Sticking with chronological order, straight onto book 2 and Steve Jackson's first solo outing.
My history with the book
Never owned this one as a child, but I'm pretty sure I flicked through a friend's copy. I certainly remember the gorilla-dog and dog-gorilla. My first real experience of this was the app that came out a while ago. From my memory of that, getting past the ganjees is the real issue, and I'm pretty sure I remember how to do that so I'm not anticipating too many problems. With those famous last words, off I go.
What's it all about?
So, apparently, the good people of the Vale of Willow have spent 8 years living in fear of local bad wizard - Balthus Dire. But now rumour has it that he is planning to attack and so something must be done! Why we had to wait until the attack was imminent to do anything about him is unclear, but the King decides to send a wizard to stop him. The local wizard is too old apparently, so he sends his star pupil instead. That pupil is ME. So, magic-ing myself up, I head off to the citadel!
The adventure
Skill 9
Stamina 17
Luck 7
Magic 15
These stats are.... not so good. For most books. Citadel of Chaos is quite renowned for being one of the few you can finish without insane dice rolls. And I do have a decent magic set there so I can wizard my way through most situations. I hope.
I trudge up to citadel where I am greeted by two guards - the dog with an ape head and the ape with a dog head. They demand to know why I am here and I claim to be a herbalist, having picked up a handful of weeds on the way.
'Uh huh. And who are you here to heal?' they ask.
'Erm....Kyll....tog?' I reply, having seemingly plucked a number of phonemes and shoved them together.
'Oh Kylltog!' they reply, 'He's a dick. I'd leave him if I were you.'
But they let through anyway. Ignoring the fact that I blundered through my first challenge by inexplicably guessing a made up name, I walk through to the courtyard. I head straight to the group sitting around a fire and sit myself down. They are so shocked at my forward nature that they immediately start blabbing all kinds secrets to me - the password to get in is 'Scimitar'. I ask about the vial in their box, which upsets them enough that I have to kill 75% of them, with one individual running away screaming. Still, I've gained some ointment, a copper key and the vial of magic juice which I'm super excited about.
I continue across the courtyard when I feel a slight breeze. Looking around, I see the living whirlwind from the front of the book. She claims my appearance is offensive to her, which is a little rich coming from a living, green hurricane woman thing. I decide to simply levitate over her, which upsets her no end. The book notes that I give her a smug grin as I fly over, as if to prove the kind of self-satisfied young wizard I am. More Malfoy than Granger it seems.
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| Insult me? You look like spaghetti! How's that for a burn? |
I get to the front door, which is opened by a big Rhino man guard. He is easily defeated by my use of the password, which I had conveniently learnt 2 minutes earlier. I follow the corridor until I get a door which instructs me to 'Ring for service.' Ever the polite assassin, I do just that. A bizarrely chuckling butler opens the door, and I confound him by barging past while demanding directions. He points off to the left and I decide to trust him.
His directions lead me to a sleeping goblin-giant thing. Turns out it's a Gark and he's none too happy to see me. I throw a weakness spell at him, and then kill him. Raiding his room, I find he has an ornate hairbrush, which I take. Although I do so while wondering why a bald creature needs a hairbrush, let alone such a pretty one.
Continuing on, I enter a door and find myself in a library of sorts. 'Secrets of the Black Tower' catches my eye, and it's quite the read. It also , rather bizarrely, contains security information about the tower. So now I know the security code for Balthus Dire's door - it's 217. I leave and find myself faced with 3 doors. I choose the locked one and use my copper key - it works! The room I find myself in appears to be Mrs Dire's room, which makes me wonder why the key for it was held by a drunken posse in the courtyard...
I quickly forget my concerns about Balthus Dire's marriage however, as the lady becomes angry with her eyes glowing red. Thinking quickly, I ...er...pull a hairbrush out of my bag. Fortunately, she loves it and begins to stare at it. I sneak by and steal her golden fleece as I walk past. I soon arrive in a room which has a large pit and treasure chest in the middle, but by now I'm bored of prating around with sub quests and so stomp on past it all and through the next door.
I move up a spiral staircase into a dark room. Ghostly voices taunt me and ....ghostly faces float around in front of me. 'Tis the Ganjees! I fill my pants a little due to the fear they produce (or in game terms, lose some stamina and skill). Reaching into my trusty rucksack, I show them the ointment I stole from the courtyard crew. Wouldn't you know, it turns out to be some kind of healing cream that Ganjees love, so they let me continue on my way.
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| Stupid, adventurer killing Hydra (that'll make sense in my evaluation) |
Moving up some more stairs, I find myself facing a Hydra. I've read my myths and legends though, and by waving my golden fleece in it's direction (that isn't a euphemism by the way) it cowers and lets me pass. Arriving at a code door, I enter the 217 I found in a book and open to find ....
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| How he intends to install fear with hair like that I don't know |
A bloody great trident flying at my face! I use shield magic to deflect it away and find that I am facing the great Balthus Dire. He's a bit cheesed off that I've just walked into his battle room and so sends a giant Clawbeast at me. I wave my hands around a bit and produce a weakness spell which causes the monster to fall over from it's own weight. I stab it while it's on the floor and then continue my march towards my target. He magically creates a mini earthquake to knock me over, but I bring out my second levitation spell and fly over his shaky floor.
From the options I have, I decide to hide behind the curtains. This seems an odd option, until I panic and throw the curtain over his head. Wouldn't you know it, he hates sunlight, which comes streaming through the window. I figure this will weaken him, but instead it outright kills him.
Victory!
So, How'd it go?
Again, I blundered by being overly confident. It took me 5 attempts to beat Balthus Dire!
Adventurer 1 - Spent too long pratting around in my back pack while facing the hydra, so he ate me.
Adventurer 2 - Spent too long pratting around with magic while facing the hydra, so he ate me.
Adventurer 3 - Met Miks. Tried to use an illusion spell on them which caused them to turn into dogs or something and bite me to death.
Adventurer 4 - Got to Balthus Dire's door without the code so sat down and cried.
I was so convinced that all I needed to do was find the ointment to beat the Ganjees, that I clearly forgot about all the rest I needed to do.
On the whole though, I loved this adventure. It truly can be beaten with any skill level, but still requires some effort to beat. It's a clear improvement on WoFTM and it's impressive to see that Steve Jackson was so keen to add to the formula early on.
Next up is Forest of Doom, which I'm sure is easy. But then, I've said that before....
