[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 29 - Midnight Rogue

[pragma]

Leave sleeping eldritch horrors lie and hurry up the passage

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to ignore the bottle and carry on up the passage, as the slithering sound is just bad news.

[Beroli]

Carry on up the passage.

We've gotten remarkably far without having to rewind.

[SGamerz]

You follow the passage for what seems like miles as it winds onward. Finally, you see a light in the distance and, approaching cautiously, you can see that the passage opens out into a cavern, which is empty except for a lighted torch which hangs in an iron bracket on the wall. On the far side of the cavern, another passage leads off into the darkness. You cast a long shadow in the torchlight as you cross the cavern - it seems to move with a life of its own, but you tell yourself that it's only your imagination. But you are wrong. Before you can reach the other side of the cavern, your shadow dances along the wall in front of you, and suddenly climbs down off the wall, becoming a solid, shadowy being as it moves to attack you. Will you fight your own shadow or will you try some other course of action, such as:

Trying to run away before it can attack you?
Trying to douse the torch?
Trying to avoid casting a shadow?
Trying to disrupt your shadow?

The biggest variety of options we have thus far, with 5 different choices. Which one do we think works best?

[Beroli]

Disrupt our shadow.

[Queen of Swords]

Not sure what we could do to disrupt our shadow, but that might be better than trying to fight it or dousing the torch.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Id be in favor of trying to avoid casting a shadow. Our shadow can’t attack us if it doesn’t exist.

[SGamerz]

Your mind works quickly. There is some kind of sorcery at work here, and you don't like the idea of fighting your own shadow at all. Then you have an idea. Shadows are caused when something blocks out light - they are patches of darkness. Now if the shadow that's preparing to attack you is made of darkness, then you can probably use another source of light - such as the torch you are carrying - to dispel it. You hold the torch high, trying to keep it in a position where it will dispel the shadow cast by the troch on the wall.

This is, indeed, the best option to deal with this situation.

Holding your torch before you, you edge closer to your shadow. It fades as the light strikes it, becoming less substantial as you move closer. It seems to sense the danger of the light, since it makes no move to attack you as you head for the passage that leads out of the cavern. If you have SPOT HIDDEN skill, turn to 381. If you do not, turn to 27.

Check passed again!

As you hurry out of the cavern, you notice a series of holes in the walls of the passage, three on each side, at chest height/ You crawl underneath them, and as you do so a small dart shoots out of each hole. If you had been standing, they couldn't have missed you. Gain 1 LUCK point for evading the trap, and follow the passage to 191.

LUCK is back to max.

You follow the passage onwards. After a little way, it broadens out and becomes more regular. The walls are made of stone slabs rather than being hewn out of the rock. You turn a corner, and find a dead body in the passage - another thief, by the look of things. A trail of blood indicates that he crawled back along the passage after being seriously wounded. You notice a symbol sketched on the flor in the thief's blood; he must have put it there as he lay dying, to warn anyone who came after him. If you have SECRET SIGNS skill, turn to 39. If you do not, turn to 231.

Check not passed!

You look at the symbol carefully. You think it's one of the secret signs of the Thieves' Guild, but you have no idea what it means. Still, you're fairly sure that there is something nasty ahead, and this dead thief was trying you warn you about it. You offer a silent prayer to the God of Thieves, asking him to look after the dead thief in the next world and to look after you in this world, and then you prepare to move on.

Actually, come to think about it, I'm not sure if there was ever a God of Thieves named for Titan, surprisingly.

As you turn to move on, a glowing, almost transparent, bright blue something comes flying down the corridor at you. It looks a little like a severed human head, but you have no time to examine it closely as you throw yourself to one side. Roll two dice. If the result is equal to your SKILL score or less, turn to 12. If not, turn to 393.

Dice roll = 3 (Success).

You hurl yourself to the floor, and the thing, whatever it is, misses you by a whisker. It hovers above the dead thief's body for a fraction of a second, then sinks down into it, soaking into the dead flesh like water soaks into a sponge. The body twitches once, and then drags itself to its feet. Your scalps tingles as the dead eyes stare sightlessly into yours, and the dead thief shambles to attack you. Will you fight the Animated Corpse, or try to run away?

And finally, after 7 consecutive sections without options, we have a choice!

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Carmen Garrett
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 15/16
LUCK 10/10
Special Skills: Spot Hidden, Sneak, Pick Pocket
Backpack Items:
1) Provisions
2) Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value)
3) Rope and grapnel (gives CLIMB Special Skill)
4) Bottle of Brandy (3 doses, +2 STAMINA each, worth 1 GP)
5) Miniature silver-framed painting (worth 2 GP)
6) Stone Axe
Other Items: Shortsword, leather jerkins and leggings, torch, hand-lamp, tinderbox, dagger, lock-picks (gives PICK LOCK Special Skill), key marked with the letter 'L', Magical Longsword (+1 Attack Strength in the next round after winning a combat round), Bronze Helmet (+1 SKILL)
Provisions: 10
Gold & Treasure: 34 GP, silver paper-knife (5 GP)
Clues:
1) Look in a place of sleep and a place of work to find dark place of death where we will find what we're looking for (section 289)
2) Brass recently bought a piece of land called Barrow Hill; the Wizard Barbantius "refitted" it according to Brass's instructions (section 90)
3) Wizard "fitted out" Brass's property on Barrow Hill. 'E.O.B' penciled on ledger of Barrow Hill's purchase by Brass (section 335)
[/spoiler]

[Darth Rabbitt]

I think we can take on a corpse.

