[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 23 - Masks of Mayhem!

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:48 am

Keep left.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jan 09, 2021 5:33 pm

It's as good as any direction.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:35 pm

Left seems fine to me

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:05 am

After a while the wall abruptly comes to an end. You lose your balance and fall into a room hollowed out of the rock. There are confused scuffles, and then a lamp is lit. Perhaps this was once a guard-room for whatever were in charge of the mine, but now it is occupied by a family of Doragars! Doragars are an immensely strong race, a cross between Orca and Trolls, and were often used for hard physical labour like mining. It may be that this family is descended from the very slaves who once worked the mine. But you have no time to ask this lot about their ancestry. The male Doragar is attacking, wielding an axe, while the female picks up the two young ones and runs screaming down the tunnel to the west.

DORAGAR SKILL 9 STAMINA 10

If you win, you search the room. Doragars are famous for hoarding trinkets.

Another mixed breed. Mr Waterfield seems to like these. Those Orcs really do get around.

COMBAT LOG:

Doragar 20, Arthur 21. Doragar is at 8.
Doragar 18, Arthur 22. Doragar is at 6.
Doragar 16, Arthur 20. Doragar is at 4.
Doragar 15, Arthur 18. Doragar is at 2.
Doragar 17, Arthur 23. Doragar is at 8.

The Doragar didn't roll too badly, but it was still not enough to overcome the SKILL gap, and King Arthur emerges with his first flawless victory.

There is quite a collection of stuff, mostly worthless. You don't have time to make a thorough search, in case the female returns and sees what you've done to her husband; but you have time to grab three of the following items: a plain brass ear-ring; a Snatta-cat's task, which has been engraved with delicate interweaving patterns; a leather pouch, which is tightly closed with a drawstring; 5 Gold Pieces; a stone statuette of some goddess; and empty water-flask. Choose what to take, then, since you don't want to meet the rest of the Doragar family, turn east to 141.

At least the ruler of Arion seems to have adapted to this adventuring business pretty well, taking to breaking into homes of people just minding their own business, killing then, and looting their home with much aplomb. Alright, so the breaking in was an accident, and the killing was self-defense, but it doesn't take long for him to adjust to the situation and enthusiastically loot the home of the woman he just widowed and the children he just orphaned.

We can certainly use the new water flash, although the players actually aren't obligated to take it. Pick your loot!

JourneymanN00b · Post by **JourneymanN00b** » Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:25 am

My vote is to take:

The Snatta-cat's tusk, because delicate interweaving patterns indicates that it must be valuable or at least useful to King Arthur
5 Gold Pieces, since we could always use some money to get us out of a tight spot
The empty water-flask, so that we can fully benefit from the provisions we carry

My preferred items are from top to bottom in case that is taken into account in the voting.

Queen of Swords · Post by **Queen of Swords** » Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:25 pm

Only three items? Okay, let's take...

The Snattacat's tusk, because if someone has gone to the trouble of engraving it, it's probably valuable in some way.
The water flask to replace the one that got rotted.
The stone statuette of a goddess.

The Doragar family can keep the money to compensate them for their father's tragic death.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:54 pm

Queen of Swords wrote:Only three items? Okay, let's take...

The Snattacat's tusk, because if someone has gone to the trouble of engraving it, it's probably valuable in some way.
The water flask to replace the one that got rotted.
The stone statuette of a goddess.

I concur. As I've stated before, the use of money undermines this monarch's complete self-reliance.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Mon Jan 11, 2021 2:13 am

Agree with Queen

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:30 am

Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, turn to 86; if you are Unlucky, turn to 163.

Dice roll = 11 (Unlucky)!

You step into thing air. Your adventure ends at the bottom of the chasm.

Yes, that's the same death-paragraph that we narrowly avoided with a Luck test earlier. I guess it makes sense that we have to test for it again on our way back, since we never realized the threat was there, but it's still a pretty brutal arbitrary lethal trap for what is actually on the optimal path.

Yes, one of the items we can loot at the Doragar home was a vital item, so we can't avoid the double Luck tests if we want to win.

Rewinding to try again...

Dice roll = 3 (Lucky).

Again you safely cross the chasm in the darkness. The gods must be smiling on you. Regain 1 LUCK point. If you have not stopped to eat Provisions so far during your underground journey, lose 2 STAMINA points. Your journey is long, but nothing happens. You pass the spot where the main shaft enters the mine, and carry on eastwards.

