With no good way of getting into Lock Lake, I decided I would have to try the lighter-than-air-device approach. I went back into Castle Britannia and, after a quick visit to Hawkwind (with no progress made), I took the secret passages leading to the dungeon entrance below the castle. Sure enough as warned by the shepherd, after I descended the ladder, there was no way back up. I took the ladder all the way down to Level 8 and peered at a gem. It looked like Hythloth. I cast an X-it spell, and sure enough we were back up at its entrance on the isle of the abyss.
When this first happened 27 years ago, we did not know we were at Hythloth. I don’t remember at what point we decided to cast the X-it spell then, perhaps after fighting through several dungeon rooms on Level 8. In any case, we thought we were completely stuck, having saved the game just after exiting the dungeon. I suspect that we did not have any mandrake root then and so would not have been able to mix and cast a Gate spell. In monochrome, I could not identify the balloon at first. (It looks much clearer in color.) Once we realized what it was, we boarded the balloon, but then did not know how to get it flying. This actually stumped us for a few days. Had we forgotten something? Was there an item we needed to use? Was there a spell to be cast? Finally in desperation we just started hitting every key and when we hit “K” for Klimb, suddenly the balloon took flight. The view was amazing! We even saw part of the entranceway to the abyss!
This time around I knew what to do and the balloon was soon aloft. I had mixed several wind spells to guide us to the mainland. We landed near the Bloody Plains and I tried to figure out a way into Cove (the village in Lock Lake). I tried several approaches flying south but constant wind changes wreaked havoc on my plans. Finally I got off the balloon and walked as far as I could to my best guess of Cove’s location. Then I peered at a gem. Based on my location, I counted squares on the gem view and estimated that Cove would be at F’K” I’I”. I turned out to be dead right! (Thanks, sextant!)
My approach was to take short flights in the balloon until I reached a grassy area not too far from the shrine of compassion. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would maneuver my way in, but in my very first attempt, I got very, very lucky! As you can see I started out from G’E” E’P”. I waited until the wind started blowing from the west and then Klimbed. Several wind changes later, and without a single spell from me, I hit the touchdown spot outside of Cove. Is there a virtue of Luck? Certainly no skill was involved in my part other than Descending at exactly the right moment. The whole affair took place in a matter of seconds.
Cove is a nice village with plenty of waterways. The first person I talked to was Brother Zair. He told me that the kings of the three castles each know a syllable of the word of passage. I guess Sentri isn’t useless after all. Allen, a child hidden in a mountainous nook, told me that the abyss can only be approached by ship, that a magically strengthened hull would be needed, and that I should ask Blissful more about the abyss. Blissful, the seahorse, told me to ask the ankh and to meditate for three cycles at the shrines of Honesty, Compassion and Valor. A group of four magi in the forest to the south were contemplating the secrets of the codex. They made cryptic statements such as “the one pure axiom is more endless than the changing tides, more eternal than day and night.” Another said “one must know the combination of the three principles of virtue; it equals the measure of time and space.”
I did find Mentorian who told me how to mix the Gate Travel spell. More than half the party got poisoned so I could talk to Sloven who told me where to find more information about the white stone. Merlin was more direct and told me exactly how to obtain the black stone: “Stand where the gate of both moons dark shall appear. Search when the moons go dark.” The talking Ankh was located on the east side of Cove. It said: “To enter the codex chamber, one must be 8 parts avatar, have the 3 parts, the word of passage and know the pure axiom.” You can’t get any clearer than that. After talking to the ankh, I noticed the secret passage in the northwest corner that led to a short empty passageway. As with any odd location such as this, one should search the area. Sure enough, I found the Candle of Love.
Now that I had searched Cove thoroughly, I decided to pursue the white and black stones. First I took the balloon to Castle Britannia and managed to park it in a nice spot. I took the moongates to Skara Brae and visited the inn. They apparently only had a dingy one-bed-room for just 5gp. Amazingly the whole party was refreshed from the first night’s sleep. But nothing else extraordinary happened. I stayed a second night. Still nothing. On the third night, Isaac the Ghost appeared. He told me that the “white stone sits atop the Serpent's Spine. It can only be reached by one who floats within the clouds.”
Back during our original quest 27 years ago, we did not know the names of places because we did not have an inscribed map. Any names we learned came from townsfolk and guesswork. You can imagine our trying to figure out where on earth (I mean Britannia!) the Fens of the Dead and the Bloody Plains were located. That reminds me, I have not been back to Yew to ask Calumny about the location of mandrake. And I have no desire to search the fens of the dead. While we were successful that first time around, it was a real (poisonous) pain. We only had to search in the fens once, though, as we figured out the “better” location to obtain mandrake root and proceeded to use it exclusively.
A second oddity about playing on the original Apple II version back then was a bug in the program that allowed one to X-it the balloon anywhere without using the Descend command. This immediately stopped the balloon, but it also had the added effect of retaining the bird’s eye view. This makes it much easier to navigate because you can stop anywhere and still see god-like past mountains and forests, cast a wind spell, and then “Klimb altitude”. Iterate this process a few times and you are in your desired location. Back then, I easily used this method to obtain the white stone and navigate into other hard-to-get places. The current version does not allow this “cheat”. While I was very lucky getting to Cove this time around, I did not want to waste a bunch of Wind spells trying to hit a single square of grass. I also did not want to move my nicely parked balloon. First things first, however, I travelled by moongate back to Verity Isle to pick up the black stone. Then I took the moongate back to Britain and proceeded towards the Serpent’s spine.
As I did around Lock Lake, I went as close as I could to my desired location and peered at a gem. You can see the single square of grass in the mountains on the northern edge of the gem view. (In the southwest quadrant lies the dungeon Shame.) I positioned myself exactly south of the spot by the mountain range, took three steps back, and “Blinked” right next to the Ankh on my first attempt. I am getting quite lucky today!
In the span of an hour’s play, I was able to find the balloon at Hythloth, visit Cove, find the Candle of Love, pick up more mandrake root (on a side trip), visit Isaac the Ghost in Skara Brae, find the black stone, and find the white stone. Back then, all these journeys were separated from each other by days if not weeks. Finally here’s a view of my nicely parked balloon and two ships outside LB’s Castle.
29424 moves. Cumulative playing time = 16 hours.
