The Test of the Kai

[Beowuuf]

Edit: Now finished, see link below:

I thought I'd resurrect this gamebook idea since it was nearing completion, and I did manage to save it

The 'story so far...' sets you up for the 'plot', basically in the course of trying to kick the kai, you find in your plotting and from Banedon or ulnar that eggs are appearing everywhere that are controlling the populous, and that giant lava filled eggs have appeared in Durenor blocking the tunnels. With or without Banedon, with or without a dug egg, you rush to Durenor and either stop to investigate the tunnel blockage (wrecking your flying ship 'the flying ship') or go directly to see king Alin to find out what is going on

Come on, we can't be far away from a stunning conclusion! Write a section, as weird or normal, as plot advancing or not as you like, trying not to branch to too many choices unless you can loop back to old ones.

The information below should help co-ordinate this, and the original posts are in this doc:
Final version: www.dmjump.net/The%20Test%20of%20the%20Kai.pdf

Sections pending:
NONE! I completed 49, 61 and what was 63 (one of the endings, is now 65) offline!

Whew!


Sections free:
None! All 65 sections of the book used up!

[Beowuuf]

May as well start the ball rolling again!

71

Wait a minute, you are a Kai Supreme Uber Grand Master, possessing grand supreme uber Kai Masternessnessness. You do not hide your love of well rounded arguments and pointed debate, you should fear no three foot high minions of distasteful prudishness ruining your enjoyment of the articles in the perfectly legitimate warriors' magazines.

You stand tall, face the door, and using your Kai Discipline of Arrogance bellow, "Begone diminutive one! Cease your attack on my informative Po...journals at once! Begone foul fiend of prudish and base expectation, carry thyself hence and verily to a place forthwith without of my sight by Ishir, and return you not for five...nay, for ten minutes! By the bearded face of Storm Hawk my mentor in faith! For Sommerlund and the Kai!"

The rattling of the doorknob and banging ceases, and you hear a hollow, sing song 'Ok' as the Bo'Sun walks off hypnotised by your awesome powers and sing-song delivery.

Woohoo! You did it! You have created another useless Kai Disicpline of Dwarf Control to add to Bardsmanship, Elementalism, Basket Weaving and Animal Mastery that you have so far embarrassed yourself by discovering. Not that it's stopped you putting it on the curriculum for when those lazy potentials actually become Grand Masters themselves.

Delighted, you temporarily forget your Po...Journals and walk out to tell someone of your new discovery. Looking at the view briefly, you see the Flying Ship is still speeding towards Durenor, lurching quite violently. Infact, it's speeding really quite fast towards Durenor. What has happened?

You look around, and realise your uber powers are simply yoo uber-powerful, not only the Bo'Sun but ALL the dwarfs have gone away, deserting their posts - and more amazingly their alcohol - to stand up against the side rails doing nothing.

You barely have time to register the Hammerdal range, complete with new egg-shaped gates on the tunnels, before you get a very close up view of them. Wait a minute! Those aren't gates! They're actual giant eggs! And wait a minute, you aren't getting a close up view, you are going to crash right into them!


Pick a number from the Random Number Table.

If you picked 0-4, go to 39
If you picked 5-9, go to 38

[Samildanach]

You actually made a dwarf exploding head table?! Shame it had to be censored.

39 (from 30/41)

Bursting impressively through the mighty oaken doors to the throne room with the standard heroic cry of "Aha!", you are soon stopped in your tracks by the blazing inferno that currently rages beneath Alin's throne.

"My Po...Journals!" he exclaims, clinging tearfully to a charred corner of parchment. "I thought they'd be safe there!"

A royal aide scurries in from a neighbouring room, his face rigid with alarm. Hastening to his king's side, he forces out the bad news: "Even the classics, your highness. He even set fire to your entire collection of classic issues of 'Crown Jewels Exposee Daily, With Regular Features On The Crown Jewels Of All Major Monarchs By Our Resident Correspondent, Lord Tilt Leftingham'. I did what I could, but I only salvaged half a page. And it's..." he gulped hard, "half a page of....text, your highness."