[pragma]

Run. I think we're safer with the blue thing in the corpse than outside of it.

[Thaluikhain]

You look at the symbol carefully. You think it's one of the secret signs of the Thieves' Guild, but you have no idea what it means. Still, you're fairly sure that there is something nasty ahead, and this dead thief was trying you warn you about it. You offer a silent prayer to the God of Thieves, asking him to look after the dead thief in the next world and to look after you in this world, and then you prepare to move on.

Actually, come to think about it, I'm not sure if there was ever a God of Thieves named for Titan, surprisingly.

Huh...*quickly checks FF wiki and my rather tatty copy of Blacksand!*

Though there's various gods that you could imagine thieves worshiping (well, almost any god, it doesn't have to tie to their career, but you know what I mean), I can't see a specifically named God of Thieves.

[Beroli]

Fight it. This thing is too fast for us to get away from.

[Queen of Swords]

I vote for fighting it as well.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to fight the Animated Corpse.

[SGamerz]

You stand firm, with your weapon ready, as the Animated Corpse shambles towards you. Fight it normally.'

ANIMATED CORPSE SKILL 5 STAMINA 6

Because it moves so slowly, you can run away after winning a round of combat if you wish. If you destroy the Animated Corpse, turn to 23.

Don't think there'll be a need to flee, considering its stats.

COMBAT LOG:
Animated Corpse 13, Carman Garrett 15. AC is at 4.
AC 14, CG 24. AC is at 2.
AC 9. CG 16. AC is destroyed.

The corpse drops to the ground, but as you watch the spectral blue face oozes back out of the dead flesh, and hangs in the air before you, chuckling evilly. It is a Possessor Spirit, and you must fight it. If you have a magic weapon, turn to 142; if not, turn to 111.

There's no way we could have reached this point without having the chance to pick up the Skeleton Lord's magic sword, so this check makes me unsure whether I should have counted it as Backpack Item (since there's no reason not to pick it up automatically otherwise), even though the text describes us carrying it on our belt instead of in the backpack. The lack of clarity in whether items count as backpack items or not on so many occasions is rather annoying.

This is an important check too: there's no way we can get past this enemy without a magic weapon.

Fight the Possessor Spirit normally.

POSSESSOR SPIRIT SKILL 10 STAMINA 10

Every time you lose a round of combat, you lose 1 LUCK point in addition to the usual 2 STAMINA points. If you win, turn to 323.

This is the most Skilled opponent we've faced so far, even though we have a slight advantage over it. Telling us to fight the spirit "normally" also makes me wonder whether the magic sword's bonus still applies here, but I'm going to rule that it does.

It's high SKILL, and the fact that it's attacks also drains LUCK, I'm pausing here for votes on whether to pre-emptively spend the LUCK for extra damage to finish it off quick.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote *not* to use Luck in the fight, as I feel that the Luck points we spend will be more if we just fight normally, since we have at least 1 Attack Strength advantage in every round.

[Beroli]

I vote to use Luck to inflict extra damage twice.

[pragma]

I agree to using luck twice early to inflict extra damage.

[SGamerz]

COMBAT LOG:
Possessor Spirt 14, Carmen Garrett 17. Luck test roll = 9 (Lucky). PS is at 6.
PS 15, CG 19. Luck test roll = 4 (Lucky). PS is at 2.
PS 14, CG 19. PS is defeated.

The Possessor Spirit disappears in a shower of bright blue sparks. A rapid search of the body turns up 5 gold pieces, a throwing knife, a long piece of heavy wire with a hook at the end and a flask. The flask has been cracked in the fight, and a potion is leaking out of it - there is enough potion left for one drink, but only if you drink it now. Turn to 247 if you drink the potion. Record anything you take on your Adventure Sheet; only the wire counts as a backpack item.

You move onward along the passage, following the trail of blood left by the dying thief. The trail leads to a door in the left-hand wall of the passage. The door stands ajar, and you peer through the doorway into a room furnished only with a great iron cage. Locked in the cage is a Dwarf. "Let me out!" he pleads. "I'm a thief like you! If you let me out we can look for the Eye of the Basilisk together!" If you let the Dwarf out of the cage, turn to 6. If you make sure he's a thief first, turn to 86. If you ignore him and carry on down the passage, turn to 155.

At least this time the book is explicit about what counts as backpack items...

