 |
| Another rife contender for bouncing off! |
Choice: West: 257
 |
| I feel like this is getting repetitive... |
Even if it's not a child, no one should be yelling and shouting like that. No, I can't just let this by. I swing the door open, sword at the ready and...
Choice: Open: 168
 |
| I feel prophetic... |
I am getting the feeling this place is very poorly laid out. Just some random rooms along a forking hallway. It's kind of surreal, really. You open one door and find drunkards, another is empty save a snake in the box, and the next one belongs to someone of rank and station, despite still just being a room in the wall.
This is our first three fold choice, you may notice. While there's no real limit to how many choices you can have per section, I seldom recall seeing more than four. Once again, I find myself thinking ahead to Scorpion Swamp...
"You fiend!" I cry out, and strike against the horrible brute.
Choice: Attack the Chieftain: 65
 |
| "I am many things, Ka-El..." |
Let us learn the harsh lessons of the world here today. Honestly, I don't blame the poor servant. Last three adventurers through here probably tried to kill them.
The line, 'ungrateful wretch' certainly colors how the character is supposed to think, regardless of what you're thinking. It's the kind of phrase that villains scream right after their children join the good guys. When most of the description is quite basic and quick, a nice invective really brings it home.
Choice: Fight: 372
 |
| I see we're back to the truly evocative text. |
Round 1:
Chieftain: 6-2=4
Ooooh hoohh hooo hooo.... really feeling that low Skill now.
The horrible brute raises his whip, but I just manage to cut in under him before it can hit me. A gash of red bursts across his chest. It's like I'm back at the farm getting a pig ready!
Round 2:
Chieftain: 4-2=2
Oh, this is a real shame... he tries to muscle on, screaming curses and flailing the whip all over, but I manage to keep away again, and stab forwards. I stick him again, in the right calf, and there's more blood. A lot more.
Round 3:
Henrietta: 19-2=17
Chieftain: 2
Just as I finally had him pinned, the brute's poor lackey shoved me down. The whip cracks hard against my back. I let out a quite uncouth howl of agony.
"Oh, you're going to get it now!"
Henrietta: 17
Chieftain: 2
The brute staggers back. He's wheezing now. The face hidden beneath his warts is glowering with ever less intensity. His whip rises just a little less each time. I manage to keep avoiding it, but the stinging in the back was terrible! I weave about just trying to avoid getting hit again.
Round 5:
Henrietta: 17-2=15
Chieftain: 2
The brute pulls out reserves of strength from I know not where, I tackles me. I fall hard against the wall. The brute's slave is whooping and jeering in delight. The chieftain has his hands on the hilt of my sword, trying to seize it from me.
Round 6:
Henrietta: 15-2=13
Chieftain: 2
He manages to wrest my sword away. I feel a sharp pain in my side as he digs it down. Now the brute is whooping as merry and cruel as his underling. I flail in panic!
Round 7:
Henrietta: 13-2=11
Chieftain: 2
He twists the sword in my side. There is nothing but the pain. I don't see the orcs anymore, or hear their jeers, or even my own scream.
Round 8:
Henrietta: 11
Chieftain: 2-2=0
My hands rake across the warty face. I dig in with nails and claws. I feel eyes squish under my nails, and blood dribble down. I keep tearing. Blindly ripping at the face until the weight atop me leaves. The orc stumbles back, and I can breathe again. I kick upwards, my boot landing square in the beast's unmentionables. He drops the sword in pain.
Desperately, I lunge foreward. My side burns with the pain of my wound, but I make it to the sword. I thrust it up, and am greeted by a sickening flood of viscera.
Even as I lay there, with the monster's blood running down me, I hear the crack of the whip. The slave holds it now. He is jeering and taunting.
"I'm the master now!" he cries, "I get to be in charge."
"No," I tell him, "I'm not having that."
Round 9
Henrietta: 11
Servant: 3-2=1
He pulls his eyelid down and sticks his tongue out like a little boy. "I'll show you, he cries."
I stand up. It hurts.
He raises the whip up. "I'll show you who's the slave now!" he's trying to bellow, but he's too nasally to pull that off.
I step forward. "No," I say with a certainty as calm as the blood on the ground, "You won't."
He swings the whip, i lunge. The sword is in his shoulder. The whip's head trails on the ground. "I just wanted to help," I tell him, my mouth practically in his foul, waxy ear. Tears are in my eyes.
Round 10
Henrietta: 11
Servant: 1-2=-1
I push all my weight down unto the sword. I feel bones break and muscles tear. I force it down until it has dug through the creature's chest.
"I just wanted to help."
I slump down in the blood and cry. Oh, Marcus, I heard your stories, but I never... it wasn't real before.
.... wow... that got dark. I suppose I knew Henrietta was in for some trials to her attitude. I hope she's gonna be okay.
As to the game, Skill matters for a lot. Note that both times I beat the servant, it was only by the difference in our skills. Exactly that difference, as it happens.
Also, that took 10 rounds of rolling. One pair of d6s rolled 20 times. Now, imagine trying to run those ten rounds with actual dice, writing notes on the Adventure Sheet in the book, and doing it all while crammed into the back seat with two siblings on a long car journey. I really doubt those rolls were on a flat surface, but I made due.
Victory: 21
 |
| If this is another snake, I'm mailing vipers to Games Workshop |
I did consider going back and editing the earlier description to keep consistent about the orcs' blood being green. I decided not to, because this is a story about the story I make in my head. And that story had red blood, right up until this moment revealed otherwise.
I smash the lock open. After all that fuss, I don't care if it's stealing.
Choice: Open the Chest: 339
 |
| "Okay, we can either buy a proper lock or, and hear me out on this: poison dart!" |
Henrietta: 11-2=9
Still Alive: 201
 |
| Bandages stop poison, right? |
"I won, Marcus," I say to the air. "Would you be proud of me?" The two corpses and their green blood have made a real mess of the room... and myself. I let out a long sigh.
They were cruel. They didn't listen to kindness. I couldn't help them, and now they won't hurt anyone else. Not even each other.
Somehow I actually manage to sleep a bit.
Henrietta: 11+4=15
Provisions: 10-1=9
When I wake up, I empty the chest into my haversack. It's nice to have a bit of gold, and who knows when a potion of invisibility will come in handy. I take the lid off and take a sniff. Oh, no! I am not looking forward to having to drink that.
It's a nice glove, too. I don't think it would have fit either of the creatures I just... I just killed.
I get out of the room.
Choice: Room Looted: 293
Henrietta Chalk
Skill: 7/7
Stamina: 15/19
Luck: 11/11
1 Fortune Potion (2 Measures)
9 Meals of Provisions
"99" Key
25 Gold Pieces
Silk Glove
1 Potion Invisibility (1 Dose)
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