Over the king's renewed wailing at this dire news, you bellow until the aide comes over. "I am the kai Supreme Grandest Super-Master. What's happening here?!" The aide grimaces, seemingly battling with his conscience, then relents. "Well, my lord, the palace has been infiltrated by a po...journal arsonist. We'd heard reports from the city of a few cases of burnt po...journals, but his highness thought it was most likely just a series of unrelated accidents, maybe people getting too excited over the...fascinating articles. Spontaneously combusting the...publications. So to speak." He pauses, grimaces again, then sighs and ploughs on. "Since you're a long-time ally of Durenor, I suppose I can... The king is the latest victim, and you can see from the scale of the destruction that this arsonist is no amateur. He located seventeen completely separate stashes of po...journals scattered all over the palace, and comprehensively set every one of them alight. In the most secure vault, we found this calling card of sorts." He hands you a small egg, then shrugs. "It must have been left by the arsonist. Even his highness wouldn't take an egg--" He stops suddenly. "I should get back."

You nod distractedly, then turn away. There is little you can do to aid in putting out the fire. And if there was, you wouldn't. That's what kings have staff for. Besides, whoever set the king's collection on fire might - just might - have taken one or two treasures of...journalism...away with him. You unconsciously bare your teeth at the thought, and the wolf in you rises to the challenge.

There is a broken window in one wall, easily large enough for someone to have escaped through. Beyond the throne, there is a door, slightly ajar.

Pick a number from the Random Number Table. This number is the number of Clues you find before you leave the throne room. Write this number somewhere aesthetically pleasing on your Action Chart.

Now, what will you do?

If you leap through the broken window in pursuit of the arsonist, egg-leaver and (hopefully) literature thief, turn to 45

If you feel the window is too obvious and decide to check the mysteriously half-open door behind the throne, turn to 46

If you kick the sobbing King Alin into the journal-fuelled flames around his throne (will it never end, you monster?!), turn to 47

[Beowuuf]

How could I not have the table! Cool, I never get around to ressurecting this myself - now I'm fired up to add another section myself!

[Samildanach]

The Test of the Kai must not be allowed to die!

[Beowuuf]

We are close to finishing too...ish...unless someone adds a whole new plot!

[Beowuuf]

47

Usually kicking kings into flames is very inadvisable, luckily your Kai Nexus protects you and so it's all good. Let's face it, King Alin is no Ulnar - if Ulnar had his porn burned, he would not be crying. Oh no, he'd have D'Val removing heads and would be invading the Darklands waving the Sommerswerd around his head despite all your protests.

Ulnar is a proper king.

King Alin just blubs a little more and then rolls around on the ground putting out the flames, which dislodges his crown. The courtiers say nothing as you grab the crown, put it on and proclaim yourself King Lone Wolf I! HAHA! Let's see Ulnar refuse to have tea and biscuits with you now!

Still, this doesn't solve the problem of the po...journal arsonist.


If you wish to use your new-found Kingly abilities to leap out the window after the egg-leaving po...journal arsonist, go to 45
If you wish to instead investigate the half-open door behind your new throne, go to 46

[Beowuuf]

46

You walk into the corridor revealed, and taking one last look backwards towards the sliver of light, you advance cautiously onwards.

Well, except you have the Sommerswerd to cast light, you have insane levels of eyesight under Huntsmastery, and your advanced levels of Divination actually let you know about the dangers before they were even built five years ago. And besides Advanced Nexus, superhuman reflexes and Deliverance let you survive the flamethrowers, acid spitters, spinning blades, rock slides, rolling boulders, mine wagon chases and everything else pushed at you.

