[Let's Play] Fighting Fantazine Adventure 7: Queen of Shades

[Queen of Swords]

We don't seem to have too many workable options other than rowing.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to enlist as rowers.

[Beroli]

Row, row, row the boat.

(And, regardless of Libra's limitations, she evidently can and does bestow some favours on the PC, which given the PCs actions, seems at odds with the idea of Justice, at least in my mind)

I would be completely on board with an argument that it's a stretch that the PC didn't lose Libra's favor long ago. But...accept it or not, the premise of this adventure is that the players take her over at the moment she finally crosses the line. Maybe Fox was more morally choosy about missions he accepted for his gang when he wasn't desperate for money to pay off Jabba the HuttVik.

Rowing in a galley is exhausting. The first day you think you will die. The second day is better but the muscles in your arms still feel like fire. Lose 3 STAMINA points or reduce your STAMINA to 2, whichever leaves it higher.

Despite your fears, the Shield Maidens do not make an appearance during the voyage, for reasons you can only speculate on.

‘Perhaps they know we’re taking their damned mirror back to them,’ Jardakka suggests.

You shrug. The warrior women’s absence is at once both welcome and disturbing.

On the evening of the second day, the Mermaid arrives at a village on the southern shores of Lake Lumlé. From here, the ship will begin trawling the lake for the prized Mutton Fish. Your destination, however, lies to the west, where the island of Nilgiri stands silhouetted against the sunset.

You spend the night aboard the ship. Early the following morning, you leave the Mermaid and cut inland across marshy country, reaching the lake shore opposite the island by mid-afternoon. Hidden amongst the reeds that fringe the great lake is the rowing boat you used to travel back from the island on your ill-fated quest. No one has discovered it in the intervening days and the oars still lie in the bottom.

Cheechak jumps down into the boat and runs up to the prow, where he pauses, staring forward at the island. You push the boat out into the water and row across to Nilgiri.

The island is thickly wooded with ancient trees. Their foliage casts shadows that deepen as the sun sinks in the sky. Great stones loom out of the green twilight; beneath the covering of moss you can just make out the remains of hieroglyphic inscriptions.

You realise that the wood is completely silent; the ever present chattering of Cheechak has stopped. You look around but Jardakka’s monkey is nowhere to be seen.

You Test your Skill; 6 succeeds.

Your sharp eyesight picks out an area of deeper darkness that lies like a shadow on the ground between the trees. The shimmering black circle reminds you of the portal traps used by the nobles of Kharé to protect their homes. Poor Cheechak must have stumbled through it. Jardakka is reluctant to leave her pet behind but you convince her that it is too dangerous to follow the monkey through the portal. You give the circle a wide berth and continue on your way.

The entrance to Iltikar’s tomb is on the west side of the island, facing the setting sun. You come to a monumental doorway, three metres high, framed by massive stone jambs. A flight of steps leads down into the darkness of the tomb. A musty smell rises out of its depths.

The torches you used to light your way are still lying on the threshold where you dropped them. Jardakka stares at them and they burst into flame again. Holding the burning brands high, you descend the steps.

At the foot of the stairway, a passage leads off into the darkness. The stone walls are wet and the torches smoke in the damp air. Remembering the way, you ignore the passages that branch off to the left and right and head straight for the main burial chamber.

The last resting place of the Queen of Shades is a large polygonal hall whose low roof is supported on thick columns. Iltikar’s sarcophagus stands on a plinth in the centre of the chamber. The sarcophagus is open; the heavy stone lid, shoved aside by the Crolian on your last visit, lies shattered on the floor next to the plinth.

As you walk towards the coffin, you notice a black figure slumped against one of the columns to your left. You hold the torch high and see that it is the body of an insect man. The Mant seems to be dead. You cannot remember a body being there on your previous visit to the tomb.

Investigate the body?
Approach the sarcophagus?


[spoiler=Adventure Sheet]
Name: Rey Ulthran
Skill: 10/12
Stamina: 6/16
Luck: 8/11

Gold Pieces: 2
[/spoiler]

[SGamerz]

We stole the mirror from a guy who employs lots of these insect-men, and now we find 1 of them dead here. Totally not suspicious.

Yeah, check the dead body.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to investigate the body.

[Queen of Swords]

Yes, investigate the body.

[Beroli]

The insect man sits on the floor, with his back resting against the column. As you thought, the Mant is dead; the black carapace is punctured by several deep wounds, from which a thick yellow blood has oozed. A second body lies a few metres away, partially hidden behind a column.

