Right, here we go. One of the most famous, most popular and most notoriously difficult gamecocks ever.
My History With the Book
I had this one in my original collection and so have had some experience with it, although probably not playing it fairly. I know that I'll need to collect three gems to finish and I know that the end has some hideously difficult enemies to fight. Due to that, I'm fairly certain that any adventurer with a skill less than 11 has no chance, but we'll see how long I can last before I bring in my mildly cheating rules from last time.
What's it all about?
Fang was just an ordinary town, until one day local nut job Baron Sukumvit moved in (I imagine years of being bullied for having a ridiculous name probably contributed to his craziness). So what's a rich but insane baron gonna do? Build an insanely dangerous labyrinth, that's what! To test out his new dungeon, he sent ten of his best men in. None came out. With word spreading of the men who died in the dungeon, people came from far and wide to prove they could get through the Trial of Champions. No one ever did.
I am a simple yet presumably reckless adventurer. One who is bored enough to challenge the Trial of Champions. Once in Fang, I'm treated as king. People love me for entering and I walk around like I'm a celebrity. However, the day arrives when it is time to enter the labyrinth myself. As I get there, I see there are 5 other contestants this year - 2 barbarians, a knight, an elf and a ninja (Classic fantasy character there). Baron Sukumvit gives us some spiel about how he wishes us luck and then we draw lots. I'm the fifth to enter. I watch the others go in, before I follow on...
The Adventure
Skill: 11
Stamina 19
Luck: 12
Well, I said that a minimum of skill 11 would be required. Let's see how it goes. Hopefully, that cracking luck score will help.
I begin my adventure strolling down a dark corridor until I find a box with my name on it. I decide to open it and find a note praising my good sense to take help and to look for items that will get through the dungeon. The box also has 2 coins, which I pocket. Eventually, I reach a junction. Footprints suggest that 3 of my fellow adventurers have gone left and one has gone right. Never one to follow the crowd, I go right as well and head in an easterly direction. The corridor soon comes to a strange blockage that looks like a boulder, only squishy. I choose to climb over it and find that it is harmless. Phew. First problem conquered! The tunnel turns north and I see some bamboo on my left. I take a drink from it and find it is super refreshing and also houses secret magic powers. Those powers soon reveal themselves as the tunnel begins to get insanely hot. Fortunately, my magical bamboo water keeps me safe and so I am able to stroll on happily.
I arrive at a door with an iron plate on it. I decide it might be best to peek in first and so I look through the iron plate. Indeed it was a trap, as there is a pit on the other side of the door. I open the door hop over the pit, and grab the rope on the opposite wall. Heading back to the corridor, I turn left and am immediately attacked by two orcs. Unfortunately, they hit me with their mace before I can kill them, costing me a few valuable stamina points. Moving on, I find another door which I choose to enter. I am confronted by the unfortunately ventilated body of one of my barbarian friends. Seems he triggered a trap which sprung a rack of spikes into him. That's one down I guess. I search his body and find some food which I eat.
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| Oooh. Nasty. (To quote another popular 80s dungeon crawl) |
I get off on my travels again and decide to head north where I enter a giant cave. In said cave is some kinda giant idol with emerald eyes and two stuffed birds on either side. As strange as this is, I like the look of those shiny eyes so I fling my rope around its neck and climb up. I choose to take the left eye which causes the giant birds to magically come to life and attack me. Rather than slide down the rope to fight them, I apparently choose to fight while hanging from the rope, giving me a skill penalty. Still, both birds die and I soon have a lovely shiny emerald in my backpack.
I head north and eventually find a door on my left, which I enter. As I walk in, a sinister voice asks me to 'pay respects to his master'. Of the two choices I'm given, I choose to shout the slightly peculiar choice of 'Sukumvit is a worm'. The sinister voice thinks that this shows I have spirit and so gives me a magical Ring of Wishes.
Next up on my journey, I find a strange beam of light with floating faces all over it. I opt to walk through it and I find the faces are suddenly a lot sadder and also a little bit poetic. A sad girl face tells me through the medium of poetry that, should I meet water, I shouldn't run away but instead take a deep breath and jump in. Thanks disembodied face!
I decide to skip the next door I see and then turn right at the top of the corridor. Soon I arrive at another door and decide to check it out. It's full of statues and crazy men. Or crazy man rather. He challenges me to a math quiz in exchange for not turning me into a statue - like this knight here! Yep - seems another contender is dead. Apparently he weighs 100kg plus half his weight. Of course, that means that half of his weight is 100kg and thus he weights 200kg! The man congratulates my brainpower and ups all of my attributes by one. Nice fella.
