Besides learning the mantra and the location of the shrine of compassion, I was also told the location of the rune. Gweno informed me that giving to beggars shows compassion. Since I am supposed to strive for good virtue, I gave the beggar 1 gp. I do not "know" information about the Compassion-Love connection yet or about the stone and the associated dungeon. Maybe this is what I should have asked the bartender at Spirits about, as suggested in the manual - "offering the right price and asking the right question". That brings me back to the interesting feature where when buying food or weapons, you automatically pay the quoted price. For buying reagents and buying ale at pubs, you have the option of NOT paying the quoted price. We had always paid the right price when buying reagents the first time we played, and had not realized it was a virtuous act until late in the game when a typo (while buying reagents too quickly) caused the losing of several "eighths". (Veterans of the game, you know what I mean...)
Anyway, the main point of visiting Britain was to pick up Iolo so that the two of us could go earn some gold. (I like the scene above that has Iolo, Gweno and the children.) Given that I had "triggered" a troll on the very first bridge crossing by Moonglow, I decided I could dance on the troll bridge near the moongate and were rewarded with two groups of trolls and their subsequent treasure. (Iolo does all the treasure chest opening since I typically take damage in battle while standing in front of him.) I also have several things on my list to do outside of Britain now: (1) Go back to Moonglow to find information about the rune, (2) find Buccaneer's Den and ask about the Skull of Mondain at the pub, and (3) ask a one-handed Beggar in the Serpent castle. I know where these places are now, but the first time around (sans map) it took a lot of searching to find Serpent's Hold, and running across Buccaneer's Den was a complete fluke.
Okay, it is now time to visit Castle Britannia and get Lord British to power me up a level. He does not disappoint! He also tells me all sorts of useful information about the Quest of the Avatar, the virtues and their associated townes, the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom, and the Stygian Abyss.
Before I visited the throne room though, I explored the castle a fair bit. A visit to the guard room showed me how to find a secret passage in the wall, so now I "know" how to look for these. I remember way back when first playing this that it took a while to
discover the secret passages. I don't remember where we were but I
noticed a "notch" in the wall (on the monochrome screen you don't see a
sparkle unlike in this version) and thought it was strange thus
discovering this feature by accident. After that I was on the lookout for
these everywhere, particularly if a room or building looked like
it might be hiding one. You can see a guard "revealing" this secret by comparing the two screens on the right. 
In any case, I went into the treasure room but refrained from taking the treasure. After all, now that I'm on the quest for the Avatar, I shouldn't be stealing!
I also paid Seer Hawkwind a visit, and surprisingly did not fall asleep (although Iolo did) crossing the Sleep energy fields. Back in the day, I paid Hawkwind many tedious visits. Sometime later I mistakenly hit the Pause key (or CTRL-S) on the Apple II trying to pause the game for some reason I no longer remember. I didn't understand what the sixteen-digit number stood for at the time but triggering it at regular intervals after achieving partial avatarhood finally unlocked the secret of this easter egg. Thereafter, Hawkwind never saw me. I haven't discovered what this easter egg key is in the GOG version I'm playing so in the meantime I will probably pay the seer the occasional visit when I need to see Lord British.
Visiting the Prison is where I first encounter doors I cannot open. Now I know I need to find a guild to buy some keys, but 27 years ago, this really stumped us. I didn't know what "jimmy-lock" meant although we had a shrewd guess it had something to do with unlocking doors. I also remember trying to cast an Open spell at a door (I don't remember which towne) at one point. In any case, it took quite a while before we unlocked any doors back then. This time around I will find Vesper reasonably quickly. It's scary how good my memory is for this sort of information. Anyway I'll need to come back to Castle Britannia to talk to some prisoners in the cells and the (perhaps grim) Reaper.
Visiting the prison also allowed me to see the four fields in color that I mentioned yesterday. I could not tell the difference in monochrome.In the castle, I also learned from Sheila that runes are needed to enter shrines and that mantras are chants needed to focus while meditating. Seesha told me to seek out Zircon in Minoc to ask about mystic arms. Shawn said that Magincia, destroyed for its pride lies at KJ LL. Should I recognize this as latitude and longitude? (I remember the first time I thought this was cryptic and couldn't make head or tail of it until much later.) And Joshua, hidden outside the castle through the secret passage asks his riddle: "What one thing creates and is created by all truths, all love and all courage?" after he tells me that "Eight philosophies of avatarhood combine into and are made from truth, love and courage." In hindsight I understand exactly what these mean, but when I first encountered them 27 years ago, I had no idea what these folks were saying and I thought they were all very cryptic.
And that is my first visit to Castle Britannia and the satellite town of Britain. Phew, that was a lot of information! Maybe I need to visit just one new town per gaming session. This gaming session took an hour. (The writeup is taking longer...)
1968 moves. Cumulative play time = 2 hours.
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