[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 55 - Deathmoor

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to draw our sword in preparation for whatever it may turn out to be.

[SGamerz]

You point your sword menacingly in the direction of the shape in the corner Light from the rising moon glints softly on the blade and gives you courage. '"Who's there?" you call out softly, but a pathetic whimper is the only response. The unknown is always frightening and fear is beginning to chill your heart once more. Will you now change your mind and strike at the shape or persist in a gentler approach?

[Thaluikhain]

Persist in not randomly attacking things without good cause.

[Queen of Swords]

Gentler approach.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to persist in a gentler approach, as acting like a psychopath is clearly not the winning strategy this adventure.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Persist in a gentler approach.

[SGamerz]

You step forward and discover the huddled figure of a middle-aged peasant woman; she is dying from a terrible beating. Before breathing her last, however, she manages to gasp out her tale. The half-giant, Otus, forced her to put him up in her cottage. She was the only one in the village he feared at all, since she was a medicine woman and knew a few potions and spells, and he wanted to keep an eye on her while he waited for you to arrive from Arion. Late last night she tried to burn him alive by setting fire to her own home and then fleeing, but he followed her, unharmed, and caught up with her in a stand of oak trees. Once he had finished with her, he left her for dead. "But I wasn't quite dead," she says. "I came home to die. And he dropped something while he was busy murdering me. I don't know what it is, but I've put an Invisibility spell on it." 'She tells you how to undo the spell, then slips gently into death. When you find yourself in a stand of oaks, add 50 to the number of the paragraph you are at, and you will find whatever it is Otus lost. For now, you bury the woman with reverence and leave the village. You feel too sad to spend the night with her ghost in what remains of her cottage, so you camp out in the open.

Although you plan to stay awake all night, the warmth from your campfire makes you drowsy and your head begins to nod forward on to your chest. Roll one dice. If you roll 1-3, turn to 235; if you roll 4-6, turn to 371.

Die roll = 2.

You are deeply asleep, but you suddenly wake up with a start. What was that? You can hear a snuffling sound to your left, and you leap up to confront a lone timber wolf which has been feasting on the Provisions from your backpack. Her eyes glint red in the firelight and her defence is savage, because back in her den her hungry cubs are anxiously awaiting her return.

TIMBER WOLF SKILL 6 STAMINA 8

If you win, you find that she has eaten half your remaining Provisions (round odd numbers down). You doze fitfully for the rest of the night, and in the morning you try to pick up Otus' trail.

The fight itself probably won't be much of a problem, but losing half our Provisions sucks big time.

COMBAT LOG:
Timber Wolf 17, Waluigi 18. TW is at 6.
TW 14, Waluigi 14. Tie.
TW 13, Waluigi 16. TW is at 4.
TW 8, Waluigi 16. TW is at 2.
TW 10, Waluigi 18. TW is killed.

You make slow progress because you are spending time backtracking, looking for blades of crushed grass, overturned pebbles, broken twigs - anything that might show which way Otus went. By mid-morning you have progressed only a kilometre or two, and you stop to rest in the shade of a stand of oaks. You decide your best bet will be to enter dread Deathmoor and explore, since that is obviously where Otus was making for.

By noon of the following day you have reached the edge of Deathmoor. You are now confronted by a fast-flowing river whose surface is covered in scum and putrid fish. You need to find a way across the river: you can follow it upstream to the north or downstream to the south.

Before we choose a direction to follow the river, we can first make use of the information we learned from the dying woman earlier to undo the Invisibility spell at the stand of oaks:

You reverse the Invisibility spell, just as the wise woman taught you You find a curious object, whose purpose it is hard to guess at. It is about the size of a large key but it looks like a branding-iron, since it ends in a flat face. On the circular face is inscribed a crescent moon and the number '112'. Whatever it is, though, it feels important; restore1 LUCK point. You store the objects away in your backpack (add it to your possessions on your Adventure Sheet) You decide your best bet is to enter dread Deathmoor and explore, since it is obviously where Otus was heading.

By noon of the following day you have reached the edge of Deathmoor. You are now confronted by a fast-flowing river whose surface is covered in scum and putrid fish. You need to find a way across the river: you can follow it upstream to the north or downstream to the south.

Which way to go now?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Waluigi
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 12/16
LUCK 7/11
Equipment: Sword, leather armour, Potion of Fortune, King Jonthane's letter (number '88'), large phial of sallow-seed oil, a needle and some thread, tinderbox and flint, lodestone, lamp, Crescent Moon Key (number '112')
Provisions: 5 (only restores 3 STAMINA per meal for rest of the adventure)
Gold: 8
Boons: Magic Mushroom (x1)
Notes: Visit the City Guard station at room 56 next morning to check if the murderer has been arrested. 2 of the 3 half-giants (not named Otus) working for 'A' loathe each other, and their love of money and their hostility towards each other make them less loyal to 'A' personally (reference from section 312).
[/spoiler]

[Queen of Swords]

...back in her den her hungry cubs are anxiously awaiting her return.

Aw. Now the cubs will starve.

Follow the river upstream.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Upstream sounds good to me.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to follow the river upstream to the north.

[SGamerz]

This will, of course, take you towards the source of the river's pollution. The stench in the afternoon sun is appalling. Short of swimming, which you definitely don't fancy, there is no way to cross the river here. Ahead of you, an unearthly grey cloud, streaked with gouts of livid green flame, appears between two hills: this is obviously the source of the pollution. Then you come across a series of platforms which resemble stepping-stones across the river, except that they are bobbing on the surface. Will you make for the grey-green cloud, try to cross the river on the bobbing platforms, or retrace your steps and head downstream?

