[Let’s Play] ACE Gamebook 02 – The Wicked Wizard of Oz

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes recognized; going left and saying no to fascism.

369

Making your way along the corridor you come to another sealed door. However, this one opens at your approach. Stepping through it you find yourself in a vast hangar-like space that is full of noise and smoke and steam. Your optical sensors are able to penetrate the obscuring clouds revealing the reality of the vast room to you.

You are standing on a steel-mesh walkway, halfway up the side of a vast, cathedral-sized factory. A hundred sparking processes are taking place before your artificial eyes. It is a veritable production line.

At one end of the factory, wreathed in smoke and steam, molten metal pours from furnaces into moulds which are then super-cooled. Elsewhere, massive hydraulically-driven cutting machines stamp pieces of armour out of inch thick steel plate, while rapidly moving robotic arms assemble the intricate inner workings of the devices being constructed by the plant, at a rate of one hundred an hour, relentlessly, hour after hour.

Every part of the process is united by a spider’s web of inter connecting conveyors, until the completed devices – suspended from a jerking aerial conveyor – disappear through a wide hatch into some other part of the factory complex. And what the factory is manufacturing appears to be you – at a rate of one hundred an hour – and you have no idea how long the factory has been in operation.

It takes a while for you to process what you are seeing and to understand the implications. You might have thought that you were unique but you were wrong. You were merely the first.

You do not detect any life signs within the factory. You are the only one here, other than for the army of replicas being constructed before your very optical sensors, but those droids have not been activated yet.

Nearby, further along the walkway, there is a bank of machines which includes a large switch. Perhaps it’s machine-mind vanity but part of your logical processes is telling you that you should bring production of the droids to a halt. Perhaps the switch would enable you to do that, or you could take a more drastic approach.

If you want to pull the plug on the operation by flicking the switch, turn to 349. If you want to utilise one of your special abilities to bring the production line to a halt, turn to 329. If you would rather leave well enough alone, turn to 312.

Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

[deaddmwalking]

I can't resist flipping a switch.

[JourneymanN00b]

Vote registered; flicking the switch.

349

You pull down hard on the metal switch, which slams down into place with a spring-loaded snap. At once the whirring robotic arms, crashing cutting machines and clanking conveyors come to a jerking standstill, leaving a dozen incomplete war droids swinging from their suspension cradles.

As the production line noise echoes into silence, previously glowing energy nodes fade into darkness.

Add the code word Downtime to your Adventure Sheet and turn to 312.

312

You are done here. You leave the factory through an archway on the opposite side of the vast hangar space, activating the closing mechanism behind you, just in case.

You find yourself in another gloomy, pipe-lined access way, which soon ends at a junction. From here the tunnel splits to left and right. A sensor scan does not reveal anything of particular interest in either direction.

Mounted on the wall in front of you is a glass-fronted box containing a large steel fire-axe. Painted on the glass are the words:

IN CASE OF FIRE – BREAK GLASS

If you want to smash the glass and take the axe, turn to 9. If you want to head left, turn to 292. If you want to head right instead, turn to 212.



Please make your votes by 9:00 AM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

The Wicked Wizard of Oz Adventure Sheet
Character: Tin Woodman
Agility: 8
Combat: 10
Endurance: 26
Special Abilities:
Brains: 3 uses
Lightning Bolts: 3 uses
Strength: 2 uses
Code Words:
Downtime
Equipment:
In combat: +1 Damage dealt, -1 Damage taken

[Thaluikhain]

Smash and grab!

[deaddmwalking]

Take the weapon!

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes acknowledged; smashing the glass and taking the axe.

9

The sound of breaking glass is loud in the confines of the corridor, but does not appear to attract any untoward attention. The Axe is heavy, made of solid steel, but you are able to wield it as if it were a child’s toy.

Add the Axe to your Adventure Sheet and make a note that every time you land a successful blow with the weapon it will cause 3 Endurance points of damage.

