Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury - Part 3

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury - Part 3

By Casey Douglass

Welcome to Part 3 of my adventure through the Caves of Fury, a Battle Quest book where turning to certain pages means you can control the path of your treasure-seeking barbarian warrior. If you are joining the series late, part 1 can be found at this link, with other links finally bringing you back to this instalment, once you’ve brushed up on the tale so far. I’m good like that.

Part 2 ended in a prison of stalactites and ‘mites, with my barbarian beheading a monster and lifting his first piece of treasure: a lovely glittering diamond. It helped put his run-in with the crotchety old wizard who’d scorched his chest into perspective at least. Finally, he has something to show for his labours, beyond his wounds and feeling knackered. Let’s see how his tale continues...

In a turn up for the unlikely, our plucky barbarian finds himself at the edge of an underground swamp. It smells of rot and decay, and its main feature seems to be a massive lake, its surface algae-covered and perfectly calm. It seems to share a few elements with the watery cave in which a certain hobbit meets a certain Gollum, but there’s more greenery and less fishezes, at least, that are visible. The other difference are the stepping stones that stretch across the lake, appearing to go all the way to the other side.

Seeing no other route, I step onto the first stepping stone, waiting for something evil to grab my ankle and pull me down into the water. Not even a ripple! I step onto the next, and the next. It’s all going very well isn’t it? It’s as I get to the tenth stepping stone that it all starts to go wrong. A shriek sounds behind me on the shore that I’d just departed. The fright almost sends me into the water, which at this stage, I have no idea how deep it is or what’s in there.

Carefully, I turn and see an irate goblin waving his arms, shouting at me that if I step on the next stone, I'll drown! He says that every tenth stone is a trap and that I should jump straight over it to the next one! Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how tricky these goblins can be. For a start, they hate anyone taller than them, which is pretty much everyone. Another factor is that they lie more often than they tell the truth, but when they do tell the truth, the disbelieving of it usually leads to disaster anyway. You can’t win is what I’m saying.

I try to reason things out. Firstly, every tenth stone being a trap seems a bit arbitrary to me. Why not the seventh or fourteenth? Then again, I can understand why letting someone walk on nine stones might build their confidence enough to not be so careful for the tenth. Also, why more than one trapped stone? It doesn’t sound like the person who made the trap is particularly confident that it will achieve its goal first time around. Another thing, if the goblin is trying to get me into a trap, what kind of trap would need me to actually jump on it to trigger, rather than merely stepping on it? His having to shout at me isn’t a very efficient way to catch out the unwary. Consider me very wary!

The book gives me the option of using a trance spell to wheedle the truth out of his nasty goblin mind, but I don’t have one, and even if I did, I’d imagine his brain is full of yucky goblin pornography and strange, secret perversions. Another thought occurs to me. Why should he shout at me at all, as I would have been bound to step on the trapped stone anyway? It’s a bad situation. I decide to trust him, but vow to myself to wring his scrawny neck if things go badly, and if I later get the chance. I make the leap over stepping stone ten.

I’ve almost landed on stone number eleven when it recedes out of sight under the murky water! I plunge into the lake, the weeds and other growth starting to pull me down as they attach to my body. The book tells me that I lose One Strength. Fucking great... another one down! As I splutter and struggle for air, I reflect on how, if I’d not jumped, I’d probably have been able to stop myself from falling in. Bastard goblin!

Through the glugging of the water in my ears, I hear laughter and see a small raft coming towards me, the grinning face of the goblin looming into view. He pokes me with his paddle and teases it just out of reach, enjoying the spectacle. An idea flashes across my mind, something that might get me out of this. I yell that I’m one of Cragcliff’s bodyguards and that I’ve lost my way. The look of fear that washes over his face is a beautiful thing to behold, well, if your concept of beauty looks like a constipated goblin-face. Then it happens, the thing that I should have predicted. He wants to know the password.