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to try to cross the river on the bobbing platforms, as that seems to be safer than heading for the cloud, and turning back seems to be off the One True Path.

[SGamerz]

There are four platforms with quite wide stretches of river in between them, but each platform is large enough for you to get a good run up in order to jump for the next one. However, since each platform will sink into the foul water if you linger, you must simply run and jump four times non-stop. This makes the crossing progressively harder. Roll one dice four times. The first time, you are successful if you roll 1-5, for the second roll you. need 1-4, for the third roll 1-3, and for the fourth and final roll 1-2. If you fall off the first platform, you can swim back to the eastern bank for the loss of 2 STAMINA points caused by damage from the poisonous water. If you fall off the second platform, you swim back to the eastern bark but lose 4 STAMINA points. If you fall off the third platform, you must swim on to the western bank and lose 4 STAMINA points. If you fall off the fourth platform, you swim to the western bank but lose 2 STAMINA points. If you end up on the western bank, as intended, turn to 159. If you end up back on the eastern bank, you can either try again or give up and head south, or investigate the bilious grey-green cloud.

This is actually a kind of trial that we don't see to often in these books, and one that makes sense, too.

1st roll = 6 (really bad luck here). Waluigi is at 10 STAMINA.

Let's try that again:

1st roll = 2 (pass).
2nd roll = 6 (sigh). Waluigi is at 6 STAMINA.

Do we want to keep trying? Or should we try something else? (Feel free to vote on meal usage if you think it necessary.)

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Waluigi
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 6/16
LUCK 7/11
Equipment: Sword, leather armour, Potion of Fortune, King Jonthane's letter (number '88'), large phial of sallow-seed oil, a needle and some thread, tinderbox and flint, lodestone, lamp, Crescent Moon Key (number '112')
Provisions: 5 (only restores 3 STAMINA per meal for rest of the adventure)
Gold: 8
Boons: Magic Mushroom (x1)
Notes: Visit the City Guard station at room 56 next morning to check if the murderer has been arrested. 2 of the 3 half-giants (not named Otus) working for 'A' loathe each other, and their love of money and their hostility towards each other make them less loyal to 'A' personally (reference from section 312).
[/spoiler]

[Queen of Swords]

Eat a meal and investigate the cloud.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to eat 3 meals and try again.

[SGamerz]

Without a tiebreaker, randomizer determined that Waluigi will eat a meal and try once more:

1st roll = 4 (Pass).
2nd roll = 3 (Pass).
3rd roll = 1 (Pass).
4th roll = 3 (Fail!)

Waluigi falls into the putrid water again, but this time he's closer to the other side, and makes it to the west end with 7 STAMINA.

The shadows are lengthening as you trudge up a ridge and look down on to another valley below- Will you camp until morning or press on through the night?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Waluigi
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 7/16
LUCK 7/11
Equipment: Sword, leather armour, Potion of Fortune, King Jonthane's letter (number '88'), large phial of sallow-seed oil, a needle and some thread, tinderbox and flint, lodestone, lamp, Crescent Moon Key (number '112')
Provisions: 4 (only restores 3 STAMINA per meal for rest of the adventure)
Gold: 8
Boons: Magic Mushroom (x1)
Notes: Visit the City Guard station at room 56 next morning to check if the murderer has been arrested. 2 of the 3 half-giants (not named Otus) working for 'A' loathe each other, and their love of money and their hostility towards each other make them less loyal to 'A' personally (reference from section 312).
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to eat 3 Provisions and camp until morning.

[Darth Rabbitt]

That sounds good to me.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, sounds reasonable.

[SGamerz]

During the evening the mists come down and you spend a chilly, restless night huddled under a low bank at the western foot of the ridge, before continuing on your way in the mid-morning, after the sun has broken through and dispersed the cloud. Will you go north, south or west?

I flipped to the section first before eating just to see if the sleep restores any STAMINA, but it doesn't. So Waluigi takes a heavy breakfast of 3 meals (I guess it saves him the trouble of stopping for lunch and dinner later) to restore his STAMINA back to max. Note that we're down to our last meal.

Which way do we go now?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Waluigi
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 16/16
LUCK 7/11
Equipment: Sword, leather armour, Potion of Fortune, King Jonthane's letter (number '88'), large phial of sallow-seed oil, a needle and some thread, tinderbox and flint, lodestone, lamp, Crescent Moon Key (number '112')
Provisions: 1 (only restores 3 STAMINA per meal for rest of the adventure)
Gold: 8
Boons: Magic Mushroom (x1)
Notes: Visit the City Guard station at room 56 next morning to check if the murderer has been arrested. 2 of the 3 half-giants (not named Otus) working for 'A' loathe each other, and their love of money and their hostility towards each other make them less loyal to 'A' personally (reference from section 312).
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to go north, as that was the direction we were originally heading.

[Queen of Swords]

Sure, north.

[Thaluikhain]

That makes sense.

[SGamerz]

You are walking through' a valley; bleak hills rise to either side. You have a strong sense that you have been here before or maybe it's just that one piece of moorland looks much like another. The sun on your right is climbing in the sky, but it cannot dispel the fear in your heart as to what may lie ahead. Will you carry on or turn around?

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to carry on, as our hero cannot be afraid now to simple thoughts on what could lie ahead.