#8a Guide for Scorpion Swamp - good mission
This is the first book written by someone other than the series creators. Amusingly enough, this author's name is also Steve Jackson.
This is also the first book that needs more than one guide. Depending on which mission you accept, the way through the swamp will change. Since it would be a nightmare to keep track of all 3 in a single guide, I'm doing one for each mission.
Once you agree to Selator's mission, you will get to choose 6 spells of the following.
skill: Not terribly useful, losing your armour reduces your initial skill so this won't save you there and there's no fights after the swamp orcs hit you with their arrow.
stamina: If you have any spare spells, these are always welcome.
luck: If you have any spare spells, these are always welcome.
fire: Gets you past the scorpions and avoids the master of spiders.
ice: Lets you avoid the stream full of leeches
illusion: This is not used at all.
friendship: Lets you learn the command word from the master wolves to pacify wolves.
growth: Avoids the quicksand (the 2nd time only)
bless: Heals the unicorn.
You get to pick six spells. You should definitely take a fire spell as the master of spiders is a fight you should avoid if you can. Similarly, a bless spell for the unicorn saves you a nasty fight. The rest of the spells are helpful but not terribly important. (usually a stamina spell will recover more than you'd lose for falling into the hazard you were trying to use magic to avoid)
1 - challenge (48) or explain (95)
If you challenge them, you lose a luck point. No need to do this.
95 - agree (240) or disagree (122)
If you head out into the swamp alone, you face a luck test. Fail it and die, pass it and you lose 2 luck then decide you need a master.
240 - hear (205) or interrupt (155)
If you refuse to even consider working for anyone else, you gain 2 to your initial luck. It says nothing about raising your current luck so this will only help if you find a way to restore luck points.
155 - We're going to choose the good mission anyway, may as well get the reward for it.
335 - tell (371) or not (96)
If you try to keep it a secret, Steve just says "nah, you have to" and redirects you to 371 anyway.
371 - You choose 6 spells and get told you need to find a berry.
9 - We're in the swamp now!
195 - step (58) or jump (91)
Stepping carefully is a luck test to avoid 1 damage. Jumping is 2 dice against your stamina. Since you start with at least 14, there is no way you can fail this roll.
91 - west (398), east (105) or south (208)
South is the way out of the swamp. We're not ready to leave yet. Either way will get you to the berry, but the east way can only be used once. Let's save it for the way back once we get the berry.
398 - leave (314), spell (191) or attack (120)
The master of wolves has nothing we want, so we may as well leave. If you choose not to, your spell options are friendship and fire.
If you cast friendship and talk to him, he teaches you a word that makes wolves friendly. If you befriend him then attack, you lose 1 luck for your cowardice but he loses 2 stamina as a result of your free hit.
If you cast a fire spell at him, he cripples your sword arm and you lose 3 skill and 1 stamina. You then have to fight him. You do at least avoid having to fight the 2 wolves.
If you attack him you fight 2 wolves (skill 7 stamina 5 and skill 6 stamina 6) and the master (skill 11 stamina 10).
If you manage to kill him, you get his amulet and can leave.
314 - north (90) or east (195)
East is going backwards, so north it is.
90 - ice (370) or wade (44)
If you wade across, you get covered in leeches. You roll 2 dice and lose stamina equal to the lower of the two dice. 75% of the time, this will only be 3 or less. So nothing terribly troublesome. The ice spell avoids it entirely though.
370 - north (157) or south (398)
Once again, we only have one option that isn't taking us backwards.
157 - fight (28) or spell (203)
The spells are not very helpful. A fire spell lightly singes the trees for 2 stamina while growth doubles their stamina. Better to just fight them.
28 - The sword trees are skill 9 stamina 12.
362 - You pocket a few seeds and continue on.
22 - north (320), south (90) or west (11)
Heading west leads to a skill 9 stamina 10 dire beast. An illusion or growth spell can avoid the fight but you will have to go back through the sword trees.
