The Good King Read online

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  ENEMY ALERT LEVEL:

  0 - UNAWARE

  1 - CAUTIOUS

  2 - SUSPICIOUS

  3 - ALERT

  4 - AWARE!

  YOUR ACTION STANCE:

  (more damage)

  AGGRESSIVE

  BALANCED

  DEFENSIVE

  (less damage)

  Being the number of (indestructible) Flatcoins in your possession:

  FLATCOINS

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  x1

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  * When you have more than 50 flatcoins, start using these multipliers *

  YOUR PERSONAL DIGITAL DEVICE WITH INTEGRAL HOLO-DISPLAY

  What would you like to do, Rooster?

  >> D-MAIL

  Check your D-Mail

  >> D-BASE

  Review Knowledge

  >> D-CHARTS

  Review Space Chart

  >> D-CHARTS INFO

  Space Chart Info

  >> RETURN

  D-MAIL

  ACCESS DENIED ...

  POOR SIGNAL!

  Reader Action >>

  >> Go back slate

  REF

  CON

  RES

  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  D-BASE

  ACCESS DENIED ...

  POOR SIGNAL!

  Reader Action >>

  >> Go back slate

  REF

  CON

  RES

  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  YOUR PERSONAL DIGITAL DEVICE WITH INTEGRAL HOLO-DISPLAY

  What would you like to do, Rooster?

  >> ANSWER D-PHONE

  (1) new chatter message

  YOUR PERSONAL DIGITAL DEVICE WITH INTEGRAL HOLO-DISPLAY

  What would you like to do, Rooster?

  >> ANSWER D-PHONE

  (1) Incoming call (BIGBEARD)

  *** GAME OVER! ***

  Unfortunately you have failed in your mission.

  Reader Actions >>

  >> Go to a previous GAME RESTORE POINT

  >> Exit to menu and start again

  Zzzzzzz ...

  In your sleep, you are dreaming.

  You know you are dreaming, because in the midst of a crowded dance hall you are dancing with a woman called Rosy Meadows, and Rosy normally has flaming red hair and lips ripe for kissing, yet right now she is entirely grey in tone, drained of all colour, so you know she isn't real; your dreams are always in this same black and white monochrome.

  Still, even in your dream Rosy shines with her usual brilliance. The woman twirls within your arms with her head tilted back, laughing wildly, her tasselled skirts whipping round and round and her black-lined eyes flashing at you each time she spins a full revolution.

  She's dazzling, captivating, and you can't help yourself, a low growl utters from your throat.

  'MISTER QUINN!'

  An angry voice comes at you from nowhere.

  'MISTER QUINN!'

  Reader Actions >>

  >> 'Yes?' 104

  REF

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  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  Sky Shrine (2)

  At the Sky Shrine, you step down from your horse's saddle and hunch against the gales. Bril remains in his saddle, impatient to move onwards.

  Beneath your windhood, you happen to be wearing a bright red bandana over your scalp, which you now remove. When you place one of its corners between two rocks the rest of the cloth flaps wildly, as though seeking release. You're not much of a believer, really - at best an agnostic - but you do believe in your role as the boy's guardian and protector, which also involves setting the correct kind of example that his father would wish for him to have.

  Go to your >> REF Page and GAIN 1 SHINE POINT.

  Reader Actions >>

  Bril insists you take the shorter, steeper route upwards.

  >> Continue on main track 5

  >> Try the riskier shortcut upwards 105

  REF

  CON

  RES

  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  Weird Fallows (3)

  Choose one of the numbers below to determine whether you find anything or not:

  SNAP DRAW >>

  Visit the >> REF Page to check your AWARENESS score (poor/fair/expert).

  Your AWARENESS score: poor

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  3/7 - (difficult)

  Your AWARENESS score: fair

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  4/7 - (moderate)

  Your AWARENESS score: expert

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  5/7 - (easy)

  >> Spend 1 SHINE to gain EXPERT AWARENESS this round

  Brightmorning Manor (4)

  'That is enough,' Lord Brightmorning declares softly enough that it catches you like the edge of a straight razor against your throat. At once the atmosphere changes in the room. You're sure that all present around the table can sense it.