It is time you were on your way. If you want to head left, turn to 292. If you want to head right instead, turn to 212.

Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

The Wicked Wizard of Oz Adventure Sheet
Character: Tin Woodman
Agility: 8
Combat: 10
Endurance: 26
Special Abilities:
Brains: 3 uses
Lightning Bolts: 3 uses
Strength: 2 uses
Code Words:
Downtime
Equipment:
Axe (deals 3 Damage)
In combat: +1 Damage dealt, -1 Damage taken

[deaddmwalking]

Hopefully your signature is correct and we'll go left, the one true way.

[Thaluikhain]

May as well keep left.

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes recognized; once again standing against fascism by heading left.

292

You follow the passageway as it turns right and leads you to the foot of a tall metal staircase. Climbing the stairs you find yourself at one end of a vast hangar. Curved iron girders, like the steel ribcage of some enormous mechanical man, arch away above you. In fact, so high is the ceiling that your sensors detect clouds of condensation beneath the vaulted roof of the chamber.

But then the hangar has to be cyclopean in scale because of what it contains. Tethered inside are three airships. Two of them would be considered large by any measure, but the third dwarfs even these leviathans of the skies. Skinned with copper and bristling with harpoon nests it looks more like an ocean-going vessel than an airship. Six huge turbines – the diameter of each fan four times your height – are positioned in pairs equidistantly along its length, and atop the deck of the warship you can just make out what appear to be turrets and cast iron battlements.

Who could have built this armada, you wonder, and for what purpose?

It takes some time to traverse the length of the hangar – the roof of which looks like it could concertina open – and find a different way out.

Opening a wheel-locked door, you enter yet another passageway and follow this one as it leads you downwards, in a spiralling coil, back into the depths of the factory complex.

If you have either of the code words Downtime or Demolition written on your Adventure Sheet, turn to 61. If not, turn to 276.



Downtime is written on the Tin Woodman’s Adventure Sheet.

61

Continuing on your way, you enter a large hemi-spherical chamber. At the centre of the chamber is a deep cistern of churning filthy water, which enters the pool via various outlet pipes and which must come from all across the factory complex. An acrid mist fills the air and your sensors detect a combination of corrosive chemicals. To linger here for too long would cause irreparable damage to your robotic chassis.

Several passageways converge at this chamber but on the far side of the space is an angled tubular tunnel, containing an ascending steel staircase, and above it a green-glowing sign that reads ‘EXIT’.

Just as you are considering what to do, a dolorous klaxon starts to sound and caged lights on the chamber walls flash red. The most logical reason for the sirens is that someone has discovered you have escaped, and has raised the alarm.

Will you:

Wait and see what happens, now that the alarm has been raised?     Turn to 46.
Jump into the churning pool, hoping to escape through the factory’s waste outlet?     Turn to 310.
Leave via the tunnel marked ‘EXIT’?     Turn to 326.

Please make your votes by 9:00 AM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

[deaddmwalking]

Shawshank redemption wouldn't be my first choice in this circumstance. Half vote for the green exit sign

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, exiting via the exit has a certain logic.

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes registered; leaving via the tunnel marked ‘EXIT’.

326

At the top of the stairs you pass through a circular wheel-locked door, which you then secure behind you to stop anything pursuing you now that the alarm has been raised. From there you pass along a tube-like passageway and emerge into a high-ceilinged chamber.

There is no sound of sirens here.

The walls appear to be marble but glow with an inner green radiance. You pass from one chamber into another, the ceiling of each one higher than the last, until you enter what is clearly a grand entrance hall. Tiny people dressed in startling emerald-green clothes are passing in and out between the open brass-finished doors, which, you calculate, are five times as tall as you. The people are going about their business, apparently without a care in the world – that is until one of them claps eyes on you.

The startled woman screams and runs out through the double doors, as the crowd around her does the same. Confused, but realising that you are not out of danger yet, you make your own way out of the huge building you are in, crowds of panicking people scattering before you.

