Magic Realm: Day 12

Yesterday, day 11 in the Magic Realm, was successful.  The Black Knight sold several pieces of equipment to the Patrol, and proceeded to dispatch them, amassing more gold, notoriety, and dropped treasure in the process.

He also suffered three points of fatigue and one wound.  Therefore, the Black Knight spends day 12 resting at the now deserted Guardhouse.  All four of his daily actions are recorded as rests.  Since he is on day 12, and the Guard and Patrol have been eliminated, he can rest easy, knowing that no other Denizens visit the Guardhouse.  The earliest a new set of Guards or Patrol will arrive is day 14, since Denizens can reset at the end of a week.

On day 12, after a full day of resting, there are still 13 treasures in the clearing, just waiting to be looted.  That will have to wait until tomorrow!

Magic Realm: Day 11

The Black Knight spent most of yesterday resting.  He also looted his shield on day 10, which he earlier sold to the Guards, before dispatching them.

On day 11, the Black Knight will record three search actions, spending most of his day looting the Guardhouse.  His last action will be a trade phase, to sell whatever he recovers to the Patrol.  If he is lucky, he will obtain three more treasures, sell nearly everything he owns to the Patrol, and then eliminate them, thus looting those items once again.

Today's prowling monster roll is a 5, which means spiders are prowling.  The Black Knight is very effective against heavy Spiders, but none will bother him while we remains in the valley.

The Black Knight recovers only the axe and broadsword during his three loot phases (he obtained results of 4 and 6, 2 and 6, and 5 and 6, so his last attempt netted him nothing, as there was no sixth treasure at that point).  During the final phase of day 11, the Black Knight sells the axe, broadsword and shield to the Patrol, collecting another 19 gold.

During the combat encounter step, the Patrol chooses to avoid the Black Knight. He doesn't return the favor.  He alerts his mace using his FIGHT M5 chit, and then uses his FIGHT H6 chit in conjunction with his speed 3 mace to undercut and kill the Patrol leader's workhorse.

During the first round of combat, the Patrol leader switched to his faster, lighter attack, which is accompanied by a much slower move speed of 5.  That potentially makes it easier for the Black Knight to kill the Patrol leader next round.

The Black Knight is now facing two Patrol members, an unhorsed leader, and Patrol 2 astride his horse.  The Black Knight targets the Patrol leader with his attack using a FIGHT M4* chit.  If the leader does not switch tactics, the Knight's speed 4 attack will undercut Patrol leader's speed 5 move.  As the Black Knight can only use two effort asterisks each combat round, the fastest move he can play is MOVE H5*.

During combat round 2, Patrol leader switches to his heavier attack, and with his speed 3 move, dodges the Black Knight's speed 4 mace.  Since the Patrol leader's attack speed is 4 and the Black Knight's move speed is 5, the Patrol leader undercuts the Black Knight's attempt to dodge and lands a wounding blow.  The Black Knight suffers both a wound, from the Patrol leader's attack, and fatigue, since he played two effort asterisks.  Because his attack on the Patrol leader missed, the Black Knight's mace will be alerted next round, giving him a faster attack.

Combat round 3 is more successful for the Black Knight.  Once again, the Patrol leader switches to his lighter attack.  This allows the Black Knight's mace attack to undercut the Patrol leader's move, resulting in a dead Patrol leader. As the Black Knight played his fatiguing MOVE H4** chit, he suffers another point of fatigue this round.

At the start of combat round 4, the Black Knight once again alerts his mace using his FIGHT M5 chit, and then attacks with his FIGHT H6 chit and speed 3 mace.  He must use that heavy fight chit, because the workhorse is only vulnerable to heavy or greater damage, and thus the medium mace must be overswung with a heavy fight chit in order to kill the workhorse. 

Now that Patrol 1 and Patrol leader are dead, the Black Knight can also switch to his less fatiguing MOVE H5* move, rather than his very fatiguing MOVE H4**.  He can do this because Patrol 2 has slower attacks, although he is harder for the Black Knight to undercut than his compatriots.

The Black Knight dispatches another workhorse in combat round 4.  Patrol 2's attack speed is 5, and our maneuver speed is 5, so the Patrol must line up in the same direction as the Knight, in order to score a blow.  The Patrol's Thrust attack was avoided, as the Black Knight played a Dodge maneuver to avoid it.