  'Everyone who is eating breakfast peacefully, please stay,' he orders in his sonorous voice. 'Everyone else ... may leave the table.'

  Reader Action >>

  Oh dear, you've gone and earned yourself a BlackMark!

  Go to your REFerences page @ >> REF and once there ADD 1 BLACKMARK TO YOUR SCORE, before returning here.

  Return Here >>

  >> Leave the table and prepare for the day's ride 73

  REF

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  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  Lunatic's Gate (5)

  Rounding a spur of black rock, you come to a thundering waterfall where the white waters of the Bitter River fall in a series of steps for thousands of feet, all the way to the narrow strip of land far below that is the Brightmorning estate. The track grows rough here, and the horses pick their way carefully up the crumbling route while the mighty waters roar beside you, shaking your very bones through the horse you are riding on. At the very top of the route, you come to an equally stunning sight where you reign your mounts to a halt. Ahead rears a basalt archway, reaching all the way across the river where the waters plummet over the edge. The Lunatics' Gate, locals call this entrance onto the Weird Fallows.

  You both pause to take d
rinks from your water flasks and appreciate the scenery. The air is slightly thinner this high up, making it a little more laborious to breath. You are in the cloud layer itself now, while the dusty sky seems particularly bright whenever you catch glimpses of it through the mists, as though it is lit from several angles, which it is. A strange smell of ozone hangs in the charged atmosphere like the beginnings of a lightning storm. Just standing there, the hairs on your body are starting to stand on end.

  Beyond the basalt gateway, the Weird Fallows represents a region of highly unusual activity. Spooky, perhaps, would be a better word for it. High in the northern sky ahead, and in the opposite quadrant to the Particle Falls, shimmers a focal point of light like a lens flare in a photographic image, revealing the edge of a mysterious Cosmic Fold located just above the region - yet another of the wonders to be seen here on Gale.

  It is out of this strange feature in the atmosphere from which equally strange things randomly fall.

  Located above the poles of certain worlds, waxing and waning like tides, Cosmic Folds will sometimes flare enough that they briefly connect with the highest surface points of a moon or a planet. Random things are then enveloped by the Fold's fields, and translated through the Fold as the purest information before reappearing again on the other side, to fall tumbling from the sky. Things like the Infinity Pocket inside your cloak, which despite no one knowing how it works, has been successfully replicated countless times. Even, sometimes, things from the Original Earth itself, birthplace to all mankind.

  Here on Gale, the northern polar Cosmic Fold sometimes flares low enough that it reaches this high plateau of the Weird Fallows, depositing the silt of far-off solar systems across its bare and lonely moonscape. Anything could be found here, and anything is.

  This is why Bril has dragged you all this way today. A recent cosmic storm has caused the Fold to flare all the way here, no doubt leaving a fresh scattering of other-worldly debris in its wake.

  They call it Dusting, this combing for materials deposited from Folds. Bril loves Dusting pretty much more than anything else in his life. Already the boy is fidgeting impatiently in the saddle, and scanning the ground ahead for anything unusual that might have tumbled from above.

  'Come on,' he says, spurring his zel forwards. 'We don't have all day!'

  Reader Action >>

  >> Enter the Weird Fallows 9

  REF

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  RES

  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  Weird Fallows (6)

  SUCCESS!

  Against all the odds you find something weird and interesting between some rocks. Your shout of surprise draws Bril over to see and you both stare down at what looks like a large crystal glittering in the sunlight, constantly changing colours. You have found a STAR GEM.

  Go to your >> RES Page and ADD A STAR GEM TO YOUR INVENTORY.

  Reader Actions >>

  The canyon here eventually comes to a dead-end, with a vertical wall blocking your way.

