotten by talking to the priest of the death god) and later on in the jungle route.

A pyramid in the afterlife.

A monster guarding the pathway to said pyramid.

Some snail monsters in the underworld that guard the Chalice of Life.

Some dead nobles in the afterlife. They're the way to get your brother's skull in the afterlife (since you can't meet the giant if you take that path.)

Four guardians protecting the way out of the afterlife. It's after getting past them that the paths converge.

Some pirates you can encounter on a different route at sea.

A flying snake guarding a tomb in the afterlife. Most of the really cool stuff is in that route.

The hydra doesn't have feature in any interior illustrations...but it does get to be on the cover of both versions of the book. I don't think any of the other rereleases did that.

Next LP probably won't be for at least a few more days, but it's currently a tie between Green Blood and The Haunters of Marsh Hall. Next vote gets it.

Also if you have any other questions about the book then let me know and I'll answer them.