Combat round 5 is an interesting one.  The Black Knight plays FIGHT M4* and MOVE H5* chits with his mace, dispatching Patrol 2 during this round, and is unharmed by Patrol 2, even though Patrol 2's attack lines up with Black Knight's maneuver.

The reason the Black Knight is unharmed is that his attack speed is 4, while Patrol 2's attack speed is 5.  As I mentioned earlier, after the first round, Magic Realm combat is governed by attack speed.  Since Black Knight's attack speed of 4 "lands" before Patrol 2's attack speed of 5, Patrol 2 is killed before he has a chance to land his blow.

Since the Black Knight played two effort asterisks that combat round (FIGHT M4* and MOVE H5*) he suffers another point of fatigue.

At the end of the day, the Black Knight has garnered an additional 19 gold, for selling the axe, broadsword and shield to the Patrol leader, and obtained an additional 9 notoriety (3 notoriety for Patrol leader and 2x3 for Patrol 2) and 4 gold for killing the remaining Patrol.  The Black Knight therefore has 0/10 fame, 66/60 notoriety, and 82/30 gold towards his victory conditions.  He has satisfied his notoriety and gold victory requirements, and needs only his fame points to win the game.

Magic Realm: Day 10

I had an interesting comment from a reader, yesterday, regarding the impossibility of moving into a clearing, unhidden, with the Black Knight's enemies, the Guards, and selling items to their leader.

That sequence of events is permitted, under the Magic Realm rules, as Denizens only block characters during an action that requires a Meeting table roll. Those rolls are required when we are BUYING an item from an unhired leader, attempting to HIRE Denizens, and during the combat encounter step at the end of the day. Passing through a clearing occupied by Denizens does not attract a Meeting table roll, nor does SELLING an item to an unhired leader.  The Magic Realm rules for Denizens differ from those related to Monsters.  Monsters do block you if you move into their clearing, unhidden, but that is not the case for Denizens.

Let us move on to day 10 in the Magic Realm. We ended day 9 with the elimination of the two remaining Guards at the Guardhouse. Two of the three Patrol still occupy the Guardhouse, and there are eight treasures available for us to loot. 

Looking at the top of the screen, it displays all the individuals and treasures at the Guardhouse.  The most difficult of the treasures to loot are the ones on the left, as we need to roll low numbers on the Loot table to obtain them (remember that we roll two dice and take the higher of the two rolls).  The treasures on the left are the helmet, breastplate, and mace.  Those are not attractive treasures, as we already own a suit of armor, which is superior to the helmet and breastplate, as well as a mace.  We do want to obtain the other blue treasure card, which is in position four of the treasure pile.

During our prior turns, we have fatigued two chits and have one wounded chit.

Since we are only on day 10 of 28, with four days until the end of week two, and the Patrol poses little risk to us, we are going to rest for three of our four actions, and loot once.

The prowling monster roll is a 2, once again, meaning snakes and demons are on the prowl.  As we are in a valley, we are unmolested by prowling monsters.

We rest three times during day 10, recovering our fatigued and wounded chits, and loot once, obtaining a roll of 4 and 5, thus looting our shield, the fifth treasure in the pile. 

At the end of the day, during the combat encounter step, we roll a 2 on the Meeting table, and the Patrol once again provides a wide berth to the Black Knight.

Magic Realm: Day 9

We start day 9 of our adventures in the Magic Realm with 0/10 fame, 39/60 notoriety, and 25/30 gold, in satisfaction of our pre-selected victory conditions.  We must, fairly soon, strike out into the wilderness and defeat some monsters in order to collect the necessary fame points.

For now, however, our plan is to head back to the Guardhouse, sell the Guards the treasure we looted, and then defeat them, in order to free up that treasure once again.

Since we ran away at the end of day 8, we record a move action, to return to the Guardhouse, two hide actions, to maximize our chance of being hidden, and a trade action, to sell the two axes and broadsword back to the Guards.

The prowling monster roll on day 9 is a 2: snakes and demons.  Snakes and demons are tough opponents.  Luckily we're safe in the valleys from prowling monsters.

During our first action of the day, we move back to the Guardhouse.  Our next action, hiding, nets a pair of threes, so we successfully hide.  Thus, our additional hide action is not needed and lost.  Lastly, we sell the two axes and the broadsword to the Guards, for a total of 16 more gold.  We now have 41/30 gold, and have fully satisfied our gold victory condition.