I’d sigh if I wasn’t struggling for air. The book gives me three options as usual, and as usual, I choose the middle one: GARLON. (Sadly, Googling the meaning of GARLON didn’t return any humorous or naughty double entendres as to its meaning, I guess I got lucky with the other password attempt in part two). Wouldn’t you know it, it was the wrong password, yet again! It’s a pity that there wasn’t an option to whisper the password, and when he leaned in closer to hear me, drag him in with me!

The goblin swears at me and calls me a dog as the water drags me below the surface one last time. The little idiot doesn’t realise what I’m doing though. I have a palm to the underside of his raft and slowly pull myself underwater to the opposite side, feeling the clutching strands of vegetation unwind from my legs as I go. I ever so carefully pull myself up and clear of the lake, trying not to tip the rickety thing too much and alert him to my presence. The little thug is too busy craning his neck over the other side, trying to see if I’ve drowned yet. I see red and give him a mighty shove, sending him not just overboard but well beyond the row of stepping stones too.

He squeals like a flying pig that isn’t quite sure why it’s flying. He then squeals like a pig that’s fallen in a lake and can’t swim. Can pigs swim? (Google: Yes they can!) Weariness claims me and I collapse to the deck of the raft. I smile at the sounds the goblin is making and wish him a slow death. The book tells me that the struggle to keep afloat and to not drown has cost me another Strength. I have only two left now. It’s not looking good. On the plus side, my scorched chest feels soothed by the water. I just hope it doesn’t pick up a nasty infection from the algae. It would be just my luck after all. My last thoughts are two in number: I’m not choosing the bloody middle option for passwords or paths any more, and secondly, I really wish I’d strangled that goblin, just like I’d wanted to. I pass out.

That’s where I’ll leave this session, my barbarian unconscious and floating on a small raft in the middle of an underground swamp with a drowning goblin nearby. If this was a TV series, the camera would slowly be pulling up to show more and more of what's around him, which knowing my adventurer’s luck, would be a host of strange creatures circling in for the kill. The music to accompany this would be slow and synth-based, maybe a single deep tone wavering with menace. I quite like the sound of that actually.

***

If you enjoyed reading about my adventure so far, join me again soon for Part Four of my delve into the Caves of Fury, coming out next weekend.

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury - Part 2

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury - Part 2

By Casey Douglass

Welcome to Part 2 of my adventure through the Caves of Fury, a Battle Quest book where your choices decide the fate of your own hulking barbarian adventurer. If you haven’t read the first part, it’s the best place to begin. If you don’t, you’ll still be able to understand what’s going on, but are you strong enough to begin something on Part 2 when the beginning post is just a click away? I know I wouldn’t be able to. Just saying.

At the end of Part 1, I saw my barbarian take a wound from a nasty ape-monster thing, then take flight, running haphazardly down the tunnel, squealing and generally not very happy. I hoped he’d knock himself out and have a bit of a nap, but I doubt anything so pleasant will have happened to him. With how his luck was going, he’d wake up tied to a roasting spit being turned by cannibal goblins. Anyway, let’s open the book and see...

He’s still running down the tunnel. That’s quite a few days if I take a “real-time” view and imagine he’s been running since I closed the book. I guess fear gives you quite the energy boost. The tunnel he is careening down eventually splits into three. I opt to take the middle one again, what with my always liking the middle path; walking between extremes. It’s not long after taking this route, that I come to a cave that branches off from one side of the tunnel. An elderly robed man is sitting with his back to me. A table is in front of him, containing all kinds of objects, from a skull and a large leather-bound book, to strange glassware bubbling with garishly coloured potions.

Without turning, he speaks. He thinks I’m the new novice Cragcliff has sent him, but just to be sure, he wants the password. Shit. Why are these types so paranoid? I don’t know the damned password, and I don’t have the password scroll to look it up. Well, I mean I do, I can see it in the pile of stuff that comes with Caves of Fury, but I’m too honest to cheat. Where’s the fun in that? The book gives me three options for the password, and I choose the middle one: TAGEL. If it works for tunnels, it can work for passwords. Maybe. (Out of curiosity, I just Googled TAGEL, the first result was for a Cornish dictionary that gave the word’s meaning as “fleshy appendage”. This amuses me more than it should. I mean, fleshy appendages, tunnels... it’s all very rude if you think about it).