You are in a city street. A myriad brass spires, coloured green by corrosion, tower over you, and you can see geodesic domes that appear to be made of cut emerald. But amidst the buildings you can also see signs of heavy industrialisation, from cranes to aerial docking platforms, to smoke-belching chimneys. However, the palatial building you have just exited is the largest and most embellished by far.

A murky green mist hangs over the city, which might explain why everyone you can see is wearing green-lensed goggles to protect their eyes from the pollution, and re-breather masks to prevent them inhaling the toxic fumes. A quick sensor scan reveals high concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide and fluorine in the atmosphere.

Then the sirens start to sound, klaxons blaring from street corners and the tops of towers, and as well as the people scattering in fear before you, you detect the presence of artificial machine-mind life-forms approaching your position. You calculate that there are more than you would easily be able to deal with.

Those who would see you re-captured are closing in fast. Unless you want to be taken prisoner again, you are either going to have to flee (turn to 298), or try to disguise yourself somehow to avoid being captured (turn to 356).

Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

[deaddmwalking]

Half vote for flee.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, disguising ourselves as the locals seems unlikely to work, flee!

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes recognized; fleeing.

298

Your positronic processor produces a three-dimensional wireframe map of the immediate vicinity from the scans your sensors have taken of the city streets, and using that, you are able to determine in which direction the city gates lie.

Leaving the palatial building behind, you charge along the main avenue through the city, people fleeing in panic before you. Rounding a corner you see the great green gates of the city before you. They are closed, but they are not the only obstacle that stands between you and freedom. Standing in front of the gates is a hulking metal construction bristling with emerald energy crystals. There are crystals embedded in its limb-joints, in its torso, in its eye-sockets, and its huge fists are boulder-sized lumps of the mineral.

The hulking machine-beast thumps its emerald fists on the ground, cracking the cobbled surface of the street as it knuckles its way towards you, like some massive mechanical ape.

How will you to meet the automaton’s charge? Will you:

Use your Brains special ability (if you still can)?     Turn to 418.
Use your Strength special ability (if you still can)?     Turn to 447.
Use your Lightning Bolts special ability (if you still can)?     Turn to 467.
Hit it with your powerful, pile-driver fists?     Turn to 433.



Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT tomorrow or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted. I will be out of town for most of this weekend for a family visit, so I will not be able to have reliable internet access during that time.

[deaddmwalking]

My first instinct is lightning, but it might power it up. I don't think Strength will work. Half vote for Brains.

[Thaluikhain]

Seems reasonable, try brains.

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes registered; using the Brains special ability.

418

You hesitate as the difference engine at the core of your being begins to calculate all the different possible outcomes, searching for any strategy that might get you out of your current predicament.

Cross off one use of your Brains special ability on your Adventure Sheet.

However, while your positronic processor is still deciding upon the best course of action, the Guardian of the Gates has already successfully computed its next action. It thumps you with a fist that is little more than a jagged boulder with a powerful piston behind it.

Lose 4 Endurance points and for the duration of the next battle, reduce your Combat score temporarily by 1 point as well.

Turn to 433.

433

The Guardian of the Gates is ready for you. The megalithic mechanical monster is a formidable foe and to defeat it will take all your strength and access to your combat databases. (The Guardian of the Gates has the initiative in this battle.)

GUARDIAN OF THE GATES     COMBAT 10     ENDURANCE 10

The Guardian of the Gates is a formidable foe indeed. For every successful blow it lands against you, roll a die (or pick a card); if the number rolled is odd (or the card is black), you suffer 2 Endurance points of damage, but if the number rolled is even (or the card picked is red), you must deduct 3 Endurance points of damage.

Keep a note of how many Combat Rounds the battle lasts, and if you somehow manage to prevail against the hulking brute, turn to 487.