We are hidden at the end of day 9.  During the combat encounter step, we will once again alert our mace, then use the mace and our FIGHT H6 chit to finish off the first of the two remaining Guards, as he cannot avoid our speed 3 attack, regardless of his efforts to switch tactics.

The second guard is a little trickier to dispatch, as the Black Knight must use an FIGHT M4* chit to alert his mace, but after that, the result is the same.  This time, the Guard doesn't even try to avoid the Black Knight's attack, as the Black Knight's attack lines up with the Guard's move.

As a result of those two combat rounds, the Black Knight collects another 18 notoriety (6 for the first Guard and 12 for the second) and 8 gold (4 for each).  The Black Knight stays at the Guardhouse for the night, and now has 0/10 fame, 57/60 notoriety and 49/30 gold towards his victory conditions.

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.

Magic Realm: Day 7

We come to day 7, which, after completed, will end our first week in the Magic Realm.  During the first six days, we travelled past the Dragon's Lair, and visited the Guardhouse and eliminated the three Guards and one of the Patrolmen decamped there, earning 33/60 of our required notoriety, and 21/30 of our required gold in the process.  We have yet to collect any of our 10 required fame, a deficiency we will correct once we go monster-hunting.

At the end of each week in the Magic Realm, a different colour of magic is present throughout the Realm.  In this case, Black and White magic is supplied on day 7.  That, of course, has no affect on the Black Knight, who is unable to cast magic spells.  I thought I would mention the availability of magic at the end of each week, since the presence of magic, on particular days, can be beneficial to those characters who do use magic.

Our plan for day 7 is for the Black Knight to loot the treasures lying about the Guardhouse.  Thus, we will record four search actions for the day.

Our prowling monster roll results in a 6: bats.  A roll of 6 also resets the Guard back to the Guardhouse.  We can look forward to their arrival at the end of the day.

We loot the Guardhouse four times and recover the following treasures:

While I'm not unhappy about obtaining the two axes and the broadsword, the Cloven Hoof is very disappointing.  The cloven hoof is perhaps the worst treasure in the game.  Its affect is that, while in the same clearing, you must add one to all rolls.  Low results are better than high results, so this treasure has a baleful effect on your adventuring.  The only characters that might find this treasure handy are the Magician, the Witch, and the Warlock.  It is worth 40 notoriety if kept.

Our plan for the Cloven Hoof will be to take it to another location on the board, and unceremoniously dump it.  We can't drop it at the Guardhouse, as its malevolence will continue to infect all of our rolls , even though we no longer possess it.

At the end of the day, a new squad of Guards arrive at the Guardhouse.  No doubt they heard rumors of butchery and are here to investigate.  The two members of the Patrol are still here, along with the other five unrecovered treasures.

Since we are unhidden, and there are three Guards, too many for the Black Knight to defeat, we run away during the combat encounter step, fatiguing one chit in the process, and ending the first week of play.


Magic Realm: Day 6

We had a pretty successful day 5 in the Magic Realm.  We collected an additional 27 notoriety -- six from killing Guard 1, twelve from killing Guard 2, and nine from killing Patrol 1.  We also pocketed 10 gold from looting their three bodies.

There are two Patrolmen alive at the Guardhouse, along with a stack of treasures dropped by the defeated Guard leader.

The Black Knight suffered one wound and fatigued three effort asterisks during day 5 combat, so he has 9/12 action chits remaining.  During day 6, our plan is to move back to the Guardhouse and rest.  We record one move and three rest actions.

At the start of the day, we roll for prowling monsters, and roll a 1: dragons.  Again, because we are in the valleys, we are safe from the prowling monsters.

We move to the Guardhouse and rest three times.  That allows us to recover three effort asterisks-worth of fatigue, so we return our MOVE H4** and MOVE M4* chits into our active chit stock.  That leaves us with one wounded FIGHT M5 chit still unavailable to us.

The Black Knight ends his turn, unhidden, at the Guardhouse.  With the other two Patrolmen still there, we roll to see whether the Patrol chooses to battle the Black Knight.  With a reaction roll of 3 the Patrol decide that discretion is the better part of valour, and elect not to battle the Black Knight.  That is just as well for us.  Once we have gathered up much of the treasure lying about, we will sell it to the Patrol and then finish them off, thereby re-acquiring the loot we just sold them.

