Thank you for such explanation - and for confirming that choice of narration was intentional and I hadn't missed anything :) However, I'm afraid I'm still confused...
SPOILER
Haven't eight days passed from the hero's arrival to his conversations about the dream? His recovery is completed the third day, Sir Cecil's patrol comes the seventh day, the theft is committed that night, and the hero discusses his dream the day after. So why talking about the "dream from last night"?
END SPOILER
Anyway, I'll faithfully stick to that approach of yours in my translation - just subtly adjusting my sentences so that the French reader doesn't feel like some part of the text has been lost along the way :)
Sorry, forgot to mention: entry 73 has the necessarary on/off switch: either Brother Roubert escaped, or he was knocked unconscious and is unable to do a translation.
The reader (hero) is indeed describing his portentous dream during his recovery period when the Saint's skeletal hand graceed his brow. It is only revealed later through those conversations with Prior Richmond and - if he escaped the struggle with Hugh and Lukas - Brother Roubert, himself a learned scholar who is able to deciper the mysterious meanings. I decided not to go into the dream during the Background section, in danger of it adding too much extrapoltation at the beginning. I like to try and break things up evenly - dialogue, action, extrapolaiton - wherever possible., so the reader doesn't get great clumps and make the writing tedious. If the player manages to get a full list of meanings, these act as sublte hints of help and perils throughout the gameworld. Therefore, I would much prefer the dream's description being kept where it is. And if the player made the wrong choice...? Sorry, but that's what FF is all about!
As I read the story once again, striving to translate it in smooth French, something about one key element somewhat disturbs me - belatedly, I admit. The dream the hero discusses with Prior Abbot Richmond then - optionally - with Brother Roubert doesn't seem to be mentioned earlier in the story. Is the reader supposed to imagine the dream in retrospect (based on the conversations), or may I have missed some previous information?
Very much enjoyed this. Didn't get the Mace, so narrowly lost the final fight.
Found the initial paragraphs a little frustrating as it appeared that the outcome was always predetermined, but once passed this the pacing of the story and structure of the mystery were excellent.
A truly magnificent and super hard adventure of epic proportions! But one which was so damn hard it got extremely frustrating at times, so much so that one might just feel like pulling their hair out! There was times when I had to go back to near the beginning to go along the right paths in order to find the essential items required by the final foe at the end.
Greg Neill has sent me this collaborative gamebook, written mainly by him, Kieran Coghlan and Steven Doig. It is inspired by the Aleph in Spectral Stalkers.
I just didn't know which one was the decoy tag, so by a trial and error process I managed to discover it was the one in the ghoul-guarded pantry. I'd like to try this game again to see if I can win without picking up any deadly curses, because the fight in the ghoul-guarded pantry (to get the spikenard) is really difficult.
Thanks very much for your detailed review and, if you don't mind, I'd like to put it on a few other forums here and there to try and drum up a bit more interest because what you wrote sounds interesting.