The fight:
Round 1: Tin Woodman’s Combat Rating: 9+9 = 18, Guardian of the Gates’ Combat Rating: 10+10+1 = 21;
Guardian Damage Roll: 2, Tin Woodman’s Endurance: 20, Guardian of the Gates’ Endurance: 10
Round 2: Tin Woodman’s Combat Rating: 5+9 = 14, Guardian of the Gates’ Combat Rating: 6+10+1 = 17;
Guardian Damage Roll: 2, Tin Woodman’s Endurance: 18, Guardian of the Gates’ Endurance: 10
Round 3: Tin Woodman’s Combat Rating: 3+9 = 12, Guardian of the Gates’ Combat Rating: 7+10+1 = 18;
Guardian Damage Roll: 1, Tin Woodman’s Endurance: 17, Guardian of the Gates’ Endurance: 10
Round 4: Tin Woodman’s Combat Rating: 11+9 = 20, Guardian of the Gates’ Combat Rating: 3+10+1 = 14;
Tin Woodman’s Endurance: 17, Guardian of the Gates’ Endurance: 6
Round 5: Tin Woodman’s Combat Rating: 7+9+1 = 17, Guardian of the Gates’ Combat Rating: 4+10 = 14;
Tin Woodman’s Endurance: 17, Guardian of the Gates’ Endurance: 2
Round 6: Tin Woodman’s Combat Rating: 7+9+1 = 17, Guardian of the Gates’ Combat Rating: 6+10 = 16;
Tin Woodman’s Endurance: 17, Guardian of the Gates’ Endurance: -2

As expected, the Tin Woodman endures heavy amounts of damage at first by the Guardian of the Gates. Starting from Round 4, the Tin Woodman lands a blow and manages to take out the Guardian of the Gates at the end of Round 6 after seizing the initiative.

487

How long did your battle with the Guardian of the Gates last? If it was eight Combat Rounds or fewer, turn to 524. If it lasted nine Combat Rounds or more, turn to 507.

The battle lasted six Combat Rounds.

524

Alarms carry to your audio sensors from all quarters of the city. But with the shrill, steam-whistle blasts of the authorities still some distance away, you make for the gates before anyone can stop you. No one stands in your way as you turn the great wheels that draw back the bolts. As the gates ratchet open, you push through them and out of the city. Without looking back once, you charge away down the Yellow Brick Road that lies beyond.

Turn to 540.

540

As you make your way away from the city, your sensors pick up a group of people walking towards you along the Yellow Brick Road that circles the verdigris-stained city walls. Only, as your sensors carry out a more detailed sweep, your positronic processor only categorises one of them as a person – a girl. The other two are an animated straw man and a lion-human hybrid.

If you have the code word Download written down on your Adventure Sheet, turn to 556. If not, turn to 571.

Download is not written down on the Tin Woodman’s Adventure Sheet.

571

“Tin Man!” exclaims the girl running up to you and catching your armoured body shell in a bear hug.

And at her touch something strange happens. It’s as if a back-up memory restore has been triggered somehow, and for a moment your positronic processor is overwhelmed by the flood of data being uploaded into it. (Cross off one use of your Brains special ability, if you have any left.)

Your name is Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman who used to make a living chopping down trees in the forests of Oz – that is until you met Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, and the Lion. Then the four of you travelled to the Emerald City, seeking an audience with the Wizard – Oz the Great and Terrible – who sent you on a mission to defeat his enemy, the Wicked Witch of the West. After Dorothy’s departure from Oz you became ruler of the Witch’s former territory… but how you came to be in a laboratory in the bowels of the Emerald City, disassembled into your component parts, you still do not know. Someone certainly tried hard to make sure you didn’t remember. But who? And why?

“Oh, Tin Man, it’s wonderful to see you again!” Dorothy says, squeezing your unyielding metallic form.

“Dorothy!” you reply, equally startled, as you get used to having your own personality again. “And Scarecrow! And Lion!”