Magic Realm: Day 5

Onto day 5 of our Magic Realm adventures.  During the first four days, the Black Knight first travelled through the Deep Woods, making note of the site of the Dragon's Lair.  He then made his way through several valleys to the Guardhouse, where he sold his shield to, and dispatched, the leader of the Guards, his hated foes, before running away.  Currently hanging around the Guardhouse is the Patrol, who the Black Knight is indifferent to.

During the first four days, we have collected 6 notoriety points (all for killing the Guard leader) and 11 gold (7 for selling the shield, and another 4 looted from the dead Guard's body).  We selected one fame, three notoriety and 1 gold as our victory conditions.  That actually translates into 10 fame (each fame victory point equals 10 fame), 60 notoriety (each notoriety victory point equals 20 notoriety) and 30 gold (each gold victory point equals 30 gold).  We have a long way to go to fulfil our victory conditions.

We are once again on the outskirts of the Guardhouse, having run away at the end of day 4.  Across the top of the screen is displayed everything that remains at the Guardhouse: two surviving Guards; three Patrol members; a helmet; a breastplate; a broadsword, two axes and a mace; two blue treasure cards; and, my shield.  All of that equipment and treasure was dropped by the now-deceased Guard leader.

Our first order of business is to head back to the Guardhouse, finish off the remaining Guards, and loot that pile of treasure.  For day 5, we will record the same actions as day 4: move to the Guardhouse, hide twice, and rest once, to recover from that fatiguing departure at the end of day 4.

At the start of day 5, we make a prowling monster roll of 4.  Once again, giants and trolls, and the Lancers. 

This monster roll will not affect us, as we remain within the safe confines of the valleys.  We will not encounter the Lancers either, as they appear only at the Chapel and the Campfires.

During the day, the Black Knight uses his first action to move to the Guardhouse.  His first hide attempt is successful, with rolls of 2 and 4.  Therefore the second hide attempt is redundant, and that action is lost.  His last action is a rest, and the Black Knight recovers the fatigue that was suffered at the end of day 4.

At this point, the Black Knight is hidden and fully rested.  There are two Guards and three Patrolmen at the Guardhouse. 

The Black Knight can probably kill three, and perhaps all, of the five remaining denizens.  He would, admittedly, have to be darned lucky to finish off all five, but it is possible.  But, we need the Patrol leader alive for a couple of days, because our plan is to sell him the Guard leader's dropped treasure, and collect the related gold, before we finish him off.  Don't forget ... this is the Black Knight we're talking about.  Treachery is his hallmark.

During the first round of combat, we take the same approach we did when finishing off the Guard leader.  First, from hiding, the Black Knight alerts his mace, using his FIGHT M5 chit.  Then, he surprise attacks Guard 1, using his alerted speed 3 mace and his FIGHT H6 chit.

Even though Guard 1 tries, at the last moment, to duck the Black Knight's attack, the alerted mace's speed of 3 undercuts the Guard's move of 5.  And since the Black Knight overswung his mace for a heavy blow, the Black Knight finishes off Guard 1.

Guard 2 wheels to confront our unexpected attack, while the bemused Patrol watches on the sidelines from the backs of their horses.

As we are within melee range of Guard 2, he is now at a disadvantage.  Normally, the Guard's greatsword, with its' extra reach compared to the Black Knight's stubby mace, would see us impaled before we could close the intervening distance, but that reach advantage is only available during initial contact in combat round 1.  In subsequent rounds,  weapon speed rules the battlefield.

Once again, we want to alert our mace, so we can take advantage of its alerted speed of 3.  While we were hidden, we had the luxury of leisurely alerting our mace.  Now that the Black Knight is no longer hidden, and in the thick of combat, we can only alert our mace if we can alert it faster than our opponent's move speed.  As the Guard's move speed is 5, we need a fight speed of 4 or less.  Fortunately, we have four fight chits that fit the bill.