You start getting a downhearted as you advance further, as surely nothing could be worth all this. Infact, you are preparing yourself for another doorway that leds out, with a sign saying 'We Hope You Enjoyed Alin's Fun House, Tell Your Friends With Superhuman Abilities Or Who Are Sleeping With Your Life.'

Instead, you find the motherload of jour...porn

The extra pictures of Viveka in the Female Assassins' Monthly - Facial Scar Special' article. The illustrated Legends adventures of Qinefer scaring that Helghast with - well, now you can see. Banedon's Bumper Fun Pop=Up Book of Naughty Magics.


Tragically, you never leave, although with your advanced lifespan and hunting abilities you have many, many wonderful years of alone time first. Your non-deviant life and mission end here.

[Samildanach]

Hahahahahahaha!

[Samildanach]

45

You sprint to the window and, taking care not to catch yourself on any of the jagged edges of glass (thereby making youself look like a big girl, or at least a small boy), you leap through the opening and plunge toward the palace gardens below. Way, way, way below. So far below, in fact, that by the time you've finished thinking "Wow, I'm pretty high up. Or was. Not so much now, and less with every second. Hey, I can see my monastery from here!" you're still only halfway down.

You admire the view. You compose a tasteless limerick. You make and eat a ham and mustard sandwich. Just as you begin to flex your stiff back and wonder if you've got time to take a power nap, you reach the ground. And when I say 'reach', I don't mean 'stretch out your arms towards'; I mean 'arrive at suddenly'...and, in your case, rather uncomfortably, to say the least.

If your head is bare: pick a number from the Random Number Table, subtract the number of this paragraph, add fifty, then subtract this total from your Endurance. Then subtract another two for good measure.

If you are wearing King Alin's crown, you are buoyed by the power of kinglyness. Three dozen assorted servants charge out from myriad doors during your descent and weave themselves into a crude but effective human mesh, cushioning your fall. Not only do you not lose any Endurance points from the fall, you actually gain ten from the feeling of superiority and general specialness that comes from having such devoted minions.

If you survive your dramatic exit from the throne room, you cast around the area and see a minute dusting of fabric particles upon a blade of grass across the lawn. Using your Super-Kai-Magna-Grandness-Mastery of Uber-Hunting-Fu, you magnify your vision a million fold and determine that these particles are, in fact, extremely big particles that dwarf you and the entire castle. You zoom out again. Honestly, sometimes you wonder why you bother with these disciplines at all. Sighing wearily and kicking a servant (if one is present) or a carefully sculpted topiary hedge (if you are not the king and thus undeserving of servants), you race off in the direction indicated by the particle trail.

Shrug off the science fiction feel evoked by that last sentence, and turn to 48

[Beowuuf]

Woohoo!

48

You rush through the twisting labyrinth of greenery and irritating peasants focusing your Grand Huntsmastery skill, then your Huntmastery skill, then your hunting skill, then your tracking skill, then finally just grabbing a dog from a passing orphan and letting it follow the trail.

"Warped core breach! All hands, brace for impact!" comes the cry. You stop for a moment worried you have accidentally been lead in to a different narrative again.

"Sorry sir," says a better dressed peasant up a ladder, looking at a large apple tree. "All the apples on these trees have warped cores, so the outer skin is broken. They'll probably be rotten by the time they are picked, so I'm shaking the branch here and all the gardening hands below will catch the apples on a sheet."

"Wow, where do you come from?" you ask the ladder man.

"The Stornlands, sir!"

"Hmm, that's a long way to go for that joke..." you muse.. "What is you name?" you ask him.

"V'Dal, sir, I'm actually the hair dresser, but lots of people have rushed off with eggs in their hands so I was forced to do a spot of gardening too. It's mostly the same, except with bigger scissors and less whining."

"Well V'Dal, the king has run off!* I am off to 'find' him (and make sure he stays lost). I declare you the captain of the King's guard, and charge you to look out for my...I mean the... captital until I get back!"

