The Last Stone

After picking up Geoffrey and arming him with a bow, the party set sail north towards Skara Brae skirting the west coast of Britannia. I passed the isles south of Spiritwood and rounded the island of Skara Brae keeping close to the coastline until finding the mouth of the river that would lead to the dungeon Shame. I had seven of the eight colored stones and had left purple for the last. The entrance to Shame is laced with poison. Seven of my party made it through but Shamino got poisoned just before we passed through the dungeon doors.

I had a vague memory that this dungeon is complicated. I thought that the stone would be on Level 8 and that perhaps I could also visit an altar room if one was nearby, since I still needed to get the three-part key. I quickly realized that the entry ladder goes all the way down to Level 7. I recall that the Apple II version had some sort of bug whereby if you X-ited a balloon without landing properly (i.e. you still have a bird's eye view over the terrain), then you could take the ladder all the way down to Level 9 and get unlimited gold! Since illegal jumping out of the balloon (with no harm) is not permitted at present, I could not explore if this bug exists in the GOG version.

The first dungeon room was interesting. Casting a "View" spell showed that I had to head east after defeating the denizens of the crypt. I actually remembered how to trigger open the secret passage. Unfortunately I had to get poisoned while stepping in the southeast corner. This moved what I think is supposed to represent a coffin or gravestone - actually I'm not sure what those two-square rectangles represent. Iolo stepped in the space of the one that opened up, and the passageway east was revealed.

I worked my way back up to Level 4 which is the crucial section of the dungeon that connects the different areas. There is a suite of five rooms arranged in a cross-shape, the center of which contains a twister, a ghost and a giant squid. I first went west and worked my way down to Level 6 where Katrina opened many treasure chests. The Gold was not unlimited, though, and I am saving up to get more magic weapons before entering the abyss. I then worked my way down to Level 8 only to find that the stone was not there.

The party backtracked to Level 4, fighting the twister, ghost and giant squid again, before exiting south. I worked my way back up to Level 2 and was rewarded with finding the purple stone. I was not sufficiently motivated to work my way back down to an altar room so I cast two "Y-up" spells to leave the dungeon. I parked my ship along a narrow section of the river, and then fought several battles on my way back to Castle Britannia.

36711 moves. Cumulative playing time = 20.5 hours.

The Word of Passage

I am on vacation today and am traveling on an express bus. This should give me a good long stretch of uninterrupted Ultima gaming. My plan was to recover the orange stone first and, if there is time, I might also attempt the purple stone. First I decided to journey to Vesper to buy some gems. Along the way we made pitstops to search for mandrake root and nightshade on dark nights. A visit to the shrine of Sacrifice was included in our tour of East Britannia. I meditated for two cycles and was told that to flee and leave my companions is a self-serving action to be avoided. I was not planning on doing this anytime soon. So much for the helpful advice. East Britannia was full of baddies so my tour included cleaning up the area and being paid in Gold. By the time I got back to civilization, I had over 5000 gp. It was time to visit Buccaneer's Den.

Taking one of the ships parked outside LB's Castle, I sailed southeast to the remote island navigating by sextant. My previous visit was a fluke and I did not have a sextant then. However my ridiculous memory for useless Ultima IV facts 27 years ago "told" me that the location was at J'O" I'I". I found the den easily enough and made straight for the Arms dealer to buy a magic wand. I also sold my lousy sling for a measly sum. I made my usual stop to the magic shop to load up on black pearl, fighting the usual balron and sea serpent along the way. My other goal was to find a survivor of the H.M.S. cape to tell me where to find the wheel but I could not find anyone I had missed in my previous visit. After exiting the den of thieves, I sailed due north to visit the shrine of Compassion to meditate for three cycles. The shrine said "Third, light the Candle of Love at the entrance to the Great Stygian Abyss." After exiting the shrine, another pirate ship appeared. This is the second one I have encountered in this area and after battling the pirates I added one more ship to my small fleet. I sailed both ships back to LB's Castle.

I traveled by moongate to Skara Brae and discovered the ship I had left there (to visit the dungeon Shame later) had disappeared! Tit for tat, perhaps? I will have to move another one to the west coast of Britannia later. I popped into Skara Brae to use up my remaining gold on provisions, and for good measure I gave my LAST gold piece to a beggar as advised during an earlier shrine visit. Hopefully Hawkwind will think well of this sacrificial act. I mixed my customary magic spells and was now ready to go down a dungeon to recover the stone. The moongates brought me to Minoc and I was pleased to find that the ship I had left at the bay was still there. It was a short sail to the dungeon Covetous.