We have two FIGHT M4* (somewhat fatiguing), and FIGHT H4** and FIGHT M3** (very fatiguing) chits.  We will use the FIGHT M4* chit to alert the mace, and set that chit aside, as it is temporarily unavailable since we used it to alert our weapon.  Alerting the mace will mean another dead Guard, and nary a scratch to the Black Knight, as our attack speed of 3 will land before the Guard has a chance to land a blow of his own.

The Black Knight once again plays his FIGHT H6 chit with the speed 3 alerted mace.  The Guard, meanwhile, tries to strike a quick blow by changing tactics and simultaneously dodging our attack, but to no avail.  His move speed of 6 is less than our attack speed of 3, and his attack speed of 4 is too slow to land a blow before my speed 3 mace crushes in the side of his head.

Our first two rounds of combat have resulted in a pair of dead Guards, no fatigue or wounds suffered by the Black Knight, 8 additional gold, and 18 additional points of notoriety (six notoriety for Guard 1, and twelve notoriety for Guard 2, since each foe after the first, defeated during the same day, is worth their notoriety times the order number in which they were defeated).

The Black Knight has collected a total of 24 notoriety, over one-third of the 60 notoriety required to fulfil his victory conditions.  He has also collected 19 gold.  That is nearly two-thirds of the 30 he needs to meet his gold victory conditions.

I mentioned that at least three of the five denizens can be defeated.  We can dispatch at least one Patrol member, since they are not expecting us to attack them.  The advantage of attacking the Patrol now is that the next opponent defeated with be worth three times his notoriety value, since he will be the third opponent dispatched during the same day.  The patrol are normally worth 3 notoriety.  Thus, one dispatched now will be worth 3 x 3 = 9 notoriety.  We will take the chance that we suffer one or more wounds while tangling with the Patrol, since the 9 notoriety is hard to pass up.

The Patrol is not expecting an attack, so we can alert our mace with our FIGHT M5 chit.  We select Patrol 1 as our target, since he is the easiest of the three to defeat, and we want to keep Patrol HQ (the leader) around for a couple of days so he can buy our loot.

 

 

The Patrol is a different foe from the Guards.  Each of the Patrolmen ride a workhorse, and inflict, at most, medium damage (by comparison, the Guards inflicted heavy and tremendous damage). 

 

Workhorses for Magic Realm denizens work the same as those ridden by the characters: you must eliminate the horse before you can attack the rider. 

 

 

Once again, we use our FIGHT H6 chit along with our speed 3 alerted mace.  The alerted mace is faster than the workhorse's move speed of 6, so undercuts the workhorse's attempt to dodge my attack.  The heavy damage of the fight chit is sufficient to eliminate the workhorse.

 



Having killed one of their workhorses, the three Patrolmen turn to confront the Black Knight.  They block our escape attempt, as the unhorsed Patrolman is too fast for us to outrun. 

That's okay, as we had intended to finish Patrol 1 off anyways.  The Patrolmen are also too fast for the Black Knight to alert his mace.  We'll have to do this the hard way, then.  We play the FIGHT H6 chit with our unalerted mace, and our MOVE H4** chit to try an avoid the Patrol attacks.

Well, we got the worst of that exchange.  By playing our MOVE H4**, we suffer fatigue during this combat round, Patrol 1 avoids our attack by switching tactics, and Patrol 2's attack connects, resulting in a wound to the Black Knight.  Our MOVE M4* chit becomes fatigued, and our FIGHT M5 chit becomes wounded.  We have lost two of our twelve action chits during this combat round.

The only upside in that combat round is that, since our attack missed, our mace is automatically alerted next round, giving us a faster attack. 

During the next round, we once again use our FIGHT H6 chit, now with our alerted, speed 3 mace, and play our MOVE H4** chit to maximize our chances of avoiding the Patrol's attacks.

Combat round 5 went much better for us!  Although Patrol 1 dodges our attack, again, he switches to his own, heavier attack, which also slows his move speed to 4.  Since our attack speed is 3, we undercut his dodge, killing him in the process.

Patrol 1's death adds another 9 notoriety to our score, for a total of 33/60 notoriety.  We also gain another 2 gold, bringing us to 21/30 gold.

We have incurred another point of fatigue, bringing us to 9/12 chits still available to us.  At this point, the Black Knight runs away, incurring another point of fatigue.  The Black Knight escapes as the two horse-mounted Patrol can't catch him.