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| Skeleton. There's always a skeleton... |
Next I find a door with a cross on it which seems like an excellent reason to enter. Inside I find a skeleton in a throne holding a note. That note looks worth having so I grab it. Predictably, the skeleton comes to life and attacks me. It is swiftly destroyed and I proceed to read its note. If I meet a manticore, it poetically tells me, get my shield ready for the poison spikes it'll fling at me. Will do, random piece of poetry! I leave through a door in the back and move through a tunnel. This ends at a trapdoor, which I fling open, surprising a couple of goblins. I quickly kill them and raid their cupboards.
Taking the northern exit, I find yet another door to open, so open it I do. Inside is a one armed prisoner who starts screaming in my face. Rather than make gags about him being 'mostly armless', I decide to set him free. He seems grateful and tells me I need to find gemstones to escape, before running away. A short while later, I find a small pipe which I crawl into. I find a box and shuffle out to look at it - an iron key and a Sapphire. The prisoners tips seem to be paying off as I now have two gemstones.
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| Conan was very big in the 80s (the barbarian that is - not O'Brian) |
Ahead I spot two dead orcs which piques me interest so I wander over. They have nothing I like the look of, but I soon find the cause of their deaths - a grouchy looking barbarian. He tells me he's heading west and I can tag along if I want. Figuring nothing bad could come from partnering with a fellow contestant who will want to kill me by the end. We find a pit and the barbarian - Throm - offers to lower me down. This seems like a trust exercise, so I take the rope and let him lower me down. And he doesn't kill me, so I guess we're friends now. Soon after, we bump into two trolls so take on one each. They're tough but we win with only minor injuries.
Next up, we find two books, one black and one red. Throm turns his nose up anything as intellectual as a book, but I take a flick through each one. The red book tells me about a mythical Bloodbeast, which stinks and tries to eat you. Kill it by stabbing it in the eye. Duly noted. Thanks book. The black book contains a potion of trap detection which sounds handy. I also gain 2 luck points so thats pretty helpful too. We stroll through a big cave but choose to ignore its vastness and just keep moving. Very soon we meet an angry looking dwarf - a trial master. Throm wants to kill him but I suggest we just go through with the trials and then kill him later.
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| Probably will be played by Peter Dinklage in a Deathtrap Dungeon movie. |
I go first and follow the dwarf to trial number one. He rolls two dice and gets an 8. I need to guess whether the next roll will be higher or lower than this. I looked at my probability and chose to go less than 8. I roll a 5 and the dwarf congratulates me on my lucky guess. Not sure guessing counts as a trial, but I ignore this and move onto trial number 2. An angry, poisonous snake is in a basket and I need to grab it without dying. I am pretty skilful though and so I grab it without getting bit. Trial number 3 is an anagram game. I need to decipher RUIN MOAT and NO CROP IS and decide which one I'd like to fight. I choose you - MINOTAUR! And not you - SCORPION (presumably it'd be a giant version of the creature and not an unexpected Mortal Kombat Kameo). The Minotaur puts up a bit of a fight but eventually falls to my sword. The Dwarf tells me to hang around while he prepares the final trial, and tosses me a chicken to eat while I wait. I'm not sure whether its a whole chicken or simply a nugget, but by the time I've finished the final trial is on - Throm! Seems he got bitten by the poisonous snake and is now deranged. I'm kinda upset to see my good buddy foaming at the mouth, but I do what I must and battle him to the death. His death that is. Seeing how cheesed off I am, the dwarf appears and threatens me with a crossbow before showing me the exit. I decide to leave him alive, as his loneliness would be a far greater punishment than anything I could dole out (also, far more truthfully, I'd taken a bit of a beating from the last two fights).
I leave the Dwarf's arena and eventually turn left. I hear shuffling coming up the corridor and, suddenly feeling brave, decide to face the oncoming horror. Turns out the horror is time itself, as an elderly fella in chains is trotting towards me. I give him some gold and he tells me of a demon chair which contains a secret in the arm. I thank him and move on, deciding to head north. Lo and behold, a chair in the shape of a demon! I hop on it and search around, eventually finding a secret compartment which contains a 'doppelgänger' potion.
