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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9573701" data-attributes="member: 7737">Back to the gamebook. Assuming we learned at least one mighty 1s level spell, perhaps one as mighty and useful as, let's say, Find Familiar (that we can't even cast successfully) -- we are clearly powerful enough to go on the endgame ride.150Thayne praises our spell transcriptions, tells us to gather our gear, and we meet Perth and Dalris at (14).---14"The druid priest from Tikandia is a tall man with a full, silver-streaked dark beard and hair."[The silver in Perth's beard means he is older. If you'd like to revisit some of the age-related questions that plague this gamebook, feel free.]Perth has a tiara that holds his long hair in place, a tiara with a blue stone that glows with an inner light. A matching blue stone is set in "his druid neck ring, called a torc."[And… that's it for Perth's tiara and torc. Just your average obviously magical items tossed off for flavor.]Perth uses the patented method on us: stare-intently-at-someone-to-determine-their-identity -- and says he can see our father's "cheekbones and nose" in us. We're definitely Landor's son, as opposed to some other random urchin with Landor's money pouch, his last name, and Marla as mother.[We] feel awkward under [Perth's] scrutiny, more because of Perth's daughter than because of the words themselves. Dalris is seated next to her father at Estla's table. Clad in buckskins much like Thayne's, her only ornament is a curious neck ring made of gold. Its open ends are capped with identical red stones. Her dark hair is gathered into a single long braid which reaches almost to her waist.[This meeting is way less cute than the one outside the tower of the College Arcane, but I do love that we "feel awkward [...] because of Perth's daughter". There is a word for those tingly feelings, Carr, and "awkward" is not it.]Perth tells us that Landor spent many years among the Kandian people, researching the "ancient spells" of the Bhukodian "wizards". See, that was Landor's secret: he's always angry. No, sorry; wrong secret. Landor's actual secret was that he derived his power from the "sorcerers" of Bhukod.Dalris gives her speech about her people being the same as the ancient Bhukodian people and we see how noble she looks, starting here and continuing at (50). Most of the text is word-for-word the same as from the College Arcane path.Perth states that because "one half of your body and spirit come from your father" that inheritance "might" protect us from the power of the "wand"."Of course, if your life energy differs too much from Landor's, the wand may drain all of it as well as your magic-user's dweomer."[The words "as well as" differentiate two functions of the wand / sceptre / ranseur: (1) drain your dweomer; (2) drain your life energy. (1) Drain "your" dweomer makes no sense in the context of actual AD&D gameplay because "you" do not have a dweomer; spell effects and magic items do. (2) Drain your "life energy" is pretty damn dangerous and a concrete example of how Landor maybe actually was worthy of the archmage title.]Finally we are offered a choice:(92) if we want to test our similarities to our father before we risk wand-related death;(67) if we're willing to risk having our life energy drained.</blockquote>

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