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

[Omegonthesane]

Stand ground. And just generally continue being reckless until and unless we encounter something that has a one-hit kill attack.

[SGamerz]

Yeah, immortals don't run from puny serpents.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Two of the monster’s heads lash out together. You give a cry of pain as long curved fangs scythe a chunk out of your flesh. Lose 3 Life Points — unless you have SWORDPLAY (and a sword) or UNARMED COMBAT, in which case you block one of the attacks and lose only 2 Life Points.
If you are still alive, you must decide whether to dodge back away from it, make a headlong assault (leads to the same section as rushing in did before), or attempt to distract it with a feint.

[Omegonthesane]

Distract with a feint seems like the more aggressive risky option.

[SGamerz]

Distract and feint.

[Darth Rabbitt]

One of the heads flinches back as you fake a lunge towards it, but then you are caught a glancing blow by one of the others which sends you reeling off across the sand. Your blood drenches the ground underfoot. Lose 1 Life Point if you have SWORDPLAY (and a sword), TARGETING (and a blowgun) or UNARMED COMBAT. Otherwise lose 2 Life Points.

Only option left is to dodge (dodging after the parry leads to the same situation.)

Three of its heads stab forward and the fourth sways aloft, surveying your every move. You barely evade the gnashing fangs as hot venom splashes into the sand where you were standing.
If you continue to dodge back
If you think that now is the right moment to charge in and attack

[Omegonthesane]

Now is probably the right moment to charge in and attack by the logic of CYOA books. It'd seem odd for them to make you dodge back for two sections in a row.

[SGamerz]

Charge!

[Darth Rabbitt]

(We do not have a spear. We do not have AGILITY.)

You have no weapon strong enough to penetrate the monster’s scaly hide. Snarling at your impudence in attacking it, it envelops you in its four necks like a man closing his fist on a gnat. Fangs sharper than flakes of obsidian sink deep into your flesh and it raises your bloody carcass aloft to the night sky with a great shriek of inhuman glee. You sold your life valiantly, but you failed.

A direct attack from the hydra is one of the few things that can kill us.

Again you avoid the monster’s bites by a hair’s breadth. Spitting with fury at its failure to trap you, it slithers forward with all four necks extended. Decide your next move. Will you continue to jump away from the hydra, rush in to strike a blow, or try a feint (leads to same section as feinting earlier did)?

[Omegonthesane]

No weapon strong enough to penetrate the monster's scaly hide and having just *died* implies maybe we actually can't win this.

And yet Imma suggest rushing in anyway.

[Darth Rabbitt]

So it struck me that I've been forgetting to put in illustrations because I've just been copying from the Kindle edition (which only includes the cover and the map) and not my print edition (which has more of them. Some don't appear to be in my Critical IF edition but were presumably in the Virtual Reality one.) I'll edit in the ones that would have been in earlier sections.

(We have a sword, a hammer or a flint knife.)
Your thrust skewers the hydra at the junction of its four necks. A ghastly multiple shriek splits the air. You are jerked off its feet by its death-throes and its blood gushes out into your face. It snaps feebly at you, but you cling on and sink the weapon deeper until finally it gives a last spasm and falls lifeless.
As you withdraw the weapon, a large drop of its green life-fluid oozes out of the wound and falls to the ground, congealing to form a rubbery ball such as one might use in the ritual ball contest of your people. If you wish to keep this hydra blood ball, remember to note it among your list of possessions.

The spear is only needed for stabbing after the first dodge. If we had wished for knowledge (one of the favors we could have asked the giant for) he would have told us that with a sword we need to dodge twice in order to distract all of its heads, then close in for the kill. The spear can only be found on a different route.

I assume we take the ball since we have the inventory space. We can always drop it later.

