Anyway, we have a not so ghoulish ghoul to fight.
NOTE: from now on, we'll use the revised rule that when having several opponents to choose from, a monster will target the lower FP character first, only rolling when there is a tie. It is also introduced with the rules about limiting Sage healing, but I missed it. So basically, we don't get to prevent an enemy to focus on the weakest, or at least, same character in combat.
Applying this rule from the start make the Elf fight or Eislaken fight downright impossible to survive as they, as a result, concentrate fire on the wizard. Which is a sound tactic, but harsh in this gamebook, unless you consider that the instruction on using the healing salve "at any time" include while being peppered by elven arrows.
Round 1:
Trixie defends.
Beast attacks Trixie, and miss (11).
Winny moves behind the beast.
Salvia fires an arrow... and misses due to frostbite.
Esmeralda casts Nemesis Bolt (5+5, success), for a nice 34 damage, minus 3 for AR = 31. Still, the beast is down to 29.
Round 2:
Trixie defends.
Beast attacks Trixie and hits (8) for 13 damage. Trixie is down to 3 HP.
Winny attacks, a good roll of 8... that passes through thanks to her magic sword! Unfortunately, the 3 damage are absorbed by Gristun's scaly armour...
Salvia fires an arrow, and misses again (11)
Esmeralda recalls Nemesis Bolt to mind.
(I am proud of this one).
Trixie uses her extra action to disengage two square to the South.
Thus, the beast won't move since it is still engaged by Winny. And we have no risk to have Trixie killed. She doesn't incur an opportunity attack since her DEX, sorry, her Awareness is higher than her foe's.
Round 3:
Trixie fires an arrow (6) and hits for 4-3=1 damage. The beast is down to 28. Hey, it might make the difference.
The beast attack Winny -- who probably should have defended instead of trying to do damage, now that I think of it. It its (6) and inflicts a measly 8 damage, 3 of which are absorbed by our heroine chainmail bikini armour. Lady Winny doesn't stoop to wearing such a low-class outfit. But she's still badly wounded with 11 HP left.
Winny wimpily defends from now on.
Salvia fires (6) for 4-3=1 damage again... Down to 27.
Esmeralda casts her second Nemesis Bolt... Yay! A 4+5=9. That's 28 damage. Minus... 3 for Armour. The best still lives, with 3 HP.
Round 4:
Trixie uses her +1 bow (remember that one? It's the bow we got from the hands of Magus Tor the lesser). That's a 9... To bad. If she had had gloves, she would have killed the beast... So much for using a named item with a backstory.
The beast attacks Winny, redux. But misses against our defending knight (15). Pfew.
Salvia fires another arrow (2) and hits for too little damage to matter.
Winny still defends.
Esmeralda recalls Nemes... Wait no! Gristun is badly wounded. It's not smart to recall a spell that has a chance of failure, when the much easier Sword Thrust (complexity 2, 3d6+3 damage minus armour) is sure to suffice. Wizard smart!
Round 5:
Trixie hits the beast (6) for... 5 damage (including the +1 from the bow), reduced to 2 HP. The beast still stands valiantly with its single HP.
The beast attacks and barely misses (11) Winny.
Winny recklessly attack and misses... (so much for heroism... Imagine how cool it would have been to have the knight behead the beast by dealing the killing blow...
Salvia shoots an arrow... and misses (12).
Esmeralda casts Sword Thrust, 11 -- we were smart -- +2 = 13, easily within the psychic ability of our Enchantress on Steroids. The damage is very minimal (7) but it's enough to kill the beast.
Magic did win the day again.