Ultima Underworld: Isili Thesh

Scenes like this--tables, weeds growing up through the dungeon floor--a clear space for sleeping--differentiate Ultima Underworld from any previous first-person game.

             

The moments I often like most in RPGs are when you set out with a plan, but something happens that sends you off in directions you didn't even know about, and you spend hours just trying to get your life back on track. The Skyrim quest "A Night to Remember" is a brilliant example of this, at least the first time it happens to you. From my experience so far, it appears that the new Kingdom Come: Deliverance is full of such moments.

This kind of adventure is only possible with a willingness to roll with the punches instead of reloading, damn the consequences, but this willingness only comes from trusting the game not to put you in an unwinnable situation. Despite Origin once putting me in a situation in which my characters had to burn themselves alive in a fire, the developers have generally avoided "walking dead" scenarios. So I decided to trust them when a few unusual situations emerged.

          

It was the last option that got me in trouble, but I wonder if calling her "sir" wouldn't have produced the same result.

           

The first was a simple one. I had only finished exploring a small fraction of Level 2 before I fell into some water, swam the wrong direction, and got sucked down into Level 3 by a drain. The game is nonlinear enough that this doesn't really matter. Later, I found stairs down to Level 4 before I found the way back up to Level 2, and I briefly considered pushing downward every time I found a stairway rather than insisting on "completing" a level first, and seeing how that turned out. I may still adopt that approach. (Wouldn't it be more in the spirit of "role-playing" if I was trying to rescue a princess?) Anyway, in the end this meant that I encountered the lizard men on Level 3 before the dwarves on Level 2. I also ended up killing a random gazer on Level 3 before killing the "quest gazer" on Level 2.

The second unexpected avenue came when I encountered a bandit on a bridge. She insulted me, I didn't take well to being insulted, and the encounter ended in violence. Unfortunately, it also turned every other bandit on the level hostile, and I seem to recall from previous experiences with the game that the bandits have some lore and trade goods to offer if you keep them friendly. For all I know, they're essential to completing the game. (If so, now would be a good time to tell me.) I hope not, as I really like the idea that Ultima Underworld gives you multiple paths.

          

The complete (I hope) Level 2. I didn't force my way into the dwarf king's vault in the west.

        

Level 2 was otherwise a fairly straightforward level. I'm not sure I found a single secret door. Friendly dwarves inhabited a large area to the south. They were ruled by a leader named Goldthirst, and true to his name, he was surrounded by little piles of gold. He asked me to kill a gazer that had invaded his mines.

            

Pretty girls, beware of his heart of gold.

        

The mines showed frequent walls with gold veins, and I thought I remembered there was some way to "mine" them, but I couldn't get anything to work and didn't really need the gold anyway. I found the gazer and killed it in a long battle.

              

I enjoyed the death animation.

         

Goldthirst's reward was a gem cutter, which I'm sure will help me solve some puzzle later.

           

Turning in the side quest.

           

An addled dwarf named Ironwit wanted me to recover his blueprints, which were on a high platform and only accessible by drinking a "Levitate" potion. It wasn't difficult, and I suspect the "puzzle" was only there so the player could get a sense of how vertical movement works for later, more complex puzzles. 

The northeast had an area sealed by a portcullis, but I was able to use a pole to trip the lever on the other side. It led to a large room with a couple of skeletons guarding an orb. Looking into the orb showed me a vision of a square room with perhaps some lava in the center and a round object in the middle of the lava. Some slimes were creeping about. I'm not sure what that was about.

     

I was proud of figuring out this solution.

            

A major "find" on Level 2 was a dwarven smith named Shak who has a forge at the end of a long cavernous passage. He not only had a lot of good items for sale but would repair my items as well, and for fairly cheap money. (The most I paid was 4 gold pieces for my breastplate.) When he first told me that repairing my axe would take 23 minutes, I figured I'd walk to the other side of the cavern and back, and he'd be done, but it turns out that he meant 23 minutes real time. I ended up getting most of my items repaired while writing this entry and letting my character stand there in the forge.