South is obviously backwards so let's go north.
320 - run (368), fight (221) or spell (119)
If you run away you have to go back the same way you came, that's the sword trees. No thanks.
If you fight, the unicorn is skill 11 stamina 4. Once it's dead, if you search the area and pass a luck test, you find a friendship spell and a luck spell.
Let's look at our magical options.
119 - friendship (39), bless (381) or fire (337)
Friendship stops the unicorn attacking.
Fire does absolutely nothing.
Bless stops the unicorn attacking and gets you the two extra spell gems.
381 - Doesn't that just warm your heart? The unicorn is healed.
348 - north (94), south (157), east (10) or west (204)
South is backwards. North and east both lead towards the berry. West is a nifty little shortcut.
204 - run (269), sword (32) or magic (80)
The fear flowers steal a skill point off you. If you run away you lose another skill. If you use your sword you lose 1 skill and 2 stamina. The spell you can cast is fire, which does nothing. Just run for it, we can get the skill back later.
269 - And I ra-a-an. I ran so far awa-a-ay.
367 - north (304) or east (265)
East is going backwards, north it is.
304 - attack (71) or ask (131)
You can kill the parrot effortlessly, but if you do that you have no choice but to go back through the fear flowers. Let's talk to its master.
131 - It asks who we are working for. We are working for Selator.
164 - She restores any one of your stats back to its maximum (hint: choose skill) and then gets an eagle to carry you closer to the berry.
248 - We have to take the long way back, but at least this makes things a LITTLE easier.
202 - south (138), east (41) or west (14)
East leads to the berry, the other two directions don't.
41 - lucky (270) or unlucky (87)
If you're unlucky, you reduce your current and initial skill scores by 2. This is bad but not disastrous, there's not a lot of fighting left in the game so you might be ok.
270 - north (275) or west (331)
The berry is to your north.
275 - attack (12), reason (229) or spell (145)
If you attack, he's skill 9 stamina 12 and deals double damage though you can spare his life if you get him to half health. If you do, he allows you to continue north.
If you try to reason with him, he lets you continue north without a fight.
If you cast a friendship spell (or if you have the thief's cloak), he tells you the berry is to the north and to watch out for wolves.
A fire spell knocks his skill down to 6 and removes his double damage.
An ice spell does nothing.
The information isn't very valuable, just reason with him.
229 - cloak (286) or not (177)
If you didn't take the shortcut, you may have picked up a thief's cloak. If so, you can give it to the giant and he'll tell you to go north.
177 - We'd help if we could!
161 - north (92), south (41) or west (121)
Berry to the north, just like the giant would have told us if we gave him a cloak.
92 - amulet (344) or not (68)
If you killed the master of wolves, these wolves run away from you. This is a bad deal as the master is MUCH harder to kill than a wolf.
68 - word (302) or not (215)
If you have the magic word, you skip the fight. Otherwise it's a skill 7 stamina 6 wolf.
215 - Fairly easy to take out the wolf.
247 - eat (20), pick (232) or leave (342)
...OK, do I really need to tell you not to eat the Antherica berry? Getting back to Selator with a shrug and an "I got hungry" is unlikely to go down terribly well.
Similarly, leaving without the berry is equally stupid.
232 - We confirm that we are working for Selator.
389 - Stating the obvious, that we have found what we were after. Now to escape.
342 - We return to the giant's clearing. If you killed the giant, his wife is sobbing in the clearing and Steve docks you 2 luck points and tries to make you feel guilty.
300 - For those who saw there was no reason to kill the giant, the clearing is empty.
161 - north (92), south (41) or west (121)
North goes back to the berry.
West leads to where Poomchukker's quest goal is. We just want to get out of here, so we go south.
41 - We have been here before.
382 - magic (270), jump (190) or turn (223)
If you turn around, you have to leave through the same exit you entered by. This doesn't help us.