‘TAGEL’ I exclaim, trying to sound confident. The man turns and looks at me for the first time. He sees that I don’t really look like a novice and demands to know who I am. I try to tell him that I mean no harm, that the sword on my back is purely decorative and these muscles are just water weight, but he blasts me with a spell. An arc of violet light hits me in the centre of my chest. I scuttle away, embarrassed once again, and a little unnerved by how hungry the smell of my own roasted flesh is making me. I’ve lost another Strength from my counter! Only four left now. One third of my health gone and nothing to show for it! Well, a wounded arm and a scorched chest that will be the subject of all manner of jokes at the next Adventurer get-together.

I soon find myself in a cavern, my rumbling stomach finally getting the message from my brain, that it’s entirely inappropriate to lust after your own cooked flesh. This place is full of stalagmites and stalactites, and I occupy myself by trying to remember which is which, “uppy from floory” or “downy from roofy”. Whichever is which, it feels a bit like being in a stone cage. This feeling is enhanced by the snarling monster looking back at me from between the ‘tites and ‘mites to one side. It’s even holding them in massive fists, like someone who was on probation who happened to get caught one too many times thieving and is now looking at hard jail time. I get the fleeting impression that we are two food-scraps stuck between a dragon’s teeth. I can fit through the “bars” though, this monster can’t. It’s another muscular ape creature thing. I didn’t do well against the last one so I take the option to skip this fella.

As I move through the cavern, another creature hisses at me. Is this some kind of prison for the monsters that misbehave? It’s starting to feel that way. I get the impression that the book really wants me to have a go at beating one of them. This one is half-gorilla, half-humanoid. Mmm. Sharp claws and drool too. Interesting. The glimmering of a diamond catches my eye. Fuck it, let’s do it! I turn to the correct page and almost squeal with delight. This monster is slain in two wounds!

The joy doesn’t last long, as I really don’t fancy my luck. Losing to a creature that needs eight wounds to die has a bit of honour to it, but two? If I don’t manage that, what sort of barbarian am I? What sort of dice roller? I push through the feelings of inadequacy like an arachnophobe rushing through a cob-web strewn attic. I’ve not lost yet after all. I roll the dice and see the all too familiar result of my shield being raised at the creature’s face. Oh hell, not again! (See part one for how excruciating this is for me). Roll two has the same result. Can I just throw away my shield book? Please?

Roll three sees an epic sword swing from my good self, one that cuts a nasty gash in the creature’s side. Oooh yeah! Roll four... well let’s just say a shield is involved again. Roll five... sigh. On roll six I lop off its head! I take a few moments to fully process that I’ve actually slain a monster. Get in! I watch its body gurgle on the cavern floor, then quickly pick up the diamond before the thing’s blood reaches it. My first treasure! I proudly put it in my loin-cloth, as it has a secret pocket that not only hides my ‘valuables’, but also makes me look like I have more than I really have... ahem. I set my Treasure Counter to one! A glorious moment!

I decide to close the book at this point, to make that moment of triumph last as long as it possibly can. All too soon I’ll be back in the Caves of Fury, and it would be nice to once, just once, end a session with a win. There’s plenty of time for the wheels to all fall off later. I just hope that my barbarian doesn’t pick at his chest. He’s very hungry and he's been doing all sorts of running, fighting and over-thinking after all.

***

If you enjoyed reading about my adventure so far, join me again soon for Part Three of my delve into the Caves of Fury, coming out next weekend.

