The Crystal Ship

As you enter the harbour square, you pass a line of wagons laden with heavy machinery, which are queueing to enter a dry dock. There, illuminated by the glare of huge oil lamps, is the largest ship you have ever seen -- a monstrous ironclad juggernaut bristling with awesome weaponry. You stop to stare at this terrifying vessel, and overhear two Drakkarim engineers talking about their work. Your blood runs cold when you hear one of them reveal why this juggernaut is being built. It is to be used to destroy Holmgard, your country’s capital city.

If you enter the harbour at Argazad in the twelfth Lone Wolf gamebook, The Masters of Darkness, whilst infiltrating the Darklords' base, and so discover this terrifying juggernaut, you are given the option to enter the dock and find some way of sabotaging the ship. Sensible players will reason that the aim of your mission is to destroy the Darklords before the behemoth can ever set sail, and thus this is an unnecessary risk, and their suspicions should only rise if they attempt sabotage anyway:

A group of slaves are at work near the stern, hoisting into position a strange spherical tank made of a sparkling orange metal. As soon as it is secured, the Drakkarim engineers begin coupling heavy springs and thick copper cables to the tank, linking it to a massive propeller at the rear of the craft.

Carefully you study the complex machinery, soon realizing that if the orange tank were destroyed, or damaged beyond repair, the vessel would be unable to propel itself. However, the shell of the tank appears to be constructed of super-hard metal, and the only way you can think of destroying it is by using your Crystal Explosive.

All of this is, of course, leading up to a classic example of one of my favourite ways to die in interactive fiction: the game permits you to do something incredibly and fatally stupid. The Crystal Explosive is needed to destroy the source of the Darklords' power at the end of the adventure, fulfilling your destiny to save all of Magnamund and avenge the Kai, and obviously you should not use it at any point before then.

It is possible to decide not to use your Crystal Explosive and find another way of sabotaging the ship which kills you instantly, as an action you believe will cause a slow build-up of power that will eventually cause an explosion immediately destroys the ship and takes out half the harbour to boot. If you have the correct Kai disciplines and a high enough level of training, you can successfully sabotage the ship and get off it with your life, although the book confers no bonuses or reward for doing so. But if you persist in using your Crystal Explosive, then the punishment for your stupidity is severe indeed:

Having completed their task, the engineers pack away their tools and climb down from the work platform that surrounds the orange tank. Patiently, you watch them leave the dry dock before climbing the platform ladder and planting your Crystal Explosive beneath the tank. You prime the device and turn to leave, taking care not to appear anxious or in a hurry, but as you reach the bottom of the ladder you are confronted by three Drakkarim guards, accompanied by a figure dressed in a hooded red robe. Your stomach churns when you glimpse his skeletal face, for the creature is not human -- you are staring into the ghastly eyes of a Vordak!

The undead being begins to probe your mind with its psychic power and it shrieks in terror when it discovers who you really are. Instantly, you spring into action, drawing your weapon and striking out at them before they can do likewise. The Vordak drops with its skull shattered and a Drakkar staggers back, clutching desperately at his torn throat. The remaining two, having drawn their blades, now lunge at your chest in unison. You parry their attack with ease and send them both to their doom with one sweeping slice. With the explosive set to detonate at any minute, you run towards the exit, barging aside any who cross your path. You are within ten yards of the dock gates when an alarm bell wails and a troop of Death Knights appear in a line before you. "Koga!" they command, and raise their spears.

At that moment there is a blinding flash of white light and suddenly everything seems to be happening in slow motion. You see the Death Knights falling backwards, their cloaks and leather armour sprouting tongues of flame. Buckled steel plates, twisted girders, and the bodies of screaming slaves cartwheel past you, trailing sparks as they tumble like fiery meteors. The heat and the shock of the explosion tears into your back and plunges you head-first into a black, unfeeling oblivion. Your act of sabotage has completely destroyed the ironclad juggernaut, and half of Argazad harbour, but it has cost you your life and sealed the doom of Magnamund.

Your life and your mission end here.

Given you have just rendered your mission impossible to complete by wasting the item you need, one might wonder if this ending really needs to be so immediately fatal. (The Drakkarim still show up when leaving the ship if you haven't used the explosive, but you can take your time avoiding them in that version.) Dever includes a non-lethal ending where your goal is no longer obtainable in the third book, The Caverns of Kalte, after all. Might an ending where you realise you are trapped in the Darklords' domain with no way of stopping them have been more interesting? Or even allowing the player to continue without the explosive, but losing at the point where they would otherwise have succeeded? (Something not dissimilar happens in the second book, Fire on the Water; if you lose the Seal of Hammerdal, or are stupid enough to sell it to a pawnbroker, you can end up stuck in Port Bax, unable to proceed without the Seal to verify your identity to the authorities, although there's no actual 'game over' section that says as such: you can either wander in circles endlessly, or eventually buy some forged documents, get arrested when you try to use them to get a pass, and then get assassinated by agents of Vonotar the Traitor before the guards realise who you are.)

I guess getting taken out in the explosion you cause, whilst trying to sabotage a complex piece of machinery you don't understand, using the weapon you have been expressly told is the only thing that can save the world, has a sense of satisfaction to it that might be missing with a later payoff. And perhaps half of the harbour getting blown up wasn't something that could easily have two different paths accounting for whether or not you did it...