(We have the codeword Angel.)
The warrior stands looking at the hydra’s body for a few moments in frank astonishment, then turns and nods to you. ‘Well done,’ he says. ‘Few men could have equalled that feat.’
‘My name is Evening Star,’ you tell him. ‘I am from the city of Koba, and I have travelled the breadth of the world in search of my brother.’
‘I am Stooping Eagle, until recently a lord of the Great City. I had been on a voyage, and returned to discover my home had been ransacked by werewolves and night demons. All my people are either slain or fled, and the Great City is now a sad empty ruin. Thus I have come to wreak vengeance on the one responsible: a sorcerer known as Necklace of Skulls.’
‘Then we are partners in the same quest, for I too desire the sorcerer’s death.’
‘I had heard he was already dead, but none the less active for that,’ says Stooping Eagle. He turns and surveys the moonlit dunes. ‘But the desert is wide, and I have been searching for his palace since the morning star last rose.’
You smile at the unconscious aptness of his remark. ‘It is close,’ you assure him. ‘I feel sure of it.’
You walk through the night, sheltering by day in the shade of a crag before heading on at sunset. After several hours Stooping Eagle unstoppers his waterskin and rations out a few sips. It is barely enough to moisten his lips, but he looks like a man who is used to austerity.
(We do not have a waterskin. We do not have the ETTIQUETTE skill.)

You cannot keep a look of covetous disappointment off your face when Stooping Eagle replaces the stopper without offering you a drink. ‘You came ill-prepared for a desert crossing, it seems,’ he says as he replaces the waterskin at his belt.
You can only nod. Your tongue is too dry to waste words. You wipe a dusty trickle of sweat off your sunburnt brow and smear the salty moisture across your lips.
Stooping Eagle adopts a look of regret. ‘If only you were a nobleman like myself, I would be happy to share my rations with you, meagre as they are. But there are certain standards we must maintain even in the face of death. A noble does not drink from the same flask as a commoner.’
‘Our skeletons won’t look much different when they’ve both been bleached by the sun’s rays,’ you reply sullenly.
You would argue the point further, but if the two of you came to blows here and now it would just waste your last reserves of strength. The only victors in such a struggle would be the merciless sun and the uncaring sands.
Lose 2 Life Points unless you have WILDERNESS LORE, in which case your natural hardiness means you lose only 1 Life Point.

The sun rises again, flooding the sands with the stifling heat of day. You realize that soon you must find shade, or the sun will bake you alive. Stumbling wearily up to the top of the next dune, however, all such thoughts fly from your mind to be replaced by a feeling of exhilaration. You have found it! The wizard’s palace lies just ahead across a stretch of brown-gold sand. The dawn light makes it seem to shimmer like a mirage in the deep blue shadows between the dunes, but you know it is real.
Double doors swing open in the wall as you approach. Confronting you are a horde of men in ragged animal skins. Their long thin faces and downcast smiles give them a canine appearance. All of them bear stone axes which they lift when you walk through the palace gates – not a gesture of immediate attack, but just to warn you where you stand.
‘I have come,’ you say, ‘to speak to Necklace of Skulls.’
One of the men gives a bark of laughter. ‘It’s not as easy as that. Do you think our master sees every stray mongrel who wanders to his door? First you will have to pass five nights among us, his faithful courtiers.’
You decide to change tack. ‘What of my brother, Morning Star?’ you ask.
‘He’s been here. Perhaps you’ll get to meet him –later.’
(We have the codeword Angel.)

Stooping Eagle and his servant are led off across the courtyard towards a group of buildings. ‘They will be our guests also, but in another part of the palace from you,’ says the chief of the courtiers, smiling to display a sharp set of teeth.
‘Do not worry, friend,’ Stooping Eagle calls back to you, ‘we have only to persevere and our swords shall drink the fiend’s blood eventually!’
You would like to resist the courtiers, but there are too many to fight in your weakened state. ‘After five nights I will be taken to Necklace of Skulls?’ you ask. It occurs to you that five nights’ rest will leave you all the fitter to deal with the wizard.
The chief courtier dips his head. ‘Exactly. Our master lives in the inner precinct of the palace.’ He gestures with a thin hairy hand towards a pyramid that towers over the inner courtyard. The black colouring of the pyramid makes it look like a crack of the night sky that has lingered on after sunrise.
‘Take me to my quarters, then,’ you tell him.
The assembled courtiers give a high howling laugh at this. ‘Not so fast,’ titters their chief when he has recovered himself. ‘First you have to choose your route to our compound.’