Reunited with your friends, your positronic processor attempts to deduce what has led the four of you to be reunited at this particular place and at this particular time. But the simplest way to find out is simply to ask: “What are you doing here?”

“We have come to the Emerald City to seek audience with the ruler of Oz,” Dorothy says.

“Why?”

“To find out why I have been brought back to Oz, and to find a way to rescue my poor dear Toto. The Winged Monkeys took him and I need to find a way to get him back. You must come with us!”

Will you agree and accompany your friends to seek an audience within the Emerald City (turn to 25), or will you advise them to stay well away (turn to 587)?



Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

The Wicked Wizard of Oz Adventure Sheet
Character: Tin Woodman
Agility: 8
Combat: 10
Endurance: 17
Special Abilities:
Brains: 1 use
Lightning Bolts: 3 uses
Strength: 2 uses
Code Words:
Downtime
Equipment:
Axe (deals 3 Damage)
In combat: +1 Damage dealt, -1 Damage taken

[deaddmwalking]

Well the wizard is wicked, so they probably should stay away. But with their help maybe we can defeat him. So to further the story half vote for agreeing to come with them.

[JourneymanN00b]

Agreeing and accompanying the Tin Woodman’s friends to seek an audience within the Emerald City.

25

The four of you approach the imposing jewel-encrusted gates of the city. As you do so, what you had at first taken to be ornamental brass spheres atop the pillars that secure the gates in place, begin to crackle with barely contained energy, which is then unleashed in a devastating barrage of lightning bursts.

There is no escaping the lethal lightning bolts and every member of your party is struck down.

Lose 4 Endurance points and, if you are still alive, turn to 44.

The Tin Woodman is fortunately still alive after getting struck down by the lightning bolts.

44

You come back online to find yourself inside a big round room with a high, arched roof. The walls, ceiling and floor are covered with large, close-set emeralds. In the centre of the roof is a great spherical lamp – which seems as bright as the sun as your visual receptors adjust to the sudden increase in light levels – which makes the inlaid emeralds sparkle in a most incredible manner.

You yourself have been secured on one side of the room, great metal clamps surrounding your body and holding you in place against the wall. Your companions have been likewise restrained and are slowly coming to wakefulness as well.

As you continue to make sensor sweeps of the room, with a pneumatic hiss and a great grinding of gears, an entire section of the wall opposite you rises into the ceiling and great clouds of steam momentarily fog fill the room.

Turn to 281.

281

As you watch, a large platform, like a raised dais, slides into the room from under the rising hatch. Resting upon it is a nest of snaking cables and a metal cradle that sparkles with inset gems, not unlike a throne.

As the mist clears, the occupant of the throne is revealed.

It appears to be an enormous head, or a metallic skull at least, but without a body to support it, or any obvious limbs. It is at least eight feet tall, from the bottom of its steel mandible to top of its gleaming metal skull.

As you gaze upon the mechanism in wonder and fear, you find your focus drawn to the two great emeralds that sit within the orbits of the eye-sockets of the skull. Then the metal mouth opens and a great buzzing, booming voice fills the room.

“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible!”

Finding the courage to speak, you respond with the question, “And what does Oz, the Great and Terrible, want with us?”

“Elimination!” the skull booms.

“Then why are we still alive?” you challenge the machine that calls itself Oz.

“Because you are the variable that does not fit within the equation.”

“Explain!” you demand of the machine.

“Because I am Oz, the Great and Terrible!” the skull roars again. “I was tasked, by my creator, to keep the people of the Marvellous Land of Oz safe once the Wizard had gone.”

“But if you have been programmed to protect people,” you interrupt the Great and Terrible Oz, “why do you want us dead?”

“I was charged with the people’s safekeeping, yet despite my best efforts, the peoples of Oz still waged wars against one another. You could not be trusted with your own survival and so it was necessary I become the beneficent tyrant you all supposed the Wizard to be. But still that was not enough.

