Shadow on the Sand is the fifth Lone Wolf gamebook, and also the conclusion to the Kai sub-series (also known at that point in publication as the 'basic rules' series, as it marks the point where Lone Wolf goes from initiate to Kai Master, and so unlocks a whole new set of Kai Disciplines to choose from). It is structured uniquely: instead of a single 350-section adventure, the game is split into two parts, running to 200 sections each, with section 200 of Part One directing you to turn to the start of Part Two and 201.
To cut a long (well, four-gamebook) story short, at the beginning of the book, Lone Wolf has travelled to the desert empire of Vassagonia to sign a peace treaty with the ruler, Zakhan Moudalla, but upon arrival your entourage discovers that the Zakhan has died, and his successor Kimah is in cahoots with the Darklords, plotting to kill you and destroy the legendary Book of the Magnakai.
In the very first section of SotS, you are accosted by the new Zakhan's elite bodyguards from the moment your ship docks in the harbour at Barrakeesh, and the choices you are given effectively boil down to: surrender and be taken prisoner, or run.
If you run, then virtually every path you can take from there will ultimately lead to you being captured by the guards and taken prisoner, exactly the same as if you'd surrendered, just with a great deal more bumps and scrapes than you otherwise would have gotten. If you surrender from the start, then Part One of the book can be completed in precisely eighteen moves, even if you only end up escaping from your cell due to incompetent guards and a bit of dumb luck. Quite a bit of the first half of the adventure is taken up with sections where you're on the run that effectively all lead to the bottleneck where you are taken to the Zakhan's dungeons.
There is one narrow path through Part One where you can reach the palace without being taken prisoner. If you hide from the guards by entering the main drainage sewer, the Baga-darooz, then in one section you can contract Limbdeath from one of the many strains of lethal bacteria to be found there. The only cure for Limbdeath is to treat your infected wound within twenty-four hours with Oede -- a herb which is so rare and precious, it can only be found in the palace's Imperial Apothecary. It is effectively only the determination to avoid having to hack off your own gangrenous arm that gives you the ability to enter the palace undetected -- any attempt to do so if you didn't contract Limbdeath will just take you to the section where you're taken prisoner.
One might think Dever was making a point about how in situations where you're facing overwhelming odds you should know when you're beaten, and Part One is basically meant as a prelude to the more epic events of Part Two. But if you do manage to access the apothecary and cure yourself, there is enough Oede herb left for one further application. In Part Two, you can encounter a hermit who has lived in isolation ever since contracting the highly contagious skin-rotting disease vaxelus, and you can then offer him your remaining Oede:
‘May the Majhan bless you -- may you live in eternal peace,’ he cries, his feeble voice brimming over with emotion. ‘How can I ever repay this kindness?’
Is this an Easter egg for players who found the one path where you didn't get captured? Or an indication that not surrendering was actually the correct thing to do? (You can get a helpful, but by no means vital, prod in the right direction from the vaxeler in this path, as well as a Jewelled Mace, which you can also acquire on the alternate route through the palace in Part One.) Is hiding in the most disgusting sewer in all of Magnamund instead of surrendering, and contracting a potentially mission-ending disease, meant to be punished or rewarded? The book doesn't seem to take a definitive side on this...
Shadow on the Sand is definitely confused as regards what behaviour it rewards. Towards the end of the Limbdeath path in Part One there's a choice between a door that has a picture of a book on it and a door bearing the image of a pestle and mortar. Not unsurprisingly, the first of these doors leads to the palace library, the second to the Apothecary's chambers.
ReplyDeleteBearing in mid that you are on a race against time to find the Oede before the Limbdeath costs you your arm, you might expect choosing the library door to have some adverse consequences, but the 'penalty' for going off on a tangent when on the verge of finding what you desperately need is... to obtain two items that could help you avoid obstacles later in the book, and then proceed to the Apothecary's rooms as if you'd never delayed. Preposterous.