The Second
Swordsman – More of Martin’s Mêlées
By Malcolm Garcia
After the recent
enjoyment of exploring Castle Heydrich in Vault of the Vampire, I chose to
have a go at a few other adventures which had been written by its author, Keith
Martin (the writing alias of Carl Sargent). I’d previously tried the Second Swordsman process in his books Stealer of Souls (where I found my
way into the Empire of Illusions beyond the Iron Crypts), Night Dragon (where I actually got
to encounter several dragons) and Legend of Zagor (where I survived
for quite some time before being killed by a thief with an unusually high
SKILL). This time I would see whether always choosing the second option would
lead to similar longevity in Martin’s Island
of the Undead, Master of Chaos
and Tower of Destruction.
Island of the Undead, illustrated inside
by the prolific Russ Nicholson, started well enough, with some promising
numbers and a Presence score to keep track of. Some of Martin’s other books also
have extra scores to influence the gameplay – the Faith value in Vault and the Honour, Nemesis and Time values
in Night. I did, however, start Island with just a knife for a weapon,
which imposed not only a SKILL penalty, but also made it likely I’d inflict only
half my usual STAMINA damage. I’m not usually a fan of these sorts of
impediments, but I suppose they do mean you’re more likely to fail early if you
don’t find the right gear, rather than wasting time marching to your inevitable
doom.
The backstory has YOU
on a ship en route to the Island of
Solani to investigate why storms have returned to your village on the Strait of
Knives in southeastern Allansia. The vessel sinks and section one has YOU
immediately thrown into a battle against a Sea Zombie. While a fight at the
very start is what I’d usually expect in a Jonathan Green adventure, Stealer also had a similar early fight –
and that was against the much harder Giant Stormbird. After winning this skirmish
I started exploring the island, but it became obvious pretty quickly that
always choosing the second option meant I was aimlessly wandering around and
missing out on opportunities to find information or objects that would assist
me in my quest. Not only did I fail to find a sword, but I didn’t find a book
about fungi, I never learned the name of a hermit who lived in a tree, I had no
special green cream, and I neglected to explore a monastery when given the
opportunity.
Because I chose to
attack the aforementioned hermit I contracted the lung rot disease which eroded
my STAMINA and, while not immediately fatal, was an annoyance. Other than the
aforementioned Sea Zombie I only managed to defeat one other adversary, the
tree-dwelling Grupplers (sort of a cross between a monkey and a frog), but not
before my lung rot cost me some more STAMINA. Soon afterwards I fell into some
swamp water and, while I didn’t drown instantly (as I did in Scorpion Swamp), an unlucky dice
roll meant I was eaten by a Swamp Alligator during the middle of a fight
against it.
In my attempt at Master of Chaos (which coincidentally
had the same ranking in the Fighting Fantazine poll as Island) my starting scores were again decent,
but once again there were some penalties to apply. The adventure started with
YOU going undercover as a galley slave on a ship bound for Khul, thus earning
Martin the rare trifecta of having a book set on each of the three continents
of Titan. Once there YOU are expected to find your way to the desert ruins of
the city of Kabesh, where a magical staff has been taken. While going
undercover YOU possess no weapons, which means that in any fight your Attack Strength
will be reduced by two, and you’ll do less damage to an opponent if you do
manage to strike them. I also had a Notoriety score to keep track of, which
measured how much attention I was attracting from local law enforcement, as
well as selecting three special skills of my own choosing.
The adventure began
with me losing eight STAMINA relatively quickly, partly because of the meagre
rations and also because I chose to try and stop a shipmate from being whipped
to death. When, soon after, I was given the choice to confront the orc wielding
the whip, I did so. And while the orc was killed in the ensuring slave uprising,
I was made to walk the plank and (unlike in Demons of the Deep where being
forced into the ocean was the beginning of my journey) I soon became the meal
for a shark. No treasure. No battles. No knowledge. While dead in just two
choices isn’t quite as bad as what happened in Beneath Nightmare Castle, it was a
very poor showing. So far, all I had learned was that choosing the second
option in both of Martin’s books would result in me being eaten by some of the
local fauna.
Returning to the frozen
north of Allansia, for the first time since Caverns of the Snow Witch, I began Tower of Destruction with poor initial
SKILL and LUCK scores, but mercifully no penalties to my SKILL. Tower does, however, also add Honour and
Time values to keep track of. While returning to my village, which sits in the
shadow of the Icefinger Mountains, an unusual sphere hurtled through the air
and attacked my hometown. Pledging revenge on the sphere, I didn’t leave straight
away and chose to linger just long enough to find some climbing equipment, but
not helping anyone else earned an early penalty to my Honour – although it would
be pretty unlikely that just one person could help an entire village. After
being forced to eat my first meal (a process that would soon become irritating)
I had my first fight against a Polar Worm. My adversary had a greater SKILL
than I, but my higher STAMINA paid off and I defeated the creature, although it
did take eleven rounds of combat.
After this initial
excitement, my adventure in Tower
fell into a routine of following a trail of burned trees while I slept, and ate
my way through my provisions. Something similar happened during my attempt at Night, but in Tower the process was much duller – when given the chance to
encounter a White Dragon (a creature I’d killed when I found one in Caverns) I instead chose to hide in a
cave for a whole day and night, which wasted two meals. Eventually I started
eating my meals unprompted, figuring that the penalty for not having a meal
when forced to eat was less than what I would gain from eating one. Within a
handful of days I found the mysterious sphere and had to fight two Ice Ghost
guards. What should have been a fight against two easy enemies was made more
difficult by my poor initial SKILL and that, because I must have missed a
useful weapon somewhere, my sword only did half the usual damage against the pair
of creatures.
I did eventually win
the battle and ate my last meal to recover, just as I was attacked by a Demonic
Servant. This creature had the same SKILL as me and I left the battle with just
five STAMINA remaining and little chance of finding any more local wildlife to
eat and rejuvenate myself. But I had at last reached the sphere! As I explored
the inside of the device, choosing the second option did not help me to find
any useful information or objects and I wandered pointlessly along corridors
and up and down stairs. Eventually I did just my second LUCK test of the book
and, lacking a special ring, failing this test meant that a trap of fire darts relieved
me of my remaining STAMINA. A painful death, but at least I wasn’t eaten this
time.
Across these three
books of Keith Martin’s, choosing every second option may have made me a nice
person but it clearly did not work at all in Master, and in Island I
fell into the usual Second Swordsman
habit of wandering around aimlessly and ignoring things. Being eaten by a Swamp
Alligator actually came as a welcome surprise. My failure in Tower was inevitable given my lack of
food and hard fights, but it also reinforced the importance of LUCK, which is
often overlooked as a factor in the success of any FIGHTING FANTASY adventure. For
although a poor LUCK roll in Tower just
helped to finish me off after some difficult battles, in Scorpion failing a single LUCK test actually ended the adventure
for me.
Thanks, as ever, to Malcolm for taking the time to chronicle his adventure as the Second Swordsman. This is his penultimate Second Swordsman article for a while, as he has some other writing projects he needs to focus on in the coming months, so I am sure you are just as intrigued as we are as to what the subject of next month's piece will be...
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