If you try to jump, it's a luck test. Fail and you lose 2 stamina.
If you have an ice or growth spell, you can cross without incident.
270 - north (275) or west (331)
North takes us backwards, west is the way to go.
331 - If you fought the eagle, the clearing is empty. Since we didn't...
112 - examine (73) or not (202)
Climb the tree and you get a gold chain. With a luck test to see if you lose 2 stamina in the process. There's no use for the chain.
202 - south (138), east (41) or west (14)
West eventually takes you to the master of gardens, we don't need to see him.
East is backwards, south gets us out of here.
138 - bridge (101) or turn (45)
Turning around and going back the way you came isn't going to help anyone. Cross the bridge.
101 - north (350) or south (118)
Keep going south.
118 - lucky (70) or unlucky (182)
Fail the luck test and you lose 1d6 stamina. If you pass it, you get to choose your course of action.
70 - stamp (216), fire (110) or leap (377)
Stamping on them costs you 1d6 stamina.
Fire gets you past them safely.
If you try to leap over them, you roll 2 dice and compare it to your stamina. Fail and you lose 3 stamina.
Fire sounds good.
110 - Phew, let's get out of here.
319 - north (138), east (47) or west (66)
East or west will get you out, but the west path is more dangerous.
47 - south (290), east (31) or west (118)
If you go east, you heal 3 stamina points and come back to this clearing. Heal if you need to then south we go.
290 - If you picked up the golden magnet, you'll lose either 1 or 5 stamina depending on a luck test. Since we didn't pick it up...
151 - attack (281), magic (399) or run (309)
If you attack, you face 3 swamp orcs (skill 6 stamina 7, skill 7 stamina 7 and skill 6 stamina 5) simultaneously. You get a map if you kill them, but all it tells you is where the master of frogs is.
The only spell you can cast is an illusion, but it doesn't work.
I say we bolt.
309 - north (47), south (53) or west (388)
South leads to the master of frogs, we don't need to talk to him. Let's head west instead.
388 - sword (134) or magic (167)
If you fight, it's skill 6 stamina 16. That's a lot of stamina, let's magic it.
167 - The only option we have is a fire spell.
310 - The crab grass retreats allowing us to escape.
187 - south (144), east (290) or west (10)
West and south both get us to the exit, though west runs through the sword trees again. I hate the sword trees.
144 - magic (74), attack (26) or talk (332)
if you talk to him, he kills you. So yeah, bit of a bad idea that one.
If you attack, he's skill 9 stamina 6 but deals 3 damage with every hit.
Magic lets us avoid the whole unpleasant encounter.
74 - friendship (361) or fire (113)
Look, do you really want to be friends with this guy? He has a nasty habit of killing people, including idiots who cast friendship spells at him. Let's burn the place down.
113 - You lose 3 stamina but avoid the fight.
165 - north (388) or south (105)
Since the spider's lair is on fire, you can no longer come this way. So if you head north, you then have to go around the long way and fight the sword trees again. So, let's go south towards the exit.
105 - sit (21), investigate (55) or leave (390)
If you sit down, you gain a stamina point, this is probably not much help at this point.
If you investigate, you find a skill 7 stamina 8 bear. There is no reward for killing it.
Let's just leave.
390 - north (144), east (209) or west (195)
The exit is just to the west of us! Let's get out of here.
195 - step (58) or jump (91)
Stepping carefully is a luck test to avoid 1 damage. Jumping is 2 dice against your stamina. Fail and you lose a skill point but we're leaving the swamp, we don't need skill for anything.
91 - west (398), east (105) or south (208)
South is the way out of this swamp, let's get back to Selator.
208 - We're ready to leave the swamp.
159 - We were working for Selator.
6 - We have the berry. Obviously, if you don't have it you lose the game.
175 - You win!
The neutral path is much the same, but you have to go deeper into the swamp with fewer spells and less variety of spells. An altogether harder quest.