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury

By Casey Douglass

More than six years ago, I did a little playthrough of one of the Battle Quest books that I happened to come across while having a sort out. Sadly, I didn’t make it out of the Tunnels of Fear with the three diamonds I’d managed to liberate, but it was a fun way to spend some time. I’ve decided that I’m going to go through the process again, but with Caves of Fury this time around. I will inject my own, probably warped, sense of humour into the perils that are inflicted on my character. I will be letting the events play out as the book dictates however.

Caves of Fury is a choose-your-own-path type of book by Stephen Thraves. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1992, with illustrations by Terry Oakes. It comes with two wooden battle dice, two counters to keep track of your character’s Strength and Treasure levels, and a variety of cards and see-thru plastic things to decode cryptic clues, if your character is lucky enough to find the item ahead of the time it is needed. All for the very reasonable price of £5.99.

The lead-up into the action describes you, a famed barbarian warrior, being summoned by an old lord. This old lord immediately got on my nerves, making me follow him up a steep cliff moments after arriving on shore after an arduous journey by sea. I’d go so far as to call him a pompous prick, but there was treasure to be found so I kept my mouth shut.

At the top of the cliff, the old man points at a sheer-sided island in the distance, telling me that it is the Island of Fury. This island, apparently, is owned by one Cragcliff, a ruler who delights in filling its dangerous caverns with treasure to lure in the foolish and the greedy. I was about to suggest that this place sounded like it was performing a valuable service by weeding out the idiots who lived nearby, when the old man says it has claimed four of his sons. Foot in mouth avoided. Technically, the youngest did come back but he was mute and maddened by the experience, so I wasn’t really going to quibble about his “Loss Count” either.

The wind is really howling up on the cliff and I’m starting to wish I wasn’t standing there wearing only a loin-cloth. You’d be amazed at how little protection a sword strapped to your back offers against the elements. Nevertheless, I turn my back to the distant island and give it a try. Nope, still fucking freezing. The old chap is babbling about how he wants someone to go to the island and steal as much treasure as possible. He admits it won’t bring his sons back but thinks that the feeling of having deprived Cragcliff of his treasure will give him some kind of bitter joy.

He sniffs and looks at me silently for a moment before asking if I’ll do it. He tells me that I can keep any treasure that I’m able to bring back with me. I look over my shoulder at the island, trying not to focus on how far the goosebumps are rippling down by body. It looks stormy out there, moody my old Mum would say. I turn back to him and nod. I could do with a good adventure. I lost a month to trying to get an Adventuring Permit a short while ago, and it has played merry hell with my income for the year to date.

The next few pages of the book yank me out of the story and explain how to play, telling me to set the Strength Counter to 6 and that when it gets to 0, my character is dead. It then warns me to set my Treasure Counter to 0, half implying that I’m the sort of cheeky chap who might set it to 2 and give myself a head start. I’m almost offended. I’m told about how the dice work, how the blue one represents me and the red one the monster. It then explains how the battles work, how all monsters fight to the death but if my character gets wounded, he loses one strength and has to flee. Doesn’t sound very heroic to me but okay. I just want to get started.

So I get started. I row away from the shore in a little row-boat, bumping along on the waves. It’s still bloody cold, and now I’m getting wet too. Joy. As I near the island, I see a number of chasms looming in its side that I can choose to enter. This is the first decision that the book has given me, wanting me to flip to a certain page depending on the choice that I want to make. I opt for the middle chasm, as I’ve always been a fan of taking the middle way, the path between extremes.

As I near my chasm of choice, much howling and screeching arises from deep inside, as if the creatures on the island have sensed that I am here. Well, scream and howl all you want beasties! It’s the silent stuff that I can never see coming that makes me uneasy. A stealthy goblin stole some of my gold once. It wasn’t the loss that bothered me, just the fear that he could have slit my throat while he was at it. I look over my shoulder and then feel foolish. I’m in a row-boat for goodness sake! I make it to the shore and I’m given the option to rest awhile if I’d like to. The rudeness of the old man is still fresh in my mind, making me trek so far without a care to my well-being, so I opt to rest.

I rest for a very lazy and languid ten minutes. Why only ten? Well the noises coming from deeper in the chasm do start to niggle at my courage and resolve. You see, I’m a barbarian very much in touch with his emotional side, and I know when I’m bullshitting myself. Most of the time anyway. Ten minutes seems the ideal length of time to rest, yet not let my mettle weaken too much. Every time my eyes close, the screeches get louder too! They know I’m here and they are deliberately robbing me of rest! Paranoia is something I also dabble in, as you can probably tell.

I stand and stretch as the thought crosses my mind that it will be even colder once I go inside. Unless, I think hopefully, it’s some kind of hell-spawn pit with fire and brimstone. That would actually be quite nice, under the circumstances. I could dry off if nothing else. I enter the chasm and all the screeching and wailing falls silent. Now they definitely know I’m here! This isn’t paranoia! All I can hear as I move forward are my footsteps, steps that echo back louder than I’d really like. It almost sounds like I’m being followed by a pirate with a wooden-leg. I soon realise that I have a stone stuck in the sole of one boot, which is a bit of a relief.

As I move deeper, the cavern I’m inside merges with two more, likely the paths that I didn’t take when I made my choice for the middle chasm. The whole thing narrows into a tunnel as I wonder what pitfalls I avoided in the other two. I hope they were nasty, just so that I can feel a bit smug. Flickering torches begin to appear on the walls, setting me to pondering the question of if they are magically induced or kept going by minions. I briefly ponder what the economy of a dark lord might consist of. Underlings don’t come cheap. It’s while my head is full of, well, overheads, that I practically stumble on the first monster of my adventure.

An ape-like thing snarls at me, all narrow-eyes and flared nostrils. It has a big “Fuck-off!” sword next to it, but it’s holding a big “Try it punk!” diamond in its claw. That type of diamond is the best! I decide to fight it for it, ignoring the option to avoid it. I turn to the applicable page and catch my breath. It needs to be wounded 8 times before it will die! I could understand if it was some kind of land-based octopus, having to lop off each tentacle first, but even that might need 9 wounds if we include the killing blow. Actually 8 might work if you don’t mind waiting for the loss of blood to kill it. Does an octopus have blood? Ichor? A snarl brings me back to the ape thing. Focus.

I loosely hold the dice in my right hand and roll them on the floor in front of me. This is real life me, not barbarian me. Meeting a snarling creature and promptly bending down to roll wooden cubes in front of it isn’t that conducive to survival. Unless, I guess, you find yourself up against a monster partial to a bit of gambling. The first roll tells me that the creature bashes my shield with its sword. I’d expected to be wounded and to run away on my very first roll, so this was a bit of a result.

Roll two has the exact same outcome, another shield bash, sending shock-waves up my arm. The next roll results in my shield being raised as the creature just stares at me. So much for the rule of three that Hollywood abuses in almost every blockbuster. Where was that third strike on my shield? Blasphemy! It’s on the fourth roll that I wound it with a darting sword strike. Haha! How do you like that ape monster!

The fifth roll results in it staring at my shield again. I wish I was a bit more proactive, that shield is coming up so often its embarrassing. Next, I land another wound. Just six more to go! I still don’t think I'll achieve the kill but I’m persistent if nothing else. Roll seven sees it looking at my shield again. I feel myself beginning to blush. Roll eight is another deft sword strike from my good self. Five wounds left for the win!

Roll nine is my shield and its face again. Damn it! Roll ten just shows our faces glaring at each other. Should battles to the death be this awkward? Roll eleven has my shield raising in-front of its face. Again. Roll twelve gives me something new, our weapons actually clash! I listen to the sharp “ting” of metal echoing away down the tunnel. It lasts for far longer than I expected. Roll thirteen sees my shield raised in its face again. Of course it is. Roll fourteen is the same thing... yet again!

This creature must think I’m such a coward! Roll fifteen sees me wound it once more! Just four more wounds needed! Then it happens. Roll sixteen sees it cut an angry gash along my right arm, sending my hulking barbarian running down the tunnel, screeching that he doesn’t want to play any more! Shit.

I reduce my Strength Counter by one and use it as a bookmark to hold my place. Not the best of starts, already weakened, no loot and a character already struggling with paranoia and afraid of what the monsters he is fighting must think of him. I hope he doesn’t run into a trap in his panic. Best case scenario he runs into a wall, knocks himself out and has a nice little nap. Otherwise, part two will be pretty damn short.

***

If you enjoyed reading about my adventure so far, join me again soon for Part Two of my delve into the Caves of Fury, coming next weekend.

Dark Article - Choose Your Own Path Adventure Books

Choose Your Own Path Adventure Books
By Casey Douglass

In the process of sorting out some old books for the charity shop, I came across a couple of the old Battle Quest books; those old choose-your-own-path kind of book where you turn to a certain page for one choice and a different page for another. I remember getting them when I was about nine or ten and it has been a long time since I set eyes on them. I set them aside with a view to revisiting them later to see how they fared after years of playing video games.

I settled on Tunnels of Fear although the other one, Caves of Fury, hinted at a similarly dark adventure. Both were written by Stephen Thraves and were published by Hodder&Stoughton. I would guess that if there had been a third, it might be called Pit of Despair, keeping with the same subterranean theme. As far as I can see, these are the only two that were released in the darker fantasy style.

The book comes with two dice, a red one to represent the monster and a blue for your barbarian hero. Each side has a symbol, a sword, shield and the face of the combatant, and you roll these to decide who hits who, or even if sword hits shield/sword etc. It’s simple and very easy. If the creature inflicts a wound on you, you are meant to decrease your character strength by one, and run away! If you hit the creature, you have to keep going until you have wounded it the number of times that the book tells you to. Simple.

After looking them over I opened the book and various paraphernalia fell out that I had totally forgotten was part of it. This included a strength (read as health) counter, a treasure counter, and various overlays and information cards that you can only use if you find them on your quest. These are called things like Foresight Power and Cryptic Scroll. Being a good boy I turned them over out of the way. Following the instructions, I set my strength counter to 6 and treasure counter to 0.

I meet with a beautiful queen whose kingdom’s wealth came from a particular mine that has now been cursed by a sorcerer called Murgle, on the order of his evil master Draxun. The mine is now filled to the brim with demons and monsters and the miners cannot delve for the valuable diamonds that the kingdom so relies on. Can I help? The book says to turn the page if yes. There is no option for no but anyone saying no straight away deserves to be perplexed. Why buy the book?

The queen’s advisor Uvane drops me off some way from the mine. I am given the choice of resting or pushing on straight away. I choose to rest, and get to enjoy the sight of a bedraggled band of miners traipsing along the road. I can choose who to speak to! I choose the man with a beard and pick axe; looking the most minerly of the bunch, I guess him to have the most accurate information. All he tells me is that the mine is full of monsters and that the village is going bust. Okay, not very helpful but thanks I guess.

I push on for the village, giving some of my rations to a hungry child I see at the limits of the ramshackle area. I wasn’t given an option to give them or not. It felt like I had been burgled to be honest. Little shit.

I see the tear in the rock face that signals the entrance to the mine. Listening outside, there is no demonic roaring or clinking of chains. Silence prevails. I like it, it’s nice and ominous.

The tunnel is conveniently lit with oil lamps until it widens into a cavern. There are metal rungs stapled into the sides of a deep pit, one bunch to the north, one to the south. ‘Which way do you want to go?’ the book asks in its bold font. I choose south, thinking it’s a mine, I’m going down, South is down on a map. Poetic and fitting I think.

The book tells me I climb down 400 rungs, which I think is a suspiciously round number. These miners must have known their stuff. ‘We need to delve x metres down and no more. That will need exactly 400 rungs at y cm apart.’ This was an intelligent people.