You are taken to the back wall of the courtyard, where a colonnade gives respite from the intense sun. Beneath a frieze patterned like a rattlesnake’s skin, four archways lead on from here to the next courtyard of the palace. The courtiers give you wide grins and invite you to make a choice.
You look into the first archway. A short flight of steps leads up to the edge of a pit about two metres across. The purpose of the steps is apparently to ensure that you cannot take a running jump. The bottom of the pit is filled with smoking coals.
Beyond the next arch is a tunnel blocked by an artful tangle of wooden beams, some of which seem to be shoring up the walls. ‘The trick there is to remove the right combination of beams in the right order,’ says the chief courtier, leaning over your shoulder. ‘You want to clear enough space to get past without causing the tunnel to collapse.’
The third route is a passage with no obstacles – just a triangular vault leading through to the next courtyard. Then you notice the sigils inscribed along the corbels of the vault: sigils indicating calamity and catastrophe. Is the vault designed to cave in when someone walks along it?
The passage beyond the last archway is guarded by a large pallid hound with narrow pink eyes. It greets you with a threatening growl as you poke your head around the corner, but makes no move to attack. ‘My second cousin twice removed,’ says the chief courtier in your ear. ‘Nasty temper. His bite’s worst than his bark, of course.’ It is time for you to decide. Will you cross the pit, attempt to clear the blocked tunnel, walk along the unguarded tunnel, or brave the albino hound?

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) Brother's Skull
5) Hydra Blood Ball
6) Rope
7) Parcel of Salt
8) Jade Bead
Money: 5 cacao
Codewords: Angel, Sakbe

[Omegonthesane]

Bit sad that we can't account for being totally immune to creeping dangers like thirst in the wilderness in our reaction to being offered water. Maybe it's still uncomfortable though.

Brave the albino hound sounds like it has the most opportunities for non-instantly-fatal injuries of the kind that we can no sell.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, second the hound.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I figured it doesn't keep you from being thirsty, it just keeps that thirst from weakening you.

There is a chance to die in the desert if you don't have a waterskin at the point we had to use ours up. Apparently immortality doesn't bestow total immunity to dehydration.

The hound’s hot glowering gaze burns in the brutal white wedge of its face. It looks as strong as a jaguar, but without the jaguar’s easygoing disposition. As it sees you take a step into the passage, its jaws begin to slaver and it gives a rasping snarl. (We have FOLKLORE.)

You once heard a folktale about an albino hound that guarded a dead king’s treasure. The hero of the story defeated the hound by luring it into the open, where its weak eyes were blinded by sunlight. You glance back over your shoulder. Outside the colonnade, the sun is so bright that it makes your eyes hurt. You would have a definite advantage over the hound if you got it to follow you out there. On the other hand, looking at the hound, maybe ‘less of a disadvantage’ would be a more accurate phrase. You reckon it to be about a hundred kilograms of bad-tempered bone and muscle.

If you fight it, turn to 362. Your other options are to use CUNNING, TARGETING and a blowgun, or a hydra blood ball if you have one.

[Omegonthesane]

Blue option. (Which I don't have to narrow down in this instance, since trying to fight doesn't require any specific items or skills from this point.)

[SGamerz]

I honestly think we'd be fine if we just fight, but we've got the blue option, might as well use it.

[Thaluikhain]

I have no idea why we'd think the hydra blood would help, or what it would do, but use it anyway.