At least we got 1 of the 2 spent LUCK points back. Unfortunately, maybe we should have waited till we got our new flask before eating earlier, since we now lose 2 of the 3 STAMINA we regained from our last meal (which happened before we came down the shaft).

Well, as it turned out, we had to go east after all. I hope it's at least some comfort to the anti-fascism fighters that since we're backtracking, we turned back 180 degrees instead of turning right in getting there. You can tell yourself that Arthur took a counter-clockwise turn to turn himself around so he still turned left in the process of heading back east.

About half a kilometer beyond the main shaft, a side-passage opens up to your right; a truly horrible smell is issuing from it. Will you take it or continue along the main tunnel?

The author knows how this board thinks, it seems, and has made this new right-turn option appear unappealing due to bad smell.

Check out the smelly stuff to our right?

Adventure Sheet:

Name: King Arthur Anric
SKILL 12/12
STAMINA 11/15
LUCK 7/9
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Backpack, Potion of Fortune (+1 to Initial LUCK, restores LUCK to new Initial value), Helmet, sorrels, Iron Sceptre ("There should be just one ruler"), Copper Nugget, Pick-axe head, Snatta-cat's Tusk, Stone Statuette of a Goddess, Water Flask
Provisions: 9
Notes: 1) When allowed to call on Galrin's help, turn to section 100.
Number of failures:
1) Randomly shot in the back by a random Blackheart in some random mine shaft.
2) Fell down a chasm of unknown depths in the same random mine shaft

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:55 am

There is a stink to the right and we must clean it.

Queen of Swords · Post by **Queen of Swords** » Mon Jan 11, 2021 12:30 pm

Now that we've got useful and potentially useful items, I doubt there's added value from investigating further. Main tunnel.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Mon Jan 11, 2021 4:40 pm

So my guess is that there’s either something essential here or nothing but a potential instadeath. I’m leaning towards the latter since we just picked up a bunch of probable plot coupons. So avoid the stench of the right; fascists have sullied our history long enough.

JourneymanN00b · Post by **JourneymanN00b** » Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:32 pm

My vote is to continue along the tunnel. There is still far too much fascism going around at present, and we should absolutely stay away from such a route, especially one with a truly horrible smell.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:01 am

Check out the right.

That said, I'm happy with the current situation where I'm outvoted. Noob has had unerring instincts regarding negative consequences in this module.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Tue Jan 12, 2021 2:41 am

I'd say explore the stinky hole, but only half vote to avid a tie.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 9:09 am

Arthur narrowly resists the urge to follow the stink.

Shortly, you reach a spot where the floor has subsided, and a pool or stagnant water has formed, which is about a metre deep and three metres wide. Will you try to jump over the pool, or wade through it?

Ho0w do we get past this obstacle?

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 9:50 am

Worse thing to happen while jumping is ending up wading, I guess, so try that.

JourneymanN00b · Post by **JourneymanN00b** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:21 pm

My vote is to eat a Provision, and to wade in the water. This is because we probably have to Test our Luck if we have King Arthur jump, and we really cannot afford to waste too many Luck points.

Queen of Swords · Post by **Queen of Swords** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:04 pm

JourneymanN00b wrote:This is because we probably have to Test our Luck if we have King Arthur jump, and we really cannot afford to waste too many Luck points.

That's a good point. I also doubt that wading is an insta-death because we've already had that in the shape of the narrow stone bridge over the chasm, so let's go ahead and wade.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:06 pm

Yeah, I’d be down to wade through.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 5:42 pm

Wade seems fine.

SGamerz · Post by **SGamerz** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:02 am

When you are about halfway across, the Water Snake which inhabits the pool coils itself around your legs. This really makes it very difficult to walk. Will you poke at the Water Snake with your sword, or carry on struggling through?

Do we want to use our penetrative implement, or tolerate the bondage?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:28 am

Penetrate the snake.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 10:40 am

Given we have a choice, I'm half voting for ignoring it.

Queen of Swords · Post by **Queen of Swords** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 1:12 pm

I'll go with ignoring it. It's not actively trying to hurt us, and I'm concerned that jabbing it with a sword will make it attack.

Let it hug our leg.