Jaana joins the party and a journey to Vesper

I decided to make Yew my next visit. The first time around it was actually one of the earliest townes we discovered. After arriving at the moongate, we randomly happened to walk in the right direction and found Yew without even trying. (We did not even know it was close by at the time.) In any case, this time around my goal is to add another spellcaster to the party. I could not remember where to find Jaana, but randomly decided to start by going north through the yew trees upon entering the towne. Sure enough I found Jaana and a couple of chanting wizards. Jaana gave no indication of being interested in joining my party and the chanting wizards just said "Beh" repeatedly. Since I'm not supposed to "know" this information, I did not ask Jaana to join me yet and decided to explore further.

A wandering druid told me where the shrine is located and instructed me to ask Talfourd about the rune. I did not remember who that was but when I eventually made my way into the Hall of Justice, Talfourd gave me the cryptic clue: "then do thy penance in a cell and with the felon search ye well". This isn't so cryptic when the Jail is next door and so in I went. Finding the rune was easy!

Exploring the other shaded parts of town, I met Short Round. I'm not sure what useful information he has other than the funny reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I did meet Calumny who told me about the Quickness spell but I have this sneaking suspicion he knows something else. Since I don't "know" what else to ask him, I decided to leave him alone for now, although I think I will be back at a later time. In the meantime, I talked to a guard who told me that where Justice is concerned, "a good life is inspired by love and guided by truth". And now that I had the rune, the wandering druids told me about the mantra and the green stone. Frida (at the Healers) told me that Jaana might join so I went back and invited her.

Our party of four took the scenic route back to Castle Britannia past the Serpent's Spine, vanquished many foes, and hoarded Gold. By this point Jaana had enough experience to level up so we paid a visit to Lord British. I decided that I had not talked to Hawkwind in a while so I stopped by (while some in my party took their naps). Hawkwind said I was progressing well in Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice and Honor. He thought my Sacrifice was too small and that I had to give of my life's blood. Apparently I needed to meditate more on Spirituality too. What was surprising was that apparently I was "ready" to go to the shrine of Humility to meditate for 3 cycles! I suppose my visit to Magincia and many other conversations where I tried not to answer proudly must have helped somewhat. There's no way I'm going to that shrine without the rune, a ship or the horn. However, this helped me decide what to do next. First, I visited the Healer and donated 100 hit points of blood. Next, Lord British did his healing thing-a-majig to restore the 100 hit points. Finally, I am going to head over to a shrine.

My plan was to go visit the shrine of Compassion. In Britain, Shapero (who was looking for Julio, who I haven't found yet to ask about compassion) had informed me that the shrine was east across two bridges. My memory isn't so good so I probably walked a little too far north while trying to avoid some marsh. I knew I had "passed" it but decided to keep going. Sure enough, after a few more battles and plenty of walking, I arrived at a shrine across two bridges. (Well, the two bridge squares are next to each other.) I don't have the rune to this shrine yet nor do I "know" what that one strange forest square above it "holds", and yes, I did walk pass the single marsh square on the way to the shrine. So instead I decided to visit the wonderful village of Vesper (beating up on some bridge trolls and a party of skeletons that actually had one mage, the first one I've seen in battle).

Way back when, it was actually a while before we found Vesper, not knowing anything about the geography of Britannia. It was hard to keep track of where we were and one thing we did not do early on was keep good maps of the countryside. We did not realize that Britannia was so much larger than Sosaria at first. (This geographical issue was remedied later in an elaborately drawn map that took a lot of time wherein we systematically explored Britannia for the purpose of mapping.)

The best part of Vesper is the Guild run by Long John Leary. It was a good thing the party had collected a sizable treasure trove because I was going to buy a lot of torches, gems and keys. As you can see on the right, it was also a reminder to keep my eyes open for secret passages. The serf Balthasar has revealed the western one that leads to Servile who will tell me that using the Skull of Mondain is evil. The eastern passage (see the glint in the wall) leads to a treasure room. I refrained from taking the treasure as a good pre-Avatar-questor should. While at Vesper, I also bought a bow (which Jaana will use) and some Flaming Oil because it will be fun to use later in a battle.

At this point I am starting to run low on food thanks to my larger and therefore hungrier party-of-four. I headed towards the moongate near Minoc, and took a trip to Skara Brae. I distinctly remembered that Skara Brae has the cheapest food. Sure enough, it sells 25-packs for 20gp, a 20% discount compared to Moonglow and a whopping 43% lower than Yew. I also stopped by the herb shop to get some Blood Moss because it's cheaper here than in Moonglow. I don't know when I'll get to Bucaneer's Den so I got a bit of Black Pearl just in case. It's still pricey here at 8gp each. I decided not to explore the towne and have all my conversations this time around since I visited Vesper and Yew. With my wallet considerably lighter, I plan to use the moongates to travel back to Castle Britannia so that Katrina can be (finally) raised to Level 2. I should remember to visit the Jail now that I have keys.

6549 moves. Cumulative playing time: 4.5 hours