"Yes sir!" he says, taking to his new captain-ly duties by leaping heroically off the ladder, and triming the hair of one of the gardening hands into a wickedly sharped point. Satisfied, he weilds the two-handed broad peasant while cackling insanely at the powers you have invested him with.

"Stout fellow, carry on!" you say, pleased at your sensible choice. You are welcome to take your new...I mean...the new captain of the guard along with you, if you don't think he'll slow you down. Note it down by trimming the words into the Hair section of your soon to be ex-Best Friend.

You carry onwards, and the dog pulls harder as he obviously is getting close to the scent. Sadly, the scent is simply his favourite chew toy. However, the intersection he had left the toy beside luckily seems to be where you needed to go.

To the left, the pathway disappears in to the Tunnels of Tarnalin, and the funny particles seem to be visible going in that direction.

However, to the right the pathway seems to want to loop back to the palace, and you can spot some egg shell fragments along it.


What to do, what to do, what to do, what to do.... Oh yes, write some options for you, that was it. Forget my own head next, so I will.

So, what do you want to do?

Go left towards the tunnels? Go to 63
Go right towards the palace again? Go to 49


*The king hasn't run off, Lone Wolf just can't stop lying. Like the time he said Haakon had been killed in mortal combat, when in reality Haakon had just removed his helm to scratch his nose and dissolved.

[Beowuuf]

Heh, thatnks for ressurecting this Sam! I have kept meaning to and forgetting.

So, we are nearing the final stretch I reckon! All will be revealed back at the palace, or all will be revealed in the Tunnels of Tarnalin! Was it worth it? Will it be over before Easter two years after it was started as a quick easter gamebook thread? FIND OUT!

[Beowuuf]

Actually, quickly read back over everything, and realised I need to do a little fast dancing to weave a few diffeent posts together to save anyone else the headache!


63

You decide to ignore everything going on behind you, and press on forwards without delay. After all, the exciting Tunnel of Tarnalin is open and waiting for you! Really, who gets to go through there that often? Certainly not you, and certainly not unless there are some Helghast waiting to instantly kill you!

After a while, you realise that actually the tunnel is pretty boring, and worse yet does not seem to be resolving itself in to any form of plot resolution. There seem to be some shiny particles on the ground for you to follow, but really they seem boring too.

It's almost a relief when you come to a junction. Hmm, is this a real choice, or is this another one of those 'go either way but really the same Helghast section is going to happen' choice?

If Banedon is with you, he says he has cast 'Sense Evil' or some such thing, and something horrible is down the left path. So obviously, you have to go that way. Go to 51

If you possess a dud egg, suddenly you feel it lurch in your pocket, pulling towards the right pathway. Hmm, this can't be good, its the same direction the sparkling particles you are following, but you may as well follow where the egg leads. Go to 52

If you have both Banedon with you AND a dud egg, I bet you thought you were really clever, didn't you? However, now your head is spinning and you can't make a decision! If Captain V'Dal is with you (no, that's not a spelling error you people who haven't come from 48) then he can break the tie and you can pick either choice above. Otherwise, your life and mission end here! Hah!

If none of the above applies to you then, no, you can't just go picking either way! You find Tarnalin just too boring to mess around with, and decide that a fast pathway to the palace is probably for the best. A passing Noodnic offers to show you the way. It turns out to be a Helghast, but really you were expecting this from the beginning and kill it once it leads you out of the tunnels again.

Follow the nice pathway to the palace by going to section 49

[Samildanach]

Feb 15, 2009 3:10:23 GMT -5 Beowuuf said:

"Sorry sir," says a better dressed peasant up a ladder, looking at a large apple tree. "All the apples on these trees have warped cores, so the outer skin is broken. They'll probably be rotten by the time they are picked, so I'm shaking the branch here and all the gardening hands below will catch the apples on a sheet."

...

"V'Dal, sir, I'm actually the hair dresser

Hahahahaha!

[Samildanach]

Come on, someone other than me and Beowuuf needs to contribute...