The Caverns of Kalte – Attempt 1, Part 4

The Caverns of Kalte – Attempt 1, Part 4

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Aside : You know those people that say its a bad idea to post things on the Internet after you’ve had a few drinks?

What would they know, I say!

When we left Lone Wolf and his doomed compadres, they were basking in the early morning light, observing their ice fortress destination (Ikaya), which was only (!) forty miles away.

After travelling for a few hours, by mid-day we confront yet another crevasse.  This one actually has a frozen ice bridge leading over it, but said bridge is so fragile that the collective conclusion of my merry men is that the bridge has no chance of holding up under the weight of a loaded sledge.

Project Aon link – ice bridge

This adventure is seriously starting to become the gamebook version of one of those logic puzzles where you have to get a fox, hen and dog across a river with a boat that only seats two.

Another interesting choice beckons:

1. We can risk taking the whole (loaded) sledge across;
2. We can take the equipment and supplies across, piece by piece;
3. We can abandon the sledge and dogs, and make our way across on our own.

Well, as I’ve said before, this book seems awfully eager to encourage you to forget the need to actually journey back safely from Ikaya (with a prisoner, no less), as well as surviving the journey there.  Option (3) is therefore not happening.  Since the text EXPLICITLY states that the bridge appears ‘incapable’ of bearing a fully loaded sledge, option (2) seems to be the only one with a reasonable chance of success.

Hmmm.

When I turn to the next paragraph, it contains the blood-curdling sentence that beings with :

“Everything is going according to plan, until…..”

Yeah, you just know that this isn’t going to end well.  A sentence like that :

 

In summary, all the equipment is ferried over without a problem, but when Dyce tried to take the empty sled (and dogs) across, two of the dogs go over the edge, with the resulting disastrous chain reaction.

Dyce, seeing that he is about to be dragged over the edge, leaps for safety and is clinging onto the lip of the chasm.

Project Aon link – Dyce clinging on ledge

In a fairly heartless decision, I get asked whether I should try and save Dyce, or decide that nothing can be done.

It is LITERALLY a cliffhanger!

I note that there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful negative consequence of making every effort to save one of my guides, so I act accordingly.

Unfortunately, my dash across to save Dyce is too late, and he plunges into the chasm, screaming all the wall down.

Project Aon link – Dyce falling

Makes you wonder what the point was of giving you the choice to (try to) save Dyceor not.

In any event, Irian notices two Ice Barbarians on a nearby hill, doubtless brought to this vicinity by Dyce’s scream.

Gee, mate, if you were going to die horribly in an arctic waste miles from your home, couldn’t you at least have done it quietly?

We have to to decide whether to try and out-run (er, out-hike) the Barbarians over the last fifteen miles to Kalte, or to attack them.

Given that these guys know the terrain, and are on skis, there is no chance we’ll reach the fortress before them, unless we can leave their stinking corpses behind.

Attack!!

 

 

Base Stats : CS : 17, E : 20, GC 14

Modified Stats : CS : 27, E : 22

Weapons : Sommerswerd (+8 CS), Mace

Backpack : Meal (x5), Healing Potion (+3 E), Laumspur Portion (+5 E), Laumspur Potion (+4E)

Special Items : Map, Crystal Star, Shield (+2 CS), Sommerswerd, Padded Waistcoat (+2 E)

Kai Rank : Guardian

Kai Disciplines : Camouflage, Animal Kinship, Tracking, Hunting, Sixth Sense, Healing, Mind Over Matter

Final paragraph : 307

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October 20, 2016 at 04:15PM