Part 15: Wheel of Misfortune

Last time, we went through Magyscar, got told that (surprise, surprise) Ronan just might turn out to be evil and we got the optional but awesome Secret Pass from breaking into Lutas and Fein's house. Why they'd have that, of all people, I wouldn't even be able to guess.

Speaking of Lutas let's ruin his day by telling him about Sybill's vision!



Lutas: Once, I might have been fascinated, but now, those words terrify me...

That... didn't quite go as I expected. Ah well. Septimus said Meia told him about Ronan, so let's go bother her since she won't get any other way to try to be condescending otherwise.



: Ronan believes that he prays to the gods, but he has been the victim of a clever deception. He is worshipping the very evil from which he believes the gods shall deliver us! Go! See for yourself! Ronan should still be at the sanctuary...

Nothing else of interest, just yet, so let's find out just what, exactly, this Secret Pass does.



This objective leads us here, which is just south of the Coal Mine. Ordinarily, Alundra would just get mocked incessently for being too young to be there, which raises some questions of its own. But with the Secret Pass?



Barman: Have a good time downstairs, okay, kiddo?

A semi-secret area opens and what is in there leads to some interesting questions about Fein and/or Lutas... oh, and there's one other guy of importance up here who we'll be speaking to later. Could do it now, probably, but there isn't really much point to it.



Bear this in mind for later. Roulette is the cause of many people's problems for reasons similar to this. Conversely, however, there is a way to make it pretty darn easy.



But for now, let's just go do this game. It's the only one that can kill you, for starters, and it's also the easiest. You can't actually use magic during it, or change items, so equipping the Earth Scroll was kinda dumb in hindsight.





Following that, beating the last round thrice more is of equal importance because it prevents you from ever playing the game again. There is a reason it does that, though: you no longer need to play it.



Host 1: And that's why I'm awarding you this fantastic Gilded Falcon! Well......That, and I'm banning you from ever playing my game again.

Beating the final round of a game four times, not necessarily in a row, nets you a Gilded Falcon. There's a possible three falcons available here, and one of them is considered by almost everyone to be the hardest to obtain. I'd say second hardest in general, hardest in principle. I just suck at timing puzzles, moreso than probability...



Second game requires use of the Bow. It's pretty similar to the first, only it's possibly a little easier overall.





Same deal as with the previous game; beat the last round thrice more and get barred from playing the game again.



Host 2: Only a professional marksman displays that kind of accuracy. Tell you what... I'll give you this if you agree not to play here any more!

That's the easy two falcons obtained. Now for the last one, and to damn near break the bank in the process. The last game is hard, yes, but it's also surprisingly easy sometimes. It's partially based on luck, partially not.



Yes, it's time for Roulette. It's undeniably harder than Slime Buster or Shooting Gallery but it's still not that hard, or is it?



It's way cheaper than the other two (5 gilder rather than 30), and it has a much larger payout as well. Where that merely doubled your money from the second round onwards, this one triples it for every win. Rather than win 5 back for round 1, you win 15. The monetary award for winning round 5 is completely amazing. Useless after this, but amazing nonetheless.



This is the Roulette wheel. It always starts on black, and it always has the possibly of landing on black. Remember what the guy said outside about it always landing on black for the fifth round? That's not entirely true; it's just far, far more likely.

The way Roulette actually works is pretty simple; it can't land on whatever space it wants. It almost always lands 6-10 spaces ahead of whever it started ("ahead" being in a clockwise direction). The exceptions to this are that it can land on black whenever, and that it very, very rarely lands 11 spaces ahead. There's no foolproof method, but with this knowledge we can make it far, far more likely to nab the falcon.