‘Look out!’ Jardakka pushes you to one side, just in time to avoid the arrow speeding towards you. The shaft buries itself deep in the chest of the dead insect man.

An exotic creature slithers out from behind the columns of the hall. The woman has the arms and head of a human female but the long sinuous body of a serpent. She holds her body upright, like a cobra poised to strike, but her long tail trails across the floor behind her. Even her head is not fully human because she has the large yellow eyes of a snake. A quiver is strapped to her back. As you stare, the snake woman strings another arrow to her bow.

‘Silver arrowsss,’ the SERPENTINE hisses. ‘They did for the dead women. If you do not give me the mirror they will finish you too.’

‘I’ll see you burn first!’ Jardakka cries, her eyes flashing dangerously. But in the next moment she groans and sinks back against the sarcophagus, an arrow shaft protruding from her thigh. The Red-Eye drops her sword and sinks to the ground, clutching her wounded leg.

The Serpentine has time to fire one more arrow at you. Testing her Skill of 9, the result is 7: success. Take 3 damage.

As you rush at the Serpentine, she throws down her bow and pulls a dagger from inside her clothes. Jardakka is too badly wounded to take any part in this battle; you must face the snake woman alone.

SERPENTINE Skill 9 Stamina 6

If she wins two consecutive Attack Rounds, something will happen even if you survive the damage. Vote on how to use Luck here.

[spoiler=Adventure Sheet]
Name: Rey Ulthran
Skill: 10/12
Stamina: 3/16
Luck: 8/11

Gold Pieces: 2
[/spoiler]

[Queen of Swords]

Use Luck to reduce any damage done to us.

[Thaluikhain]

Use Luck to increase damage done to her as well.

[SGamerz]

I think we should focus on using LUCK to increase damage.

****

And of course, it turns out that we could have absconded with the mirror and sell it in some other city for cash (that Fox cheated from us) anyway, since the shield maidens apparently got offed and can't pursue us any further, and if we never came back here, we'd have avoided the Serpentine too. While she may still try to pursue us after that, at least she's mortal and easier to kill (and theoretically we might even get the chance to heal up before we face her).

I kind of like the irony of the shield maidens being destroyed by what is essentially a living, reptilian version of themselves, a loyal servant obsessed with seeking justice for her victimized master, which drives her to murder anything in her path to that end. But the method is kind of a letdown after all the hype about how hard it supposedly is to destroy those things. Silver arrows? Really? Yes, silver is classically know to be able to harm undead spirits, but the PC spent so much of the book taking big risks (gambling with Vik) or making gruesome sacrifice (losing an eye to the witch) to learn information which apparently conveyed how difficult it was to kill those beings, and it turned out that you could have done it with something that's so commonly featured all the time in other gamebooks. Why the hell didn't anyone think to try that first before even considering all the more convoluted methods? Maybe the Sightmaster and Jadarkka aren't supposed to be good archers, but if a silver arrow works, a silver sword, dagger or staff should do just as well. Is there no silversmith in Khare? Maybe Fox and gang have been operating in the wrong shady city all this time. They should have gone to Allansia and tried their luck at Blacksand. Ben Borryman could have given them a solution to this little issue in a few hours' time.

[JourneymanN00b]

Use Luck to increase damage.

[Beroli]

3-0 for using luck to increase damage done, 1-0 for using luck to reduce damage taken.

[spoiler=Serpentine]
Round One: Rey 14, Serpentine 14.
Round Two: Rey 16, Serpentine 20. Luck test 4, success. Rey's Stamina: 2.
Round Three: Rey 17, Serpentine 16. Luck test 7, barely success. Serpentine's Stamina: 2.
Round Four: Rey 16, Serpentine 13. Victory.[/spoiler]

The serpent’s coils continue to writhe even in death, smearing the stone floor with blood. Only when it lies still do you dare to turn your back on the corpse and attend to Jardakka. The wounded Red-Eye waves you away impatiently; with a nod towards the sarcophagus she indicates what you must do.

Your torch still lies where you dropped it; the flame has burned low and the burial chamber is now in almost complete darkness. You walk over to the sarcophagus and place the mirror of Iltikar in the hands of the dead queen.

As you do so, a bright light flares behind you, the columns casting long shadows across the floor. You turn and see a tall, slender woman glowing in the darkness like a candle flame; Libra, goddess of justice. Her light illuminates the dark tomb and you become aware of the paintings that adorn the walls around you.

For a brief moment, you see life as it must have been lived two thousand years before your birth. A reed boat sails upon the lake; fishermen struggle to pull up a net containing a huge fish with scales of brilliant blue, while waterbirds spread their wings across the stone sky. Seated upon a throne of painted gold, Queen Iltikar presides majestically over the scene, surrounded by her Shield Maidens. The warriors seem to turn their white faces towards you.

Then the light grows brighter; the brilliant paintings fade from view and, when you can open your eyes again, it is to look upon the pale glow of dawn. You are lying on a straw pallet in your room. Through the open window you can hear the familiar sounds of the cityport waking up: orclings bickering on their way to school, the rumble of carts going to market and, in the distance, the cries of gulls over the River Jabaji. Someone passing in the street below curses loudly; his gold has been stolen. You have come home.

[Beroli]

And that's it; I'll be starting another Let's Play shortly. For now, what you missed:

There is no way to get Shar-kali-Sharri to give the mirror back voluntarily. The money he gave Fox, which Fox cheated you of, is probably in Vik's hands now.

Fox is dead. How he dies is somewhat ambiguous, but either way you saw him alive in the maximum possible number of passages. In at least one path, he gets killed by the skeleton minions of the Third Noble after Hagbut the Gnome, to save his own hide, tells them, truthfully or otherwise, that he sold the Sword of Glantanka to members of Fox's gang.

You can potentially buy Water of Life, which will protect you from being poisoned. If the Serpentine, in either of your fights with her, wins two rounds in a row, she bites you. If you try to grab the mirror from Shar-kali-Sharri's daughter the Serpentine automatically bites you. If she bites you, you get sent to a passage that asks, "Have you drunk the Water of Life?" It's actually a Morton's Fork, with the two options amounting to "you die of poisoning" and "you die of poisoning, realizing in your last few seconds of life that you were conned."

If you win the gambling game against Vik, he tells you that he used a beeswax candle and a spell of exorcism to get rid of the Shieldmaidens when they came after him. Fox will confirm that he can cast a spell of exorcism, but this is a false path: while you can potentially buy a beeswax candle, Fox is dead by that time and you have no chance to find another sorcerer who will cast the spell for you.

If the Serpentine and Shar-kali-Sharri catch you breaking into Shar-kali-Sharri's house and they haven't met you before, you can (if you pass a Luck test) convince Shar-kali-Sharri that you are a fellow worshiper of Libra and thus can't be a street thief. In this case, he tells you he's not discussing the mirror in the middle of the night with someone who broke into his house, but to come back tomorrow to discuss it. This is also a false path: one way or another, you will not be both alive and pursued by the Shieldmaidens by the time the next day arrives.

True paths consist of the one you saw (...giving up an eye by going 80% of the way down a different path optional...) and:

If you tell Hagbut you can't afford the sword but want protection from the undead, he can potentially sell you holy water. If you then try to use the holy water against the Shieldmaidens, it will do nothing; they're undead but not evil. However, if you use it against the spirits summoned by the Witch of Krooe, you can get out of giving them an eye. Without holy water, refusing them payment equals immediate death.

If you smash the mirror (editing issue: it refers to you having only one eye, which doesn't have to be the case, as just described), Jardakka thinks you're safe, but you realize that's not the case: breaking the mirror has made the Shieldmaidens mortal, but you'll still have to fight them that night.

If you fight the Shieldmaidens under any other circumstances, you lose one Skill point in addition to the usual 2 Stamina whenever they win a combat round. If you fight them after the mirror has been broken, they have none of their supernatural abilities: vulnerable to your quarterstaff, do standard 2 Stamina wounds, and if you kill they both they stay dead.

Alternatively--another path you started down--if you fight the Shieldmaidens with the Sword of Glantanka, they'll stay dead if killed. However, of course, if you end the adventure by killing the Shieldmaidens rather than by avenging their deaths and returning the mirror, you lose Libra's favor, which causes your character to have an existential crisis: "You left Analand in search of adventure, and adventure calls you still. But in future you resolve to lend your sword to nobler causes than robbing tombs. Perhaps in this way you may one day regain the help and support of Libra. Your next adventure begins here."

