The second adventure in the series needed a fair bit of editorial work before I could post it here - mostly to do with formatting and fixing typos and bad grammar (any remaining misspellings are presumed to be intentional), but there were a few more substantial changes to clarify matters or add parodic content, all of them implemented with the approval of whoever originally wrote the now-amended section.
Anyway, here's...
Yellow Snow II - Monarch of Basement Contributors included Ed Jolley, Per Jorner, Leigh Loveday and Kieran Coghlan
1You shiver as a cold wind sweeps through the barren park, and watch empty crisp packets dance in circles further down the path. No doubt you will be required to pick them up and bin them before the day is over.
This is where your misadventures have brought you. Until the end of next month you must work for Marty, the parkkeeper, alongside Keef, a taciturn psychopath who picked up his sentence of community service by bludgeoning a Traffic Warden into a coma with a paving slab.
Marty is late this morning - a circumstance which does not disappoint you in view of his stated intention to have you and Keef clean out the pond today. A thin crust of ice covers the foul, junk-infested waters, and Keef's so-called sense of humour is liable to result in your repeated immersion before the job is done.
The clunking of a misshapen bicycle bell alerts you to Marty's approach, and Keef abandons his search for squirrels to torment and shambles over towards the parkkeeper's hut.
You realise that something is amiss as soon as Marty comes into view. He is juddering along on his decrepit bicycle at at least twice his normal speed, and as he gets closer you can make out the terrified expression on his face.
Keef's instinct for self-preservation is better-honed than yours, and so he is the first to realise that Marty is heading straight towards you, and accelerating. As he scurries away, the bike seems to respond to his movement, veering off after him. It is over in seconds, the force of the collision throwing Marty over the handlebars to land head first in a bin in a manner that would appear comical if it were less obviously fatal.
Before Keef can get up, the bike, still upright despite the lack of rider, backs up a little, goes around him, and runs over his neck. Several times.
A sinister glint in its lamp, the bicycle then turns towards you, rearing up into a wheelie as it prepares to claim its third victim. In desperation you grab a nearby dead branch and prepare to defend yourself.
BONESHAKER Skill 9 Stamina 12
If you survive this velocipedal assault, turn to 34.
2The tunnel zigs and zags like a zig-zagging muddy funster, until in the distance you begin to catch lively snippets of sound suggesting a proximity to the bazaar you previously shunned in favour of a scuffle with some frankly unlikely sand-dwelling carnivore or other.
The whole exotic market scenario actually sounds like a jolly good wheeze the closer you get, so with a change of heart you hasten your step, thinking of the boundless riches you could attain if you were to trade all the high-class items in your possession.
Unfortunately the bald, besuited bouncer at the tradesman's entrance takes one look at you, physically spins you around on the spot and sends you packing with a solid kick up the arse. Deflated and nursing unsightly rectal bruises (lose 1 Stamina point), you continue along the tunnel. It hits a sharp right turn and leads on, the hearty sales pitches gradually segueing into warcries and indignant shrieks of mutilation as you realise you're fast approaching the barbaric combat arena you also bypassed earlier.
Soon the passageway stops dead at a sort of small-scale viewing gallery, little more than a balcony built high into the coliseum wall. You squint down over the heads of other fist-pumping spectators, focusing on one of the combatants in particular - a wiry little man surrounded by gladiators in massive spiky armour holding tigers and grizzly bears on leashes - and find yourself unable to shake a nagging sense of familiarity. If you're wearing a pair of unattractive brass earrings, turn to 58. If not, you turn away from the savagery with an unconvincing air of disdain and no option but to retrace your steps to the crossroads: deduct 1 Charge point (if appropriate) and turn to 95 or 77 to head East or West from there.
3You end up in a stone passage and, following it towards the light, enter into a high-ceilinged, marble-floored and marble-pillared meeting chamber. In the centre is an oblong table ringed by robust chairs. It doesn't seem to have been used recently. You only spot one thing that looks like you might add it to your inventory, so you walk up to the table and flip over a piece of paper. Following a sudden dramatic zoom, you read:
Joe Dever's Stonewashed Jeans £104 (unpaid)
Steve Jackson's £200 Cheque £189
Kevin Bulmer's Awkward Deadline £3.50
Original Manuscript of Bloodbones £24
Dave Holt's PLAGIREZED INERTVIEW £0.12 (reserve not met)
Robin Waterfield's Cheap Whisky £0.03 + shipping £8
.
.
.
Your eyes glaze over as they drift further down the list, but you are sickly aware that almost every line has been stamped over in red ink which screams out "DECEASED" - the one with the jeans twice. This is not just some random eBay printout, you realize... it's a Wedding List.
When you focus on the last item, fear settles like a caravan of Squatter Orcs in your stomach. At the same time, something blubbers in the darkness beyond the table. A huge amorphous mass, shaking and glistening with a perfect imitation of Sydney Greenstreet mirth.
"You are a very resourceful fellow, a resourceful fellow indeed, yes you are!" it bubbles like some person who is all jowls. "It took you some time, but you did get here, oh yes, splendid, splendid! And I have been waiting! Oh, how I have been waiting!" It quivers with laughter, a large mass of bluish transparency, dark gold strands hovering inside like a drooping fan.
There is no longer any doubt. "IAN LIVINGSTONE'S JELLIED MOUSTACHE!" you blurt out, remembering to use capitals for introducing a new creature type. Its response is a wet series of hearty guffaws that chill you to the core.
If you launch a desperate surprise attack, turn to 84. If you think this would be the time to use an item, turn to 10. If you want to engage the moustache in dialogue to see if there's a safe route to victory or if you could just get some sliver of an explanation for all the crap that's been going on since the start of Yellow Snow, turn to 48.
4The hole is both dark and slimy, like the inside of your small intestine, and you scoff repeatedly at the idea of going down there, much like you'd scoff at the idea of going into your small intestine. A terrible jangling interrupts your scoffing session just as you're getting to the best part. Casting a discreet glance in the direction of the playground, you espy not one but two Boneshakers crouching in a sandbox, trying to hide behind each other while peering at you with dirty lamps. You had a hard time with one of these fiendish devices, so you have no illusions about being able to take on two at the same time. As they finally break cover and bound across the wintry lawn with eager malice and much scraping of metal, you deftly slip into the hole. However, you misjudge the slipperiness of the walls and, after being poked in the eye by a grumpy centipede, lose your grip, falling down most of the murky shaft. Well, at least those bicycles won't be coming for you... unless they know of another entrance. Roll one die and deduct the resulting number from your Stamina, then turn to 98.
5'What?!' he bellows. 'I suppose you only know how to use that seriously flawed system made up by those two Games Workshop goons. Hah. Everyone knows TSR is the superior fantasy game company. I suppose I can't blame you. It was only my series that used the Hero's Challenge rules and there was only four of them.' He sinks to his knees dejectedly. 'Hell - they didn't even finish my adventures properly', he continues glumly. 'I didn't even meet Ketza Kota again I wound up with some random crossdressing bint that the authors thought of at the last minute.' The barbarian is soon in tears and you decide to leave him to his misery, stopping only to appropriate a Red Sonja DVD case that must have slipped out of somebody's pocket. Gain 1 Luck point for avoiding a dangerous fight by your lack of gamebook experience before turning to 99.
6The trolley comes unstuck with a wet popping sound, followed by a gurgling rush. The ensuing vortex of doom would be less disconcerting is you were not in the middle of it; you feel something tugging at your earlobes, then you are sucked under. You have inadvertently pulled the plug from the bottom of the pond and are flushed down a deep shaft, being washed here and there and ending up in a sodden, slime-covered heap on the floor. As you regain your breath and look up to the small circle of sky above, you think sarcastically to yourself that at least now you won't have to worry about making a safe descent. Turn to 98.
7Another loud crack wakes you. At some point during the King of the Maths Teachers' demonstration, you must have dozed off. Now he has noticed, and is far from pleased. He gestures again, erasing his equation, and hands you the remaining chalk, now only 8cm long.
"Fifty lines - 'I must not sleep in class'. NOW!"
Deep-rooted instincts compel you to obey (deduct 1 Charge point if you have any, and reduce your Attack Strength by 2 in your next fight owing to writer's cramp). By the time you have completed your lines, the King of the Maths Teachers has disappeared, so you are able to continue along the corridor, no better informed than you were before.
Turn to 90.
8The only relevant material you can find is the first page of a memo from Professor Slank, head of R&D at Volvo, to Dr Len Rivers of Schrödinger and Escher Architectural Designs GMBH. It outlines the theoretical principles behind the Heisenberg Topographical Extrapolator, and its effectiveness in maintaining non-consistent pedestrian infrastructures. This is complicated stuff, and unless you possess the King of the Maths Teachers' crown, you must reduce your Attack Strength by 2 in your next combat owing to mental strain. Now leave through either a brass-handled door (turn to 71) or a door with a handle of brass (turn to 11).
9Holy handwaving! The monumental battle with the Sand Squid saw you straying deep into a part of the underworld where there is no illumination to speak of. You make your way in the dark and hope for the best, occasionally feeling the walls to your sides, hearing the jagged clangs of iron jaw traps like those in Prince of Persia, and feeling mildly threatening drafts of air (gain 1 Luck point). Creatures growl and shout all around as you plod blindly ahead, stepping on tails and bumping into things. At one point you overturn a stack of precious china plates, which event is fortunately blamed on a RHINOCEROS that happens to cross your path later on. Eventually you stumble into a closet, grub around until you find something useful, and turn on the flashlight that you've managed to get your hands on (add this to your Adventure Sheet).
The batteries in the flashlight will not last forever. Note that your flashlight has 3 Charge points. If you engage in some time-consuming activity or just happen to walk down the wrong corridor, you may be instructed to deduct a Charge point. If this leaves you with no points left, immediately turn to 61.
For now, you must carry on walking down corridors. To determine where your wanderings have brought you, roll one die. You may choose to Test your Luck any number of times: if you are Lucky you can instead pick a number as you please. If the result is:
1-2 Turn to 77
3-4 Turn to 2
5-6 Turn to 95
10Which item did you have in mind to use?
The sword Telessa Turn to 87
The Doomsday Device Turn to 31
The King of the Maths Teachers' crown Turn to 74
You can also apply any numbered item by turning to the pertinent section.
If you try to use any other item, it does nothing useful of any sort (especially if it's a two-pronged stick, I mean, geez), and you suffer an attack from the moustache. Roll one die. If the result is 1-2, it reaches out and manages to snatch your light away; turn immediately to 61. If the result is 3-4, it slimes you for 3 points of damage. If the result is 5-6, you manage to dodge.
Now turn to 84 to defend yourself against this abomination.
11You progress into yet another square room. Wait... this is the Cube! You're going to die horribly! Aarrrrrgh!!!
No, just kidding. This is actually a storage room of sorts, full of knicks and knacks. You weigh the pros and cons of searching it all through for useful gamebook items when they begin to speak up.
"I'm Bob!" exclaims a tennis racket.
"I'm Bob too!" says a lobster cage hanging from the roof.
"We're both Bobs!" cry a pair of old skis.