[Darth Rabbitt]

You toss the ball into the hound’s open jaws. It immediately crouches down on the ground and starts gnawing at the ball, wagging its tail contentedly, and you are able to slip past unchallenged. Delete the hydra blood ball from your list of possessions.
The courtiers are waiting for you in the inner courtyard. ‘Ah, you fool,’ says their chief with a yelp of crowing laughter. ‘You just wasted your best weapon!’
‘Then I’ll just have to try that much harder from now on, won’t I?’ you reply.

Even if we weren't immortal, fighting the hound would only have cost us 1 Life Point since we know its weakness. For an immortal it costs nothing. However, the doggo does have a ball to play with now, and us a free inventory slot.

This courtyard is surrounded by low grey walls that lie like borders of soot around a plaza ablaze in the blistering sunshine. In the far wall is a massive gateway of intertwined human bones and skulls. ‘They are the previous victims of our master,’ says the chief courtier with a leer when he sees you blanch. ‘Soon your own bones with be added to that gate.’
Ignoring him, you turn your attention to five windowless buildings standing in the wide plaza. ‘And those?’ you ask.
‘They are the Five Houses of Destiny,’ he says. ‘If you can pass one night in each, the gate will open. Then you will gaze on the countenance of Necklace of Skulls.’
You wait through a long afternoon until the sun dips into a red hot shimmer along the western horizon. The heat of the day has left you giddy, but you do your best not to show it as the courtiers come to lead you to the first of the buildings. As they open the door, you are confronted by a wave of fiery heat as though from an open kiln. The interior of the building is a single stone hall with a blazing channel of smouldering charcoal set along it. Large stones warmed to red heat surround it. Sweat erupts from your pores as you are ushered inside.
‘This is the House of Fire,’ says the chief courtier. ‘Have a good night. I’ll come for you in the morning — should you survive.’
The door closes and you are left sealed within the House of Fire. Its smoky confines are swelteringly airless, and your only rest is not true sleep, but a listless swoon brought on by heat exhaustion. Lose 2 Life Points.

The intense fire has burned down to a sullen cindery glow by daybreak. You are dimly aware of the door being swung open, and you begin to crawl feebly across the floor towards the flow of cool morning air. In doing so, your hand brushes against a large lump of charcoal which must have fallen out of the fire during the night. You also notice that one of the round stones which formed the sides of the fire?trough has worked itself loose. It is still warm to the touch, but not unbearably so. You can add the charcoal and the stone to your list of possessions if you wish.
‘Come along,’ snaps the chief courtier impatiently. He sends in a couple of his men, who drag you outside. Staring down at you as your strength returns, he says nastily: ‘Did you have a pleasant night?’
‘Very comfortable,’ you mutter through parched lips. ‘What’s next?’
‘Next,’ he says, ‘is the House of Bats.’

So since we literally tossed the hydra ball, we have a free inventory space, and could take one of the items for free. Which one (if any) do we take, and do we want to drop something for the other as well?

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) Brother's Skull
5)
6) Rope
7) Parcel of Salt
8) Jade Bead
Money: 5 cacao
Codewords: Angel, Sakbe

[Omegonthesane]

Take the charcoal. Seems more likely to have specific useful properties than the stone.

[Thaluikhain]

Second the charcoal. And I guess that use of the hydra blood makes sense.

[Darth Rabbitt]

You spend the day crouched in the meagre shade afforded by the walls of the courtyard. At sunset, the courtiers lead you to the second of the five windowless buildings. When they open the door, you can see nothing but blackness inside. A waft of acrid air touches your face as you step inside. You get the impression of a high-ceilinged hall whose dark recesses are filled by rustling and high-pitched squeaks. Something like dust brushes your face. You put up your fingers and run them through your hair, then grimace when you see what is falling from the roof: lice.
‘The bats are our master’s second favourite pets, after ourselves. They are vampire bats, of course,’ says the chief courtier. He peers in and calls up to the rafters: ‘Suppertime, gentlemen!’ Then he leaves and the door is slammed shut, blotting out all light.
(We do not have an owl, nor do we have the codeword Zotz.)

