The Gaming Den

You decide that your best chance of catching a fish will be to make a spear, then to lie on the bank and wait for a passing fish. The water is clear, and you don't have any bait for a hook anyway.

But as you approach the edge of the lake, you slip on a rock and plunge feet first into the water. The lake is fed by a glacier and it is so icy cold that it takes your breath away. You struggle out of the water. Only your feet and part of your legs are wet but, even so, it leaves you gasping from shock of the cold water.

What should you do? Can you bear to take off your boots and clothes to dry them? Or is the thought of exposing your freezing legs to the elements too much to even consider?

If you decide to take off your clothes to get dry, go to page 82.
If you decide to keep walking and dry out that way, go to page 75.

Fishing:

- The lake is full of fish. Among the fish that are good to eat are perch, which are native to this part of the world, as well as salmon and trout, which have been introduced here from North America.

- To hide from the fish, make sure your shadow doesn't fall on the surface of the water.

- If you don't have any luck spearing fish with a sharpened stick, you could try making a trap. use a plastic bottle with the top section cut off, turned around, and placed back inside the bottle so that the bottle top is facing into the bottom of the bottle. Fish can swim in through the narrow neck, but will find it very difficult to get out again.

- The biggest danger when fishing here is the cold water. As you just found out the waters of a glacier-fed lake are freezing cold.

Exposing our legs to the water is going to make them cold even faster. Take our boots off to try them.

I vote to take off our clothes to get dry, as wet clothing is very bad to us temperature wise.

You're soaked from the knees down. You take off your wet pants, socks, and shoes, hopping from foot to foot to try to keep warm. At least you don't feel any colder without your wet clothes, but you're still absolutely freezing, You pull a spare T-shirt out of your backpack and rub your wet skin vigorously until you're dry. Then you wrap yourself up in a blanket and gather materials for a fire. This isn't easy with the blanket wrapped around the bottom of your legs and feet but luckily, you don't have to go far to find some bark for tinder, twigs fir kindling, and bigger twigs for the fire.

Once the fire is burning, you put your boots, socks, and pants out to dry, and take the opportunity to have a rest. You take two sturdy twigs, pick up some hot stones near the fire, and drop them into your boots to dry them out. You soon feel warm again. By the time your clothes and boots are dry, you're feeling fine.

Go to page 109.

Your stomach rumbles. You haven't had a meal for such a long time, and you're desperately hungry. You might start to feel weak if you don't find something to eat soon.

You spot a plant you think you recognize - beautiful trumpet-shaped red flowers hang from a small tree. You are sure you saw the plant in a book about the Andes that you were reading before you started your trek. That probably means it's one of the plants that's safe to eat.

If you decide to eat some of the plant, go to page 104.
If you decide not to eat it, go to page 90.

Wait, what happened to the fishing? We could have had salmon!

I don't want to take a risk with plants unless we know for sure that they're safe. So, a vote for not eating it.

I still want salmon.

Queen of Swords wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 05, 2023 4:24 pm

Wait, what happened to the fishing? We could have had salmon!

No explanations given, but I'm guessing the PC considers it too cold or too risky to try again without his clothes.

Don't eat.

I vote not to eat it, as the plants are probably poisonous.

Your stomach growls again. But you decide it's better to be hungry than risk eating a plant you're not completely sure about, and you're no feeling too weak yet.

You sense you're being watched and you spin around. You have to squint to see it but sitting on some rocks staring at you, is a gray animal that is well camouflaged against the rocks. It looks like a fox. You decide not to disturb it but, while you're looking at the fox, you're not watching where you're putting your feet. You stumble over a big stone, fall, and badly gash your hand on a sharp rock.

Blood is pouring from the deep wound. What should you do?

If you decide to bandage the wound, go to page 17.
If you decide to wash it in a nearby stream, go to page 59.

Patagonian Foxes:

- The animal you've seen is a Patagonian fox, or South American gray fox, which is native to Patagonia and western Argentina.

- These small predators weigh up to about ten pounds (4.5 kg).They mostly prey on rodents. They also eat berries, birds' eggs, and insects, and scavenge carrion or pumas' leftovers.

- The foxes' favourite food is hares, which aren't native to Patagonia. They were introduced from Europe in the 1800s.

- Patagonian foxes help one another out. Female foxes that don't have cubs share their food with other female foxes and their cubs. This cooperative behaviour helps the species survive.

Bandage the wound.

Bandaging is more important than cleaning at the moment.

I vote to bandage the wound.

Bandage, we don't know how clean the water is.

You know that the most important thing is to stop the bleeding, so you grab a spare T-shirt from your backpack and press it to the wound. After a few moments, the blood stops flowing. You tear the T-shirt into strips and make a bandage. You tie it firmly, but not too tightly, around your wound.

You sit down on a rock, have a drink of water, and feel much better. Something catches your eye. In the distance are some yellowy-white blobs, and you eventually realize that they're sheep. You can just about make out the fence keeping them in. A sheep farm must mean farmers!

You set off toward the fence.

After what seems lie a very long walk, you make it up to the fence.

In among the scattered sheep, you scan the horizon for signs of human life. You hear a faint shout and turn to see the most wonderful sight: two people on horseback, waving at you!

Before long, you're in a warm farmhouse, eating a hot meal and trying out your Spanish. Soon, you're reunited with your friends.

Your mountain adventure is over, and you're safe at last!

The End

.

Congratulations! You have made it to a successful ending!

There are more than 1 successful ending to these books (as I mentioned in spoiler text earlier, we just missed one of those very early on), but the one in the very last page is presumably the one the author intended as the ideal one after a lengthy adventure, and this is the one we've found. And we didn't hit any bad endings at all! Well done!

While this one is similar in design and style as the last book in the series that we run, I think the choices aren't quite as interesting. A lot of the right or wrong choices seem kind of obvious even to the average person with little outdoors survival knowledge (do we start a fire to keep warm at night? should we keep our wet clothes on? should we boil water before drinking). The less obvious choices generally also don't have much of an impact (choosing to spend the night a cave or in the trees made zero difference). There seems to be a relative lack of scenarios where the important right choices make good sense without looking as obvious (like choosing which side to launch the life raft in the last book).

Anyway, thanks to everyone who played! Like the last book, there'd be no summary of missed content, but I will be answering any questions you have.

Thanks for hosting this! Is the plant with the red flowers angel's trumpet?

Thank you for running this, SGamerz.

Queen of Swords wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:30 pm

Is the plant with the red flowers angel's trumpet?

Yep, and therefore poisonous. As the text describes, this is the blood-red version. It doesn't directly kill us if we eat it, but it makes us queasy and gives us hallucinations, and leaves us helpless in the freezing environment and we die from hypothermia.

Thanks for hosting. And yeah, this seemed a bit flat compared to the last one.