"Bob! Bob! I'm Bob!" follow a bottle of glue, a cardboard box, a cracked picture frame, each of the cards in a soiled deck scattered on the floor, and many dozen other objects. "We're _all_ Bob!" they shout together proudly.
"I'm Steve!" a teapot chimes in.
There is a short silence. Then the Bobs all pounce on and demolish the teapot, then they turn against you. Unless you have a Glimkefolin of your own that you can leave behind to distract the mob while you slip out, or your real name is Bob, you will have to fight them all.
1000 GLIMKEFOLINS Skill 12 Stamina 12
You can Escape by taking the customary 2 points of Stamina loss. There isn't really any loot to be had, since you'll have to destroy everything before you can get your hands on it (even if your real name is Bob - don't push it). If you manage to leave one way or the other, roll one die. If the result is 1-3 then turn to 92, else turn to 38.
12You remember catching a glimpse of a reference to the Maze in one of the documents. Checking them, you find a crudely-drawn and somewhat blotchy map, which may be of some help in navigating the Maze. Turn to 56, but ignore the instruction to add 2 to the dice roll.
13As your fingers pass through the cobwebs to pick up the ticket, you feel a strange sensation, as though some malign influence were watching over you, watching your struggles in life, waiting for an opportunity to ensnare you in some sub-Faustian pact. Or it could just be after-effects from that iffy korma you had the other night.
You open out the ticket, and it occurs to you that the lottery numbers on it might be the combination for the safe. You try them: 1-8-11-12-18-25. With each successive number the lock clicks encouragingly, but the safe still won't open. There must be one more number, you think. If you can work out what it is, turn to the section with the same number (you will know if it is the right one if the first sentence includes the word 'geek'). If you can't work it out, or guess wrongly, you storm out of the hut in an arbitrary fit of pique (turn to 54).
14Potatoes have been in short supply for the Spudworms lately, since Keef started using them to incapacitate children and pensioners from a distance so that he could help himself to their small change without all that inconsiderate screaming. As a result, the faintest whiff of nutrient-dense carbohydrate joy reaching their nasal tracts is likely to whip the Worms into a state of frenzy, and as it turns out the Tupperware itself proves no barrier to the fumes from the mildewed potato salad contained within. Turn to 70.
15Unless you have the King of the Maths Teachers' crown, your memories only serve to confuse you all the more, and you must roll one die. On 1-2 you stagger out of the room through a kissing gate (turn to 11), on 3-4 you blunder into an open manhole (lose 1 Stamina and turn to 76), and on 5-6 you stumble into an oversized dumb waiter which dumps you into another part of the complex (turn to 71). If you do have the crown, you may use your new-found understanding of the layout of this place to decide where to go next. Go up a spiral staircase to the Exposition Lounge (turn to 82), through an imposing set of double doors to the Hall of Climactic Confrontations (turn to 3), or down a shaft to the Emergence Exit (turn to 100).
16You throw the stick at the mighty barbarian's feet.
'Aha!', you cry triumphantly. Sagard looks at the stick dubiously.
'Um, what is that supposed to do?' he asks.
Suddenly you realize you are not in a Livingstone-style gamebook where using seemingly random items is the key to success.
You will have to fight. Sagard's Valkyrie's sword allows him to inflict an extra hit point of damage.
YOU (LEVEL 2: 1/0 2/1 3/1 4/2)
[20][19][18][17][16][15][14][13][12][11][10][9][8][7][6][5][4][3][2][1]
(You have been beaten to a bloody pulp. Turn to Section 45)
SAGARD (Level 5: 1/2 2/3 3/3 4/4)
[25][24][23][22][21][20][19][18][17][16][15][14][13][12][11][10][9][8][7][6][5][4][3][2][1]
(You have defeated the shoddy Conan rip-off. Carry your cheating head high to section 50)
If you have no idea how to use the Hero's Challenge rules, you tell Sagard so and turn to 5.
17The chest contains a small metal cage holding a portion of spare ribs, two lungs wrapped in greaseproof paper, and a jewel case that, to your disappointment and revulsion, contains a human heart, still beating. If you have a key with the number '78' on it, you can unlock the cage and eat the spare ribs (add 4 Stamina). If you wish to take any other items with you, you must roll under your Skill on 2 dice to overcome your squeamishness. You may now leave via a narrow passageway to your left (turn to 11) or a revolving door to your right (turn to 38). If you have a rosebud in your buttonhole and wish to investigate the way the architecture here keeps changing, turn to 8.
18Time slows down quite a lot. Through a caleidoscopic rift shambles a monstrosity, brandishing clawed hands and rumbling, "Payment will be exacted in blood."
"Wait, payment?" you blurt. "Don't I get to order you around first?"
"No," it says and slashes at you.
If you want to use the short time available to desperately try to dismiss the creature by waving the kris knife in increasingly wider arcs, turn to 83. Otherwise, roll one die to determine what you face:
1 DEMONIC SERVANT Skill 8 Stamina 7
2 ZOMBIE CAPTAIN Skill 7 Stamina 9
3 CAPTAIN ZOMBIE Skill 8 Stamina 10
4 ABYSSAL LACKEY Skill 9 Stamina 11
5 CANDARIAN DEMON Skill 11 Stamina 16
6 RAZAAK Skill 12 Stamina 20
Unless you have Rutger Hauer handy and can offer him up as payment, you must do battle. If you fight the Demonic Servant and win two consecutive Attack Rounds, you have destroyed your foe. If you fight Razaak and lose two consecutive Attack Rounds, you have been similarly destroyed. If you fight Captain Zombie and win, you can procure a skeleton key tagged "No. 78" from its utility belt. If you fight Razaak and win, turn to 66.
Assuming you survive, time resumes its ordinary pace: turn to the paragraph you were originally headed for.
19What, you expect to be able to remember a rough map of a maze that you saw briefly a few months ago? Fat chance. Go back to 12.
20The lid is held close by a hinged clasp, which you unfasten. You then hold the box in your hands and smartly flick the lid open with your thumbs, hoping for some great treasure of bygone days - war bonds, perhaps?
Flash! You stagger and blink as two winged miniature nudettes flit out of the box, circling you, snapping off their small cameras in a distracting manner and delivering miniature kung fu kicks in between!
PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES Skill 9 Stamina 5
Because they lack the weight to deliver a good blow, you only lose 1 point of Stamina if their Attack Strength is greater than yours. On the other hand, whenever they roll a double in combat, you have been blinded by the flashes and lose that Attack Round automatically.
If you crush them, they spiral into oblivion and you pick up the tin box once again. Have you had an oddly ominous note in your possession since the beginning of the adventure? In that case, turn to 75. If not, turn to 67.
21On the back of a torn-out contents page from BBC sports commentator Tony Gubba's autobiography you find a half-legible note about the inadvisability of wrapping jellied moustaches in aluminium foil. Regrettably, the reason for said inadvisability is contained in the non-legible part of the note.
You definitely don't have enough foil on you to wrap Ian Livingstone's Jellied Moustache (and it's doubtful that the Moustache would keep still long enough for you to warp it even if you did), but if you do have some foil, you might want to try using it as a weapon against the moustache.
If you have no foil, or don't want to risk whatever side-effects might be outlined in the illegible part of the note, turn back to 48 and choose a different option without reading any more of this paragraph. If you wish to attack the Moustache with a hastily-folded foil rapier, turn to 84, but note that the foil will only work as a weapon for 1d6 Attack Rounds. It will do an extra Stamina point of damage every time you hit the Moustache with it, but once it loses its effectiveness, you will either have to fight unarmed (deduct 2 from your Attack Strength for the rest of the fight) or get out a replacement weapon (in which case you automatically lose the next Attack Round while readying it, or the next 2 Attack Rounds if you have a two-pronged stick, as you waste time dithering over whether to use that or something else). If you think there's a great pun on 'fencing foil' to be derived from this situation, turn to 66.
22Wading through the sand, you soon discover that its loathsome odor is due to the presence of numerous dismembered and decaying carcasses, human or otherwise. Even as you contemplate these scenes of carnage, a rapacious beast erupts from the sand in a spray of shingle, shouting "You killed my father! Now I kill you!"
Maddened red eyes regard you with malice as spiny tentacles attempt to drag you towards a hideous crushing maw. You must fight the SAND SQUID!
SAND SQUID SKILL 8 STAMINA 9
During this combat you must reduce your Attack Strength by 2 as the sand hampers your attempts at self-defence. If you win, turn to 88.
23With a great heave, you pull open the lid of the sarcophagus. The heave is maybe a bit too great though as you fall backwards landing rather painfully on your bottom. Rubbing your bruised backside you stand up and lift your gaze to look inside the sarcophagus. Standing there is a massive bearded barbarian, clad only in a loincloth and boots. He is gripping a rather impressive sword in two hands and looks pretty mad.
'I have been stuck in there for absolute ages!', he cries. 'I am Sagard by the way. Rattikan warrior, Slayer of the Green Hydra, Explorer of the Butte with 1000 Holes and Destroyer of the Fire Demon.'
'Explorer of what?,' you ask. 'And wasn't Rattikan the bad guy from the lesser seen Disney film "Basil: the Great Mouse detective"?'
'You have more pressing things to worry about, my friend. Being a barbarian in an FF book I am naturally an ungrateful bastard and so I shall now cleave you into pieces with my Valkyrie's Sword: Hero's Challenge style!'
Unless you have a two-pronged pointy stick and wish to use it (turn to 16 to do this), you will have to fight him. Sagard's Valkyrie's sword allows him to inflict an extra hit point of damage.
YOU (LEVEL 2: 1/0 2/1 3/1 4/2)
[20][19][18][17][16][15][14][13][12][11][10][9][8][7][6][5][4][3][2][1]
(You have been beaten to a bloody pulp. Turn to Section 45)
SAGARD (Level 5: 1/2 2/3 3/3 4/4)
[25][24][23][22][21][20][19][18][17][16][15][14][13][12][11][10][9][8][7][6][5][4][3][2][1]
(You have defeated the shoddy Conan rip-off. Carry your cheating head high to section 50)
If you have no idea how to use the Hero's Challenge rules, you tell Sagard so and turn to 5.
24At once Moth Lady seizes you by the scruff of your neck, using a variant of the Vulcan nerve pinch that paralyses you as surely as one wound too many from a Ghoul. She then drags you into Marty's hut, opens the safe, crams you into it, and slams it shut. You have until the air runs out to reflect upon your folly.
25After the intense pain brought about by forcing the thick, blunt, bloody spikes through your unprepared earlobes (lose 2 Stamina points), you decide blearily as you admire yourself in a dusty old mirror that the earrings look rather fetching. Unfortunately, you will soon realise that nobody else in the world (except Mungo, and he's both wrong and dead) feels the same way, and the resulting self-consciousness will cause your Attack Strength to be reduced by 1 point in all combat situations until you can find a way of removing the earrings without triggering a lethal degree of blood loss.
For now, you can only return shakily to the outside world: turn to 54.
26You attack the Time Being.
