Shrine Visiting and Artifact Collecting

I boarded the other ship I had left on the mainland close to the islands where I found the horn. It was time to go on a shrine tour. I sailed south until hitting the north coast of Britannia. First stop, the shrine of Justice. I docked as close as I could before stepping out into the marshes. No one was poisoned on the way in, but Julia and Dupre were poisoned on the way out. I did, however, achieve partial avatarhood in Justice after meditating for three cycles. I was granted a vision similar to the one I had seen at the shrines of Honesty and Honor.

I then sailed east until I reached the Bay of Minoc. I passed the entrance to the dungeon Covetous but decided to save that for another trip. Instead I docked in the bay and entered the moongate when the moons were full to enter the shrine of Spirituality. The advice I got was: "Seek ye to know thyself. Visit the seer often for he can see into thy inner being." My plan was to head south, but when I neared the strange single patch of marsh, a band of skeletons showed up from the East. I repositioned myself to battle the skeletons so that they would be standing on the patch of marsh when we did battle. In the meantime a band of ettins showed up from the west and I did battle with them before engaging the skeletons. After defeating both groups I picked up the gold left by the ettins but left the chest from the skeletons. This was the strategy I used 27 years ago so I could search for mandrake root on this spot without getting poisoned. But since I have not visited Lock Lake and learned the location of mandrake root, I refrained from searching the space during a black night. In the meantime a group of cyclops approached from the north. Britannia seems to be getting wilder. At least it helps me accumulate treasure to pay for better weapons.

I went to Vesper to visit the guild so that I could finally buy a sextant. It cost 900gp! My memory served me poorly. I thought it would be 600gp. Thankfully, I had enough gold, and I only need one of these. While I was in the vicinity I also made a pitstop at the shrine of Sacrifice and meditated for one cycle. The advice: "To give thy last gold piece unto the needy shows good measure of self-sacrifice." Okay, I will need to do that at some point. (I remembered this from way back but had not gotten around to trying it yet because I hadn't been "told" yet.) The party made its way back to the Minoc moongate and I took the opportunity to visit the shrine of Spirituality again, this time meditating for two cycles. Hopefully all this meditating will put me in Hawkwind's good books where this virtue is concerned. I paid him a quick visit and although he didn't think I had "made it" in Spirituality, he did think I had shown sufficient valor.

After the usual visit with Lord British, the party traveled by moongate to the Valerian Isles. Since I had conveniently parked a frigate near Jhelom, it was easy to visit the shrine and achieve partial avatarhood. I am now a half-avatar, having partial avatarhood in four areas! I was granted a vision that looked different from the first three. I remember being confused when I first saw these visions 27 years ago. I thought this was some sort of a candelabra, and had not realized it was a (written) rune.

The plan was now to sail west until I reached the island of the Great Stygian Abyss. Since I would be approaching from the west, I should not run into Pirate's Cove which I remembered had an eastern opening. Nearing the island I decided to peer at a gem so I would know where the entrance was located. This was at M'P" P'E". It is useful to have the sextant. I sailed around the northern tip before approaching the entrance. I then carefully blew the silver horn. It sounded an eerie tone!

After three meditative cycles, I achieved partial avatarhood in Humility and was granted another vision. As I exited the shrine I noticed that the red circle between my Food and Gold values was no longer present and I quickly blew the horn again before the endless daemon horde showed up. 27 years ago when we first found the shrine of humility, we did not know about the horn nor did we know there was an endless daemon horde. In fact, we thought the game had a bug and we had to restart. We almost gave up on the game thinking it could not be won because of a bug in our version of the game. It was very frustrating. However in due time, we did learn the secret of the horn.

Since I had a sextant, we decided to pick up the Bell of Courage and the Skull of Mondain given that the latitudes and longitudes had been provided by the appropriate townsfolk. Even without a sextant, the strange waters surrounding the bell would have given it away as a place to search. Our first time through, we never did run across this patch of sea until we knew the location of the bell specifically.

As to the skull however, we had previously sailed near its location without knowing of its presence. I did enjoy seeing this in color. The monochrome does not quite do this justice. It will be really neat to see the great Stygian Abyss in color when I eventually get there.

It was time to see Lord British. My experience had gone up with the finding of these artifacts and several battles along the way. As we arrived, a pirate ship sailed right up the coast outside Castle Britannia. The party easily defeated the rogues and now I have a fourth ship. Hopefully I will find a whirlpool soon so I can get to Lock Lake. Oddly enough I haven't yet found the person who will tell me this information. Perhaps I need to go through my notes again more carefully before the next outing.

Lord British raised me to Level 7 so I can now look for another companion, either Shamino or Geoffrey. In the meantime, now that I had a sextant, it was time to acquire some nightshade. I made my way to the exact spot and waited for a dark night before searching as much as possible. We stayed three nights and were constantly interrupted by bands of orcs and trolls during our search. We did, however, manage to harvest 33 clumps of nightshade. Now that I have searched at the "official" spot, I think I will go ahead and use the easier and more convenient "unofficial" spot the next time around. Actually I don't know if this version has that feature - I will have to check. My old Apple II version certainly did.

24436 moves. Cumulative playing time = 13 hours.