Clearing the bottom of the pit and trudging on some little way, I encounter my first monster, and twinkling behind it, a lovely diamond! The creature looks a bit like Thing from the Fantastic Four, rocky and cracked, although this guy has tusks and a sword. The book asks if I want to fight or avoid it. Feeling confident I fight. The next page tells me that I need to wound him 8 times. 8! It takes a few rolls to get any proper contact as the first few end in swords clashing and shields bashing faces. I inflict my first wound swiftly followed by a second. The fight still feels far from won and it wounds me on the next roll, causing me to loose strength and scamper away. Damn it. I turn my strength counter down to 5.

I run into a segment of tunnel that is shaking and trembling, looking for all the world like it will crash down at any moment. The book gives me the option of running on or waiting. I choose to run. I make it mostly through but a stray rock knocks the back of my head and sets me unconscious on the floor. Lose 1 strength. Son of a bitch.

A ghost of a former miner is floating in front of me when I come to. He beckons with a misty finger. The book asks me if I would like to follow or ignore him. I choose to follow, he’s a miner after all. That’s the second time I have chosen a miner to trust/speak to. Maybe it’s the beards? Do I have a Father Christmas complex? Who knows.

I follow him until he stops in front of three smallish rocks in the wall, all looking a little wobbly. He points to them and tells me that behind one is a treasure, behind the others nothing. Which should I choose? I pick the lowest one, my thinking being again, I’m in a mine, you go low in a mine so choose the lowest. I’m not a complicated fellow. I grope behind the rock and pull out a musty old book. The Book of Cyphers! I fist punch the air and then chastise myself for being such a child, but I still grin broadly as I fish out the book of Cyphers from the forbidden pile of cards that has been mocking me since I started. Right, so I am down to 4 strength, have found 0 diamonds, but now I have a book that should tell me what to do later. Things don’t look so bleak.

Buoyed in spirit if not weighed down by loot, I push on deeper into the mine. It isn’t long before I cross paths with another monster, this one a Cyclops with a large scimitar. I decide to try my luck once more and engage the creature in combat. The book informs me that it needs to be wounded 7 times. It seems a lot, and there was no question of a swift rock thrown at the eye either. I roll and roll and roll, each dice throw resulting in weapons hitting shields, sword against sword, and once, monster face against barbarian face, which I can only assume meant a harsh stare. Soon, the wounds began to flow and I had knocked the creature down to needing 3 more hits. Swords clashed, shields thumped, but eventually I succeeded. The Cyclops lay dead before me, the body still twitching as my hands cupped the diamond that had been pressed into a nook in the cave wall. With another grin (but no air punch this time, I had learnt my lesson) I turned my treasure counter to 1.

I proceed down the tunnel once more and have to choose at a junction whether to go left or right. I choose left, hoping something evil is at the end of it. I was wrong. The danger came from behind. A yellow crackling glow whooshed behind me as a large fireball broiled towards me. I run but it catches me, singeing the back of my head. The heat sucks the air from my lungs causing me to faint.

For the second time in my adventure, I come to with something staring down at me. In this case it is a hideous goblin sniggering at me as he jiggles up and down with glee. He informs me that when I collapsed, the fireball stopped and rolled backwards down the tunnel. My first thought was “What the fuck? A fireball rolling? A fireball rolling backwards?” Maybe this wasn’t a magical fireball. Maybe it was the proverbial “rolling stone that gathers no moss”, but in this case happened to roll through some flammable oil and catch some flint on the way down the hill. But then again, it stopped without killing me and rolled away, so it probably was magical after all.

The goblin offers me three potions of various colours. One will do nothing, one will give me 1 strength back, and one will poison me. Ah ha! The book of Cyphers can be used. Each bottle has the same symbol etched into it, and the book of Cyphers informs me that I should choose the blue coloured liquid. The goblin snarls in irritation as my strength increases once more, the little window on my counter now proudly displaying 4.