Your eyes can make out nothing in the inky darkness that engulfs you. As you squat down on the guano-crusted floor, there comes a flapping of leathery wings and the first of the bats comes swooping down towards you. You throw up your arm, fending it off with a sob of horror.
Although you try to stay alert throughout the night, fatigue finally overcomes you and you sink into a fitful sleep. Lose 1 Life Point. If you survive, you awaken hours later to discover that the bats have been gorging on your blood. You are covered with tiny sores where they have chewed into your veins. You huddle miserably against the wall to wait for dawn.

You are waiting by the door when the dog-like courtiers come to release you in the morning. The chief is not with them, but later in the day he comes over to where you are sitting at the edge of the plaza and asks: ‘How are you enjoying your stay?’
‘If I were to be candid, I would say your hospitality leaves much to be desired,’ you reply, forcing a note of flippancy into your voice with some effort. ‘But I feel this can be excused on the grounds that you receive few visitors in these parts.’
‘On the contrary,’ he says with a broad smile, ‘we often have people for dinner.’ Stifling a shudder at this veiled threat, you ask what your next ordeal is to be.
He glances at the sun, which is already declining in the sky. ‘You will shortly discover that for yourself. We call it the House of Knives.’
Soon afterwards you are taken to the third building. Here the floor is covered with knives of sharp green obsidian. As the sun sets, the knives come to life, springing up to slice at the air expectantly. The door crunches solidly into place behind you. ‘Now,’ the chief courtier calls through it, ‘I expect you’ll be cut down to size.’
(We do not have a haunch of venison, nor do we have a stone.)

The knives drift in a circle around you as you move uneasily across the hall. Suddenly, one of them shoots forward and slices a gash in your arm. Recoiling in pain, you are jabbed by another. They are trying to herd you into a position where they can attack you from all directions, but you manage to duck under one as it flies in. Before they can regroup, you have run over to a corner and put your back to the wall.
The ordeal continues throughout the night. You cannot afford to close your eyes for a moment, as the knives would then tear you to shreds. You dodge many attacks, but several cut you badly and soon your strength is ebbing along with your blood.
Lose 2 Life Points. (Exception: if you have AGILITY, you are better at evading the knife-thrusts and lose only 1 Life Point.)
If you survive until dawn, the knives suddenly fall lifeless to the floor and soon after the courtiers come to let you out.

The following evening you are shown into the House of Cold, where sparkling sheets of ice encase the walls and long icicles form pillars from floor to ceiling. Your breath curls like smoke in the freezing air as you stand shivering and watch the courtiers swing the heavy door shut.
We do have a lump of charcoal, but we do not have a stone. We do not have a firebrand.

You feel yourself getting drowsy as the chill seeps into your bones. If you fall asleep here you will certainly perish, so you force yourself to pace up and down the long hall. Ice crunches underfoot as you walk, and your limbs are soon blue with cold. Lose 3 Life Points. (Exception: if you have WILDERNESS LORE, lose only 2 Life Points as your natural resilience helps you resist the cold.)
If you survive it can only be raw determination that sustains you. When the courtiers come to open the door, you note with satisfaction that you have only one more ordeal to face. Then you will be taken to meet the one whom you hate more than any in the world, and yet have never seen. The sorcerer Necklace of Skulls.

When it is time for you to be taken to the House of Gloom, the courtiers summon you with surly grunts. It is obvious from their glowering looks that they did not expect you to endure this long. As they prod you through the doorway, the chief courtier is struck by inspiration.
‘You have been cheating in the ordeals,’ he says. ‘Using items to help you. Give me your travelling pack.’ He takes the pack containing your belongings and places it outside the door. ‘It will be returned to you tomorrow. If you survive.’
You glance around at the interior of the House of Gloom. It is a dingy cobweb-strewn chamber with many shadowy recesses. The packed-earth floor rises at intervals in long low mounds. Something about the place stirs the hairs on the nape of your neck. You feel the tingle of awakening dread as you ask: ‘What is the ordeal here?’
The chief courtier places a single short candle on the floor just inside the door. ‘This is the place where our ancestors are buried. See those mounds? Their graves. If you can keep the candle alight until morning, they’ll leave you alone. But if it goes out then their ghosts will be sure to pay you a visit.’
The door grates shut, leaving just the trembling flame of the candle between you and eldritch terror. (We do not have the codeword Ignis, nor the CUNNING skill.)

