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Black Knight Survives

The Black Knight Survives an Ambush

Posted on Magic Realm?.net by Netzilla on Feb.19 2002,09:29

In the first Hidden Realm game I was playing the Black Knight and we were in the last week of the game. I was in pretty good shape needing some Not. to meet my VP requirements and only having some damaged armor and a lost shield to show for it. I've also got the Dragon Essence and the Alchemist's scroll so I can actually cast spells (those two in the same treasure location was probably the single luckiest find in the game, btw).

I'm travelling through some woods, having blown my hide roll, so I'm out in the open. A pack of wolves shows up. No problem, I think, I'm in heavy armor and I've got the Deft Gloves (F L2), so I'll use my dagger to kill a wolf a turn. I whack the first wolf and take only 1 wound (I think). Then, on round two, as I'm striking down a second wolf, an arrow comes flying out of the woods, destroying my armor (in the Hidden Realm,you don't see hidden characters on the board).

Okay, that's a problem. Since I can't do anything about the sniper,I activate my Ointment of Steel (hoping I don't take too many wounds before my ambusher blows their hide roll) and target another wolf. Well, I kill the wolf, and the sniper again destroys my armor. Okay, at this point I'm unarmored, don't know where my attacker is and I've still got 3 wolves left. I don't like this situation. Rather than get killed and let my attacker gain all my stuff and Not, I use the Scroll of Alchemy and Dragon Essence to cast Melt into Mist, knowing that since the DE transforms with me, I'm stuck in mist form for the rest of the game.

Well, my ambusher decides to finish off the wolves, and ends up blowing a hide roll, and I see it's the Woods Girl that's been the source of my pain. Not having many options (since over half the board was still hidden and I didn't know if there was anyone nearby to break the Mi M? spell), I head off to a corner of the board and suicide.

Fortunately for me, the Magician is left (no chars could be played twice), so I pick him and dump most of my V Ps? into spells and great treasures, hoping I'll "respawn" within a couple days travel of where the Black Knight suicided (starting locations were randomized). I get lucky (again) and start 1 move away from the treasure pile. I get even luckier and pull the Deft Gloves on my first or second loot roll, making getting the Dragon Essence and Alchemist's Scroll even easier. I spend the rest of the week Reading Runes, to meet my V Ps? and come in 2nd place in the game. Gotta be one of the top 5 comebacks in MR history (though I don't know who keeps track).

And the Woods Girl didn't make her V Ps?! Instant Karma, I love it.

Posted by:mcknight on Feb.19 2002,14:38

As the Woods Girl in Netzilla's tale above, I thought that I might add the other perspective. Actually, I didn't start out as the Woods Girl, I started as the Elf with "Persuade" and "Control Bats" as spells.

In Hidden Realm, you don't see another character if they are hidden, so on Day 2 I'm hidden in the Woods and the Wizard stumbles into the clearing. I'm contemplating finishing him off with an arrow that he wouldn't even know where it came from, but decided, nah, I wouldn't likely get much beside his 10 gold and he'd just come back looking for revenge against the phantom archer.

So the Wizard and I strike up a partnership and we bop around the board for a while, seeing where things are on the board with the Wizard's "Talk to a Wise Bird" (very useful, since in Hidden Realm you don't even see the hexes that you haven't visited), and eluding some Trolls at the Shrine. I had just begun to pick off the Lancers from ambush when we got a week of Soft Ground when we couldn't hide.

The Wiz had just picked up a glimpse of the Lost Castle with the Pool in the Mountains from one of his feathered friends, so we decided to head that way, assuming that mud season would be over by the time we got there. Then the Wiz went nuts.

We run into the Imp and two Heavy Spiders. Fortunately the Imp is dark-side-up so I can lure and we both can run, but the Wiz decides he's going to fight these guys! Well, Elves are known for their discretion, so I'm going to run away and live to fight another day. I watch the battle from the path out of the clearing. The Wiz FB's a Spider or two, and is duking it out with the Imp using his Staff when he gets hit with EYEMIST! He manages to finish off the Imp, by Braile I guess, but it's off to the Chapel for him since he's not going to be much use in finding the Pool, and I'm not going to nursemaid him with stuff that I loot!