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Thaluikhain]

I kind of like the irony of the shield maidens being destroyed by what is essentially a living, reptilian version of themselves, a loyal servant obsessed with seeking justice for her victimized master, which drives her to murder anything in her path to that end. But the method is kind of a letdown after all the hype about how hard it supposedly is to destroy those things. Silver arrows? Really? Yes, silver is classically know to be able to harm undead spirits, but the PC spent so much of the book taking big risks (gambling with Vik) or making gruesome sacrifice (losing an eye to the witch) to learn information which apparently conveyed how difficult it was to kill those beings, and it turned out that you could have done it with something that's so commonly featured all the time in other gamebooks. Why the hell didn't anyone think to try that first before even considering all the more convoluted methods? Maybe the Sightmaster and Jadarkka aren't supposed to be good archers, but if a silver arrow works, a silver sword, dagger or staff should do just as well. Is there no silversmith in Khare? Maybe Fox and gang have been operating in the wrong shady city all this time. They should have gone to Allansia and tried their luck at Blacksand. Ben Borryman could have given them a solution to this little issue in a few hours' time.

It's also not specified that it had to be silver arrows, so maybe throwing a coin at them would have given them silver poisoning.

[SGamerz]

You can potentially buy Water of Life, which will protect you from being poisoned. If the Serpentine, in either of your fights with her, wins two rounds in a row, she bites you.

Actually, no, it doesn't. The potion is a phony one, and you still die. Another pure red herring in this book (there are a few of those).

[SGamerz]

I've posted a lot of criticisms/complaints on the book's premise and its treatment of Justice, which is a pity, because I actually think there's a lot to like about this book. I think the overall writing about setting character interactions and atmosphere is well-done and involving. I like the design in general and that there are several ways to survive the book and "win", even if I take issue with what's clearly considered the "best" ending by the author. You don't need to roll ridiculous stats to win, since there are no super-stat opponents or too many mandatory stat tests. Even the pure red herrings (like Vik's story and the wax candle) are pretty entertainingly set up. If it wasn't for the terrible clash between the premise and the design, I'd say this is easily one of the best 3 of all the Fighting Fantazine mini-adventures.

I mentioned this earlier, but it was in code because what I posted also involved some spoilers about the endings. Basically, I think the involvement of LIbra's divine intervention is actually detrimental to the story, and it would have been better to leave her out of it. I don't see any need for her involvement either, and I think the only reason she's there is because the author is clearly a big fan of the Sorcery series and simply wants to include as many things from that series as he can into this. But it's a poor combination with the character of the PC and the design he set up in this book. Libra was an actual mechanism to get you out of trouble in Sorcery. Here, calling for her aid was a red herring, and she exists only to 1) provide exposition about the reason you are in trouble, and 2) give you the reason/motivation for this adventure. Both of this could easily have been done by the Shield Maidens. All the author had to do was give them the ability to talk, and let them deliver a threat/warning for the PC to return what his gang stole, and that they face death if they don't do it by tomorrow night. Having 2 undead assassins after you is quite sufficient motivation to have this adventure, and we don't really need more.

The adding of LIbra supposedly adds a moral reason for you to want to do this other than just survival, which, on its own, is actually fine, but as Beroli just confirmed, there is simply no way we can do this "honestly" by getting the Cyclops to hand us back the mirror willingly and without conflict. If you want to include some moral lesson in the adventure, then there absolutely needs to be a 100% morally just way to resolve this, but there isn't. The most just way is probably to be able to seize Fox and force him to cough out the money to pay back to the merchant. And ironically, Fox was the one guy in the gang who most deserves a dose of justice dished out on him (but somehow the only one the maidens never target): he not only masterminded the grave robbery, he also cheated his own partners. But while he does die, and there's no way to confirm how he died other than 1 particular path where he was killed by the Third Noble's servants for something he didn't do, it's highly unlikely that the shield maidens were ever involved in that, because they can't act during the daytime, and that was when Fox died. So yes, even the most morally-questionable living character in the book dies by unjust means.

This would have been perfectly fine as a pure "survive by any means necessary" challenge adventure, but when you try to forcefully insert Libra and her moral lessons, the premise feels like a big joke. If, say, a Goddess of Mercy berates you for killing an innocent person, and tells her she will only accept you again if you find the Waters of Life to resurrect said innocent victim, and then you proceed to complete the mission by finding the water, and brutally murdering 3 other innocent people who got in your way in the process, would you think the Goddess should have accepted it as sufficient to regain her favour? If it does, then the Goddess is clearly a phony or hypocrite. This is what it feels like here. If you don't return the stolen mirror and instead find a way to kill the Shield Maidens, you lose Libra's favour forever. But if you accomplish the mission by stealing from another innocent victim (who, I stress again, paid for it fairly), and then kill off his loyal servant who was only doing exactly what the shield maidens were doing, except a little more competently because she actually catches you with the loot, Libra somehow finds it a totally acceptable way to do it just because we fulfilled her condition to the letter despite doing so in a completely unjust manner.