The candle looks as though it will last for about an hour. Just as you are thinking this, a draft of cold air suddenly blows it out, plunging you into darkness.
Silence hangs like a waiting presence in the air. The darkness dances in front of your eyes, causing your imagination to paint pictures of horror on the back of your mind. Your flesh creeps with unidentifiable fears.
You hear a noise that sets your heart pounding and every nerve shrieking. It was the sound of something dragging itself across the dry earthen floor. It stops beside you and you feel it reach out to stroke your leg: a thin dry hand with no flesh on it…
And then you scream.
All through the night you are beset by gibbering phantoms that come prancing out of the darkness, running their unseen hands over your skin and whispering horrible things in your ears. Lose 1 Life Point for this harrowing ordeal.
When dawn arrives you stagger out on shaking legs to retrieve your pack of belongings. No matter what dangers you have to face now, you cannot conceive of anything more unpleasant than another night in the House of Gloom.

(I do kind of dig that we literally had none of the skills or item combinations needed but immortality just carried us through.)

‘I have survived all the ordeals,’ you say to the courtiers, ‘and now I demand to see your master —the sorcerer Necklace of Skulls.’
They watch you with smouldering eyes, but the cocksure sneering looks with which they first greeted you are gone now. By passing the five tests you have earned their respect – perhaps even their fear. As they escort you to the gateway of bones at the rear of the courtyard, the chief courtier studies you with a long sidelong stare before saying, ‘You have got further than any mortal I can remember. But our master will crush you as I might crack a flea between my fingernails.’
With a hollow rattling noise, the great gates swing inwards to reveal an avenue whose walls slope outwards on either side of you. The black pyramid stands at the far end of the avenue, its steep flanks clad in a block of cold shade that defies the harsh sunlight. The courtiers scatter at a signal you do not hear, rushing off with loping gaits that betray their half-canine ancestry. Climbing stone staircases, they take up positions along the top of the sloping walls.
As you take a step forward along the avenue, you notice stone rings set high up on the side walls. It is like the arena in which the sacred ball contest is played, and those stone rings are the goals.
You round angrily on the chief courtier, who is still standing close at your shoulder. ‘What is this?’ you shout. ‘I haven’t come to play games! You told me I was going to meet Necklace of Skulls at last!’
‘I am here,’ echoes a sepulchral voice from the depths of the shrine atop the pyramid. ‘Now let the game begin.’

You squint in the shimmering glare of the sun, but your eyes cannot make out any shape within the black void of the shrine entrance. The soot-coloured pillars give its darkened interior the look of a fleshless mouth. Again Necklace of Skulls’s voice rolls along the avenue, each syllable driving like a grave-cool gust of wind through the blistering desert heat. ‘Your brother came here before you.’
Red rage seethes in your heart. ‘That’s right, you – ’
The sorcerer’s words continue, unperturbed by your outburst. ‘He played the ritual ball contest and he lost. His life was forfeit. Now you will play for the same stakes. Behold your antagonists.’
Two long rivulets of shadow flow out of the shrine and down the pyramid steps, looking like spreading pools of black blood against the ebon stone. Reaching the bottom, they rise up in obscenely palpitating columns which gradually take solid form. Human form. Confronting you now are your opponents in the ball contest: two creatures of living shadow fashioned by the sorcerer’s magic.
(We have our brother's skull.)

If you have them, you can now use a gold diadem, the Chalice of Life or SPELLS and a wand.