So we part company and I head to the Pool, arriving there to find three Bats ensconced around the water. Quick as a flash, I cast "Control Bats" to create three hired flunkies to dive in the Pool for treasure for me. I pick up the Cloak of Stealth and lots of other goodies and figure I'll do it again the following day. Problem is, you see, there are three Bats, so I have to become unhidden to cast the spell. Next day, one of the Bats moves first, draws the Octopus who blocks the other Bats and me as well! Control Bats expires at Sunset, and I've got an Octopus and three groggy Bats just shaking off the spell and looking around to see who they can kill. As you can imagine, I didn't last long.

Figuring that I'm in for dime I might as well be in for a dollar, I pick the Woods Girl to reincarnate and pick Control Bats again. I'm just on my way back to the Pool to retrieve my stuff when I stumble on the Black Knight tangling with his Wolves. There's only a week or so to go in the game, so I decide to throw my lot in with the Wolves.

I'm waiting for him to pick up a few wounds before I attack, when he surprises me by deactivating his Mace and undercutting the Wolves with his Dagger and the Deft Gloves. To even the odds a little I loose an arrow and roll a deuce to remove his damaged armor. Not much problem staying hidden since this was in the woods after all, and the WG only rolls one die for the Ambush hide. Well, the BK has a pack full of surprises, and when he activates the Ointment of Steel I figure he's probably home free, but I fire off another arrow and pick up a 1 to destroy his T Ointment of Steel.

I'm just notching another arrow when he vaporizes himself into permanent Mist along with his Dragon Essence. He might have abandoned the Dragon Essence to avoid transmorphizing along with a permanent source of Purple magic, but he would have had to survive another arrow since he couldn't abandon the DE and cast a spell in the same action phase. With the way I was shooting he probably thought he was facing the Amazon with the Medium Bow and Oil of Poison!

So I say goodbye to the permanent Mist Knight and head back to the Mountains. On the way up the peak, I spot a pair of nice juicy unarmored Giants and decide to pick up some extra notoriety. But I'm careless this time and stumble over my mocasin while I'm firing from ambush. I'm just watching the arrow miss when, good Lord, I'm hit with a Fiery Blast from nowhere!

It takes some luck for a light character to survive a FB, but I scrape through with a serious wound. I'm just checking my singed tresses when the Wizard stumbles out of ambush! Turns out he was going to ambush the Giants too until I fell out of ambush. He decides to retarget at the easier mark, but fails his Ambush hide roll. He always was a little clumsy, but an ornery old guy and quite a scrapper.

Well,it wasn't like we was such bussom buddies anyway, and I've got some hard feeling over the Fiery Blast (not to mention I figure he's got a good amount of Notoriety from the Spiders and Imp!), so I decide not to hail him as the reincarnated Elf. We both back out the clearing in a hurry while the Giants are still trying to figure out what the commotion is and what that was flying over their shoulder.

I won't bore you with details of us both trying to loot the pile of abandoned stuff at the Pool while trying to avoid getting ambushed in the process. Not to mention the Octopus and Bats getting in the way. Let me just say that I get the Bats hired again, only this time I'm a little more careful. After they loot and give me their stuff, on their last phase I get them to flutter over to the next hex where they rain down on the Sorcerer at the House. This gets me back the Cloak of Stealth, which is what I wanted most to let me go back and ambush the Giants for my missing Fame. The Octopus runs into a Fiery Blast and gets taken out of the picture.

But we're both running out of time now, and the old guy won't get out the way and let me go after the Giants by myself. So we decide to do it Western style, a shoot-out by the Pool, bow against staff. The Wiz is good, he guesses my maneuver for the second time, but my aim is good this time and he's pinned to the wall before his staff cracks my head open.

Well,it seems like I'd used up all my luck because even rolling one die to hide, I couldn't do anything with the Giants. Fell out of ambush the first round and never did touch anything in that clearing with my bow. So the Black Knight gets the last laugh, and the Wizard too, I guess, though it's a little hard to laugh when you're dead!