Sunday, July 21, 2013

Magic Realm: Day 24

We're on the home-stretch, folks.  It's day 24 in the Magic Realm, and the Black Knight has five more days before the end of the game.  The Black Knight has satisfied all of his victory conditions, as he has 20/10 fame, 76/60 notoriety and 63/30 gold.  Any additional treasure, fame, notoriety or gold will simply go to improving his final score.


In the past couple of days, the Black Knight has recovered the Gloves of Strength from the Dragon's Lair, a treasure that, in conjunction with his recently purchased Morningstar and Warhorse, makes him all but invincible.  The only monsters that pose a serious threat to him are the Octopus and the Winged Demon.

The Black Knight is currently hiding in the Deep Woods.  His plan is to visit the Cliffs, to the Northwest, and then backtrack to the Inn, where the Rogues are waiting to be routed.  If there is time after eliminating the Rogues at the Inn, the Black Knight will continue North, to the Ledges, to uncover any monsters or treasures there.

Here's the Black Knights list of actions for day 24.  He will use one action to hide (courtesy of the Cloak Of Mist), two actions to move to clearing 3 of the Cliffs, and then will search twice.  He will search in clearing 3, because there is a secret passage between clearings 3 and 6, so he will be looking for both that passage and any treasure locations.  We will not stop in clearing 2, as the only potential treasure location to be found there is the Statue, with only 2 treasures, which is a poor treasure location indeed.


The prowling monster roll for day 24 is a 2: snakes and demons. 


The winged demon is one of the few foes that is still a threat to us.  Hopefully the Black Knight's hide action is successful, or we don't encounter the demons. 

During the Black Knight's hide action, a 1 and 5 are rolled, so his hide is successful.  He moves twice to clearing 3 and performs two search actions. 

His first search roll results in double ones, and finds the Vault of the Troll.


In addition to discovering the Vault, the Black Knight also discovers clues as to the other monsters and treasure locations in the Cliff.  The Cliff is the site of the Lost Castle.  In Magic Realm, there are two sites that contain an abundance of monsters and treasure: one is the Lost Castle, found in one of the mountain tiles, and the other is the Lost City, found in the cave tiles.


Based on the clues above, we are able to tell that the Lost Castle is overrun with bats, dragons, snakes, and giants, along with the Vault of the Troll, the Pool of the Octopus, and the Statue guarded by a mischievous Imp.  Since our prowling monster roll was snakes, we can expect snakes to arrive and battle us at the end of the day.  As you can appreciate, the Lost Castle and Lost City are both dangerous and rewarding locations.  The Pool is in clearing 6, and the Octopus does not appear unless the prowling monster roll is a 3, so we are safe from his attack for the moment.

The Vault of the Troll is impossible to open, unless your character has tremendous strength.


Fortunately, our Gloves of Strength give us tremendous strength and thereby permit us to open and loot the Vault.  Our second search, for treasure in the Vault nets us a roll of 1 and 3, and we recover the Lucky Charm.


The Lucky Charm is another absolutely fantastic treasure.  Normally, we must roll two dice when performing an action, using the higher of the two rolls.  The Lucky Charm permits us to roll only one die instead of two, vastly improving our chances of performing various actions.


At the end of the day, all of the monster and treasure locations in the Cliffs are revealed.  As you can see, we are surrounded by monster and treasure locations.  Two Heavy Snakes also appear to battle us.


Heavy Snakes are a tough opponent.  Their attack speed is a four, on their less dangerous side, which is fast enough, but their move speed is three, even faster.  Since the Black Knight's fastest attack is speed 3, he cannot undercut the move 3 of the Heavy Snake. 

Under normal circumstances, the Black Knight should absolutely avoid the snakes if possible.  However, his Warhorse is invulnerable to the attacks of the Heavy Snakes, since monsters need to deal tremendous damage to kill the Warhorse, so the Black Knight will be able to defeat the snakes, although it will take him several rounds to do so.


During combat round 1, the Black Knight alerts his Morningstar and attacks the Snakes from hiding.  He misses the snake, and the snake does not attack him since it was surprised.


During combat round 2, the Black Knight targets one of the snakes, but it slithers out of range before he can strike it, while the second snake lines up with the Black Knight's move, flipping over to its more deadly H5 attack.  The second snake's fangs connect, but fail to penetrate the armor of the Black Knight's Warhorse, so the Warhorse is unharmed.  The Black Knight used a fatiguing attack during round 2, so he suffers a single point of fatigue.


During combat round 3, the Black Knight targets the second, slower and deadlier snake.  He connects with the snake, as the Black Knight's attack speed of 3 is faster than the snakes move speed of 4.  The first snake's attack misses.


Since we killed one of the two snakes during combat round 3, our Morningstar becomes unalerted and is flipped over to its slower, speed 6 side.  During round 4, we target the first snake, which has flipped over to its heavy attack side.  The Black Knight misses the snake, and the snake misses the Black Knight.


Finally, during combat round 5, the Black Knight finishes off the other snake.  The snake flips to his faster attack, so the Black can't undercut him, but the Black Knight's attack lines up with the snake's move, so the Black Knight finishes him off.  The Black Knight once again used a fatiguing attack, so suffers another point of fatigue.

After five rounds of combat, the Black Knight (astride his Warhorse) finishes off the two Heavy Snakes, collecting 12 fame and 12 notoriety in the process (4 for the first snake, and 2x4 for the second snake).

He now has 32/10 Fame, 88/60 Notoriety and 63/30 Gold.


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