After my very brief stint as an adventurer, cut short at the hands (tentacles?) of a lake kraken, I played through a few more times, and met some exotic and interesting deaths.

• Sucked into a magic mirror
• Wandered into the mist never to be seen again
• Killed by a wight while trying to get a +1 sword
• Fell into the lake
• Fell down a mine shaft
• Fell into a chasm while exploring the pitch-dark mine
• Killed by a nandibear (what the heck is a nandibear?) in the mine
• Sucked into a magic mirror again

And at one point I pulled a real Inspector Clouseau. I saw some campers and decided to let discretioon be the better part of valor, by bypassing them. Wrong! I twisted my ankle, tripped on a rock, slid down the side of the hill, and landed in the campsite.

This is really not going well!

So yeah, time to hit the road and take care of Morgana and her golem collection. I start at page 1 where the local blacksmith informs me that king Hever to the north of us has a magical horn, the sound of which strikes terror into evil beings. Sounds handy! Thanks for the tip, blacksmith, I do appreciate it. Though I do wonder why, as the king of this city, I didn’t know this about the neighboring king…

The next day I find myself at the southern shore of Lake Nekros. Seriously? Lake Nekros? I can skirt it to the east or to the west, or build a raft and cross it. Being the brave hero that I am, I build a raft, get 10 meters into the water, and am dragged under by tentacles.

Shortest offensive of all time.

One page. Insta-death by sea monster.

Let’s start playing Masks of Mayhem. This is book 23, and by Robin Waterfield. This is the same fella who brought us Rebel Planet which was not bad, but not great.

I’m a ruler of some insignificant region of the world. Not a very well-traveled ruler either, it would seem, having never gone past the lake immediately to the north of my city, and needing the local blacksmith to tell me that the king to the north has a magic horn that frightens evil.

My court wizard calls me up one day, to inform me that the sorcerer Morgana, residing in the mountains to the northeast, has acquired 11 of the 12 masks of elemental power. She is using them to supercharge some golems, and if she collects ’em all then her golems become unstoppable and she’ll terrorize the world.

Why can’t I send an army and the rest of the wizard council to deal with this? Because the resulting mage battle would devastate the land. Why didn’t they raise a fuss back when Morgana had 3 or 4 masks? Uhm yeah…

Anyway, time to do what I always do… Load my backpack, sharpen my sword, and go in solo to hunt a wizard.