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You are flying a thousand meters above the sea. The fishing boats are no bigger than tiny specks.
OK. I understand the concept of flying carpet. But what possibile benefit could one get from flying a thousand meters above the sea instead of, like, 3 meters above the sea (incurring no damage from falling, which I feel well inevitably do, as the reassurance from Augustus sounded ominous...)? Let's be extremely cautious and fear high waves (30 meters?) and jumping marine monsters (15 meters?). Let's say 100 meters to be sure and have an ample margin for securty. This I could understand, but 1,000 meters? We are already in a cold climate, we're flying at top speed, is there a reason we'd want to freeze even more? The book even takes time to remind us that our bones are chilled to marrow by the freezing wind.
Augustus is a nice host, explaining that we'll be in Wyrd in hours instead of days. We marvel at icebergs and icecaps in the distance. How scenic. At some points, Augustus uses his white amulet and the carpet turn a sharp turn eastward. Since on our map, we shouuld by flying full north, East will take us back to Krarth. This is the wrong direction. We're offered the chance to inquire, which we do (also, we expected to be given an in-flight meal after the pre-flight drink).
Augustus orders us to shut up, saying it's difficult to control the carpet while we're constantly chatting. He now has a savage smile on his eyes. He then tries to appease us saying that he is making a detour by his castle to pick us some food for the trip.
Which isn't realistic: it's a few hours trip (and our inventory is overflowing with food: what isn't to like in a month-old stale bread?).
We object to this detour, and then Augustus gathers magical energies and threatens us, saying that we would be foolish to oppose him, without any mean to go down. While his argument is worthwhile, we have ne choice except let Winny act (which, last time, ended up with her decapitating the nearest merchant in one fell swoop based on our suspicions that something was off with them -- and we now are suspicious of Augustus of Vantery, aren't we?).
However, Augustus makes his point
again and at this point we're offered the opportunity to either bluff and strike the carpet with our sword saying that death is inevitable anyway, or surrender and accept to visit his castle.
If it was Trixie doing the talking, I'd be more confident. I don't think turning all suicidal in the hope that Augustus (who might now Feather Fall) won't call our bluff.
As we begrudgingly concede the point, Augustus ask us out of the blue to hand over the scabbard.
OMG, so this was an elaborate plot to rob us from the start? Shocked, I am.
Augustus is a servant of Magus Uru (that's not the Blue One, the Blue One was Tor, this one is the White One) and wants to recover the scabbard. He offers to spare us if we do so.
Which we won't.
The fight has several special rules, which will actively make Augustus an easier target.
With a FP equal to our Fighter's and nearly twice the life, he could be relatively tough opponent. His weakness will be that he will try to cast spells. Each round, he rolls a dice, on 1-2 he strikes us with his magical dagger, on 3-6 he prepares or cast a spell, among a list of three: a psychic damage spell, a physical damage spell and spell that make one targets drop its weapon and fight unarmed for four rounds (that means +1dice rolled to hit...) after that, the target loses one round to recover the weapon.
He's staring the fight with NO spell in mind. So trying to use magic will make him lose precious rounds. How stupid is that, it's not like he didn't expect opposition from us... Also, Augustus using these spell in random order, so there is strong chance they will be totally useless, like trying to cast a psychic spell on Esmeralda or dropping her sword instead of targetting Winny.
Also, there is a special section if we manage to Enthrall Augustus. Which we will endeavour to do -- in other fight, there are instruction that some spells won't work but it's written in the open, like "this mindless ooze can't be enthralled" or "the enemy is immune to fire".
Round 1:
Trixie moves right next to Augustus.
Augustus rolls, decide to strike us with his magical dagger and misses (11).
Esmeralda casts Servile Enthrallment (3+5 =8) and the fight is over.
TBH, I am glad they did, so their world has, all around the same time period, the Crusades with Levant states AND the carolingian expansion against the Saxons, with paganism still strong (and casting fireball, which helps it resist better than it did historically... if Blue Tattoos really did make one invincible in battle, I'd taken Pict as a foreign language at school instead of English). It's very close but distinctive enough that I think they made the right choice not to make it an historical RPG.