Magic Realm: Day 4

At the end of day 3, the Black Knight beats a hasty retreat from the Guardhouse, as both the Guard and the Patrol challenge him.  As a result, the Black Knight incurs a single point of fatigue.

On day 4, the Black Knight records one action to move back to the Guardhouse (where the Guards and Patrol are waiting), records two hide actions, and for his last action, records a rest, in order to recover from the fatigue of running away yesterday.

We have recorded two hide actions because there's a chance that a hide attempt will be unsuccessful.  When attempting a hide action (and many other actions) you roll two dice, taking the higher of the two rolls, and consulting the related table to determine the result.  If, for example, a hide roll reveals a 6, your hide action is unsuccessful.  Therefore, we have recorded two hide actions, to improve our chances of hiding.

The monster roll, at the start of the day, is 4: giants and trolls.  As we are staying in the valley, we don't need to worry about prowling monsters.

During the day, we move back to the Guardhouse, and roll a 1 and 3 on our first hide attempt, thus successfully hiding.  The second hide action is lost, as we must pre-record all of our actions at the start of the game day, and then follow the actions in order once our turn begins.

Since the Black Knight is hidden at the end of the day, neither the Guards nor the Patrol challenge him.  Time to take down the leader of the Guards. 

Since the Black Knight is hidden during the initial combat encounter step, he readies his medium mace by alerting it.  He uses his FIGHT M5 chit to do so, thereby temporarily removing that chit from his active action pool.

Because we are attacking while hidden, the Black Knight gets a free attack on the leader of the Guard.  Thus we don't need to play a move chit to avoid the Guard's attack during this first round of combat, only another fight chit to strike our blow (you must always play a fight chit along with whatever weapon you employ).  The Black Knight uses his FIGHT H6 chit in combination with his medium mace.  Since the mace is already alerted, it has an automatic attack speed of 3, which is faster than the attack time of 6 on his fight chit (smaller attack numbers are faster that larger numbers, and weapon speeds over-ride fight chit speeds).

We compare the Black Knight's mace speed of 3 to the Guard's move speed of 5.  Since the mace is faster than the Guard's move, we undercut the Guard, and inflict an automatic hit.  And since we played a heavy fight chit, which is a more powerful swing than the mace's normal damage, we inflict a heavy wound, one harm level higher than what the mace usually does. 

Splat!  The Guard dies, as we inflicted, as he is vulnerable to, heavy damage.  

As a result of dispatching the leader of the Guard, we gain 6 notoriety, and 4 more gold.  At this point, It's tempting to try dispatching the other two Guards, but there's a risk that one of them will get a lucky swing during the second round, killing me or destroying my armor, neither of which is palatable.  Dying on day 1 is not fatal to winning the game, but dying on day 4 might put victory out of reach.  Therefore, at the start of combat round two, we once again use the Black Knight's MOVE H4** chit to run away, suffering a single point of fatigue while fleeing down the road. 

The Black Knight can successfully flee in this circumstance because the Guard's move speed is 5, while his speed, while exhausting, is 4.

Magic Realm: Day 3

Day 3 of our Magic Realm adventures finds us arriving at the Guardhouse.  Three of our four actions are used for moving to the Guardhouse; the fourth action is spend trading with the Guards.  The Black Knight uses a trade action to sell his shield to the Guard for a whopping 7 gold.  We don't need the shield to defeat the Guard, as the Black Knight's full suit of armor is protection enough.  Every little bit of gold helps, since gold was included in our victory conditions.  And besides, we're just going to kill the Guards and take the shield back anyways!

As you can see, there are three Guards at the Guardhouse.  Since we didn't hide this turn, the Guards are likely to challenge us to a fight ... three against one (see why the Black Knight hates them so?). 

The prowling monster roll is once more 3, which means goblins and the Octopus are active, and the Patrol will show up at the end of the day.  The Black Knight has no particular beef with the Patrol, but they're likely to fall beneath his shattering mace blows at some point as well.  But for now we've got Guards to bury, so we're biding time before finishing off the Patrol.

 

And here they come, both the Guards and the Patrol appear at the end of the day, looking for trouble.

 

 

As there are too many opponents, the Black Knight beats a hasty retreat down the road, by playing his H4** move chit to run away during the combat encounter stage.  That will cost him one single-star chit of fatigue, but that's preferable  to being chopped to bits by the Guards and Patrol.