TIME BEING - SKILL 9 STAMINA 10
If the Time Being ever wins an Attack Round, deduct 2 Stamina as usual and throw one die. If you throw an odd number and are using Charge points, change the number of remaining Charge points to half of what you rolled (rounded up). If you throw a 2, a burst of temporal energy rejuvenates you: restore your Skill, Stamina and Luck to their Initial Scores, and try to stay away from David Brunskill, as you'd only confuse him. If you throw a 4, a burst of temporal energy ages you: deduct 2 Skill, reduce your Initial Stamina by 4, and start complaining about how much better interactive fiction was when you were a lad. If you throw a 6, the Time Being knocks you into the middle of next week. Literally. Turn to section 75 of the inevitable sequel to this adventure.
If you defeat the Time Being, it explodes into a mass of cogs and gears (throw two dice and ignore the result). You turn your attention to the chest (turn to 17).
27Geek, the hinges groan accusingly as the safe door swings open following the customary satisfying click that is being perfected at research departments of safe manufacturers everywhere. Inside the safe you find three things of interest - well, four things if you count Marty's collection of centaur porn, but you wouldn't want to be caught with that in your inventory. The first is a spray can of Anti-Spudworm Formula #3; with this in your possession, you can automatically consider yourself the winner of any fight against Spudworms, giant or otherwise, with no loss of Stamina. However, the can will run out after a single use and must be discarded thereafter. Also, should it mistakenly be applied to Crudworms it will have very unpredictable effects, so don't do that. The second item is a piece of ice from the comet Swift-Tuttle which appears to be sublimating. If you choose to take it with you, for each paragraph you turn to hereafter you must put a Meltage Counter on the piece of ice from the comet Swift-Tuttle. If there are five Meltage Counters on the piece of ice from the comet Swift-Tuttle, it is destroyed and you lose 1 Stamina point for breathing in too much methane. The third item is a spindly enamelled green key with the number 94 stamped on it in Aztec numeric symbols. You can take any of these objects with you before dealing with the gaggle of Goblins that have gathered in the doorway. You may hurl yourself through the window to avoid a long, tedious combat situation (lose 3 points of Stamina and turn to 54), or fight them one at a time:
First GOBLIN Skill 4 Stamina 5
Second GOBLIN Skill 5 Stamina 5
GOBLIN ON STEROIDS Skill 7 Stamina 3
Third GOBLIN Skill 4 Stamina 4
GOBLIN SERGEANT Skill 6 Stamina 5
GOBLIN OVERSEER Skill 5 Stamina 8
COWARLY GOBLIN Skill 3 Stamina 2
Eighth GOBLIN Skill 4 Stamina 3
CRIPPLED MUTT Skill 6 Stamina 4
If you fight them and win, you briefly note before leaving that they were really a bunch of unruly children on a school picnic. Gain 1 point of Stamina and 1 point of Luck for your victory and turn to 54.
28If you have no foil, there's no point on dwelling on the topic, so turn back to 48 and choose another option. If you do have some foil, you think back and recall a needlessly detailed explanation of what foil does to jellied moustaches, from which you deduce that unfolding the foil and sticking it directly to the Moustache will do the most damage. If you'd rather not try it, turn back to 48 and select another option. If you wish to give it a go, turn to 84 and fight the Moustache. If you win the first Attack Round, you successfully place the foil, and the Moustache will only be able to get rid of it by throwing a double when rolling for Attack Strength. Every round that the foil is in place, the Moustache automatically loses 1 Stamina. If you lose the first Attack round, or your Attack Strength is equal to the Moustache's, you waste the foil, and automatically lose the second Attack Round while settling on another method of attack.
29An incessant, unnervingly slithering sound soon accompanies your footsteps on the stairs. Glistening tubular bodies creep out on all sides from cavities in the walls, converging in your direction! There is no mistaking these cave-dwelling carnivorous worms for jolly ponies; they are out to get you for your breach of honour.
If you have a can of Anti-Spudworm Formula #3 and want to apply it, turn immediately to 68.
If you have a set of pull-rings you can throw them to the ground, inflicting cuts on the worms as they slither forwards: deduct the number of tabs thrown from their Stamina before fighting.
If you have a two-pronged wooden stick, you whisk it out only to find that it has been rendered useless by TERMITES: lose 1 Luck point and count yourself lucky you don't have to fight the Termites.
If you have a piece of knotted string you can use it to climb to a higher ledge; in that case, Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you can whack the stupid worms as they foolishly try to jump over you: reduce their collective Skill by 1 and their Stamina by 2. If you are Unlucky, they just gnaw at your ankles instead.
If you carry a Tupperware container, the remnants of potato salad therein make the worms fight more furiously and rashly: increase their Skill by 1, but any hit you inflict shaves off 3 points of Stamina.
If you have a chunk of squid flesh, you can use it to distract a few worms: deduct 4 points from their Stamina.
If you have a talking sword, it will shout obnoxiously redundant advice to you throughout the battle, intermingled with reminiscences from the French Riviera narrated in third person plural: reduce your Attack Strength by 1 for the duration of this fight.
If you have a porcelain eye and a pristine copy of The Buccaneers of Shadaki and a wooden block, you can use them to build a Doomsday Device with which you can blast the worms into little pieces. The Doomsday Device can blast all your enemies into little pieces. It's just that good!
If you have a man-sized brass penguin, the top of its head flips open revealing a little black comedy cannon which blows your face through the back of your head.
Now, if the resulting Stamina of the worms is less than 1 they retreat into the shadows, bleating morosely, else resolve this man-against-worm struggle:
CAVE WORMS Skill 10 Stamina 14
If you live, you slip on the slimy floor and hurry on down the stairs. Turn to 81.
30So intent are you on scrabbling about in the underground muck of the tunnel, frantically searching for secret doors, that you fail to notice the wayward spore bulb lying on the floor. That is, until your knee goes straight through it with a loud ffffphuuuutt! The exploding spore bulb showers you with glowing organo-phosporic compounds that burn and etch your skin painfully. Reduce your STAMINA by 2.
If you are still alive, you stagger northwards up the tunnel, where the floor becomes thick with foul-smelling orange sand. Turn to 22.
31Like Indiana Jones pulling his pistol on the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark, you produce the Doomsday Device. The moustache looks less worried than you'd hoped.
"You are aware that The Buccaneers of Shadaki has a trivia-activated denouement?" mocks the moustache. "That won't work on me unless you can answer a question based on some trivial detail or details of this adventure."
"Such as?" you prompt, once you've checked and found out that the moustache is right about the Doomsday Device not affecting it.
"I'm not contractually obliged to provide you with the means of my own destruction," warns the moustache. "But you've caught me in an Ungoth mood, so I shall ask a question."
You briefly misinterpret the name 'Ungoth' as the adjective 'un-Goth', and try to figure out what such a mood would entail, thereby wasting the time you could have spent attacking the musing moustache.
"The question," announces the moustache. "What would be the result if you were to divide the price, in pounds, for which Steve Jackson's £200 Cheque was sold by the number of days since that trampled copy of The Sun you found in the park was printed?"
A random bolt of lightning strikes the piece of paper with the list on, preventing you from rereading it. If you can work out the answer (and no peeking back at previous sections, you dirty cheat), multiply it by one-and-a-third and turn to the resultant section. If you don't know, or get it wrong, you find yourself deprived of all options but attack (turn to 84).
32You retire to the shadow of the toolshed, plonk yourself down into a cross-legged position and attempt to prepare your body for the superhuman exertions of the obscure Spitting Fly technique – a little something you picked up years ago from the last survivor of a wiped-out monastery during an expedition to the Himalayan foothills. Or you may have just dreamed that bit and subconsciously fabricated your martial arts expertise to shield yourself from some kind of childhood trauma, but you're not letting that put you off.
You rise from your position and launch into an elaborate kata, your moves appearing to the casual observer as not so much 'graceful' and 'birdlike' as 'spastic' and 'camel-like'. Fortunately this does not dissuade the casual observer in question, a grotesque but lavishly dressed fat man reclining on a park bench just across the path. His girlish applause snaps you out of your trance and you stop to glare at him for tampering with the mysteries of the East.
"Bravo! Bravo!" he trills, picking up a hot pink cocktail from a tray held by a diminutive manservant and toasting you with it. "Please, join me. I'm Rufus Frangipan, a local billionaire oil magnate and occasional ox wrangler with a sideline interest in rubbish displays of pretend martial arts. You may be familiar with my contrived character type from Viz magazine's Gilbert Ratchet strip."
The lardy fop sips from his cocktail and immediately makes a face. "Cutherbertson, you cretin, my Spicy Vagina is borderline tepid! Where's the ice?" he bellows. The manservant cowers and covers his head. "What? No ice?" demands Frangipan. He turns to you with a wheedling expression. "I don't suppose you'd have any ice for this, would you? The dashed thing's entirely undrinkable."
If you have a piece of ice from the comet Swift-Tuttle, turn to 86.
If not, Frangipan becomes abruptly hostile and dismisses you without a second thought: turn to 54 to reconsider your options.
33You walk through a maze of hieroglyph-covered, annoyingly similar passages coming to the conclusion that you are well and truly lost. Eventually you come to an ornate sarcophagus propped against a wall. If you're feeling in a curious mood, you could try and open it (turn to 23). Alternatively you can pick a random direction and hope you can find a way through this tiresome maze (turn to 99).
34Seeing as the broken bicycle and scattered ball bearings qualify as litter, you chuck it into the wheelie bin. Taking vehicular vendettas in your stride and reinvigorated by this act of community service, you then turn to neaten the gravel path leading up to the parkkeeper's hut. On the way over to the nearest litterbin with an armful of trash, some of it slips into the pockets of your jacket. This would normally be annoying, but in a gamebook it could actually be a good thing. You may choose any three items from this list to form your starting inventory.
* A set of pull rings (roll one die and add two to the result to determine the precise amount)
* A small Tupperware case containing a mixture of food remains and rotting leaves
* Enough aluminium foil to cover the top of your scalp
* Someone's porcelain eye
* A two-pronged pointy twig which is slightly burned at the end
* The knotted tail-string of a kite
* A week-old copy of The Sun, trampled into mush (or just trampled)
* A sacrificial kris knife embossed with glowing runes which is very appealing and probably useful and non-cursed (choose meee... choooose meeeeeee)
Now that your neat-freak instincts have _really_ awakened, you roll up your sleeves and stroll past the remains of Marty and Keef over to... the pond. This circular swampland of reeds and algae glows like a verdant emerald in the midst of the park as if it had a climate zone all of its own (not counting the thin crust of ice), rare species of water lily and cat's-tail competing for space with decaying plant matter, insect colonies, and junk. Yes, it's really about time someone tidied up around here. But how?
If the lazy buzz surrounding the place suggests to you that the phrase "Five-point Spitting Fly Technique" might be applicable, turn to 32. If you think it'd be worth the trouble to haul the old Polybleb out of the toolshed for this job, turn to 42. If you would prefer to use the long-handled mudscoop to be safe from any hostile worms, turn to 47. Finally, if you feel you need to get Marty's keys off his belt and visit the parkkeeper's hut to consult the Most Revered Treatise of Parkkeeping, turn to 57.
