Unfortunate Knight

Wandering the high mountains by day. One-time.




Another gust of wind buffets your face, making the ravine-side trail you're hiking along rather demanding to traverse. You wait the gale out and let your eyes stray for a moment, when a gleam of something down below vies for your attention. Mindful that you don't take the drop off the steep end, you crane your neck enough to spy the glimmer's source partly buried in a blotch of hardy, gnarly shrubbery, all the way at the bottom. It's metal, polished, and a good chunk of it. But too far to make out more than that.

You glance to the sky—you" + (flags[kFLAGS.CODEX_ENTRY_HARPIES] ? " know you're near harpy territory, and though you think you can see one flying overhead some distance away, she doesn't seem interested in you yet" : "'ve seen shadows, larger than the usual bird, flying overhead some distance away, though right now you can find no sign of them, whatever they were") + ". If you're left undisturbed, you should be able to make the climb down. [if (canfly) {And it'll have to be a climb—with the wind being this capricious, you're more likely to [if (silly) {go splat|splatter}] against the next mountain face than make it down in once piece if you tried to fly. However, there|There}]'s a nice set of outcrops and stony pockets that should make for reasonably comfortable foot- and handholds.

Do you try and investigate?

 [Yes] [No]

> [No]

Doesn't look like a risk worth taking. You brace yourself against the wind again and continue on your path a little deeper into the mountains, though nothing further of any particular note sticks out to you before you decide to turn back towards your camp.

//One hour consumed
//Back to camp

> [Yes]

Deciding to take the risk, you prepare for what's bound to be a bit of an exercise.

//if intelligence + speed < 50
But you vastly overestimated your abilities. The moment you veer off the beaten path and get up close to the edge, the wind catches you in its mightiest blast yet. Too late to brace yourself, you stumble, lose balance, and find [if (singleleg) {where you put your weight|under your foot}] nothing but air as the sky turns over, the horrible noise of rocks and earth shaken loose accompanying your jolt of pure panic. [if (canfly) {The instinct to fly kicks in at once, but time's too short to pivot yourself and beat your wings|You try to flail and grasp for purchase, any purchase,}] before your vision is taken over by cold, hard stone.

//if silly && toughness > 100
Chips and dust sting your eyes as the first rock splinters under the impact, the second one leaving you bouncing off its sloped surface to free-dive the rest of the way down into the ravine's depths, the roaring darkness rising up like a monstrous serpent, fangs bared, to devour you whole...

...Mud. Gravel, muck, and mud. You spit and sputter as you come to, something clinkering against the ground. Is that a tooth of yours? Nah, just a pebble. You pull yourself out of the champion-shaped imprint that now marks this mountain as your rightful property, realign your jaw with a quick nudge, pat yourself off, and finally cast a glance throughout the area. No hungry snakes. Only a

//Merge within stat check success further down. No paragraph break, but don't forget a space.


//if isgoo
Even if you have no bones to break, the impact tears pieces of goo off your body, the next one squashing your head in to leave you tumbling down the ravine near-senseless, bereft of all control and cohesion by the time you at last come to a rest at the damp and clammy bottom.

Through the numbing pain, you can feel your body melting away, the rivulet you landed in digesting you alive, bit by little bit, and you can't even stop it. You have no power left, the world is so dim and dark around you, and no thought or command you will into existence amounts to anything more than a candle's feeble flicker. Here, at the foolish end of your journey, you slowly but surely slip away into a deep oblivion.

//else
Agony snaps through you, the impact leaving you helpless against the next: a sharp crack to the head that robs you of the rest of your senses, save for the taste of blood and a harrowing vertigo chasing you down, down, down into the maw of the ravine.

You don't even know if you're still falling, or tumbling, or already came to a rest somewhere at the bottom. Everything's gone so dark and quiet, and the very air refuses to fill your lungs like it used to, now only granting you feeble flickers of consciousness until they too fizzle away into a deep oblivion.

THANKS OBAMA

//else if intelligence + speed >= 50
Just as you near the edge, the wind unleashes its mightiest blast yet, forcing you to swerve back and wait for a calmer moment until you can more safely lower yourself down. Fishing for the first foothold, you begin your descent.

Despite the gale's continued boisterousness, the path downwards remains without incident, and eventually, with both your gear and self intact, you touch upon the pebbly bottom, where you cast a searching gaze throughout the area. A[//Merge silly mode scene here] slow-winding stream gurgles along in solitude, though the smoothness of most of the rocks around you suggests it wasn't always this small. Sporadically flanking it are mottles of vegetation—spongy mosses, brush-like flowers, berry- and thorn-flaunting bushes—under one of which you spot what you came here for: a suit of armor, it turns out.