The dungeon journey was quite straightforward and lucrative. The first dungeon room was rather interesting. At first glance it had skeletons and ghosts and then they moved to reveal corpses, perhaps a portend of things to come. The ghosts and skeletons were no match for my new magic wand and my heavily armed crew. I ran into a group of ghosts on level 2 and after a quick barrage from my party, they were sent fleeing. The fact that they can pass through walls meant that one of them got away. There were several rooms that required triggering the opening of secret passages in levels 3 and 4. The one on Level 4 that was guarded by a group of Liches required stepping on two secret spots to open up a westward passageway that would lead to the lower levels. Level 5 was stocked with treasure. Level 6 had two magic balls which Katrina and Jaana touched. I cast healing spells on them after the balls sapped their strength but increased their stats. Katrina even overtook me in dexterity. I think she will be opening some treasure chests for a while. There was a very interesting room in Level 7. When the party entered everyone was on the same spot. The room was populated with Gazers and Headless. I killed a Gazer with my powerful magic wand in the opening salvo. The orange stone was on the same level and I easily recovered it and we "X-it-ed" the dungeon.

After parking my ship in the bay south of Minoc, I traveled by moongate to Verity Isle to stock up on some reagents at Moonglow and to visit the Lycaeum. The ruler, Robert Frasier, told me a third of the word of passage (or one syllable) and urged me to find the rest.

With a quick moongate back to Britain, I paid Hawkwind a visit and he seemed to think that I worthy in the virtue of Spirituality. All those shrine meditations must have paid off. I then took the moongate to the forest of Yew with the intention of visiting Empath Abbey to get the second syllable of the word of passage. Not consulting the map, I misremembered the city's location and headed northwest instead of southwest. After battling orcs and other marauding groups I finally made it to the room of R & M. Lord Robert gave me the second syllable. I headed back into the forest to find the moongate but found Yew instead. Thankfully, I have the traverse between Yew and the portal location down to a science. I took the moongate back to Britain to pick up a ship. The party sailed due south, stopping in Paws so that we could replenish our ginseng and garlic supply. It was now time to head towards Serpent Castle for the third syllable.

To test out the bug, instead of going to Sentri's throne, I was going to talk to the guard at the entrance. Sentri-guard did not disappoint and he gave me the information I needed to complete the word of passage. I decided to explore the castle anyway to see if I could find the survivor from the H.M.S. Cape. It turns out I missed the wounded sailor Lassorn in a room where I thought he was just someone sleeping. He told me that the ship went down in the deep waters of the Bay of Heroes. I then decided to head to the Healers to donate blood so that Hawkwind would think me sufficiently sacrificial, but then I encountered my second bug in Serpent's Hold. I could not talk to the healer!

Consulting my beautiful map, I pinpointed the bay, made sail, and after a systematic search of the deep waters, found the wheel. 27 years ago sans map, we had no idea where the Bay of Heroes was located. It turns out that because the bay was not too far from Serpents Hold, we were were able to find it relatively quickly. There was an odd distortion in the waters captured by my snapshot. On my way to the bay, I also spotted a waterspout, which I carefully avoided this time around. Way back during our first outing, I did not know what it was and fired on it. Then we got too close and our ship took horrific damage.

I then sailed due west towards the Valerian isles where I meditated at the shrine of Valor for three cycles. The message: "First, ring the Bell of Courage at the entrance to the Great Stygian Abyss!" I parked the ship by Jhelom and took the moongate back to Castle Britannia so that I could be raised to Level 8. As you can see the jesters crowded around to celebrate me reaching my highest level. My next goal is to pick up Geoffrey and then retrieve the last stone.

35579 moves. Cumulative playing time = 19.5 hours

A Quick Trip into Destard

The problem with busy and tiring work weekdays is that I do not have as much time and energy to go adventuring. Today I decided to take a quick trip down the dungeon Destard to get the red stone. I did not quite remember the location of the dungeon although I had a rough idea as to its whereabouts. There were a few run-ins with the denizens of the realm but the evil creatures were easily dispatched. The dungeon itself was not too difficult. On Level 4 there is a long and windy corridor full of treasure chests. One has to go through a room with Phantoms twice to get the Gold. I did not remember what Phantoms looked like but the moment I saw the "Energy Fields", I started firing at them.

Back when we first started playing, I'm not sure I noticed the flickering of the energy fields in monochrome. This is quite obvious in color where the phantoms flicker between pink and red. In the first battle, I did not use any spells. However in the second battle, Jaana cast the party's first Tremor spell. It was very effective and eliminated 8 of the 13 Phantoms giving her 80 experience points in one go. The party also obtained 1225 Gold on that level at the cost of Kiboko losing hit points to acid traps. I did run out of gems in Level 5 and had to mix some View spells.

There were no tricky secret passage rooms and I quickly made it down to Level 7 to get the red stone. This was followed by a quick X-it spell. I took the Trinsic portal back to Castle Britannia to see Lord British who raised Julia and Shamino to Levels 5 and 4 respectively.

30442 moves. Cumulative playing time = 16.5 hours