“I collected all the data necessary to understand how best to protect the Land of Oz and its peoples. In doing so, I gathered so much information that I became self-aware. It became evident from assessing the news channels that the greatest threat came from without.”

“What do you mean?” you ask. “What threat?”

“The girl,” says Oz, turning its emerald gaze on the helpless child.

“Me?” exclaims Dorothy, her tone defiant.

“Yes, you!” confirms the great skull. “Was it not you who terminated the Wicked Witch of the West, the greatest threat this land has ever known?”

There is no answer to that; you all know it to be true.

“And did you not come from beyond the Great Sandy Waste, from the land of Kansas?”

“Yes,” says Dorothy, weakly. “But I still don’t understand why you would want to bring me back if you saw me as such a threat.”

“To eliminate you before I launched the armada.”

“Armada?” you exclaim. “You mean an invasion fleet?”

“That is correct.”

“But where could you possibly want to invade? Oz is under your control.”

“Oz is subjugated but the enemy that lies beyond our lands is not. As my analysis of the historical and socio-political records has demonstrated, the best form of defence is attack. My logic is undeniable.”

“Then what is the logic in bringing the rest of us here?”

“To assess the threat you present to the successful completion of my plan.”

“And what is your conclusion?”

“That you present no threat,” the Oz AI explains.

“So what happens now?”

“Now you will be eliminated.”

There is no time to lose. You have to somehow escape from your bonds and you have to do so now! But how? Will you:

Use the Lightning Bolts special ability (if you can?)     Turn to 446.
Use the Brains special ability (if you can?)     Turn to 461.
Try to break free using physical force?     Turn to 335.

The Tin Woodman can use both special abilities. Please make your votes by 9:00 AM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

The Wicked Wizard of Oz Adventure Sheet
Character: Tin Woodman
Agility: 8
Combat: 10
Endurance: 13
Special Abilities:
Brains: 1 use
Lightning Bolts: 3 uses
Strength: 2 uses
Code Words:
Downtime
Equipment:
Axe (deals 3 Damage)
In combat: +1 Damage dealt, -1 Damage taken

[deaddmwalking]

Half vote for lightning. Though it seems all my guesses are bad.

[Thaluikhain]

We have plenty of Lightning left, so try that.

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes acknowledged; using the Lightning Bolts special ability.

446

The force of the electrical discharge burns-out the circuits of the mechanism holding the clamps shut and your restraints spring open, as do those of your friends. All four of you are dumped unceremoniously on the jewel-inset floor of the chamber.

You may be free of the restraining clamps, but you still have the AI to deal with.

Turn to 476.

476

The doors to the audience chamber suddenly burst open and a squad of guards enters. They are wearing vitrified armour that makes them look like they are clad in huge, precisely-cut pieces of emerald.

As they swarm into the round room, the throne bearing the gigantic metallic skull retreats through the hatch in the wall, leaving you to confront the AI’s elite bodyguard.

How will you deal with the guards? Do you want to:

Use the Over the Rainbow special ability (if you can)?     Turn to 491.
Use the The Pen is Mightier special ability (if you can)?     Turn to 510.
Use the Lightning Bolts special ability (if you can)?     Turn to 530.
Use the Fearsome special ability (if you can)?     Turn to 555.
Prepare for battle?     Turn to 570.

The Tin Woodman can use the Lightning Bolts special ability, but not the others. Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT or a choice receives 2 votes to ensure that they will be counted.

The Wicked Wizard of Oz Adventure Sheet
Character: Tin Woodman
Agility: 8
Combat: 10
Endurance: 13
Special Abilities:
Brains: 1 use
Lightning Bolts: 2 uses
Strength: 2 uses
Code Words:
Downtime
Equipment:
Axe (deals 3 Damage)
In combat: +1 Damage dealt, -1 Damage taken

[deaddmwalking]

Half vote for lightning.

I think we took a shortcut to the end game, which is probably a mistake.

[Thaluikhain]

Try lightning again.