            

How about you charge me 5 pieces of gold and repair it in 4 minutes?

        

There's probably a danger in fetishizing pristine equipment. Condition of equipment ranges from "excellent" to "broken" and passes through "serviceable," "worn," and "badly worn" on the way. (I'm not really sure how much the condition affects its utility. Is a "serviceable" long sword worse than an "excellent" short sword? I don't know if there's any way to tell.) The amount of time it takes seems to be a rough bell curve. A few swings is enough for a weapon to go from "excellent" to "serviceable," but it will stay at the latter condition for a long time, as it will at "worn." Once you hit "badly worn," you're in danger of breaking with every swing. Anyway, the point is that if you march out of Shak's forge with everything in "excellent" condition, you get discouraged by how much damage everything seems to take in the very next battle.

Only late in the game did it occur to me to try to use Shak's anvil to repair things myself, but at my skill (11), I only seem to be capable of reliably going from "badly worn" to "serviceable"--never to "excellent." I haven't found any other anvils.

             

Level 3. Big area in the northwest has me concerned. I love the ability to take notes.

             

Level 3 was populated (or de-populated) by the aforementioned bandits plus enclaves of green and red lizardmen. I don't think the creatures have ever appeared in an Ultima before, although the player can turn himself into a lizardman in Akalabeth. The manual says that lizardmen were created by Mondain and were exterminated after his defeat--all except a clan hiding in the Abyss. Intelligent and friendly, most are capable of understanding human language but not speaking it.

Communicating with them meant solving an easy but enjoyable puzzle. Locked in a cell in the lizardmen's area was a human mage named Urgo, guarded by a lizardman jailer. The lizardman asked me questions in his own language when I spoke to him, but of course I didn't understand. Urgo, meanwhile, understood both common tongue and lizardman, but he was mute. I had to give him some food first and then have him pantomime the meanings to the various lizardman words, which I typed in.

             

Urgo helps me figure it out.

        

Using the knowledge from Urgo, I was able to have a conversation with the jailer, whose first question was along the lines of, "Are you friendly or aggressive?" You don't want to get that one wrong. It transpired that Urgo was in jail for stealing food and assaulting lizardmen, but the jailer would let him go if I paid a "bounty" of food. I turned over several items and Urgo was able to go free. I wonder if I'll see him again among the "seers" on a lower level.

          

I'm now bilingual!

     

One lizardman named Iss'leek asked me to bring him a red ruby. He already had blue and green gems on a platform near him, so he must have been looking to complete a set. I cursed because I had just traded a ruby to Shak, so I had to go back up to Level 2 and buy it back. In return, Iss'leek gave me a scrap of paper with the formula for "Water Walk" on it.

            

Pleasing a gem collector.

        

A lizardman named Ishtass asked me to find out what happened to his former leader, Ossikka, who had gone exploring upriver. With the "Water Walk" spell assisting, I found Ossikka's remains in a nearby alcove along with a couple of runes and a clue about the location of Caliburn's blade (see below). In return for this news, Ishtass gave me a sack with some more runes and a wand.

               

No word on what killed the missing lizard man.

              

Other than the lizardmen and bandits, there was a single human on the level named Zak. He said that he was afraid of the darkness and sold torches and candles to protect against it.

           

You really chose the wrong place to live.

           

Encumbrance has been a constant struggle. In the space of a single entry, I went from picking up almost everything to keeping only the things I was too scared to discard, and I still have no extra room. I wasted a lot of time bartering during this session, trying to convert junk into gold pieces or to grab a few choice items from NPCs. Most of what I "bought" was a waste of time, as I would repeatedly spend 10 minutes trading for something like a chain coif only to find a steel helmet on the ground a few minutes later.

          

The kind of cache I would have picked over relentlessly on Level 1, I just leave behind now.