35Finally, the excitement of the Maze of Davis is behind you. You're not sure that your wildly beating heart can cope with whatever comes next, but you soldier on regardless. After a short distance the corridor ends at another door, even more shoddily built than the last, to which a tatty bit of paper is attached with a rusty nail. Several names have been scrawled on the paper then scribbled out: those still just about legible include 'The Maze of Green', 'The Green Room', 'Here's Johnny and his Maze of Amazement' and 'JG Plastering and Maze Design No Job To Small'. The one remaining undefaced title, thereby the de facto name of the location beyond the door, is 'Jon's Fab Maze'. Stirring stuff.
You step through the doorway and find yourself immediately up to your knees in murky water. Fake hieroglyphs of pre-school quality adorn the walls, only intermittently visible in the sputter of widely-spaced torches. Your bored, sloshing progress soon brings you to a crossroads: do you take the left path (turn to 89), the right path (turn to 89) or go straight on (turn to 89)? Alternatively you could retrace your steps to the entrance (turn to 89).
36This section is the correct answer to the puzzle in section 31. This clarification is provided on the frankly insulting assumption that even though you were able to work out the solution, you lack the smarts to deduce from the following sentence that this is indeed the right section. So there.
The moment you voice the answer to the question, a bolt of blue-green energy leaps from the Doomsday device, blasting Ian Livingstone's Jellied Moustache against the far wall. As you celebrate, chanting "I am the greatest!" like Nicolas Cage in that rubbish-looking helicopter film you kept seeing trailers for back in the 1990s, a passing Kraan rips the copy of The Buccaneers of Shadaki from the heart of the device and carries it off to Project Aon. Delete the Doomsday Device from your Adventure Sheet. Too fired up to care, you hurry across the chamber to make sure the Moustache is properly dead. Turn to 59.
37You have defeated a Sand Squid with your bare hands, which is no mean feat, nor a kindly one for that matter. Add 1 Luck point for your victory, and you can take a chunk of squid flesh along if you like. You can eat it at any quiet moment to gain 4 points of Stamina and a slightly queasy feeling. Continuing down the tunnel, your fancy light source showing the way, you arrive at a perfectly ordinary junction. Do you go:
West? Turn to 77
North? Turn to 2
East? Turn to 95
38Behind the door is a rocky tunnel which goes on forever, becoming full of obstructing sticky strands and patches of collapsed webbing. Progress consumes both time and energy, and you have a nagging sense that you're going in the wrong direction. Deduct 1 Stamina point, and also 1 Charge point if you have any. Down an unhealthy side passage you spot two mephitic servants decorating the place with impish glee and Insta-Web spray cans; they see you and mock you in high-pitched gibberish. After a while the going gets easier and you arrive into a huge cavern lit by sparse green torches and luminous giant trilobites.
On the far side of the cavern you see an encampment of huge spiders with humanoid torsos: ARACHENTAURS, well-known mercenaries of the underworld (there was a spot of coverage on them in the Clapham Clarion last week). Some of them are busy counting sheep or washing vestments in a pond of green liquid. Others are standing guard with long spears. "Look, there is a baboon," you hear one of them saying. "An envoy!" another calls to the far side of the camp. You are well content to wait some way off as a couple of sentries skitter forth to meet you.
"Do you bring fresh organs?" they demand unceremoniously. "We have sent scouts, but the passages change and they do not find the way. Why should we uphold our end of the bargain if you cannot even keep us supplied?"
Check your inventory for body parts: a chunk of squid, a beating heart, a portion of spare ribs, a package of preserved lungs, a porcelain eye, or Rutger Hauer. If you possess at least two out of these six items, the spiderkin greedily relieve you of them all and conduct you to a large double gate wrought out of a semi-transparent red material, turning back with no farewells once they have closed the gates behind you (turn to 3).
If you don't have enough body parts, they become angry and impatient. If you have whiskers, the problem takes care of itself as stress triggers a transformation and you shrink into a small cat. Arachentaurs being deathly afraid of kittens, they rapidly clear a path leaving you time and space to skip cutely between the bars of the gate before turning back to normal in the passage beyond (turn to 3).
If you don't have whiskers but you do have a glowing kris knife, you could try to gate in a host of Housefly Fiends, sworn enemies of the Arachentaurs (turn to 18), call up Moth Lady and compel her to test the mettle of someone other than yourself for a change (turn to 24), create a dimensional bridge through Fairyland to behind that gate (turn to 66), or, if you also possess issue 8 of Warlock magazine, unleash its full range of atrocities (turn to 85).
Finally, if you have no such knife or don't much like to use it, you must make some transparent excuse concerning urgent baboon business and either walk up a few rickety steps to a brightly painted door in the rock face (turn to 82), crack open a vault door set in a large stalagmite (turn to 92) or slide down the nearby borehole of a Rock Grub (turn to 100 if it's your birthday or to 61 if it's not).
39The oxen do their thing, something to do with dragging in a powerful way, and the shopping trolley comes loose. But something else comes loose with it: the great plug stuck in the bottom of the pond, craftily disguised as an inevitable pond object. Watching from a safe distance, it becomes clear to you that someone has mysteriously fashioned a circular ridge on the bottom of the pond, surrounding the gaping hole you have just opened up.
The water level outside this perimeter sinks only to its rim, to the relief of Spudworms and other deep-dwelling pond inhabitants, while inside is created a dry (if rather slimy) area marking the entrance to some sewerish location. As your oxen lazily drift apart among the trees you wade out and explore. Something clatters hollowly as you step into the enclosure: a flattish tin box almost covered by dead yellow eels. If you want to pick up the box and check out the contents, turn to 20. If you would rather just examine the hole, turn to 4.
40Rubber clamps thump down on your head as the machine starts to power up. Mechanical arms unfold and grasp the earrings, whereupon the whole device launches into an alternating sequence of crushing and twisting motions. The outcome of this procedure depends on something that is completely unrelated to its operation, namely how many times you have witnessed Mungo perish in this particular game.
If it's just the once, the machine chugs and pulls harder and faster until your body cannot sustain it any more. If you want, you can roll up to four dice to determine whether you die of a cracked skull or terminal muscle sprain. Your last vision is of Moth Lady shaking her head and tut-tutting.
If it's happened two times, the earrings eventually plop free, somewhat to your surprise, and the machine powers down. You no longer suffer a penalty to your Attack Strength, but you must still deduct 1 point of Stamina for the ordeal, and moderately dizzied you stagger off through a doorway that presents unlikely angles to your swimming eyes: turn at once to 82.
If you've met Mungo no less than three times, the device takes its sweet time methodically grappling with and pulling on the earrings, effecting a safe removal with no loss of health or presence of mind. However, by then the Skeletons have returned from their break and curse you for a lousy scab. Fight the foreman one-on-one, then the other four two at a time:
SKELETON FOREMAN Skill 7 Stamina 5
CHISEL SKELETON Skill 6 Stamina 5
HAMMER SKELETON Skill 6 Stamina 6
MALLET SKELETON Skill 5 Stamina 6
FRETSAW SKELETON Skill 5 Stamina 5
If you win, you go through the spoils of the fight and quickly dismiss the copper key marked "66" and the silver chisel as being outdated relics of no use in this adventure. (If you wish, you can still nick the key while the Powers that Be aren't watching.) However, grabbing the hardwood mallet restores 1 point of Skill in case you visited the only section where you could have lost any, and raiding the pantry for some Danish pastries nets you two Provisions, each of which can be ingested at any time – even during combat, in fact, although crumbs will go everywhere - to restore 4 Stamina points as usual. You can now choose whether to leave through a brightly red fire door (turn to 3) or duck into a small supply compartment (turn to 11).
41You trudge along the corridor, intent of finding your way through this labyrinth, but at the back of your mind you can't help but think about how a Mutant Orc suddenly became a Lizard Man. Thinking about this lack of continuity makes you increasingly irritated as you walk further away from the scene and soon your mind is screaming to know how and why it happened. And soon you are considering all life's mysteries: Why do duck-billed platypuses exist? Who created God? Who actually likes arthouse films? What happened to Ian Livingstone's moustache? The strain of considering all these things is too much for a mortal mind to bear and your head begins to ache with utmost intensity. Soon you reach your limit and collapse to the ground, banging your head on the stone wall as you fall. You lose both 3 Stamina points and your consciousness.
You awake several hours later (lose 2 Charge points if applicable) and decide to hurry along the corridor in full belief that there are some things man was not meant to contemplate too much. Turn to 90.
42Hinges creak alarmingly as you peep cautiously through the door to the toolshed. The place is larger on the inside than on the outside, and straight away you are faced with a choice of paths. Do you take the door to the left (turn to 80) or the one to the right (turn to 63)?
43You grab the papers from the fire, only to find that most of them have been charred beyond all recognition. On the top sheet you can just make out the words 'Original manuscript of Bloodbones'.
Turning your attention back to the chest, you see a spindly creature with a clock for a face and sundials for hands attempting to pick it up (and not doing particularly well, sundials being rather clumsy appendages). This is the Time Being, and it has come to collect the chest you so obligingly left for it. If you leave the chamber by the far exit, turn to 76. If you want the chest, and are willing to fight the Time Being for it, turn to 26.
44Test Your Luck. If you're Unlucky, you die horribly. If you're Lucky, the heavens offer commiserations for your bodged attempt at item usage in the form of a further arbitrary item handout. Roll a die to see what falls into your metaphorical lap:
1: Five quid
2: A man-sized brass penguin (taking this requires you to drop all other items)
3: A copy of The Buccaneers of Shadaki
4: A big round comedy bomb, which blows your face through the back of your head
5: A copy of The Buccaneers of Shadaki, so torn and defaced as to be unreadable and worthless in eBay terms
6: Rutger Hauer, who follows you around as he can't think of anything better to do
Then return to the section you came from, then the one before that.
45You awaken several minutes later (lose 1 Charge point if applicable). Your wounds are not severe because working out how hit points calibrate with Stamina points is too much effort. (If you are determined to work it out, and are willing to dig up a copy of issue 10 of 'Warlock' magazine to check the character conversion tables, turn to 66.) There is no sign of the barbarian. You see he has left something on the floor. You stoop to pick it up and see that it is a copy of Red Sonja on DVD. Take this if you wish, before heading in a random direction to escape this infernal maze. Turn to 99.
46You eventually arrive at the top of a stone stairwell, having no realistic choice but to descend, warily testing the first few steps for traps or poison spiders (although if you really want to turn back and search any locations you might have missed for critical items, do so by turning to 99 if you have a Red Sonja DVD or to 89 if you don't.
The stone walls are damp and pitted. After a while the stairs start to curve more freely back and forth, large openings and slopes appearing to either side. Holding out your light and peering into the darkness, you can make out the semblance of a great, three-dimensional limestone labyrinth. A little further on you approach a wooden turnstile with a small box for collecting toll. If you have five quid you may put them in the box, pass through and continue on your way (turn to 81). If not, you'll have to jump the turnstile (turn to 29).
47After a protracted bout of brain-racking, you finally remember where the mudscoop is likely to be: lying half-hidden in the reeds where it was dropped by the last unfortunate who proved to be less than deft in its use. The pond is home to a gaggle of PLIANT SPUDWORMS, vast, sinuous creatures who spend most of their lives drifting around in a semi-conscious daze brought on by a chemical reaction to their natural diet of raw potatoes, but who react violently and carnivorously to any form of prodding, nudging or other unintentional attention-seeking. Not even Keef messed with the Spudworms... well, not after the first time, and his pelvis was never the same.