  >> Go into the left-hand canyon 8

  REF

  CON

  RES

  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  Brightmorning Estate (7)

  You both mount up outside in the windward lee of the stable. Without waiting to see if you are ready, young Bril kicks his zel into a trot and heads westwards, aiming for a gap between distant bluffs that will take you upwards towards the plateau.

  Usually you enjoy riding horseback, for all that you grew up in a megacity slum on a New Order world where the only semblance of horses to be found were in the movies or at the robotracks. You normally enjoy the easy, relaxing pace of travel across open wilderness far off the beaten track, or even just the simple plod into town and back, forced to do nothing but take it all in, the details of your immediate environ, in watchful contemplation as your thoughts come and go.

  But that's on a good day, and this is anything but a good day. This morning your stomach seethes in its own pool of fermenting acids, and each sudden surge of the horse across the open ground causes you to belch sickly fumes of last night's hooch.

  'You really should lay off the drinking for a while,' Bril decides from his swaying saddle, twisted round to look back at your wretched condition 'You look like an old man who just clawed his way from the grave.'

  'I know I do. I feel it.'

  'You look positively green, Rooster. How do you expect to protect my life with your own life when you can barely hold yourself together right now?'

  'I know!' you growl, waving him away.

  You kick your zel into a brief canter just to get ahead of the boy and his lashing tongue.

  'It's that woman, isn't it?' he calls after you. 'That red-haired witch in town who you keep seeing.'

  Does everyone know and disprove of your relationship with Rosy Meadows?

  You canter onwards, even with your stomach heaving. A final line of windcanes marks the boundary of the vineyard, with their multicoloured strings humming and swirling, and then you are both through it and out onto the open plain, under the cloudy sky. The Brightmorning estate is far larger than the vineyard itself, extending for ten miles or so to the west before the land rises sharply into slopes leading to the Weird Fallows. This high up, life is scarce, though the narrow plain of the estate is anything but empty, dotted with dwarf trees and lines of thorny hedgetraps. The hedgetraps are unique to this world, being double lines of bushes trimmed and trained into funnels by furry groundweavers in order to catch the tumblebrush from the winds, of which they devour their tiny oily leaves. All manner of wildlife lives in the sheltered lees of these hedges, while flowers burst forth during the months of Spring in zig-zagging lines of colour.

  At last you relax a little, just riding along quietly appreciating the silence within your windhood, the boy following behind. The land here up on the high northern hemisphere of Gale is more remote than the southern lowlands, and tends to be dusty strips running between fins and cliffs of rock that offer partial shelter from the winds. For someone used to city-living, there is a definite lack of walls or boundaries to impede your travels and sight-lines, or anything manmade at all. Very few people live on this small world, and those that live this far north are often scattered widely.

  On your left, Bril canters past so he can take the lead again, reminding you of what a graceful rider he really is, so young when he first took to the saddle that it's like he's one with the horse by now, like they're both flowing through the wind.

  On the open range at last, the boy lets out a whoop! and whips his zel into a run.

  'Race you to the nearest tree line!' Bril yells back over his shoulder.

  Inwardly you curse. He knows you're in no condition to race him today. Besides, one stumble over that rough ground and either one of your horses might end up breaking a leg. Someone could end up with a broken neck.

  Still, are you really going to let the lad beat you?

  Reader Actions >>

  >> Race Bril! 248

  >> Don't race him 88

  REF

  CON

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  PUR

  MAP

  SYS

  Weird Fallows (8)

  Choose one of the numbers below to determine whether you find anything or not:

  SNAP DRAW >>

  Visit the >> REF Page to check your AWARENESS score (poor/fair/expert).

  Your AWARENESS score: poor

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  2/7 - (tough)

  Your AWARENESS score: fair

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  3/7 - (difficult)

  Your AWARENESS score: expert

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r />   4/7 - (moderate)

  >> Spend 1 SHINE to gain EXPERT AWARENESS this round