You set the skull gently on the dusty ground and take a few paces back, raising your wand.
Necklace of Skulls sees what you are planning and speaks in protest from the inner recesses of his shrine: ‘You cannot resurrect him. You do not have that power.’
‘Raw determination is the basis of all magic,’ you counter. ‘My love for my brother will bring him back.’
This is the hardest spell you will ever cast. For almost an hour you continue the chant. The wolfish courtiers do not intervene, fearing your power. For his part, Necklace of Skulls is happy to indulge you. He wants to see you fail. You are determined to disappoint him.
Searingly bright light envelops the skull like a phosphoric bubble from which long green sparks go crawling out along the ground. The wand grows hot in your hand as it channels more magical force than it was ever intended to contain. At last you know you can do no more. Hoarsely uttering the last syllables of the spell, you slump to your knees.
There is a gasp from the watching courtiers, a howl of spite from the sorcerer. You look up. An hour of staring into the heart of the spell-glare has left a flickering after-image across your vision, but you are sure you can see something stirring. It looks like a man. He rises to his feet and steps towards you. You rub your eyes, then a familiar voice brings tears of joy to them. ‘Evening Star,’ he says. Your brother is alive once more!
You must forfeit the SPELLS skill as you have used up all your sorcery in working this miracle. Get the codeword Venus, but delete the codeword Angel if you had it.

The ball contest is played in every city of the civilized world. It is much more than just a game. Its exponents travel far and wide, earning fame for themselves and glory for their home cities. The priests say that the origins of the contest lie rooted in ancient tradition, and it is said that the playing of each game is like the unfolding of a mighty spell. Portents for the future are read in the outcome. Losers are often sacrificed to the gods.
The contest involves two players on each side. The aim is to bounce a large rubber ball off the sloping side walls of the arena using only your wrists, elbows and knees. At the same time you have to avoid the opposing players, who are allowed to ram into you with stunning force. You have seen men carried off with broken necks after a vicious tackle.
The side walls are marked into zones. You score points for hitting these with the ball, and the winning team is the first to score seven points. Alternatively, you can win an immediate victory by getting the ball to go through one of the stone rings set high up in the middle of each wall. This is a very difficult feat, rarely achieved by even the best players.
(We do not have the codeword Poktapok.)

The chief courtier comes forwards and puts the ball into your hands. ‘So we get to launch the first round?’ you say. ‘Very sporting.’
‘We are nothing if not magnanimous,’ he replies with a vaunting leer. ‘Later, when you have lost, we will be equally generous in dividing your carcass.’
You watch him dart back to the sidelines. At the other end of the arena, the two shadow men stand ready.
‘Begin,’ commands Necklace of Skulls.
You throw the ball against the side wall and run forward to intercept it on the rebound. The nearer of the shadow men charges towards you. Will you tackle him head-on, weave around him towards the rear shadow man, or try to score a point immediately?

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

[SGamerz]

I think we might have a hard time with this game without AGILITY....

Tackle head-on like the reckless immortal that we are.

[Thaluikhain]

Second that.

[Darth Rabbitt]

AGILITY is without a doubt the most useful skill in the book on all paths, in no small part due to this section. It is possible to win the best ending without it, although it is difficult.

You slam into him. For a creature formed of living shadow, he feels very solid. Lose 1 Life Point as a result of the jarring impact.
If you have UNARMED COMBAT, you get possession of the ball and send it bouncing against the end zone, scoring a point: put one tick on the bottom of your Character Sheet. If you do not have UNARMED COMBAT, your opponent gets the ball and scores a point: put a cross on the bottom of your Character Sheet.

Now it is the opposing team’s turn to serve. They send the ball skidding along the side wall in a long arc, and the enemy offensive player comes towards you. You can move aside and let him past, make a tackle, or retreat ahead of him.


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
X

[Omegonthesane]

wow. no unarmed combat either.

Retreat ahead?