Since it can land 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 spaces ahead of wherever it started then it still basically just the luck of the draw, right? Not exactly; there's a chance of it landing on either. It's least likely to land on 6 or 10, most likely to land on 7 or 9 and amount half-and-half to land on 8. Roughly, it's a 15% chance for 6 or 10, 25% for 7 or 9 and 20% for 8. The sole exception is if black is in those values. Notice that to the left of black is a red, and to the right is a blue. If the black is a legitimate possibility rather than the game being a dick, then it will almost never land on a green; if black is either 9 or 10, most of the time it will land on the red. If the black is 6 or 7 most of the time, it will land on the blue. If the black is 8, then it can go either way but it's most likely to land on the black itself from my experience.

So, based on these odds, and how far it lands, it can land on either a blue (6), a green (7, 8) or a red (9, 10) for the first spin. Since it's a simple OR function for working these things out, the chance of blue is ~15%, the chance of green is ~45% and the chance of red is approx ~40%. Green is most likely for the first spin, but only just. Still, it's most likely, so...



It landed 8 ahead, which is green so it worked out in the end. Seems like a lot of work for a mere 15 gilder, doesn't it? Oh, don't worry it becomes far more worthwhile monetarily in a very short length of time.

From where it landed, it cannot land on a green from here. 6 and 7 are red, 9 and 10 are blue and 8 is black... 40% red, 40% blue, 20% black. It's actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Shouldn't take too long to rack up enough wins to get...



Host 3: No player has ever won five games straight before! As a special prize, take this Life Vessel! You can only double your bet five times. You win 1215 Gilder.

Aside from being an amazing 1200 gilder increase over the first round win, there's not much left to spend it on other than roulette at this point. I wish I could say that and mean it. There's nothing to spend it on other than roulette at this point.

I'm sure by now, someone's wondering if they could just play on an emulator to take the luck part out by doing a simple pattern of savestate, guess, watch where it lands, load state if wrong and "guess" where it landed last time. That won't work; when you pick a colour, it prompts you if you're sure about that choice. When you pick "Yes" at that choice, it determines where it lands not before, so there's no way to make it a complete joke. Just mostly a joke.

After getting 1215 thrice more...



Host 3: You're a professional. Or a cheat. Or worse! A professional cheat! Either way, you're not welcome here anymore. Beat it!

All in all, that took a little less than 10 minutes to get, by using the above information. With that done, there's no reason to hang around any more, so let's go talk to a man about Merrick. More specifically, about Merrick and Gilded Falcons;



You have to talk to this guy to get Merrick to accept falcons and you can't do it before this point for some arbitrary reason. You probably need to get the 3 life vessels from here at least. The Medallion isn't far from here, so let's go see a man about a few things.



: Long ago, I took to the seas just to find the falcons legend's spoke of [sic] as being scattered all over the world... To find them all would have made me a legend myself, and rich beyond human comprehension! Kid, if you happen to find any of the Gilded Falcons and bring them to me, I'll trade you items for them.



This is the kind of deal that you just can't say "no" to. You get some damn useful items, out of this, including one that is pretty much never being unequipped from this point. Y'know, aside from when something else is needed.

: Ah, Alundra! I knew from the moment I laid eyes on your greenish face at sea you were something special! I am a very happy man. Thank you, Alundra! Let me count how many falcons you're trading in...You've brought me 31 today. That means you've brought me 31 Gilded Falcons so far. Please accept this gift as my thanks to you, Alundra.



You get no less than 4 Life Vessels from this guy; 10% of all of them come from exchanging Gilded Falcons. The rewards are actually pretty simple to work out; you get them at every multiple of 5 from 15 onwards. X5 is a Life Vessel, whilst X0 is an item of some description. For example, 20 falcons gives you this:



Olga's Ring is the one non-weapon that is actually useful for increasing dealt damage; it increases Alundra's attack when equipped in the item slot. Very useful indeed. When combined with something that is obtainable very soon, it becomes massive overkill.



Silver Armlets (obtained at 30 falcons) are to defence, what Olga's Ring is to attack. They make it so you take less damage; it might have made more sense for those to be the other way around, but whatever.



It might be 4 falcons away, but those 4 falcons will take a little while at the moment. This part kinda stagnates in that regard.

Next time: Sanctuary.