Ultima V: World Tour

Thanks for getting my hopes up, Nikolaj.

Aboard my magic carpet, I decided to follow up on my clues, visit the major towns, and see the world, hopefully earning enough money from random encounters to buy a frigate and start hitting the Island of the Abyss.

I started heading for the eastern desert, but I popped into a lighthouse called Waveguide and encountered this guy:


No one who says "in the name of Mondain" (the very evil villain from the first Ultima) can be a particularly good fellow. He didn't have much to say except to yell at me, and his wife was practically catatonic, like Chris Cooper's wife in American Beauty. A sad little side trip.

In the eastern desert, much sooner than I expected, I found the hut of the daemon who supposedly knows something about the Shadowlord of Hatred. I found him working in a field.


Now, I want to be clear here because I think Ultima VI or Ultima VII does a major retcon on this character. He's a daemon. There's no question about it. He has the daemon icon. If I attack him, he's capable of summoning other daemons and possessing me. If I (l)ook at him, it says "thou dost see a daemon." Got it? He's a daemon. Not anything else.

Anyway, he says that he served evil until Lord British apparently did a reverse-Stockholm Syndrome on him, and he made his way to the surface to be a farmer. None of my prodding got him to tell me where Lord British actually is. He gave me the name of the Shadowlord of Hatred--Astaroth (which traces somehow to Babylonian mythology)--but warned me not to yell it.

From there I went to Moonglow, partly because it's the first city in the order of virtues and partly because I had a clue to ask someone named Malik about swords of glass ("it was a passable game to which thou didst not give enough of a chance"). While there, I chanced upon Lord Stuart the Hungry, who had a "create food" spell that he gave me. I found Malik, just a kid (not a Sith lord), and he sent me on to a pirate in Buccaneer's Den for the glass sword clue. His grandmother, a fortune teller, told me where to find Blackthorn's Castle, the Word of Power for the Dungeon Deceit, and the Mantra of Honesty. The developers got a little lazy on this one.

A guy in a tower in the center of town cleared up my question about the stars and comets. (judgemonroe gave me the clue in a comment yesterday, too.) The stars represent the eight towns, the three comets represent the Shadowlords, and looking at the firmament tells me which Shadowlords are in which towns. Since the worst you have to do is wait a day if they're present, I'm not sure what this information does for me--unless I need it to go hunting them later. Anyway, when I gave the wizard the Resistance password, he sent me on to a mage named Goeth in Jhelom to ask about a new "power of the moongates."

Leaving Moonglow, I decided to go along the north coast of Britannia, stopping in Minoc before turning south to Skara Brae and Sir Simon (someplace "west of Spiritwood"). I'll spare you a blow-by-blow account of all of the towns, but here are some highlights from the cities and my wilderness exploration:

• All of the towns are in the same locations as Ultima IV, but there are a lot more places to explore. IV had eight towns, three keeps, Lord British's castle, and I think three hamlets (oddly, Vesper is gone in V, or I somehow missed it). V has almost all those plus a bunch of lighthouses, huts, castles, and new villages. I like finding new things in familiar territory.

• The game doesn't do a great job of it, partly because there isn't quite enough dialogue and it's not subtle, but it accurately portrays how some people, even "good" people, can come to support tyranny. We have a healer in Minoc, for instance, who praises Blackthorn for instituting martial law--it's cut down on factional skirmishes that leave people injured. A mayor likes the new laws for their unambiguity. Complexity and nuance are the enemies of tyranny.

• A frigate will run me 1121 gold. I found this out from Captain Blythe in Minoc, who works his two apprentices 7 days a week making sails. One of them gave me the mantra of sacrifice, and her mother Fiona, who runs the poor house, knew the Word of Power for the Dungeon Covetous.

I pictured her looking like Fiona from "Burn Notice."

• A beggar in Minoc, after I gave him a bunch of gold, told me that the armorer had been going about town at noon looking shifty. So I followed him and watched him dither around by a tree. Searching the tree after he left, I found "5 odd keys." Apparently, they open magic locks. I bought 5 more from a chef in Serpent's Hold.

• Like Ultima IV and Might & Magic, the game map wraps back around on itself, which makes no sense unless the world is a cube (and even then it might make no sense; I'm having trouble visualizing properly).

• I found Iolo's hut again and talked to Smith, and got the joke where he told me about INFINITY. Dumb horse.

• In Skara Brae, I found Froed, whose father, Greymarch, I had met in the jail in Yew. I returned to Yew to tell Greymarch, who gave me a clue about Lord British's sceptre, which apparently has protective powers. I need to find Sir Simon (who I was already looking for) to ask about it.
  

• Lord British finally showed up at night and raised me a level.

• At some point, I realized that the Ultima IV classes no longer apply. I am an "Avatar"; Shamino is a fighter instead of a ranger; Iolo and Gwenno are bards, so that's cool; but Julia is also a bard instead of a tinker.

• Toshi wasn't doing anything for me, so I dumped him at the inn in Skara Brae. At the same inn, I met Saul, who told me where to find mandrake and nightshade (same places as in Ultima IV). Oddly, though, these reagents are for sale at shops now. You don't have to find them in the wild.

• I have a pocket watch that tells me the time (it's more precise than watching the sun at the top of the screen). I just noticed.

• Blackthorn is seeking the mantras to the shrines so he can destroy them. This from a guy named Kindor who was nearly killed by Shadowlords.

• In Serpent's Hold, I met a manacled prisoner who claimed he helped build Blackthorn's castle. He said it was full of traps.

• I started hearing about "shards." This vaguely rings a bell from the time I played the game as a teenager. Apparently, there are three of them--one for each Shadowlord--located somewhere in the Underworld. A guy in Serpent's Hold said he had a vision about where to find one of them.

That is one specific vision.

• Monsieur Loubet, the fencing master of Serpent's Hold, gave me the clue that was probably supposed to start my quest for the magic carpet. He said he arrived in Britannia on one as a child, then sold it to a mage named Bandaii in Paws (who first gave me the clue). He was oblivious to the fact that I was, in fact, riding his magic carpet during the entire conversation.

Eventually, I decided I had seen all of the world that I could see from my magic carpet, so I decided to head into the Dungeon Covetous, which is about six steps from Minoc, until I had enough gold to return to Minoc and get my frigate. The dungeon had an undead theme, and it took about two hours to get the necessary gold, but when I was done, the world was open to me.


Next stops: Buccaneer's Den, New Magincia, the Island of the Abyss, Jhelom, and that island where Sir Simon is.