Mellisandre was killed, if you believe the Knightmare Top Trumps cards. (I wrote a couple of short fanfics about her and Gretel's departures as stated on those.)

Melly's death is intriguing to me, partly because I wrote a story a few years back where she'd died after giving birth to a daughter by Motley so it's news to me that this is cannon, or semi-cannon; and because so much seemed to be made of her indestructibility: Treguard told us that she's tougher than she looks when she fell through the trap door, she once said something like that, and she's also said that she doesn't seem to age, so it was really drummed into us that she wouldn't die.

How did she die?

...or pushed them away?

From quite early in Knightmare's run, Treguard would mention that the dungeoneer had gone beyond the bounds of the dungeon. The dungeon (or whatever spirit gave it life) did spread beyond Dunshelm Castle's architecture, especially from series 4 onwards, but apparently the dungeoneer, and characters, could come into the Knightmare Dungeon area and leave it at will (Motley and Mellisandre had a conversation about this once in series 4).

That got me wondering: what prompted people to come and hang out in this eldritch location, and what prompted others to leave and never come back? A few thoughts:

• Treguard: seemed to be stuck with it, since his name would have been on the castle's deed, and however far the dungeon spread, it seemed always to be linked to the castle. Although, we never saw him enter it so it seems he kept it at arm's length as much as he could.

• Olgarth and Granitas: I wonder where they went? Surely they didn't both die, since both were ancient? I'm thinking they may well have left, especially since other wall monsters - Igneous, Brangwen, and Golgarach - only came for one season and then skidaddled. Apparently something about the dungeon didn't sit right with them, perhaps because they inhabited walls and the place had a nasty tendency to shift about a lot? Must have been disorientating.

• Lillith: Who knows, since she seemed to be powerful, though isolated. I imagine she got fed up of dungeoneers blundering through, and surely even she recognised that they couldn't help it.

• Gibbet, Gumboil and Cedric: I would have expected these three to hang around. Sentry duty seemed to suit Cedric well enough at least, and surely Gumboil wouldn't have been that disuaded from doing his job just because of a few mishaps? Gibbet really didn't seem to like anyone enough to even be particularly reliable as a guard. Perhaps he got the sack from whoever hired him?

• Gretel: She seemed comfortable enough there. Perhaps she just outgrew it and felt there was more for her elsewhere?

• Mellisandre: Since she apparently is Eve herself, I can't help but wonder why she left. She doesn't strike me as a character particularly prone to character development.

• Mildread: Really, c'mon. She's elderly, and clearly has a strong interest in magic. How can a magic dungeon fail to be a good place for her?

I know there are heaps more but I'll hold it there. Any thoughts?

Those are awesome! I love hidden nooks and tunnels and things. Good find!

I like the idea of it being their jacuzzi where they unwind after a hard day's haunting.

That is unbelievably precious, especially for something that's essentially horror.

Alternatively: in one of my fanfics, Mildread is imprisoned in her cauldron after Series 2, implying that one of those skull hauntings was her.

As for the other: the possibilities are plentiful. Festus's third head (as bitten off by Grimwold)?

Mildread being a skull-ghost is a tantalising possibility, especially as I'm seeing all these headcannons and wondering if any had them for the blue and green skulls?

As far as Festus goes, I assume he'd have canine skulls, but the idea of a vicious hell-dog having human faces has that little bit of extra horror factor. Bring it on!

Hmm, yes... Hordriss says he despises them, Merlin also calls them "vile", and Elita rather aggressively shoos one away. I don't think anyone else shared a scene with one?

Yeah, they themselves are unpopular but it doesn't seem like Hordriss or Merlin held their existence against the dungeoneers. Elita... if she knew they came from failed quests (assuming your headcannon is true) then she didn't mention it, and she seems the most likely to blame a current dungeoneer for their existence, fair or not.

since the dungeoneers don't really die, it suggests they're inhabiting a temporary body during their visit to the Knightmare world, which is supported by the life force sprite. I think the skull ghosts are expired life force sprites from dead dungeoneers, which are left floating around in search of another body to attach themselves to - that's why they're attracted to dungeoneers and can harm them by trying to drain or eject their own life force sprite.

Oh, I like this idea! I also imagine that would make dungeoneers quite unpopular with regular dungeon residents. We don't know whether or not the floating skulls can harm anyone other than dungeoneers but they're creepy and hard to ignore at the very least.

I don't know if this has ever come up on this forum before, but something just occurred to me!

Every time a quest ends we see the dungeoneer plus their advisors in some empty valley. Treguard sees them off, sometimes with assurances that the dungeoneer's alive and well despite being killed in the dungeon, and we move onto the next team.

And yet, he twice described the floating skulls as previous dungeoneers, so if we're not assuming an inconsistency in Knightmare's lore, Treguard isn't telling us the whole truth about dungeoneers being ultimately unharmed by their death. Something of them is left behind, perhaps permanently.

This is a really unsettling thought and I like it!

I don't have any advice to give for painting it, but the detail is incredible!

I did - thanks to some lucky dice rolls! Yes, I tried several routes. I did wonder whether some of the choice options were deliberate traps (like in the first KM book where it tries to catch you out with "turn to page x to use [item you can't possibly have picked up]") but they all seemed legitimate! Still can't find the MOUSE spell though.

I hope you continue with level 2 and 3!

Thanks for the feedback! Oh yes - there was one where you're invited to use a pair of sunglasses to see in a room with a... sun lion, I think?

Sorceress Orphia gives you the MOUSE spell under some conditions

P.S.: You've got to be really quick with that giant scorpion, don't you?

— Where I got stuck in the cold rock room bug

— Velda's first typo

— Velda's second and third typos

I got through to level 2! That was challenging and fun - thank you!