I actually do like that the shield maidens die in all the endings where you survive, even the one where you return the mirror. At least the author seems to agree that they're complete waste of space (he should; he wrote them after all). Other than the fact that they were blessed by a goddess (which I think is the only reason holy water doesn't affect them - them not being evil has nothing to do with it, holy water usually affects all common ghosts, even non-evil ones, and I'm not sure you can say they're not evil), they're no different from any of the loyal undead guardians that evil sorcerers set to guard their tombs. Loyalty and goodness aren't directly related. Actually, they're worse that most undead guardians, because most of them actually make an effort to stop the attempted burglary while they're happening. These 2 incompetent buffoons come after you after the fact. And they're clearly less interested in recovering stolen loot for their mistress and more interested in killing people who caused the offence. NONE of the people they targeted had the mirror with them. Is it because they don't know who has it? No, because they are bound to the mirror, so they can't not know. Are they unable to target the Cyclops because he was not one of the robbers? But what about Fox, he had mirror while we were still travelling on the boat. Why wasn't he the first victim? You can't really find any excuses for these bums besides sheer incompetence. They can't even be called guardians, because they never guarded anything (and if they'd tried when the Serpentine invaded the tomb, they failed spectacularly, as expected). They're mindless tools of vengeance and death, plain and simple, just like the zombies raised by evil necromancers, and the world of Titan may be slightly better off without them.

In comparison, I actually kind of regret that we had to kill the Serpentine in self-defense, because she actually made a decent effort to do her job which was similar to what the maidens did, except she did a better job in tracking down the loot. That was why I mentioned (in code) that I prefer the ending where we kill the maidens ourselves with the Sword of Glantanka, even though it may be more difficult. We lose Libra's favour this way, but I think even Beroli agreed that she was, at least, a poor fit for the PC's character to begin with anyway, and probably should have cut ties long ago.

I don't think there was any sequel ever planned for this, but I can think of 2 scenarios right off the top of my head:

1) The PC wakes up the next day and realizes that Libra triggered the time loop again, because even more injustice was committed in his last attempt, and those need to be corrected too. The PC spends the whole adventure trying to get honest, high-paying job to raise the 300 gp to legally buy the mirror back from the Cyclops so that this can end in a true, Just manner. Alternatively, try to catch Fox before he gets offed and wring the money that he cheated back from him.

2) The Cyclops learns about his secretary's murder and sends powerful assassins after the PC. As they hunt him down and threaten to overcome him, he calls for Libra's help, and she replies "I won't help you because you committed the injustice of stealing from an honest merchant, and I will only answer your call again after you've returned him what's stolen." The PC spends the adventure stuck in an endless loop as he steals the mirror again and again and moves them back and forth between his 2 victims until he goes insane, or finally says, "screw this", repudiates Libra, and turns to worshipping an evil god to help him get rid of both sides (or more like, he turns evil AND goes insane).

[JourneymanN00b]

Thank you for running this, Beroli.

[Queen of Swords]

Thanks for hosting this!

What happens if, instead of rowing, we tell the galley's captain that we're friends of Vik?

[SGamerz]

We need to tell him what is the mark on Vik's door. It's a "A =1, B=2..." sort of puzzle.

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for hosting.

[Beroli]

You can potentially buy Water of Life, which will protect you from being poisoned. If the Serpentine, in either of your fights with her, wins two rounds in a row, she bites you.

Actually, no, it doesn't. The potion is a phony one, and you still die. Another pure red herring in this book (there are a few of those).

This is why you read the entire paragraph.

Thanks for hosting this!

What happens if, instead of rowing, we tell the galley's captain that we're friends of Vik?

He says "if you are, you'll know Vik's mark," and the gamebook tells you Vik's mark is on his door. If you went to visit Vik (which you did but then Libra rewound it), you know the mark on Vik's door is a black sun. If you tell him that, he agrees to take you for free because he's scared of Vik. If you have to say you don't know, he glares at you for trying to trick him but he still accepts you as a rower.

[SGamerz]

You can potentially buy Water of Life, which will protect you from being poisoned. If the Serpentine, in either of your fights with her, wins two rounds in a row, she bites you.

Actually, no, it doesn't. The potion is a phony one, and you still die. Another pure red herring in this book (there are a few of those).

This is why you read the entire paragraph.

You are correct in this,

But I'd still nitpick and say that the statement "which will protect you from being poisoned" is still factually wrong and misleading, and should have been worded as "which you are told is supposed to protect you from being poisoned".

[Beroli]

I appreciate the thanks.