RomanQuest by Herbie Brennan Page B

you from the section you’re in back to the last section you visited where you can make a different choice to the one you made before.
    Score 10 and Jupiter will transport you directly to 13 thus showing life as an Initiate is not all a bowl of cherries.
    Score 11 and a purse containing one gold libra, twenty silver sestertii and twelve copper denarii will drop from the sky into your lap.
    Score 12 and your current Life Points will temporarily double in the next three sections you visit even if they were at or near your maximum to begin with. When you reach the fourth section, they will return to the level they were at before.
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    Now return to the section you just left and get on with your adventure.
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    Please select an option from the previous page.

98
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    If there’s going to be a wedding, this is where they’ll hold it. The chamber is obviously the main hall of the entire villa, an enormous room with some fascinating - and rather naughty - frescos of nymphs and satyrs gambolling across the walls. Lots of vines with plump ripe grapes as well, all pointing to fertility and plenty - perfect sentiments for a wedding.
    Except there’s no sign of preparations. The great hall looks the sort of place you’d welcome guests, no doubt about that, but for a couple as important as Germanicus and Agrippina, there would be scores, probably hundreds, of guests and those sort of numbers require special preparations.
    Something doesn’t feel right.
    Unless, of course, the Sibyl arranged for you to be transported back a few days before the wedding. That would be a really sensible move, give you time to find your feet and make your preparations.
    Except the Sibyl hasn’t been noted for sensible moves so far. Nor has Jupiter, come to that.
    Something really doesn’t feel right.
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    Perhaps if you keep going you might come across a crystal ball to help you figure out what. There are two doors out of this huge hall, one in the western wall to CVII and the other in the eastern wall to LXXXIX .
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    Please select an option from the previous page.

99
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    The sign above the door of this large building shimmers as your Mercury Phone cuts in with the translation:
    THEATRE OF POMPEY
    You stand for a moment frowning, wondering if this is the sort of theatre you would recognise from your own time - a place for staging plays - or is it something ghastly like the Roman Games?
    Since there’s only one way to find out, you push forward only to be stopped by a burly man with a toothpick in one hand and what looks like a very nasty club in the other.
    â€œTicket please,” he demands.
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    If you have a ticket to the Theatre of Pompey you can present it at 142 . If not you’ll just have to get back to your tourist map at 25 and select another destination.
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    Please select an option from the previous page.

100
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    You are standing over the body of the wild-eyed woman when the Italian Police arrive with sirens blaring to drag you off to jail where, after a short, sharp murder trial, you remain for the rest of your life.
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    Which just goes to show violence has its drawbacks even in a game book. For a slightly longer solo adventure, try starting again and reviewing your choice of options.
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    Please select an option from the previous page.

101
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    â€œHere it is,” you say, handing the weapon over. “Use it well and your name will go down in history.”
    â€œI doubt it,” Cassius shrugs. “History remembers the monsters, not the men who rid the world of them. I’d be prepared to bet that by the year 2000 you’d be hard put to find a single schoolchild who’d know the names of Cassius Chaerea or Cornelius Sabinus.”
    â€œMaybe you’re right,” you nod, but use it well anyway.”
    â€œI certainly will,” Cassius promises. “Always providing you can get Caligula down here, of course.”
    Your knees suddenly turn to