            

The bartering system is still interesting. When you start to trade, you can see up to four items in the NPC's inventory and load up to four items in your "barter" inventory. (If the NPC has more than four items, I think you get a random selection. You have to exit and re-enter to see different items.) You select what you want from the NPC and what you're willing to trade for it and see if he agrees. I find that most of the trades are enormously one-sided towards the NPC, but then again I don't have a high (or any) "Appraise" skill. I might start off by wanting an axe and offer a mace for it. He says no, so I add a shield. Still no. I add three cheese wheels and two gold nuggets. Finally, he says yes, having obtained three pieces of equipment and some gold for one weapon. Fortunately, the dungeon is so strewn with items that the imbalance doesn't really matter.

             

Exchanging two swords and a leather cap for a chain coif.

         

Trying to trade for gold is also interesting. You can only trade for an NPC's entire gold "pile," so if he has 15 and I'm trying to sell a stray short sword, I know he won't go for it. I have to offer the sword plus, say, 12 gold pieces from my own pile to effectively sell the sword for 3 gold pieces.

Anyway, the system is mostly wasted because NPCs rarely have anything you want (at least, so far) and the dungeon is already strewn with equipment and riches. I stopped once I started having inventory problems. First, I discarded my backup items, trusting that I could always find another sword or axe or return to a cache I'm keeping on Level 3. When that wasn't enough, I got rid of all my spare light sources--why waste space on candles, torches, lanterns, and oil when I have In Lor? When that wasn't enough, I stopped carrying extra food. I find edible plants every time I turn a corner, at some point I got a fishing pole that allows me to catch fish whenever I want in any river, and there's always the In Mani Ylem ("Create Food") spell.

           

I suspect this would be harder in real life.

          

But even with that, I'm at my maximum. I have half a dozen potions I'm worried I'll need later, eight keys that I'm afraid to throw away, a variety of tools (pole, fishing pole, rock hammer, gem cutter) that could turn out to be invaluable, and a huge number of things that I suspect are only good for trade value, but might be the object of a quest, including red and blue gems, a crown, two "resilient spheres," a scepter, a mandolin, a flute, and a bunch of gold nuggets.

I also have three wands and a ring that I can't identify. I don't understand the identification system in the game at all. I have a modest amount of points in "Lore," but it never tells me anything useful. If I pay Shak, he tells me only its value, not what it is.

After I cleared out the bandits on Level 3, I set up a room beyond a secret door as my equipment stash. It's convenient to stairways both up and down.

Finally, because I chaffed some readers by indicating that I played with it off, I'll mention the music. I agree that it is well done. There are several "exploration" compositions (or one with several themes) in a minor key that complement the ominousness of exploring a dungeon in the dark. One of the themes is notably sparse, evoking something more akin to background noises--drips, creaks, growls--than traditional "music." When combat arrives, the music shifts to a fast-paced theme that transitions seamlessly to a few cadence chords when the final blow is struck. This isn't the first "contextual music" we've seen in RPGs--among others, Quest for Glory has done it notably well, including leitmotifs for individual characters--but it is rare, and George "The Fat Man" Sanger and Dave Govett deserve the accolades that they have received. Unfortunately, I simply do not like background music whether I'm playing a game or answering my e-mail, and I have turned it off again.

Miscellaneous notes:

            

• Once you pick up food, the game tracks how long you've had it. When you look at it, it will say "a day-old loaf of bread" or "a fresh fish." I think my character would be more interested in how old it was when I found it. How can an ear of corn be only a day old if it's in a dungeon?

• If you look at items in the environment, the game notes if they belong to an NPC. If you mess with them or pick them up, the NPC's disposition will drop quickly.

• Midway through this session, I decided to switch my primary weapon from an axe to a sword because I noted that swords swing faster. Also, I had this idea that when I finally find Caliburn, I'll be able to use it as a weapon instead of carrying a second weapon and adding to my encumbrance. Another factor was that I chanted SUMM RA at an ankh and got sword, sword, attack. 

• I've found lots of slings, one bow, and one crossbow, but missile weapons just seem too cumbersome in this game to bother with. Any differing experiences?

