Sunday 9 September 2012

Let's Play: Eye of The Dragon

After the excitement of getting ripped apart with Stuart Lloyd in our audio playthrough of Blood of the Zombies, I wanted to return to Allansia for some good old-fashion goblin-prodding action. Perusing my shelf, I pulled out Eye of the Dragon: a book I've played once and died.

Like many characters in the Fighting Fantasy series, in Eye of the Dragon, I am a generic adventurer, and a pretty stupid one at that. I'm staying in the Blue Pig Tavern in Fang between quests when I'm approached by some dodgy fella in robes called Henry Delacor. He's all like "Yo, I'm after the Eye of the Dragon, a bitchin' jewel worth bazillions of golds. Fancy going to get it and we can split the profits like cool homies?"

For some reason, I see nothing wrong with this. Nor do I see anything wrong with downing a slow-acting poison that will ensure that I will return for the cure that Delacor possesses. Huh, whu? Told you this dude was a moron. He tells me I have 14 days to return, and that I must travel to the delightful Darkwood Forest to the woodcutter's cabin, in which there is a trapdoor that leads to an underground labyrinth.

It's Adventure Time! With added poison!
Time to roll up my guy:

SKILL 9
STAMINA 21
LUCK 10

Ok, well, it's not bad really. Onwards!

I travel for five days across the Pagan Plains, kicking the poo out of a couple of wild mutts and admiring the peak of Firetop Mountain in the distance. Eventually I reach the hut, where I find the trapdoor. Before heading down, I rummage through the hut and find an axe with a weird inscription on it. Cryptic. I then descend into the gloom below to party with the rats until I meet a dreaded t-junction. I go right and enter a little art gallery where the artist in question is humming to himself like some humming nutter. I decide to leave the guy alone and head to the next door where I find...Ian Livingstone, the merchant. The picture is of Livingstone in an apron brandishing a chalk board of the stuff he's selling. I decide to spend all my money on his bizarre wares, from dried mushrooms to skunk oil, before continuing.

I'm skipping along the corridor, looking for treasure when I accidentally trip an arrow trap, sending an arrow whistling into my leg for 2 stamina. I decide to walk quietly instead of skipping from now on. I wander some more until I reach a pit with a rope hanging above it. I can either jump it or swing across by the rope. As this is an Ian Livingstone adventure, I fully expect the rope to turn into a snake or an ogre willy so I opt to just try and leap over the pit. Unfortunately, I don't make it across and end up tumbling into the darkness below where I have to fight a GIANT SPIDER. Megalols. I easily dispatch of it with my awesome skillz and head further into the spider's lair where I find a whole pile of goodies, such as a glass ball, an iron key and a nice flower that heals me a tad. I climb out and continue up a corridor where I hear a woman crying for help from behind a door. I expect that this is a trap, but my character is so stupid that it seems that he would probably open the door anyway, so I do and discover a sexy young lady locked in a cage, smiling 'coyly' at me. Now, if I had been locked in a cage for probably days, the sight of my saviour would be something to cry happily about, rather than just smile about.

I don't trust this woman.

I immediately leave and enter a green room full of plants, where I am set upon by a pathetic little GREMLIN who I slaughter with much glee and mirth.

"Didn't you hear? Bert got decapitated! Yeah,  so it's your turn to guard the greenhouse."

I head to the back of the room and find some green paste in a jar. I taste it, because that's how I roll, and feel revitalised. Aces. I also find a key. Double aces. I leave and find myself at an archway where there are to alcoves containing a couple of skeleton warriors. I decide to dash past them and they miss with their swords like bony buffoons.

The next room I enter contains only a voice - the voice of a wizard trapped in another dimension, who is also pretty lonely. I stay for a while to chat with him. We talk about sports, girls and movies, and to reward me he gives me another key. Woop! I then follow a bunch of chalk arrows on a wall along a few corridors until I reach a chalk circle on the floor with a rope above. I pull the rope for funsies, which rings a bell, probably alerting people of my presence. Excellent. I decide to climb the rope and squeeze through a gap in the ceiling. Just as I'm doing that, I get bonked on the head by a bunch of NIBLICKSES, little thieving goblin-like blighters. I'm not standing for any of that, so I get up and disembowel all three of them, cackling as I do so. In the room I find another key, a bronze shield (+1 skill), a black sword and a painting of a dragon. I inspect the painting only to find that the dragon comes to life and starts attacking me. I kill it and decide against handling the evil-looking black sword, as it might try to fight back like the painting. I descend the rope and make my way through a number of corridors, following a trail of dried blood which leads to a door. I open the door to find a dwarf shackled to the wall, bleeding from a wound. He introduces himself as Littlebig, a dude who was ambushed 5 days ago by a guy called Sharcle from Saffrica. I let him out and he agrees to join me on my adventure. Finally, a meat shield!


It's only a matter of minutes until we bump into our next foe - an EVIL WIZARD. I know he's evil because he has a point goatee, the bastard. I dodge a couple of his fireballs before facing him down with my weapon, which I do with ease and splendour. I find a gold ring, which I put on, some gold and a glass wasp. I continue down the corridor and find an old man just chillaxing. I decide to talk to him, but he turns into a HELL DEMON and starts trying to murder me. Me and Littlebig scarper down a corridor, losing the big red guy as I wonder why an old man would turn into a HELL DEMON in the first place. Bloody Livingstone.

After pulling an iron lever to summon some stepping stones, me and dwarfy come across another person in a robe. This time, they run away but we make chase, but they prove to be too fast and we lose them. We soon come to another room containing some fop swordsmaster who challenges me to a duel. Considering I don't have amazing skill, I decline and go on my way.

Soon I reach a crossroads with two voices crying out from either direction, one beckoning and the other saying 'no, no, no!'. I go towards the more negative voice and find a room with some yummy soup and a clue pertaining to an evil doppelganger living in this dungeon and how to kill it. I go to the next room where I meet  Lo Lo Mai, a truth sayer who gives me a riddle containing the whereabouts of the golden dragon. I thank her as she ushers us into yet another corridor where we face two doors. I try one of them, which opens into a room full of portraits. Having bad experiences with paintings coming alive in the past I immediately slam the door and try the other one, which leads to a gloomy webbed room, like the one Lo Lo Mai described. Oh man, it must be close now. I can almost taste the bajillions of gold.

An artist's rendition of my inevitable victory. Warning: may come alive and eat you
We find a tunnel and Littlebig climbs through it. Suddenly there's a scream and when I emerge, there are two Littlebigs standing before me. Good job I learned which one was the doppelganger earlier, so I turn to the fake Littlebig and draw my sword. It then morphs into a completely bad-ass 2 metre tall evil-looking thing that I fight. Oh god, it's a difficult battle and I manage to escape with only a few stamina points remaining. We go through another tunnel, ending up in the lair of a BLACK DRAGON. Eep! I have to climb down and sneak past it - which I do flawlessly with the help of some Elven Boots I picked up in the spider room.

I come to a room with 5 weapons stuck in the wall, with 5 keyholes above them set on plates of different metals. Apparently this is a puzzle, and I have to pull the weapons out in order, the order of which is in the boxes behind the panels. I have four keys, to I open four of the boxes and uncover the right order in which to remove the weapons, which I do successfully. The wall opens to reveal the golden dragon statue - the prize I have been seeking. All I need to do is put the two emeralds in its eye sockets simultaneously. Oh bugger.

I only have one emerald.

I put it in anyway, since Littlebig is bitching at me that we've come this far, only to be shot down by thirty darts and killed.

My adventure ends here.




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