Please vote on:

1) Whether to drink the potion?
2) Whether or not to take the wire, and what we want to drop for it if we take (our backpack is full)?
3) What to do about the caged Dwarf?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Carmen Garrett
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 15/16
LUCK 8/10
Special Skills: Spot Hidden, Sneak, Pick Pocket
Backpack Items:
1) Provisions
2) Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value)
3) Rope and grapnel (gives CLIMB Special Skill)
4) Bottle of Brandy (3 doses, +2 STAMINA each, worth 1 GP)
5) Miniature silver-framed painting (worth 2 GP)
6) Stone Axe
Other Items: Shortsword, leather jerkins and leggings, torch, hand-lamp, tinderbox, dagger, lock-picks (gives PICK LOCK Special Skill), key marked with the letter 'L', Magical Longsword (+1 Attack Strength in the next round after winning a combat round), Bronze Helmet (+1 SKILL), throwing knife
Provisions: 10
Gold & Treasure: 39 GP, silver paper-knife (5 GP)
Clues:
1) Look in a place of sleep and a place of work to find dark place of death where we will find what we're looking for (section 289)
2) Brass recently bought a piece of land called Barrow Hill; the Wizard Barbantius "refitted" it according to Brass's instructions (section 90)
3) Wizard "fitted out" Brass's property on Barrow Hill. 'E.O.B' penciled on ledger of Barrow Hill's purchase by Brass (section 335)
[/spoiler]

[Queen of Swords]

Take the potion.

Take the wire, dropping the silver-framed painting.

Make sure the Dwarf really is a thief, though if anyone else votes for ignoring him... well, only one person can get the credit for finding the Eye of the Basilisk, right? Besides, if he accompanies us in good faith he'll just die soon.

[Beroli]

Don't drink the potion, take the wire and drop the painting, and head down the passage.

I can't remember what the potion does, but we're too close and have too good stats already for risking it to be the right choice.

[JourneymanN00b]

My votes are to drink the potion, take the wire and drop the silver-framed painting, and to ignore the Dwarf and carry on down the passage, as I feel he is just going to either steal our hero's goods or kill him.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Leave potion, drop painting, take wire, check that dwarf is a thief.

[pragma]

Drink potion, take wire and drop brandy (cheaper than the mirror, and we have plenty of provisions), verify that dwarf is a thief

[SGamerz]

Carmen Garrett packs the wire into his backpack after discarding the framed painting. He then drinks the potion:

The potion restores your SKILL score to its Initial level. Change your Adventure Sheet accordingly, then go back to 323.

It would have been a good effect, although we don't benefit from it since we never lost any SKILL points.

Carmen then tries to verify the Dwarf's guild membership:

Something makes you suspicious, and you decide to make sure that the Dwarf is telling the truth. After all, the dead thief you passed was severely wounded in this room, yet there's nothing here but a caged Dwarf without a scratch on him. "Who is the Master of the Thieves' Guild?" you ask. If the Dwarf is really a thief, he will know the answer.

The Dwarf does not answer your question. He reaches through the bars of the cage, trying to catch hold of you. He seems to grow bugger; his skin becomes green and scaly, and spines erupt all along his back. With a ferocious snarl, the Shapechanger bends the bars of the cage, preparing to attack you. If you want to stand and fight the Shapechanger, turn to 33. IF you prefer to leave the room before it frees itself, roll two dice. If the result is equal to your SKILL score of less, turn to 229; if not, turn to 367.

Actually, if you'd read the AFF book Blacksand, asking him who the Master of the Guild is really isn't a fair question, although the PC as an apprentice thief probably wouldn't know that. It is said that most ordinary thief only assumes that whomever they know as "Guildmaster" (in our case Rannik) is the true master of the Thieves' Guild. In fact, Rannik is just one of the 5 Master Thieves with that title in Blacksand (and Guildmasters are actually only the 3rd-tier leaders in the Thieves' Guild hierarchy - nobody really knows who the Top-tier Grandmaster is, not even the 3 2nd-tier commanders), and if the Dwarf were a real thief he could have been trained under another of the 5, so he might very well not have given a "right' answer. Although I guess possibly each Guildmaster may have their own separate "test system" for apprentices, so maybe thieves under different masters are not likely to meet each other on the tests.

Do we fight or run?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Carmen Garrett
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 15/16
LUCK 8/10
Special Skills: Spot Hidden, Sneak, Pick Pocket
Backpack Items:
1) Provisions
2) Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value)
3) Rope and grapnel (gives CLIMB Special Skill)
4) Bottle of Brandy (3 doses, +2 STAMINA each, worth 1 GP)
5) Heavy wire with hook
6) Stone Axe
Other Items: Shortsword, leather jerkins and leggings, torch, hand-lamp, tinderbox, dagger, lock-picks (gives PICK LOCK Special Skill), key marked with the letter 'L', Magical Longsword (+1 Attack Strength in the next round after winning a combat round), Bronze Helmet (+1 SKILL), throwing knife
Provisions: 10
Gold & Treasure: 39 GP, silver paper-knife (5 GP)
Clues:
1) Look in a place of sleep and a place of work to find dark place of death where we will find what we're looking for (section 289)
2) Brass recently bought a piece of land called Barrow Hill; the Wizard Barbantius "refitted" it according to Brass's instructions (section 90)
3) Wizard "fitted out" Brass's property on Barrow Hill. 'E.O.B' penciled on ledger of Barrow Hill's purchase by Brass (section 335)
[/spoiler]