• If you eat a mushroom, the screen turns all psychedelic. It doesn't last very long.

• A few times, I have been attacked by monsters in areas I already cleared, indicating some re-spawning is going on.

           

A pack of goblins that wasn't here before.

          

• There is more than one ankh per level. I think Level 3 had three.

• I get poisoned a lot from bats, rats, spiders, and walking over some plants, but I long ran out of the leeches that cure it. I mostly just let it go away on its own. It's definitely not the killer here that it is in the surface-based Ultima games. 

• Both Level 2 and Level 3 had an inaccessible area in the middle of the map with a circular grate looking into it. On both levels, clicking on the grate lets you look into this central shaft. I don't know if I'll ever enter that shaft, but it may have something to do with a note I found that read, "Go to the very base of the Abyss, then battle your way back up, to find the key to your fortitude."

             

Peering down the dark shaft.

          

My character ends this session at Level 11. I saved up most of my skill advancements (you get two per level) until nearly the end because I was still collecting the mantras. You find them on scraps of paper, books, inscriptions on walls, and from NPCs. In addition to the ones that choose a random selection of skills from a category, I have "Unarmed," "Attack," "Defense," "Tracking," "Charm," "Appraise," "Acrobat," "Repair," "Search," and "Swim." Honestly, I've been putting most of my points into weapons, "Attack," "Mana," and "Casting" with the occasional allocation to "Lore" (hoping it eventually does something), "Search," and "Picklock." I figure "Swim" is obviated by the "Water Walk" spell; I'm really lost on what "Tracking" does; and "Acrobat" (which reduces damage from falls) seems to be wasted if you're just careful.

         

I can't see wasting points on this, but let me know if I'm missing something.

         

My rune bag has Bet, Des, Hur, In, Jux, Lor, Mani, Ort, Por, Rel, Sanct, Uus, Wis, and Ylem. Almost all of my spellcasting has been In Lor ("Light") or In Bet Mani ("Lesser Heal"), with a few castings of Ylem Por ("Water Walk") after I got it. Looking through the list of spells I'm capable of casting, I don't see a lot of others that fit well with my gameplay style. It's too annoying to put the runes together to waste a lot of time alternating between attack and defense spells in combat, and I don't really see how you could effectively play Ultima Underworld as a stealth game. I haven't had to flee from any enemies so desperately that I need to spike doors (or cast "Strengthen Door") behind me. I guess Hur Por ("Levitate") could come in handy for some navigation--I used a potion to solve a puzzle. An Nox ("Cure Poison") will come in handy if I ever find Nox. Finding Flam will also open some useful offensive and defensive options. 

        

"Water Walk" sure made dealing with these lurkers easier.

       

Overall, I'm playing the game primarily as a fighter who uses the occasional spell to assist. I'm curious whether it's possible to play it completely the other way. Do spellcasting classes get enough points that you could cast more than a few "Lightning" spells before having to rest?

Towards the end of the session, I finally got a bead on one of the Talismans of Virtue. Shak had told me that the sword Caliburn had been broken into blade and pommel and that the Shield of Valor had once belonged to Blackthorn. A note on Ossikka's body said that I'd find the blade in the southeast, behind a wall, so I spent a long time searching walls before I found a secret door. It led to an alcove with a switch, which drained some of the water and opened the way to a hidden area.

I was surprised when the ghost fell to a non-magic weapon, but I guess not everyone uses Dungeons & Dragons rules.

        

A spider and a ghost guarded the passage, which led to an ankh and then a large room with the blade by itself on a platform. One-sixteenth done?

I'm guessing I'll need Shak to fix this once I find the pommel.

          

Whew. I think that's the last time I'll try to cover two levels in one entry, but the game is authentically a blast, and it's hard to make myself stop playing to write. As I said in the first entry, this game would have been remembered for its engine alone, but the developers coupled it with an engaging story and fantastic exploration, dialogue, and role-playing choices. It's going to be a tough act to follow.

Time so far: 12 hours (not counting time spent waiting for Shak to fix things)