I imagine myself walking down the tunnel, whistling some current barbarian pop tune as the goblin punches the wall and swears at me in his strange sounding native tongue. I push deep into the mine and negotiate all manner of obstacles, from rock falls, pits of flame and cryptic clues which are beyond my power to decipher. Not to mention the monsters and their diamonds. My strength counter now shows a forlorn 1, my treasure counter a healthy 3. Laughter drifts up to me from a particularly foisty part of the tunnel. I round a corner and floating white vapours take on the aspect of an elderly man with a long beard and the top of a grand looking robe. This definitely wasn’t a miner. I knew because I didn’t trust him.

It is Murgle, Draxun's sorcerer. He laughs and tells me of the trials I will face and surely fail. I say nothing apparently but this doesn’t discourage him from proceeding. The first challenge is similar to the goblin’s potion trick, and my trusty book of Cyphers swiftly dispenses with it. Murgle is unfazed and throws me into his mind maze with a flick of a ghostly hand. A large statue stands before me with a massive diamond on its head. I am given the choice to climb it or ignore it. I ignore it, something seemed fishy. Moments later the statue vanishes. Had I been climbing it I would have surely broken my neck as my hands and feet suddenly grasped at the thin air.

In the next tunnel a whirlwind blows and tears the air. I am given the option of going left of it, right, or to risk going straight through it. I wouldn’t go through it, if the statue was an illusion, I doubted this one would be as well. It is then that the book informs me of the glowing symbol in the tendrils of wind. Book of Cyphers comes to the rescue and right of it is the way to go. Things fade to darkness and I find myself facing Murgle again. He asks how I liked his mind maze? I would have said “Two sections is hardly a maze” but the book kept me silent again. Murgle informs me that the next part of the mine is the most perilous yet. Gravy.

I forge ahead, leaving the foggy old man behind. This part of the tunnel is interjected with large portcullises, each holding captive a stranger monster than the last. The first is like a large ape. Pass. It looked a bit handy. The second held a smirking lizard man with a large sword. Pass. He was too confident, and I couldn’t see any diamond. Strangely, it occurs to me that my mind is now in the picky mode it enters when looking for a date. Not that I date men or only people with diamonds behind them.

I finally came to a portcullis which seemed to house a monster that had been turned inside out! It was all brain, entrails and muscles snaking around, and fastened to its waist, a large sword. I fancied my chances, there appeared to be no bones, it should just be like cutting through a fat snake. It showed no signs of having a diamond behind it but the book obviously wanted me to face one of these creatures or the macabre procession might never end. It may as well be this one. Eyeing my strength counter and the 1 it displayed, I turned to the page for the creature and saw that 7 wounds were needed. Blast.

I managed to wound it once but the next throw saw its sword slice into me, opening a fatal wound in my torso. It was all over. I sadly twisted my strength counter until a mournful 0 peered back at me. My barbarian had died in the hall of portcullis, a mere hour and a half into his adventure. His story ends there, amongst the tittering goblins and slavering monsters, the three meagre diamonds he managed to find likely to be fished from his pack by skeletal fingers and dispensed to a new crop of hideous guardians once more.

Well, I can say that I enjoyed myself. It was something different for me that I hadn’t tried for a long time. I can’t really remember how many times I read through them as a kid, only that I remember that I did. I don’t think I was as bookish then as I am now though, and looking at it with another twenty years of life behind me, I think I got more out of it. The story was simple and a bit repetitive but some of that would be down to the nature of the medium and what it was trying to achieve.

One aspect that is true for this kind of entertainment and video games is that personally, I never feel the need to play/go through something more than once. Once I know the story, that’s it, interest mainly gone. The book tells you to play through again, getting better and better until you can get all of the diamonds. Nope. That’s quite optimistic of it really, but I think I will play through the other one I found at some point in the near future.

If anyone remembers these books and fancies trying their hand again, there are still a few to be had second-hand in the usual places, but they are quite scarce now. Scarcer than the diamonds in the story at the least.

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