I noticed a couple of bugs: it's possible to slip behind the rocks in the 'frozen' room, and if you do you can't get back out, nor will a critical Life Force meter actually kill you, you just stay there indefinitely and have to close the game window. Even Esc doesn't work. And Velda's dialogue has a few typos.

But yeah, this was all sorts of fun, so thank you for the opportunity to play!

So, but of an update! I've finally managed to get some time to play this and I'll play it again. I'm enjoying it!

I'm not sure how to get to the scroll in the 3-flower-spike room but suspect there's some sort of invisible path I just haven't found yet? I took a few falls tryinig to find it but haven't tested out all the squares yet. It looks like you don't come back to it so I'm assuming you can get hold of it.

I definitely appreciate the autosave!

So far I'm up to the cold room with the rocks - I seem to be hemmed in and can't seem to find a way out so I died there. Granitas said something about the cold so I might take another look at what he said when I play again.

I'd say that I'd possibly go for two adjustments: I notice that you lose a little bit of Life Force by moving to the next room so if you're near the end of red status when you exit the previous room, you die in the next one. Treguard will still talk to you as per his script even if you've died, and will then say "Life Force critical!" at the end, at which you die. I think I'd personally prefer if he said that your LF is critical before going through his script as I can see that my LF's gone black so I'm clearly dead and am just scrolling through his speech for nothing. I'd also argue that as I see the death LF scene of the eyeballs rolling away so often, being able to skip it would be good since I'm keen try again and don't want to wait around. Impatient, but that's just me.

The jester in the Eye Shield room doesn't seem to want to talk to me - I couldn't get him to interact so I assume he only does so under certain conditions? I thought he might comment on how close I called it while watching through the spyglass but he didn't.

Overall it's great and I love it! I'll try to play it again tonight.

To answer Beltane's question:

What's DJR 87??

I noticed while writing the story that it bizarrely had a bunch of unintended similarities to The Wizard of Oz, and decided it would be fitting if the path to the Emerald Greenwood actually resembled a yellow brick road. The corridor is therefore based on the 'bland room' that was used for many things in the original Knightmare dungeon, and the graffiti is a nod to it being created by David Rowe for the 1987 series, as if he had signed it.

Oh, I get it now! Thanks!

Oh yes, I nearly forgot! What's DJR 87??

That was beautiful!

I'm going to try giving feedback without including spoilers, so here goes: Gwendoline never particularly resonated with me but this story gave me the chance to see her being pushed out of her comfort zone and see how she manages. Velda has shown up in the series and in one of the books, and it's lovely to see both appearances referenced. Her goodwill wasn't always easy to earn - the dungeoneers got an easy ride on that score, at least sometimes - and it was great to see how you didn't have her give Gwendoline her trust easily. I enjoyed watching their mutual trust develop over time.

That final scene with the frightnight was exciting to read! And the aftermath was satisfying to read too.

The story ends quite slowly after that, and I'd normally say that a story should end soon after its main conflict is over, but here, it was a lovely wind-down to the end of the story. You gave me a glimpse of a few corridors and rooms that we never got to explore, and they sounded interesting and unsettling. Given the quality of your writing, if you were to write so that we could explore them I have no doubt you'd make that a satisfying read.

Finally, your writing is gorgeous! I love the woodlands too and am looking forward to this year's wild garlic season, so seeing them get an honourable nod too was nice!

Keep up the writing: you're very good at it!

This is great! I enjoyed playing through the different scenarios. There's a lot to it and an intriguing feeling to the "paths not taken" since you can't possibly see everything on a single playthrough! There's still at least one more spell that I haven't worked out how to collect.

Looking forward to seeing more. Like someone else said, it fits in really well with the style of the games in the back of the books.

Thank you so much for your kind words - I was definitely trying to make it feel as authentic as possible. I'm glad that all the routes are tempting! Did you get all the way through to level 2?

The helmet absolutely does look spot on!

All of this looks incredibly impressive! I'll keep an eye out in case you ever offer it as a playable game here!

The VR-looking bits are my favourite, I always liked the claustrophobic quality of that sort of environment and I'd love to see the more menacing bits of the game. It looks like you've got some neat puzzles in there too!

This is very nicely made! I love the level of detail. Is it based on any particular person?

This feels like a more detailed version of the challenges at the back of the Knightmare books, which is nice. It's interesting to have something that feels like it was written for a slightly older audience.

Thank you very much! How far did you get?

It's also fun to see people making use of AI art generation for things like this. It's never going to replace professional artists entirely but it does open a lot of options for fan-creations. I've used it myself to make elements for larger images but never anything this extensive. You must have spent a lot of time trying out different prompts!

I did, and I like the style i found! Most of these images were based on the prompt "dark highly detailed french fantasy illustrator" if you're curious! Just add extras like "prison entrance", "marsh with a bridge", "stone room with two archways", that sort of thing.

I wish I could incorporate an actual tick-down of the Life Force, and to have a little notebook section at the side where your inventory is kept would be awesome, so maybe those are ideas to shelve for if and when I come back to this.

There are some online tools designed for this sort of thing. Try taking a look at something like Squiffy.

https://textadventures.co.uk/squiffy

Oh sure, thanks!

A friend of mine has been using it for an extensive fan-game project based on their Dragonriders of Pern fan-fiction. If you want to see an example of how it can be used, try it out at https://www.dragonchoice.com/you-choose/ and take a look at the inventory / stat/ quest tracker on the left side of the screen while playing.

Another option is to wrap it in a simple game engine that can be embedded in a web page so it plays like a visual novel. That would make good use of art assets and allow you to track and display variables.

That could be good! What do you mean by 'simple game engine'? What would I be looking for?