Mindful of the residents' sullen disposition, you begin to dredge the debris from the pond as best you can, holding the scoop as delicately as a pair of tweezers. If you are carrying a Tupperware box full of rotting food, turn to 14; otherwise, Test Your Luck. If you are Lucky, turn to 55. If you are Unlucky, turn to 70.
48"Your plan will never work... whatever it is!" you shout, hoping to evoke some kind of expositional sequence.
"You still have no idea where you are or what you are doing!" the moustache quavers happily, rolling from side to side. "You don't even know who you are, no! Do not recognize your true identity on that list you see before you! I see your doubt! Yes, my friend, you too have been bought and sold, you too! Yet even with only false memories for guidance, fate has brought you this far, oh, it is not without a sense of equity! Oh-ho-ho!"
"That explains less than you might think!" you insist.
"Oh, but I'm afraid it will have to do, ho-ho! It is too wonderful a mystery for me to spoil it, don't you think? And ironically you shall die with no true knowledge of your own actions, nor mine!"
"You're not talking about that penguin switcheroo thing that might have happened in the first adventure? It wore off, you know."
"Oh no, I must say the truth is far more sinister than that, indeed, indeed! But it's just one more thing you need not concern yourself with any more! You are on the list, so you must die, yes! Blub!"
Having said this, the moustache slides menacingly forward. You will have to do something, such as take a stand (turn to 84), whip out an item (turn to 10), or if you have a rosebud in your buttonhole, rely on other resources (turn to 21).
49You find that the runes provide just enough illumination for you to be able to see. However, there is a small risk that by waving it around you may inadvertently summon up something nasty. Whenever you turn to a new section while using the kris as a light source, throw two dice, and if you ever get a double 6, note down the number of the section to which you were turning and turn instead to section 18. For now, turn to 37.
50Gain 12 experience points. If you get 20 experience points you will reach Level 3, but you needn't worry about that as you won't be getting any more. Hurriedly searching the Rattikan's body, you find a wooden block, a naughty photo of some woman named Ketza Kota (judging by the signature) and a copy of Red Sonja on DVD. You may take any and all of these seemingly useless items. Now to find your way out of this maze. Turn to 99.
51The equation does indeed appear to prove that a Mutant Orc Guard is the same as a Lizard Man. Nevertheless, you feel dissatisfied with this explanation. Lose 1 Luck and get on with exploring the passage. Turn to 90.
52Following the damp tunnel north you immediately discover a wayward purple and yellow spore bulb, glowing gently on the ground in front of you. It appears to have lost the power of auto-floatation, though the faint light it gives off may prove useful. Add the 'glowing spore bulb' to your Adventure Sheet.
A short distance beyond this, the floor of the tunnel becomes almost entirely submerged under thick layers of loose, damp, and unpleasant-smelling orange sand. You may stroll boldly through the sand (in which case turn to 22), or sneak along the edge of the tunnel, on the sandy margins (turn to 73).
53Moth Lady gestures, and a large herd of oxen appears on the bowling green. You wince, thinking of the damage they will do to the turf.
"These beasts of burden may aid you in your quest," explains Moth Lady. "You need only to exert your authority by wrestling their leader into submission."
She beckons to the largest ox, almost certainly the most ill-natured bovine entity you've ever encountered away from the internet, and it charges towards you.
Throw two dice. If the total is lower than your SKILL, you dodge out of the way of the ox, and are able to hurl yourself at it and start wrestling (skip to the next paragraph of this section). If the total is equal to or higher than your SKILL, the ox hits you, causing 2 STAMINA damage. Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you stay on your feet, and are able to face the ox's next charge (return to the start of this paragraph). If you are Unlucky, the ox knocks you down and tramples you into a fine paste, bringing your adventure to an abrupt end.
There not being enough free sections here for a 'Seas of Blood'-type wrestling match, you will just have to conduct it like a normal combat, except that you need only reduce the ox's STAMINA to 2 to subdue it. Of course, the ox will not stop attacking you as long as you have a STAMINA point to your name.
OX SKILL 10 STAMINA 14
If you are able to subdue it, Moth Lady departs with an ominous, "I shall continue to keep watch on your exploits. If you fail to act in a suitably heroic manner, I shall not be so lenient in future." Turn to 39.
54It seems you have not yet found the proper approach to the problem of the pond. What next? You may only choose something that you haven't already attempted. If you have a gratuitously numbered item in your possession, you may also try to make use of it here. If you've tried all the options and are still stumped, turn to 97.
Do something involving flies and martial arts Turn to 32
Visit the toolshed to see if there's something useful Turn to 42
Go get the mudscoop to clear out some of the algae Turn to 47
Get Marty's keys and enter the parkkeeper's hut Turn to 57
55As you clear a path through the algae, scum and general filth at the unfrozen fringes of the pond, you wade further out until you're forced to break through the grimy ice crust as you go. The mudscoop clanks against submerged bike wheels, lager cans, valuable and perfectly preserved Roman centurions' helmets and a big crate full of Auric Goldfinger's solid gold bars (which you mistake for a fridge) until you reach your destination: the inevitable lone shopping trolley, ruefully extending a single wheel from the depths.
This senseless disruption of the pond's natural symmetry offends your trained aesthetic eye, plus you want the pound coin that's been left in it, so you reach down, shove your fingers through the wire mesh and haul manfully for several minutes until the whole thing begins to chug free of the silt and slime at the bottom. Breathing heavily, you decide that you might need some help dragging the damn thing to shore. Choose one option from the following list, if any of them apply to you. If you have come prepared with a full team of oxen, turn to 39. If Rutger Hauer is with you, turn to 91. If you are wearing a pair of fugly brass earrings, turn to 6. If you have a sacrificial kris knife embossed with glowing runes and wish to try summoning some kind of honking great demon, turn to 79. Otherwise, turn to 60.
56You wander around the maze a lot. Test your Luck, adding 2 to the roll. If you are Lucky, you eventually find the way out. Deduct 1 Charge point if applicable, and turn to 35. If you are Unlucky, you fall down a mine shaft, and get impaled on half a dozen pick-axes that were left lying around in direct contravention of Health and Safety Regulations.
57Attached to Marty's ring of keys is a tag. Rather than the expected instructions on where to take them if found, it reads, "You'd better add these to your Adventure Sheet, and don't delete them unless expressly instructed to do so. Oh, and '85'."
With a sigh you head over to the hut, unlock the door and enter. Down both sides run shelves laden with all manner of clutter. At the far end you see a table, also strewn with debris, and beneath it is a safe with a combination lock. You also notice a screwed-up lottery ticket lying in a cobweb-infested corner of the hut.
The safe is, naturally, locked, and the combination dial only goes up to 50, so that '85' on the key ring is of no help. Still, given Marty's bad memory (he used to keep calling Keef Kenny, and never even got close to remembering your name), it seems likely that there's a reminder of the combination somewhere in here. Do you want to search the shelves (turn to 65) or the table (turn to 93), or pick up that lottery ticket on the grounds that it must have been mentioned for some reason (turn to 13)?
58Your earlobes suddenly feel very heavy - in fact, the earrings are pulling you forward as if by magical force (although it isn't, but there's no room for going into the science of it here). You're dragged painfully through the nearest crowd below, through a splintering plywood screen, and down the sweep of a colourful awning, catapulting through the air to land dustily in the sand at the edge of the arena. If you don't have a mushed copy of The Sun in your possession to cushion the fall, you take 2 points of damage to your Stamina.
The posse of armoured gladiators avec ménagerie turn their heads to look at you. The crowd cheers deafeningly, then stops. You give a little mangled wave. A lion growls.
"Old friend!" barks the lone, wiry combatant, who is none other than Mungo, that old salty cracker. "Fear not! We shall fight back to back once again! No crab nor pirate shall stand in our way! Tally-ho!" He then launches himself into a rush, stylishly holding his cutlass over his head in one hand.
It is a good ten embarrassing seconds before it's clear to everyone that Mungo is just doing a sort of cartoonish run on the spot and isn't actually getting closer to anything. A three-foot Goblin sifts out from the crowd of gladiators and walks up to Mungo, who unleashes his full momentum into a vicious slap on the Goblin's cheek with the side of his blade.
There is another ten seconds of expectant silence as Mungo stands with his sword held out, blade against the Goblin's head. The Goblin looks around, not sure whether he's going to be in one of those special effects shots that everyone did for a while where half of his head slides off unrealistically, then he leans forward and pokes his short sword into Mungo's ribs.
The bleeding Mungo crawls circuitously through the sand up to you, leaving a curvy trail of red on the arena floor. "Comrade! Cough!" he hacks, while clawing at first your trousers and then your shirt in an effort to get close to your face so he can spit blood in your eyes and expose you to dying sailor's breath. "My eyes grow dark. There is not much time. There is so much you need to know. Things I did not get to tell you. About the auctions... the auctions! Hack!" he coughs. "The trousers... were... or was... not half of it... But now... run! If these barbarians knew who you are... knew of your mission... they would do unspeakable things to you... the torture alone would last for days! DAYS, YOU HEAR? And then... the ants! Oh! I cannot speak of it. Hey, is that my earrings? You fucker."
He dies.
You and the gladiators size each other up respectfully. As it turns out, their respect for you is smaller than yours for them, and you are soon screaming like a girl and running around flapping your arms ineffectually. You'll need to deal with some of the warriors as you weave your way towards the green sign over the emergency exit at the other end of the arena. Fight them two at a time; as one falls behind, the next one in the list appears up ahead. Their low Stamina scores reflect the lucky fact that you don't actually have to beat all of them to a pulp in order to get away.
AWKMUTE GLADIATOR Skill 7 Stamina 6
NANDIBEAR Skill 9 Stamina 4
TRIDENT AND NET GUY Skill 10 Stamina 3
ALBATROSS VENDOR Skill 6 Stamina 6
CUTLASS BOBBO STAND-IN Skill 8 Stamina 7
If you win, you slam a portcullis in some poor lion's muzzle (restore 2 Luck points that you probably used up in the battle) and head down a darkly sloping passageway, which turns with disappointing readiness into a regular level dungeon corridor. After a while you come to a T-crossing with a small red beetle on the wall. If you panic and run screaming to the left down a slushy tunnel, turn to 33. If you lose your head and scamper loudly to the right into a torchlit maze, turn to 46.
59You beat your enemy into submission (even if it seemed like it had died horribly) and grab it by the collar, shaking it remorselessly.
"Don't pass out on me!" you command. "I'm in charge now, and I want some annotations! The whole truth, and chronologically, if you please!"
The moustache wavers, the jelly casing starting to lose coherence. "So this... this is the end," it wheezes with small wet pops from its jelly lips. "I thought, if only I could get you out of the way... then maybe she might notice me, you see..."
"She? As in H. Rider Haggard's She? What?"
"She always liked you best," it chortles. "I tried to be... all that a moustache can be... I suppose the joke's on me... that this may not be all that very much..."