Not long after, I hear screaming and decide to check it out. It's contestant number 5 - the elf. She's in a spot of bother with a snake, in that it's crushing her. I lop its head off but she's looking pretty dead. She tells me that I need three gems, one of which is a diamond - the only one I need. I raid her corpse and find a 'bone monkey charm'. No idea what that is but I take it anyway. Not long after, there is a metal grate on the floor which I open. Reaching in to pick up a grappling hook, I'm attacked by a tentacle. It wasn't my sword arm that got attacked though, so I only lose a bunch of stamina points. Which still seems nasty.
A short while later, I hear quite the racket and see its a bunch of troglodytes having a party. I decide to drink the doppelgänger potion which fools them into thinking I too am a troglodyte. It wears off not long after and they all begin to give chase. I leg it across a bridge and bump into a door, which I swiftly unlock with my iron key. I shut it behind me and continue north, eventually bumping into a crazy looking man. He claims that his basket lift will take me where i need to go if I give him an item, so the Ring of Wishes is given away. I pulled up in the basket and find that the lift mechanism is in fact a troll named Ivy. She also demands goods off me but I distract her by asking about her family, which is oddly quick thinking. She explains how great her brother Sourbelly is (presumably the same Sourbelly who is now dead due to my City of Thieves adventure) and keeps on talking til I sneak behind her and knock her out. Her room contains nothing except a bone, which I take.
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| The less standard 'giant dinosaur monster'. |
Down the stairs I go, and I conveniently hear angry barking. Off goes the bone and the dogs are silenced. I soon find the wall of some kind of arena, so I scale it using my grappling hook and rope and find a giant dinosaur waiting for me. This 'Pit fiend' looks pretty invincible, so I throw a bone monkey charm at it and find that it inflates in its mouth. I scale the wall and run past the monster before it can spit it out. Immediately after running from the Pit Fiend, I find shurikens being launched in my direction - it's contestant number 6, the Ninja. I fight him and eventually win. Turns out he is the holder of the diamond so I now have zero competitors and 3 gems. Looking good.
I take the exit (which is a slide) and find myself in a particularly stinky room. The cause of the stink? A giant Bloodbeast. Luckily, I read my book on Bloodbeasts, so I cut his tongue before he can drag me off and then stab it in one of its real eyes. Whilst it screams in pain, I leg it through the next door (I do like how many of my final battles involve running away as often as possible). This room contains a Manticore, who I have again read much about. I shield myself from his poisonous spikes and then kill it.
After it's dead, a gnome appears and tells me I'm at the end. He checks my gems one at a time and then tells me to put them in the door in the correct order. Amazingly, I guess correctly first time and so the door flies open. Unfortunately, the gnome hates it in here, so flings poison at me and runs out. The poison hurts, but I'm alive so I crawl to the exit. As I leave, I see the gnome ended up with a crossbow bolt in his head - fell at the final trap. Soon after, I see daylight. The crowds (who wait how long exactly?) go nuts as they see walk out, and Baron Sukumvit gives me the huge prize money.
So, How'd it go?
As predicted, not very well. All in all in took me 10 attempts to defeat the deadly dungeon.
Adventurer 1 - Chose the wrong emerald, got gassed in the face and fell off the idol.
Adventurer 2 - Looked into a magic mirror that made my head inflate (or something like that).
Adventurer 3 - Died fighting the flying guardians for the emerald.
Adventurer 4 - Knocked politely on a trapdoor and so was stabbed by the goblin who opened it.
Adventurer 5 - Died fighting Throm.
Adventurer 6 - Reached the end but had no gem stones as a bunch of leprechauns stole them.
Adventurer 7 - Died fighting Cave Trolls (Got careless with my stamina in this one).
Adventurer 8 - Picked up a fake diamond which then disappeared. Then the roof came and crushed me.
Adventurer 9 - Got knocked off the wall by the Pit Fiend before losing to it in battle.
So, this book is clearly insanely hard. After 3 adventures I made sure I didn't leave before rolling at least an 11 for skill. I soon realised that the correct route needed a lot of luck too though so it was quite fortunate that I got a decent luck roll in my final adventure.
The book is regarded as one of the best and it's very easy to see why. As others have said before, it is realistically hard as you're not expected to survive - that's kinda the point. I did enjoy witnessing the fates of my fellow adventurers too, as it really felt like we'd all gone on this journey together with only me left standing at the end. Still its difficulty may be off-putting - it looks like its taken me nearly 3 months to get through it and if I hadn't have kept rolling until I had a high skill, I could have been going for a long long time.
Hopefully the next adventure will be easier - time to visit the Island of the Lizard King.
