Pit stop

In the library you find the first volume of How to Enter the Underworld. This book is the work of a man called Agrash the Explorer. You learn that the Underworld is the name for the shadowy realm of the creatures like the trau, and of demons and the dead – in short, Hell itself. It has many names: the Land of Roots, the Place of Direful Dreams, the Land Beyond the Dark Mirror, and suchlike. There are several ways in. There is rumoured to be a stairway to the underworld on the other side of the Peaks at the Edge of the World, far to the north. Sailors say you can sail into the underworld through the cave known as the Mouth of Harkun, north of Yarimura. The monks of Noboro monastery claim you can walk into the underworld from Akatsurai, simply by always heading in a north-easterly direction. Scholars of Dweomer claim an entrance lies at the very top of the peak on Starspike Island. Also, the tunnels of the trau are thought to lead inexorably downward into the Realm of Shadows. The end of the book refers to volume two in the series, entitled How to Get Out of the Underworld. You ask one of the archivists if this book is in the library, but he tells you it never got written. ‘Agrash the Explorer never came back to finish it.’

Can we still talk about spoilers for a book that’s been in the publishing equivalent of limbo for thirty years? Into the Underworld was to be the last book in the Fabled Lands series – or maybe the next-to-last, if the whispers about a thirteenth book could be believed.

Throughout the Fabled Lands series, there are plenty of ways for a doomed or daring adventurer to find their way into book 12. You might have had a character stranded there for years, so arguably book 12 is more of a priority than books 8-11, which would wrap up some quests from other books but are otherwise just expansion packs to extend the places you can journey to.

Here are those routes into the underworld. Look away now if you still have hopes of FL book 12 appearing eventually.

Book 2: Cities of Gold and Glory

You can be carried off to the underworld by the Trau:

Book 3: Over the Blood-Dark Sea

You could be lured to the underworld by succumbing to the mermaids’ song:

You might suffer some bad luck while failing to repel a pack of hellions: 

You might descend into a hole among the roots of a tree in the Bluewood on Braelak Isle:

Or climb down inside the hollow mountain on Starspike Island:

Or choose (perhaps unwisely) to dive down to a submerged city:

Book 4: The Plains of Howling Darkness

You can get to the underworld by sailing your ship into the treacherous cave known as the Mouth of Harkun:

Being sucked down by a gigantic whirlpool:

Being hauled into a tunnel by a hairy demon:

Boarding the silver barge at the celestial harbour:

Rapping on a stone slab in the side of a cliff if you aren’t sufficiently sanctified:

Book 6: Lords of the Rising Sun

If you take a misty road heading north-east from Noboro monastery you can walk into the underworld:

And another route is via a nexus of mysterious pathways that would make Einstein and Rosen tear up their maps:

Book 7: The Serpent King's Domain

It’s possible to get yourself teleported to the underworld by the capricious monkey god Shimae:

Fabled Lands Quests: The Castle of Lost Souls

Guided by a pair of enchanted boots, your character is led past the Haunted Hills and through a foul swamp known as the Sodden Blight, eventually descending under a vast ceiling of rock into the underworld. Here you must cross an immense, ashen plain illuminated by an unnatural orange light to reach your destination, the Castle of Lost Souls, fortress of the demon Slank. While navigating the underworld, there are specific environmental rules you must follow:

1. You must have a source of illumination such as a lantern to travel through the dark caverns
2. The oppressive nature of the realm means you must temporarily subtract 2 from your COMBAT score, although this penalty is negated once you actually step inside the Castle of Lost Souls

If you fail in your quest -- for instance, if the magic of your infernal boots fades before you can find Slank's castle -- you are given the option to remain in the underworld. If you have Book 12, you wander aimlessly across the ashen plain until you pass through a tunnel and see a "curious city" looming ahead. At this point, you turn to paragraph 689 of Into the Underworld -- the same place as the monkey god sent you in Book 7.

There's also a scene in The Plains of Howling Darkness (FL book 4) where you might get the opportunity to visit the halls of the death-god Nagil --and, even more importantly, the opportunity to leave again. That's presumably located somewhere in the underworld, though there's no obvious route directly into book 12.

What would the FL underworld be like? Perhaps taking a cue from Dante, I envisage it as existing on multiple levels, so your exploration would be more three-dimensional than in other regions of the Fabled Lands. Also, both Jamie and I have used underworlds in previous gamebooks: Sheol in Doomwalk, the fourth Blood Sword book, and Hades in The Houses of the Dead, the first in the Vulcanverse series. For Into the Underworld we'd have to tap a fresh vein of inspiration -- perhaps drawing on our Tekumel games, or going back to the Hippocrene springs that fed them such as Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft.