Cursed Ruins - beginning

 It's a tragic tale of youthful exuberance and avarice tainted by overconfidence unburdened with the requisite competence. It was the beginning of the quest for the Mysterious Cauldron within the Cursed Ruins. Our two young heroes were to find the cauldron and fill a flask from its contents. A substantial reward awaited them at the completion of the task. They won't be collecting that reward any time soon. Les Freres Corses may have learned something from the adventure. We'll see what happens next time.

Charo Lefevre or Le Favor, or something similar to that--I never got to see the spelling--teamed up with Gratell the budding wizard. Outfitted with swords, a shield, rope, and other supplies, along with 3 magic spells, the adventures passed from the village through the dark forest to the cursed ruins without incident. In order to avoid being swallowed by the treacherous mud and quicksand-like dangers of the pale green marsh, they used their rope to lasso and draw down the ladder/bridge and crossed safely into the mist-obscured ruins. They passed through room 2 into room 3 where a potion and goblin waited for them. Gratell took the potion while Charo engaged the goblin. 

Charo and goblin traded blows against one another's shields and baptized their blades in blood as well. Meanwhile, Gratell, not keen on assisting Charo in his tete-a-tete with the goblin, dashed into room 5 (below room 2) to loot the chest that was visible from the doorway. Instead of opening the treasure, the wizard found himself attacked by another goblin. In his surprise, he lopped off the goblin's head at the first pass. Charo found holes in his goblin's guard, wounding him again while Gratell discovered nothing but old rags and a dead rodent in the chest. 

Crestfallen at the results of his treasure dash, Gratell doubled down by running to room 3, passing through it into room 6 (below room 4). During this time, Charo continued his scrimmage with the first goblin. He wounded the little fiend, causing minor wounds without ever being able to dispatch his antagonist.

Gratell soon realized that he had made a grave error in racing away from his comrade to grasp at treasure and magic items. The guardian of room 6 leaped from a dark corner to engage Gratell while his cohort from room 3 rushed the wizard from behind. Set upon by two formidable opponents, one of whom wielded two deadly blades, Gratell revealed the color of his blood to both antagonists. He did manage to knock down the double-weaponed foe and put him hors de combat, but he couldn't squeeze by the enemy with the the shield who blocked the doorway. He lost more blood before finally dashing past to run back to room 2 toward his comrade in room 3.

Unfortunately for Gratell, although Charo was besting his enemy, when the goblin fled from the warrior to room 5, Charo followed, bent on ascertaining the depth of the goblin's chest with the measure of his blade. The goblin continued to forestall the deathblow, and Gratell's remaining opponent soon caught him and delivered a serious wound to the already weakened wizard that left him unconscious on the sod of the Cursed Ruins.

Charo continued his attacks on the wounded goblin, only to have Gratell's enemy charge into him with shield and sword. Although he defended himself as best he could, avoiding death by turning the fatal cuts with his own shield, cuts and gashes opened where the foe penetrated his defenses.

With the wizard down and unable to fight, cast a spell, or quaff his potion, and Charo suffering from multiple wounds and caught between two foes, Les Freres Corses hit the reset button. We closed it down and reviewed the imprudent choices they had made. Charo's player pointed out that Gratell had left Charo engaged with an enemy to race madly from room to room, bringing more monsters into the fight. Gratell's player suggested with some vehemence that Charo should've come to help Gratell rather than attempting to chase down and execute a goblin who was trying to escape. I agreed with both of them. It was a win-win--they were both right--or a lose-lose; they had both made poor decisions. Never leave your wing man, and always march to the sound of the guns or clash of swords, as the case may be.

Did they learn something? I think so. Will they implement those lessons when they next play? I'm skeptical. A couple years ago while playing Hero Quest, these same choices led to the same results. There's still hope. Some lessons must be learned multiple times before they're remembered and a change of behavior results. I should know. I'm always getting the same lessons.

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Book Reviews: Lord Byron's The Corsair and Frederic Brown's The Fabulous Clipjoint.

 The Corsair is a tale in verse about the pirate Conrad. While it has many memorable lines, the tale is predictable and the lengthy poem goes on too long. Reading it was like one of those conversations with a friend that begins with energy and laughter but ends in weary fatigue because it continued well beyond its best-by date. That concludes what I have to say on that topic.

The Fabulous Clipjoint was recommended as a great example of pulp fiction. A young man's father is murdered after a night out drinking. The wife, young man's step mom, is a heavy drinker and a something of a scold. Her daughter also resembles bad medicine in a pretty bottle. Young man finds his uncle, a carnival worker, and they set out to catch the murderer. I picked the killer early and was not deceived. However, the whole motive and method weren't revealed until the end.

Clipjoint reads like a noir without the personality and conventions that make noir detective stories so fun to read. This pulp novel is like fried chicken and mashed potatoes without anything to go with them. It's tasty and filling but needs another side and a dessert. All the components are impressive: a murder mystery, young man with some competence but lacking experience with a mentor to guide him, a few suspects, some mob connections, the wife with a motive and her potentially poisonous daughter, an attractive woman to strike the young man's fancy, a bank robbery, a police detective with malleable scruples, seedy bars, and a string of clues that direct and misdirect. Nevertheless, there remains a lacuna I cannot place. It earned the four stars I gave it, but I had hoped to be able to give it 5.