Partial Avatarhood and a Ship!

I visited the lovely village of Paws. There was not much in the mercantile I was interested in except for the hidden magic shop that sells cheap garlic. I stocked up buying 80 pieces. (Do they come in cloves? Or bulbs? I don't know.) I had actually forgotten that there was a reagent store in Paws but after going around the village, I noticed that the places I visited were much too small compared to the brick wall within the village. So I looked for a secret passage and found it easily!

I did find the two people I was looking for in Paws. Barren was very helpful and told me where to find the rune of Humility immediately. Zair the Wise, on the other hand, did not tell me the word of passage but punted me on to his brother who lives near Lock Lake. I did get useful information from Damsel about the dungeon that can be accessed in Castle Britannia. Jingles also told me that Mentorian knows the reagents to the Gate Spell. This reminds me that I erred in my previous post. There is one more spell that I do not "know yet". Unfortunately Mentorian also lives at Lock Lake. I really do need to find a ship! I could "Blink" in, I suppose, but I think I'd like to go in the "traditional" way. It turns out I made a second memory error. I thought that Sir Simon and Lady Tessa (I was supposed to ask them about the mystic arms) were in one of the castles (I thought it was Empath Abbey), but it turns out they are in Paws. They asked me if I had achieved avatarhood. I decided to keep being honest and say no. As a result I still don't "know" where the mystic arms can be found.

Onward to Trinsic, I learned about the virtue of Honor from the townsfolk, just as my welcomer Rigmore had stated. Kline told me the mantra and directed me towards folks who might know where the rune was located. I found Terrin past the trees in the southeast corner of towne hiding from a bull (this is the first one I've seen running wild in a towne) who told me where to search. I killed a bull when I was in Paws because ol' Red Eye attacked me first. (I found Smith the talking horse and decided not to steal any horses from Paws.) Dergin told me the location of the shrine of Honor and Swindrik (hidden in the east end) told me to ask the Folley tavern about mandrake.

The rune was in another corner of towne, not only past visibility-blocking trees, but a mage who liked Poison fields had cast a wall of them surrounding himself in the corner. I dispelled one of his fields, I'm sure to his annoyance. It seems that most of the useful places and people to see in Trinsic are in the corners of the towne. Skitle the skeleton told me about the purple stone and he was hiding away in another corner. Dupre, the towne chief, on the other hand was not skulking, and joined us to form a party-of-six. Dupre has a sword and plate mail. I will need to get him a bow. I asked the Tap at Trinsic about the white stone but he directed me to find Sloven at, guess where? I'm sure you guessed it - Lock Lake.

Since I was close to the shrine of Honor and Seer Hawkwind had directed me to meditate there for three cycles, I did so, and was granted partial avatarhood and a vision! Back when we first saw these in our first playing of Ultima IV, we did not know what they meant. I thought it was some sort of a bone, and it was only after we had seen a bunch did we figure out what these "visions" were. The shrine of Honor, like the shrine of compassion lies behind some poisonous marshes. The party tiptoed as close as it could before braving the fens. I managed to make it to the shrine without getting poisoned! I "blinked" our party out for good measure. The picture shows  the location of the shrine shortly after we teleported east. (We went back west to the edge of the marshes to take the snapshot.)

It was time to decide where to go next. I thought the first order of business was to get some bows. I was too lazy to look at my notes to figure out which weapons shop I had visited sold bows. I took the portal back to Castle Britannia, visited Lord British to get level raises for party members, and remembered to search for the rune of Spirituality. I now have seven of the eight runes. I have not visited Jhelom yet. I took the moongate to Yew thinking that was where I could find good bows (shouldn't they be made of yew?). They did not have them. How disappointing! I remembered that Minoc had magic weapons but not regular bows (and I did not have enough Gold for such expensive weapons yet) so I narrowed down the most likely location to be Vesper. I needed to go back and ask the barkeeper at the Axe-N-Ale about nightshade in any case.

Taking the portal from Yew back to Britain, I decided to take a short detour to the shrine of Compassion and meditate for two cycles. (Recall I had done one the previous time.) As luck would have it, shortly after I crossed the first bridge, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon! I lost no time in engaging them to win their ship. It was a swift battle as there were only three of them. I used the ship to get to the shrine of Compassion so I did not have to cross the second bridge by foot (by going through the poisonous marshes) or attempt to "Blink" my way across. After my meditation I was told: "Give of thy purse to those who beg and thy deed shall not be forgotten". I have been giving to beggars regularly when I talk to them so hopefully Seer Hawkwind will look upon that kindly (or compassionately) when I see him next.

Since I had a ship, I decided to sail to Vesper. Here's a picture of my beautiful new ship outside the village. Sure enough, there were bows in the Arms shop. I bought two, one for Dupre and the other for Iolo. I sold Dupre's sword and Julia's mace. Then I stopped by the Guild to get more gems. I think I'll be going down another dungeon soon, but I have not decided which one yet. The Axe-N-Ale was less helpful. It told me that to learn about nightshade I had to go back and find Virgil in Trinsic.

Since I had a ship and I was already relatively far east in the lands of Britannia, I thought it would make good sense to sail to achieve partial avatarhood in Honesty since Hawkwind had declared me ready. Other than a brief encounter with giant squids (which succumbed to my ship's cannons) it was a rather uneventful journey. Meditating at the shrine for three cycles, I was granted another vision. You can now see two small notches in the status bar in between my party's Food and Gold. The Honesty "notch" is bordering the bar so it it a little hard to see, although it is slightly longer than the Honor "notch".

13628 moves. Cumulative playing time: 8.5 hours