"The explanations!" you yell. "Get to the explanations already!"
"Oh, all right. The master of the rectally impaired Clawbeast is the same as the one who stashed the human heart in the chest. And the one who stole the talking sword is either the Auk Shaman, who's probably still around in the wings somewhere, or Charon, or Cuthbertson at the behest of..." The moustache coughs spastically.
"That Frangipan guy?" you offer.
"No, the owner of the Kallamehr Carrot... Kate Hudson? I don't remember."
"These aren't explanations! They're just another tangle of arbitrary clues!"
"What do you want from me? Oh, one more thing. Rutger Hauer knew more than he let on. Now I die, I think. To the great collection in the sky I go... I regret nothing, Mum..." The moustache shudders and deflates, the individual hairs dispersing in bluish goo across the floor. A convenient gust of wind blows one of the hairs into your left eye, turning the iris bright turquoise.
In the contemplative stillness that follows, you have time to think: Is this the end of it? Is this the end of the persecution, the outrageous encounters, the endless stream of contrived gamebook element and pop culture juxtapositions?
Fat chance. The moustache's demise triggers a self-destruct mechanism and the whole complex starts to shake. You look in vain for a way out, or, failing that, some treasure to get crushed trying to get your greedy hands on, when an emergency trapdoor beneath you helpfully opens up and drops you breathless into a chute. Turn to 100.
60You tug furiously, emitting sounds like "Gnuyraah!", "Rrnggii" and "Fnoohk!" They never worked before, but there's a first time for everything. Roll six dice and add the results together. If the total is lower than or equal to your Stamina, something gives way (turn to 6). If it is greater, you collapse in a fit of panting, resigned to the fact that this shopping trolley is the unmovable object with which Archimedes could have dislodged the Earth (turn to 54).
61You are someplace where there's too little light for your own good, and eaten.
62You return a strained smile as you secretly finger your possessions looking for your notes and documents. As you do so, the ubiquitous Mungo walks in briskly, driving a hot, dry wind before him, wiping his forehead and laughing.
"Whoa boy!" he cries out. "The Desert of Skulls sure can make a man thirsty! But what's this I see? Don't mind if I help myself!"
He lifts one of the potions - you cannot quite see which one -, drinks from it and grins happily, then crumples into a lifeless heap. A viridian blob corrodes its way out of his belly and slithers towards a drain.
This could be the best clue you're going to get, as the bunch of notes reveals little on the subject except worries about stereotyping gamebook shopkeepers. Will you now leave (turn to 11) or drink (turn to 96)?
63You stalk boldly inside, immediately bumping your nose into the wall (lose 1 Stamina point). Apparently the right-hand opening was just a fake painted by Marty to confuse the local lowlives coming to nick his award-winning shears. The shed isn't actually larger on the inside; that wouldn't make any sense. Rubbing your nose you retrace your steps through the long corridor to the entrance and pick the left path instead. Turn to 80.
64A loud crack, reminiscent of the sound made by a shatterproof ruler being smacked down onto a formica-topped desk, echoes through the passageway, and the smell of chalk dust and stale peppermints pervades your nostrils. In front of you now stands a middle-aged man with an ill-advised goatee, wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. A white plastic crown with geometrical protuberances rests slightly askew on his head. This, you realise (in much the same way that almost any unfamiliar creature's identity becomes known to you the moment you start fighting it), is the King of the Maths Teachers.
He glowers at you. "Are you paying attention? Stop slouching." He gestures, and the whole of the left-hand wall of the corridor becomes smooth, and changes colour to the dark greenish colour of what used to be called blackboards back when you attended school.
Brandishing a stick of chalk at least 30cm long, the King of the Maths Teachers begins to scrawl on the wall. "I shall now show you the equation whereby it may be proved that 'Mutant Orc Guard' is equal to 'Lizard Man'. If you have any questions, wait until I have finished."
Throw one die, then attempt to roll equal to or less than your current Stamina on that many dice. If the total exceeds your current Stamina, turn to 7. Otherwise, throw two dice. If their total is equal to or less than your Skill, you spot that the King of the Maths Teachers misplaces a decimal point early on in his calculations. If you point this out, turn to 72. If you can't be bothered, or the number rolled is greater than your Skill, turn to 51.
65Amongst the clutter is a dish of butter, a camera with a broken shutter, a book on how to deal with your stutter, a biography of X-Files director David Nutter, a soft toy of Bear in the Big Blue House vermin Tutter, a bill for repairs to Marty's gutter, and a battered old Red Dwarf prop Skutter. Even though this is uncomfortably like playing some twisted version of the Generation Game conveyor belt finale, at the same time you can't help but be impressed at the amount of crap Marty managed to build up in here during his tenure.
None of it looks like it could be of any immediate use, however, and you've already wasted precious time. Tick off one Time box on your Adventure Sheet. What? Nobody told you anything about Time boxes? Alright, tick off one Time box in real life. Just think of all the other things you could have been doing. Yeah, exactly.
You can't take any of this stuff with you as your pockets are already well and truly stuffed with crap, so you decide to turn your attention elsewhere. Do you want to rummage through the debris on the table (turn to 93) or get down on your hands and knees to pick up the discarded lottery ticket (turn to 13)?
66"And that, m'lud, concludes the case for the defence."
The jury retires briefly before pronouncing you not guilty, but the judge overturns the verdict and has you summarily deported to Australia, as he's been haunted by a bad case of déjà vu since breakfast.
67You reopen the tin box, which contains an implausibly fresh-looking rosebud and a slightly damp bundle of documents in varying states of legibility. Looking through them as quickly as you can without reducing the whole bundle to a mass of papier-mâché, you notice references to you (or possibly a carpet salesman with the same name), a conspiracy involving penguins and baboons, a secret passage to Tokyo with its entrance underneath the park in which you stand, a cancelled eBay auction (of what, you cannot tell, as this is on one of the most water-damaged pages), and the disconcerting message, `Sucks to be Joe'. On the off-chance that there might be some useful information in there, you decide to hang on to the bundle.
For no very good reason you decide to put the rosebud in your buttonhole. You then turn your attention to the hole in the bottom of the pond basin. Turn to 4.
68Roll one die. If the result is 1-2, you have correctly identified the worms as Cave-dwelling Spudworms, and they promptly crawl off leaving you to hurry on downwards (turn to 81). If the result is 3-6, they fortuitously turn out to be a rare breed of Subterranean Crudworms, which react to the spray with violent mutation. Reroll their base Skill using three dice, and reroll their base Stamina using five dice, then return to 29 and continue reading where you left off.
69You call to mind a clever cross-reference and persist a while longer, eventually rounding up three minor clues. The first is an email correspondence stating essentially that once again there's no room for six different potion-quaffing paragraphs and in any case there's no reason not to put it off for the next part, or forever. The second is that French filmmaker Jacques Tati was actually a Man-Octopus. The third is that there's a secret passage a little to the right of where you are standing, something that a casual glance would seem to bear out.
Armed with this knowledge you can still go ahead and drink from a potion after effecting the necessary diversion (turn to 96), or leave through the door by which you and Mungo entered (turn to 92), or unfasten the secret panel and take that route wherever it might lead you (turn to 3).
70Without warning, the surface of the pond explodes in a watery volcano of weeds, ice and duck cack. Massive coils squirm and intertwine as the agitated Spudworms thrash, struggle and generally argue amongst themselves in the way that only fifteen-foot aquatic invertebrates can, and it's only a matter of seconds before one of the biggest drags itself free and lunges towards the shore, leaving the others behind to tie themselves in knots. Armed with only the mudscoop, you are thrown into a struggle for your very life!
PLIANT SPUDWORM Skill 10 Stamina 16
If you win, the rest of the Worms return to the depths in a tightly entangled bundle, giving an obsessive completist and general idiot such as yourself the perfect opportunity to continue dredging; turn to 55.
71A little bewilderingly, you enter a small adobe-walled shop manned by a turban-clad elderly man with an obsequious smile. He makes a sweeping gesture over a table where rest six differently coloured potions: one radiantly purple, one medium tan, one insidiously pinkish-orange, one offensively indigo, one kitten-coloured, and one striped green-red-black like the cover of the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
"Mmmm... welcome to my humble shop. Only the freshest kittens are used in my kitten potions," announces the man vibrantly.
"Can I sample them before I buy?" you ask.
"Mmmm... no, you may not," he says and smiles even more broadly.
All this seems slightly fishy. What's a merchant doing in a dungeon, anyway? If you have a rosebud in your buttonhole, turn to 62. If not, you can either return back the way you came (turn to 38), or point behind the old man, saying, "Is that a ZOMBIE CHRABAT?" and taking a quick swig from one of the potions when the man turns his head, as he must (turn to 96)?
72The King of the Maths Teachers thanks you for pointing out his mistake, corrects it, and resumes his calculations from the point at which he had gone wrong. Gradually a worried frown begins to develop on his brow. He starts thinking aloud as he follows the calculations through to their logical conclusion: "... which means that a Mutant Orc Guard is different from a Lizard Man... and that I am actually equal to -"
With a sudden flash of logic he is gone, a small and somewhat bemused-looking piglet occupying the space where he had been standing. The crown rolls across the floor to you. You may take it with you if you wish. Add 3 Luck and carry on along the passage. Turn to 90.
73Edging along the side of the tunnel, you notice more and more bones and corpses protruding from its sandy depths, evidentally the cause of the detestable stench now assailing your nostrils. Then, suddenly, a horrific blubbery mess launches itself out of the sand towards you, trailing numerous grasping tentacles and shouting "Eat at Joe's! Twenty percent off on spam!" You must fight the monstrous SAND SQUID!
SAND SQUID SKILL 8 STAMINA 9
If you defeat the foul creature, turn to 88.
74You take out the crown and put it on your head.
"You shouldn't have messed with me," you say. "I'm the King of the Maths Teachers. I am now going to prove that you are a cheese grater or something."
You conjure forth a marker, tap the air with it and thus cause to materialize one piece of whiteboard suspended to one side of the large table. The moustache looks very disconcerted, then wobbles closer to interrupt your hurried demonstration of proof.
Roll two dice. If the result is equal to or higher than your Skill, you falter and must Test your Luck. If you are Unlucky, you have accidentally proved that the room that you occupy is the stomach of a giant dragon, something that will mean upheavage for the borough and pretty much spells the end for you and the moustache. If you are Lucky, it means you have merely been knocked away from the whiteboard; lose 2 Stamina points and turn to 84.
If the result is less than your Skill, you complete the proof successfully. When you look around for the moustache, there is indeed nothing but a stainless steel grater on the floor. Of course, that means you'll have a tough time extracting any information from it. If you have whiskers, you must still Test your Luck: in the case that you are Unlucky, a corollary to your proof states that you are definitely a kitten, turning you irrevocably and game-endingly into one such. Assuming you were not kittenized, you look around for an exit, finding only a kind of emergency chute in the floor which, sighing, you anticlimactically lower yourself into. Turn to 100.
