Magic Realm: Day 8

On day 7 in the Magic Realm, the Black Knight recovered the Cloven Hoof, the least advantageous of all Magic Realm treasures.  A new squad of Guards also arrived at the Guardhouse, complicating our plan to loot the treasures lying about, sell them to the Patrol, and then butcher the Patrol and recover the items sold.  As a result of the Guards' arrival, while we were unhidden, we ran away at the end of day 7, suffering one point of fatigue.

Our plan for the next couple of days is to, again, rid the Guardhouse of the Guards, our hated enemies, before trading with the Patrol.  We also need to ditch the Cloven Hoof. 

On day 8, then, we record two moves, first north (to drop the Cloven Hoof) and then south, to the Guardhouse, and record two hide actions.  We record two hide actions as we want to make sure we become hidden so we eliminate at least one of the Guards today.

The prowling monster roll is 1: dragons.  As previously mentioned, we are safe from prowling monsters while in the valleys so we are unaffected by this roll.

We move north, drop the Cloven Hoof in the clearing, and then return south to the Guardhouse.  Our first hide attempt fails, as we roll a 3 and 6 (hide attempts fail if either dice roll is 6) but our second hide attempt succeeds, with a roll of 2 and 4.  Good thing we recorded two hide actions!

We begin hidden at the start of day 8's combat encounter step.  We need to eliminate at least one Guard today, as the Black Knight is easily killed by three Guards, but can normally defeat two, which is the plan for day 9.  Therefore, we will employ our usual tactic when confronting the Guards: while hidden, alert our mace, surprise attack using our mace and FIGHT H6 chit, and then run away at the beginning of the second combat round.

As usual, our tactic works.  We targeted Guard 1 rather than the Guard leader, as we might trade the looted items back to him before we finish him and Guard 2.  As a result of this successful attack, we gain another 6 notoriety and 4 gold, giving us 39/60 notoriety and 25/30 gold towards our victory conditions.

At the beginning of combat round two, we run away, suffering another point of fatigue.  We have 9/12 chits still available, as two are fatigued and one is wounded.