A full, knightly regalia even, likely having cost a small fortune in its better days, you surmise as you [if (singleleg) {glide|walk}] up to it. It's not just been discarded here, either. Its dead owner still lies inside, a multitude of dents and rents across the steel alluding to how " + (player.int + player.spe < 50 ? "much of an unwashed amateur he must have been to die to mere fall damage. Although, the large spear embedded right through his neck may have played some small role in his demise as well." : "he must have met with this fate. And if the fall wasn't enough, the large spear embedded right through his neck surely would have been.")

The armor itself is in no state to be salvaged, but that weapon might still do someone a good service.

//Fatigue +15 (not for silly mode stat check fail)

 [Examine] [Take Spear] [Leave]
//Options grey out after being selected
//Small variations depending on whether you've examined and/or taken the spear (takenspear/examined/exhausted)

> [Examine]
//Tooltip: "Take a closer look at the body."

He was a tall fellow, but fairly lean, and there's not much meat left on him, the white of bone being just as prevalent as scraggly patches of umber-brown fur. Judging by the [if (nofur) {look of his sharp teeth, it might|form of his skull, it must}] have been a rodent-morph of sorts. There's a hole for a tail in the harness, too, complete with some extra protection around it, but nothing of the tail itself remains to give you any further idea as to who or what this man once was.

The armor's not helping, either. It's the full-bodied deal, a whole suit of polished plate that has started to take on rust by now and bears no crests or embellishments. Practical, no-nonsense, and heavy. Still couldn't keep its wearer alive, though. It's riddled with wide, deformed indents of impressive sizes, presumably resulting from the fall, but besides those, the gashes that have been stamped and torn into the metal don't really look like something rocks would have done. Too uniform a pattern, too similar, and too well-aimed at the weaker spots. Claw marks, for sure" + (flags[kFLAGS.CODEX_ENTRY_HARPIES] ? ". Harpies seem a plausible culprit, " + (inCollection(player.lowerBody.type, [LowerBody.HARPY, LowerBody.COCKATRICE]) ? "which you're able to all but confirm by carefully aligning your own foot's fierce talons with one of the puncture groups" : "their fierce talons fitting well what you see here") + ". Supporting that conclusion are" : ", though you're less sure about what manner of creature could be responsible as you note") + " some additional long, thin scratches across the breastplate, all the way up to his head.

The helmet has been loosened, the visor is gone, and [if (takenspear) {where you pulled out the spear now yawns a gap in his neck; even the bones has been sliced through|the neck-gap has been thoroughly exploited by a hefty, lengthy spear that now stands upright like a morbid flagpole. Even sliced through a bit of bone before it lodged itself into the ground}].

He doesn't have anything [if (takenspear) {of interest left|else of interest}] on him.

 [Examine] [Take Spear] [Leave]

> [Take Spear]
//Tooltip: "Take the spear with you."

[if (!examined) {It's a pretty hefty, lengthy thing, standing upright with its head lodged deep in the ground. }]You grip the wooden shaft and give it a few firm tugs, [if (strength < 45) {slowly }]wedging it out of earth, bone, and steel before you can weigh it in your hands for examination. It's about as heavy as it looks.

The blade may need a bit of polish, but it still seems sharp, and the wood bears little in the way of what weathering you'd expect from something that was left out in the elements for [if (examined) {so|who knows how}] long. As you use the nearby runlet to wash the dirt off, you discover a pair of shortish, perpendicular protrusions at the head's base, like a crossbar[if (intelligence < 20) {. You rack your brain for the name of these spears, as you're sure you've heard it before, but come up with nothing. Anyway,|, denoting this spear as one of the winged variety. Though}] you find no further peculiarities over the course of getting it ready for transport.

//Winged Spear get!

 [Examine] [Take Spear] [Leave]

> [Leave]
//Tooltip: "Get back to camp."

You [if (exhausted) {leave the fallen knight to his peace, having gleaned what you could off him|[if (examined) {leave it at that, deciding to disturb the fallen knight no further|[if (takenspear) {don't have any further interest in the fallen knight besides the weapon you just took|decide to leave the fallen knight entirely in peace}]}]}].

Some ways up ahead, the ravine ascends into the staggered wisps of a cascade, and none of the inclines around you look all too inviting to climb back up again. Opting for the path of least resistance, you " + (player.int + player.spe < 50 ? "lie down in the water, fold your arms, and let yourself be swept away by its rocky flow" : "follow the water's flow downwards") + ", out of these mountains and onto a track towards your campsite.

//One hour consumed
//Back to camp



> Winged Spear
Button: WingedSpear
Name: winged spear
Long name: a winged spear
Type: Weapon (Spear)
Attack: 10
Effect: 55% Armour Penetration, hidden +10% crit (chance, dmg, both?) against flying foes, maybe even a bit of extra general parry chance?
Base Value: 600
Description:
A long spear. Right below the head's blade, two protrusions stick out to the sides, like tiny wings, from which the weapon gains its name.


Vanilla Spear
Attack: 8
Penetration: 40%
Value: 450

Flame Spear
Attack: 12+ (more at lower HP, +30 max)
Penetration: 70%
Value: 1250