75You reopen the tin box, which contains an implausibly fresh-looking rosebud and a slightly damp bundle of familiar documents. At the top of the pile is a somewhat blurry drawing of a killer whale with illegible writing under it, at the bottom a ruined poster reading `Sucks to be Joe'. These (in case you've forgotten the climax of the first adventure in this series) were among the evidence you discovered following the defeat of Joe Dever's stonewashed jeans. Between them are all the other scraps of paper you found back then, but were too paranoid to let yourself consciously notice. Some of them may even be of use to you in this current adventure.
Mind you, having been stored in a not-quite water-tight tin box at the bottom of a pond for an unspecified length of time for reasons which may be explained at some juncture if you're lucky, they're no longer as legible as they were. Still, your no-longer-suppressed memories of them from last time may help you make sense of the blotches and holes. If at any point during this adventure you refer to the papers, you may search your memory for additional details by adding 7 to the number of the section you are on at the time and turning to the section with that number.
For no very good reason you decide to put the rosebud in your buttonhole. You then turn your attention to the hole in the bottom of the pond basin. Turn to 4.
76You enter a quiet workshop, the SKELETON labourers that have been relocated from Firetop Mountain being on a coffee break in the next room. There isn't much to interest you except for an Earring Removal Device. Apparently, all one would have to do is stick one's fragile head into the machine, pull a lever and hope for some compensation for going through part of the adventure with impaired combat abilities. If you are wearing a pair of fugly earrings and fancy a go at removal, turn to 40, else hurry on out before you get noticed by turning to 3.
77The passage twists and turns until you have no way of knowing in which direction you are heading. Even if you have some freakish innate ability to tell which way is north, it is thrown out of whack by a high concentration of magnetic hematite in the walls, so there. Eventually you come to a somewhat shoddily-built doorway, on the lintel of which are engraved the words `The Maze of Davis'. If you wish to go through the doorway and have a rosebud in your buttonhole, turn to 12. If you lack the rosebud but still want to go through the doorway, turn to 56. If you would rather retrace your steps, deduct 1 Charge point (should you have any to deduct) and turn to either 2 or 95.
78You remove the skeleton key from your pack. Whether it will be of any use depends on your current location.
If you are by the Troll's Spleen Gate, you turn the key in the gatehouse lock. The tumblers grind and squeak like rusty dolphins, but eventually move. After you return to the paragraph you came from, add 10 to its number and turn to the corresponding section if you want to search the gatehouse.
If you are in the Red Knight's antechamber, the guardian spirits immediately recoil at the sight of the key. They bow down in respect and declare themselves willing to grant you an audience with the Knight. Acquire the codeword Resplendence.
If you are in the dwarven armoury, the key fits neatly in the ivory chest. You push back the lid to reveal one magnificent silver helmet, which you lift reverently and place on your head. It is a perfect fit: add 1 to your Initial Skill and restore your Skill to this value. Also add 1 Luck point. Before closing the chest, you note that someone has scribbled the password to the High Shaman's safe in the bottom: it is "cavorite".
If you are facing Ian Livingstone's Jellied Moustache in the meeting chamber, the key is of no use at all. The moustache starts to chortle, then guffaw in unbridled ridicule for your unmitigatedly silly course of action. Deduct 3 Luck points.
Now return to the paragraph from whence you came.
79Using the kris knife, you trace a pentagram in the air above the submerged shopping trolley, hoping to summon a demon to aid you. You don't have long to wait. The turgid waters of the pond immediately begin to bubble and roil, as something hideous rises up from the depths. A strange shambling being, its skin scabrous and flaking, with fish-like scales growing all over it, now stands before you. Its enormous eyes, prawn-like, gaze at you unwinkingly, hinged jaws working fitfully.
'...Fabled Lands....kack....Double Game....goood...gloop...gloop...Fantom Fantom Fantom' it burbles disgustingly, as it lunges towards you with ink-stained fingers.
Far from coming to help you, it seems this LOATHSOME HACK from depths means you ill! You must fight!
LOATHSOME HACK SKILL 8 STAMINA 7
Throughout the fight you must deduct 1 from your Attack Strength due to both the LOATHSOME HACK's fetid odor and the monotonous droning chant it murmurs.
If you defeat the LOATHSOME HACK, it dissolves into a foul-smelling scum that slowly settles to the bottom of the pond, leaving behind a tattered copy of Warlock magazine, issue 8. If you wish to take this, do not forget to note it down on your Adventure Sheet. The shopping trolley however, remains submerged. Turn to 60.
80You find the tool storage empty apart from some old rakes and crumbling wicker baskets. In the middle of the floor is a Post-it note and you pick it up:
OK, enough with the Mason stuff already. Why don't you do Luke Sharp, Ian Livingstone or Keith Martin instead - heck, why not all of them? --Ed.
As you are puzzling over this incomprehensible message and whom it may have been meant for, a cheerful greeting rings out. Directly across the room from you in this cribbed space, seated on an upturned bucket, is a small, wiry man wearing a vest and a pirate's headscarf.
"Aren't you glad to see your old friend Mungo?" he calls out. "You remember all those nights under the stars of the southern ocean when I'd tell you about the Kraken and the world's end as the waves gently lapped the sides of my sleek _Shareela_! United again, to fight evil as one; that's what makes Mungo's blood flow!"
He beats his chest with his fist, laughing, springs up and strides over the floor to shake your hand, but trips on a rusty lawnmover and falls headlong, landing with the underside of his chin right onto two long spikes protruding from a loose board. He does not get up.
Yup, that's Mungo all right, you think to yourself. If you want to detach his large brass earrings and wear them yourself, turn to 25. If not, you leave them alone and return outside (turn to 54).
81The stairs lead down into a cube-shaped chamber with doors set into the middle of all four walls. Above the door directly ahead of you is engraved the word 'NORTH'. This may be less informative than it appears, as the same is true of the door directly behind you. To further confuse issues, the door to your right has the word 'SOUTH' above it, and the first two letters of the word above the door to your left have been defaced, leaving only 'ST' to hint at what that inscription may have read. Which door will you take?
The one ahead of you (NORTH) turn to 11
The one to your right (SOUTH) turn to 38
The one behind you (NORTH) turn to 71
The one to your left (--ST) turn to 92
82Sudden, map-wrecking disorientation washes over you and the door slams shut at your back, whatever kind of door it happened to be at the time, then merges seamlessly into the wall to leave you with no means of escape. The only other features of this new room are a battered, moth-eaten old sofa with an offensive brown floral print, and a rickety footstool on which rests a tiny black and white TV, labelled with a sticky note which says 'MAGICAL SCRYING PORTAL'.
Okay. There doesn't seem to be a lot else to do, so you take a seat, tuck into a couple of floppy Pringles you find under the cushion, and lean forward to switch on the TV. It seems to be stuck on the Exposition Channel.
A maelstrom of arbitrary scenes from the original Yellow Snow proceeds to unfold before your eyes, interspersed with what seem to be clips from a highly unusual penguin documentary and some kind of obscure fetishist Highlander spin-off. Occasionally you're treated to subtitles, apparently typed out by some bored Singaporean in the last two minutes of his lunch break. 'MISTERS DEARTH OF ST ANA', says the first of these captions, superimposed over a portly figure lying prone in the snow with its head at an 80 degree angle to its neck. 'GRIME REPAIR UMBERBLA CITATION', offers another, as a Mexican standoff (between what appears to be you and a dashing fellow in a trendsetting floor-length smock) plays out in the background. 'ROSEBAD BELGER PEASES AWRY', states a third subtitle, showing a semi-transparent man standing in a river having his limbs chewed off by giant piranhas. That one's a bit freaky, to be honest.
Everything eventually culminates in a grainy boss fight with a pair of trousers (possible 'DIVAS TONE WARPING GENES') in a lift - or at least that's what it looks like, the picture quality makes it hard to be sure - then the TV abruptly switches itself off and a giant comedy spring pops out of the sofa, propelling you up through a hidden air vent in the ceiling. Preparatory exposition just isn't what it used to be, you think sadly. Turn to 3.
83It works; something seems to be happening! Turn to 18, then to 18 again to resolve the previous encounter, then to wherever you were originally turning before you got caught up in this demon nonsense.
84This will be one of the hardest fights against gelatinously embedded facial hair you have ever taken part in.
IAN LIVINGSTONE'S JELLIED MOUSTACHE Skill 11 Stamina 13
If in any round Ian Livingstone's Jellied Moustache rolls a double 6 while rolling for Attack Strength, you die of revulsion.
If you have whiskers and roll any double, you turn into a helpless kitten and must resort to evasive action: from that round inclusive, if your Attack Strength is higher, you have not inflicted any damage but only avoided the moustache's charge. If in a subsequent round you roll 5, 7 or 9, you transform back but must deduct 2 from your Attack Strength for that round due to disorientation.
If you have the letters "diehorribly" on your Adventure Sheet and roll 3 in any round, immediately roll one die. If the result is 1-4, you die horribly. If the result is 5-6, Ian Livingstone's Jellied Moustache dies horribly.
If you cheated when determining your stats before beginning the adventure and roll 11 in any round, you are smitten dead by a bolt of carrot-flavoured electricity. You may not cheat to avoid this.
If you win, turn to 59.
85Whatever you're trying to accomplish, this won't help. Note down the letters "diehorribly" on your Adventure Sheet, then either return to the previous paragraph or turn to 44 for mystary.
86"Ah! Only the very best! You are truly a man of taste and distinction," enthuses the porky magnate as he drops your ice into his drink, which bubbles and fizzes over the edge of the glass as if Boris Karloff himself had prepared it. "Twice you have pleased me today, and for that you shall be richly rewarded. Cuthbertson!" he signals to his manservant. "Go and fetch a team of my finest oxen for this good fellow. I only regret I have nothing more to offer him for his services."
Despite your doubts about having any immediate use for a team of oxen, you are forced to wait while the manservant scuttles off and procures your reward. Frangipan asks you to entertain him with an a capella Pet Shop Boys medley while you wait, which you do, because you have no dignity left by this point. Eventually Cuthbertson returns, full team of oxen in tow, and hands over the reins to you.
With a final appreciative wave, Frangipan leaves, hitching a lift on the back of his clearly suffering minion; a bit further down the path you think you hear a scream and see both of them topple lifelessly to the ground, but you can't be sure, so you don't bother checking.
Even as you turn and head back to the pond with newfound bovine sidekicks lumbering along behind, your gaze locks onto the wheel of a rogue shopping trolley breaking the surface like a latter-day Excalibur. Narrowing your eyes, you decide to set your faithful oxen their first task. Turn to 39.
87You pull the sword form behind your back. Having no idea how the hell you use a sword, you jab it threateningly at the moustache, although you're too much of a wuss to actually stab the thing. The moustache, despite not possessing a face, looks unimpressed. To make matters worse, the sword is beginning to cry and is whining that this is not how a lady should be treated. You are about to give up on this tactic, when you hear heavy footfalls coming from behind you. You turn round to see a man carrying an extremely large, futuristic gun, clothed in a tweed jacket and wearing army boots, enter the room.
'Ah, my Glimkefolin!', he cries on seeing Telessa in your arms. 'I have been looking everywhere for you. Which one of you tossers took it? Andy lent me his wopping great disintegrator and I'm not afraid to use it,' he says raising the outlandish weapon.
