We’re back!
After a refreshing long weekend in Lang Lang (four shops with second-hand books, baby!)…
Aside : gratuitous picture –
….I’m back in the world of gamebooks!
Looking once more at Mechanon, I reflect on the fact that Falcon is starting to think that his sidekick (Carborundum, or ‘Carbo’ to his mates) indestructible.
Aside : Lone Wolf, meanwhile, considers his luck with sidekicks and curses his fate to be the protagonist of the wrong book series. Then again, if Lone Wolf, given his track record, was the protagonist of this series, Carbo would probably find himself to be ‘destructible’ real quick…
Back to the adventure.
I emerge from the ‘back’ of the mining robot, and see over a hundred rods of Polybdenum, which, presumably after production, have been placed on a rack for transportation and use.
Aside : Bearing in mind that one ‘rod’ is used for each time trip, this is obviously a priceless haul.
I mention this because Falcon’s destructive impulses come to the fore, and I whip out my blaster (yes, my actual blaster, get your mind out of the gutter) and destroy the entire polybdenum cache.
Carbo starts getting emotional, and thanks me again for saving ‘his’ (and the book confirms that Carbo is male) life, and invites me to become his ‘silica clone’.
My psychic abilities are able to detect that to be the ‘silica clone’ of a Thrix native is a great honor. In a classic case of ‘not thinking things through’, Falcon doesn’t, before accepting, actually confirm whether being a ‘silica clone’ involves something to do with solid rock, volcano eruptions or something similarly fatal to a fragile human such as myself.
Before the conversation can get more detailed, a flying robotic ‘beetle’ (the book’s word, not mine) soars from the horizon and lands in front of me.
A figure descends to the surface on a platform which emerges from the belly of the (metaphorical) beast, and I quickly recognise my former boss, Agidy Yelov, and surmise that this craft must be another Time Machine.
Yelov see the destroyed Polybdenum and, perhaps unsurprisingly, chucks a tantrum at me for yet again interfering with his plans.
Falcon, meanwhile :
After noting that he thought he’d erased me from existence through his interference at the battle of Crecy he resorts to basic undignified threats.
He screams some barely comprehensible gibberish about how my death will be as painful as the robots of Mechanon can devise.
When it comes to vague threats, I prefer King Lear :
“I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall—I will do such things,—
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.”
Aside : I’m not criticising Smith / Thomson, I’m dragging Yelov for being flat and unimaginative….
Anyway, my new bestie Carbo lets of some kind of keening wail which disrupts Yelov’s force-field and exposes him to the Thrix atmosphere.
Spitting some (no doubt cliched) curses and threats, Yelov is forced to retreat to his ship / Time Machine.
I emerge back onto the surface and prepare to leave. Carbo thinks that I am a space (rather than time) traveller, and says that he will travel for a thousand years to discover the star around which my home planet circles (!)
Because Falcon is a cold-hearted bastard, I don’t tell Carbo that I’m a time traveller, and ask that he never try to find me.
Aside : I’m having serious flashbacks to the Simpsons episode where Bart poses as a letter-writing lover to Mrs Krabappel and then lets her down with a final letter about how he must leave her…
Ahem.
In any event, CAIN reminds me that the timehole here is about to close, and I re-enter Falcon’s Wing and give instructions to set course for Mechanon in the year 1986 AD.
Presumably all the robots of Mechanon are working hard while listening to Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi….
This is a shorter post than normal, but I’ll leave you here rather than wait another couple of days to complete the post….
Endurance : 20, Evasion – +1, Thinkstrike – +1, All other modifiers – 0
Equipment (extra) – Keladi pills
Current paragraph – 317
Pop culture!
Given the orgy of nationalistic self-congratulation associated, in my country, with January 26, I might mention an unofficial national song. ‘Khe Sanh’, by the Australian band Cold Chisel, tells the story of a discontented Vietnam veteran, who struggles to find his place in the post-war society.
Aside : Although it is now almost universally acclaimed as a classic, at the time it was banned from many radio stations for the SCANDALOUS line “And their legs were often open / But their minds were always closed.”
Falcon Gamebooks - Playthrough 