The WATERFIELD is in no mood to hear your explanations and because he is a fan of random instant death he fires on one of you. Test your Luck.
If you are Unlucky, he chooses you as his target and fires. If you are carrying a Red Sonja DVD, the deadly beam bounces off the disc due to Einstein's lesser known principle that discs containing films where Arnold Scwharzenegger is the best actor always repel deadly death beams and blasts into the moustache leaving you unharmed. If you are not carrying this DVD you are turned to ashes and your adventure ends here.
If you are Lucky, he fires on the moustache.
Providing you survive, the disintegrator doesn't actually disintegrate the moustache, because that would ruin the chance of exposition next paragraph. Instead its protective gelatinous covering begins to flake off, exposing the vulnerable hair underneath and rendering the moustache immobile. The Waterfield walks up to you, snatches the sword from your quivering hands and leaves the room, never seen again, by man or monster, on this earth.
You walk over to the now terrified facial hair and begin kicking it repeatedly. Turn to 59.
88How do you mean to light your way? If you have a glowing spore bulb, turn to 37. If you do not have a spore bulb but you do have a sacrificial kris knife with gleaming runes, turn to 49. If you have none of these items, turn to 9.
89You are attacked by a poxy CROCODILE.
POXY CROCODILE Skill 6 Stamina 8
If you win, roll a die. If you roll 1 or 6, turn to 33. If you roll 2-5, turn to 89.
90You haven't traversed far along the dark corridor when you see something shiny propped against a wall. You peer at it to ascertain what it is and you see it is a rather well-crafted sword. However, you get the fright of your life when a female voice, aristocratic, but above all shrill, comes from the sword: 'It's about time someone showed up!', cries the sword. 'I am a Princess Royal and demand to see the creator at once!'
You have no idea who this creator may be, and you are pretty sure swords cannot be princesses. Curious, you ask how this sword with delusions of grandeur came to be here.
'I was stolen from the creator by one of his enemies and dumped here!', she wails. 'I imagine he wants to get a ransom from my father in return for my life.'
You reply that you didn't know swords could have fathers. The sword looks at you with an appalled face (which is a pretty good trick for a sword).
'I am no sword! I am Telessa, Princess of Arion! Now help me up. For some reason my legs won't work'
You think you know what is going on here. The sword must be a Glimkefolin, a magical imp, that comes into existence when a writer unimaginatively gives the same name to both a person and an inanimate object. These poor creatures spend their whole lives with an identity crisis. If you wish, you can pick Telessa up and strap her to your back where she will whine about this not being a proper means of transportation for a lady of noble blood. Or you can just leave her to rust. Whichever decision you make, you must now continue along the corridor. Turn to 46.
91Sadly Mr. Hauer isn't the strikingly virile Dutch titan that he once was, and his efforts to assist you in hauling the trolley from its resting place are faintly heartbreaking to watch. Eventually, with his beer belly quivering and sweat dripping from his unsavoury moustache, he stands back and apologises for his basic lack of usefulness before stumbling off to find some Guinness.
However, unbeknownst to you, the joint effort has loosened the pond bed's grip on the trolley to some degree - and as a result you'll find it easier to finish the job should you decide to persevere alone (turn to 60, but only roll four dice when instructed to roll six). Your only other options are to make use of a kris knife (turn to 79), a pair of brass earrings (turn to 6) or some random oxen (turn to 39), if any of them are available to you. Well, alright, technically they're not your only options: you could give up and wade back to the side of the pond, if you're happy to acknowledge the rusty shopping trolley as a superior opponent (turn to 54).
92Behind the door is a featureless passage that leads in a straight line for 500 paces before making a 90º turn left. Round the corner it continues for 150 paces before making another 90º turn left. Round that corner it continues for 150 more paces before making yet another 90º turn left into a corridor that, after 300 paces, terminates in a rough-hewn stone chamber with one exit in the far wall. The chamber contains a small treasure chest, and a shallow pit in which a fire is consuming a bundle of paper. If you make straight for the chest, turn to 17. If you leave the chest where it is for the time being, and attempt to rescue the papers from the fire, turn to 43. If you ignore the contents of the chamber and make for the far exit, turn to 76.
93Amongst the debris is a cup of tea, a dissertation on the juniper tree, some coupons to get a bag of molasses for free, a video cassette with two taped episodes of V, a gardenkeeping contract signed in blood by a tanar'ri, a -
You scan space around you. You walk on and approach the tree-shaded shore. You are relieved to see that the trees are at last beginning to thin out and appear less threatening. The landscape here is still hilly, but in the distance a plateau is clearly visible ahead of you. You turn and stare in surprise. Now you must face the Death-Stone. The face is familiar. Just as the sensation grows too much to bear, your power is released in a single bolt. You slam on the brakes and screech almost to a halt. Your bumpers mangle slightly, but otherwise the collision has little effect. You look around but find no one else about. He must have been turned to stone. Grateful for your luck you hasten on towards the plateau.
- whoa. What was _that?_ Reeling from your vision and feeling for what is possibly not the first time in your existence what it's like to be the Eternal Champion on a bad hangover, you bump into the safe. If you trust that the flash was a CLUE and not some sort of fiendish trap, turn to the paragraph corresponding to the number suggested therein (you will know it is the right one if the first sentence includes the word 'geek'). If you do this but guess wrongly, you spot a badger doing cartwheels outside the window and rush out, only to find nothing (lose 1 point of Luck and turn to 54). If you don't care for unbidden hallucinations, you can either search the shelves (turn to 65), reach for the lottery ticket (turn to 13), or return outside, grumbling (turn to 54).
94You pull out the key, stand back to take stock of your current situation, and try to think of a realistic way to connect the two. You fail. Embarrassment, frustration and an oddly disproportionate blow to your self-worth rob you of 1 Luck point. As you brood over this most recent failure, bleak realisation dawns that the loss of the Luck point is in many ways symbolic of the insidious sloughing of youthful dreams with the onset of age and experience, this revelation in turn triggering an emotional downward spiral which threatens to lead to a further copious and unchecked loss of Luck points.
With an effort of will you pull yourself together, ditch the Final Fantasy angst and resolve to press onwards with the cold, unyielding lump that is the knowledge of your compromised existence pushed firmly to the back of your mind. Right now, pressing onwards entails returning to the paragraph you just came from. Irony is a cruel mistress. If you didn't make a note of the paragraph number, turn to 66.
95Rough-hewn walls. Empty torch brackets. The occasional manacle and piece of bone. Eyes of rat. Damp of mould. Smell of pizza. You don't know what you're doing here, you carry on regardless. Eventually, something glistens up ahead - the studded armour of a MUTANT ORC GUARD who is eating pizza!
MUTANT ORC GUARD Skill 8 Stamina 9
If you win, the Lizard Man collapses to the ground and you are free to be on your way. If you demand an explanation for how the Orc turned into a Lizard Man, turn to 64. If you were wondering about that but would just as soon be on your way, turn to 41. If you would really, really just like to be on your way, turn to 90.
96As soon as your ruse takes effect and the shopkeeper's head begins to swivel, you lash out, snatch up one of the potions and knock it back with the ease of a practised drunkard. Immediately you begin to gag as essence of condensed kitten coagulates at the base of your throat, fumes writhing up like moist, furry serpents to escape through your nostrils. The merchant turns back, eyes slightly widened, as you wheeze like a cartoon coyote following an encounter with the poorly disguised tabasco sauce.
He scowls mightily and his voice begins to change, becoming deeper, coarser, and inexplicably more Cockney. "Heh heh heh," he cackles, yanking out a fully tuned-up Riot Gun from somewhere in the odious depths of his silken robes. "Is that all, stranger? Come back ANY TIME."
Pump-action rounds are then fired as you flee with thick kitten smoke seeping from your ears. Test your Luck twice. If you are Lucky both times, the potion has no ill-effects and you escape unharmed from the shopkeeper's violent episode. If you are Lucky the first time but Unlucky the second time, the potion has no further effect - but the Riot Gun fire does as it cascades merrily into the back of your head and abruptly terminates your adventure. If you are Unlucky the first time but Lucky the second time, you suddenly and temporarily transform into a lovely little fluffy grey kitten just as a barrage of ammunition tears through the air where your human head would have been (you revert to your usual shape seconds later and escape unscathed, though you should note on your Adventure Sheet that you appear to have gained permanent whiskers). If you are Unlucky both times, you turn into a kitten AND get shot to pieces, so it's just as well there are no small children reading this.
If you managed to escape, turn to 38.
97Suddenly a massive insect flies out from a nearby cluster of trees and flutters towards you. You are about to make a dash for Marty's hut to try and find his industrial strength insecticide when you realise that that's no insect - it's Moth Lady! Aware that any attempt to kill her is liable to end in death and mockery, you reluctantly abandon all thought of squirting her with toxic substances, and wait for her to pass judgement on you.
"You consider yourself a hero, yet prove incapable of even cleaning a pond," she sneers. "I offer you one last chance to prove your worthiness or die in the attempt... unless you would rather abandon your quest in shameful ignominy, and go somewhere safe instead."
Are you willing to accept the 'last chance' she offers (turn to 53), or would you rather go somewhere safe (turn to 24)?
98You appear to be in an underground crossroads of some kind. To the east, the tunnel opens into a network of crystalline walkways, lit by purple and yellow spore bulbs that float around in the air. To the south you hear the fluting music of a boisterous bazaar, canvas flapping and livestock squabbling. To the west is an arena of murderous death where currently a crowd is cheering on personages such as Bruina the Half-butcher, Meka-Lokust Jr., Zafanga-of-the-deadly-combo and Cutlass Bobbo. To the north there doesn't seem to be much of anything going on... wait, is that a patch of sand? You shake yourself free of kelp and stumble off in a northerly direction. If you want to look for secret doors just for the heck of it, turn to 30. If you walk on like a normal person, turn to 52.
99After what seems like hours you come to a junction. A picture of small red beetle is on the wall to your left. A corridor leads off to your right while the one you are in now continues off into the distance. Knowing taking the passage to your right will cause no end of continuity problems, you carry on past it. Turn to 46.
100You plunge down a dark tunnel of ridged stone (or possibly just an inadequately irrigated waterslide) towards an uncertain fate. But the maintenance team for the tunnel has been slacking off, and you fall out of a jagged hole in the side into a disconcertingly pink void which somehow strips you of all possessions (but not bodily modifications), with the exception of The King of the Maths Teachers' crown or a pair of Silver Bracers if you have either of them.
The wind whistles (it sounds like Here Comes the Bride) as you fall ever faster into pinkness. You try to call upon Libra, the All-Mother, Glantanka, your biological mother, and (in desperation) the tooth fairy, but still you fall. Then you are entangled in a mass of linen, that slows your descent. At last you come to rest wrapped in a comfy duvet on a large heart-shaped bed in an incredibly tacky-looking hotel room. A rose-tinted light suffuses the room, and someone begins to open the only door from the outside. You have fallen into the bridal suite of whoever is behind the increasingly convoluted machinations that have brought you to this point. Here you will be helpless against the scheming of your unknown nemesis, unless you can overcome the urge to stay in bed for just a few more minutes and somehow make sense of all this nonsense.
So not the end.