Ultima Underworld: Things Fall Apart

You mean "again," right?

        

I ended the last entry noting that I had all of my runes, and that as such, I would try to experiment more with the game's many spells. I then descended to Level 7, which immediately sucked away my mana and left it empty for nearly this entire session. This was particularly annoying because the level had a lot of creatures of various types, and it would have been a great place to test out spells.

Level 7 was just an awful experience. I mean, more so for the character than the player, but still. In contrast to the openness of previous levels, it had a ton of sectioned areas largely inaccessible from each other and one-way paths and doors. Where previous levels were largely solvable from within the level, solving the main puzzles of Level 7 required me to dip down into Level 8 (which seems to be even more partitioned). And in addition to the lack of mana, there were plenty of places in the level where health just disappeared for no reason, often killing me. I think I had more reloads on Level 7 than the entire game combined leading up to it.

          

Between the platforms and the lava, it's the platforms that are dangerous. I have boots for the lava; the platforms damage my health for no reason.

         

Oh, and I may have encountered a game-breaking bug.

When I first arrived, I ran into a fighter named Cardon at the bottom of the stairs. He wanted a bottle of port, which I didn't have, so he didn't offer me a lot of help. Later down the path, I found a goblin guarding a passageway, and the goblin demanded a medallion. Since I didn't have a medallion, any option I chose resulted in combat with the goblin and about half a dozen other goblins and trolls in the area.

            

Troll massacre!

          

A few minutes later, I ran into another goblin asking for a medallion behind a portcullis, and also had to fight a bunch more goblins and trolls. At this point, I was feeling like I had messed up and perhaps needed to try harder to find this medallion. In any event, I was so weakened from combat that I decided to return to the previous level and either rest or let my mana recharge enough to cast a few healing spells.

That's when it happened: the dreaded inventory bug message.

               

          

This was the first time I'd seen it. Someone told me that it happens because a level accumulates too many items. I thought maybe I could make it go away if I reloaded from a save before I descended to Level 7, then run around Level 6 destroying superfluous items.

It didn't work, but the experience was useful in other ways. First, I found some more incense blocks and burned them, giving me two more visions of the Cup of Wonder--more about that below. Second, I found a bottle of port for Cardon. As for the inventory bug, I don't know if it will prove fatal or not. Nothing seems to have gotten corrupted in my carried inventory. I hope I can hang on until the end of the game.

Thus re-starting Level 7, I gave Cardon the port, and he had a lot to say. The lack of spellcasting ability on the level is the work of a mage who rules over the level and has taken a number of prisoners, including Cardon's brother. He confirmed that the wizard's minions look for a medallion of passage and said that he lost one in the "haunted mines" to the southeast.

         

These creatures were new on this level and almost comically easy.

         

I did my best to make my way to the southeast, sometimes leaping high over lava flows, sometimes walking on top of them. I battled through walking trees, giant spiders, gazers, and ghosts, and ultimately found the medallion. In the end, it turned out to be mostly a waste of time. It kept the wizard's guards at bay for a while, but they turned hostile once I escaped the prison, and I had to kill them all in the end.

           

I prolonged his life a little while.

          

The culmination of the goblin area was a prison. To get in, I had to bribe a troll guard with a few gems, the last time (I suspect) that wealth will be important in the game unless I want to identify items or have the dwarven smith repair them.

           

Probably my last barter.

           

The prison, among several massive doors I couldn't open yet, had several helpful NPCs. A guy named Naruto gave the name of the evil wizard as "Tyball" (has this appeared earlier in the game?) and said that Tyball's orb is responsible for draining everyone's mana and transferring it to Tyball. He suggested that if I could find the material the orb is made from, I can destroy it with that. He also provided the location of an important key.

         

Learning the name of the bad guy for the first time.

           

A man named Griffle said that Tyball keeps prisoners to work the mines on the next level, but he doesn't know what they're mining (Tyball seems uninterested in gold). A dwarf named Kallistan gave me a crystal shard that he'd found in the mines and said that it often makes an eerie keening. I think it helped me find a secret door later or something. Dantes, a human, told me of piles of treasure on the next level and showed me an escape tunnel he'd dug. This turned out to be important because the troll had locked the prison behind me, and the escape tunnel was the only way out.

The escape tunnel led to a long river of fire, where I faced about 8-10 fire elementals. I soon exhausted my wands. I never would have made it through them except that I found a stairway to Level 8 about halfway down the river, and I was able to duck down there between battles, sleep, and recharge my magic to cast "Create Food" and "Heal."

          

Toughest bastards in the game.

         

Throughout all of this, every time I rested, the same face that invaded my dreams at the outset of the game appeared to blather nonsense, only that nonsense slowly became more comprehensible. He identified himself as "Garamon"--I had been assuming this whole time that it was Cabirus--and indicated that Tyball, his brother, is cooking up some summoning ritual. Has the name "Garamon" appeared before?

             

His life!

       

Past the fire elementals, I found a Ring of Levitate, which really helped get around the multi-tiered level. But after that, I hit a dead end. The only place left to explore was a maze in the right-central part of the level, but it drained my health every time I set foot in it.

I took one of several stairways I'd found to Level 8 and soon found a stairway heading back up to a hidden area of Level 7. It was guarded by a couple of golems and an imp, who spoke to me.  He said I could only take a particular crown from the treasure chamber, one that would "open my eyes." The chamber beyond had numerous piles of gold, gems, magic items, and crowns. I investigated the latter until I found one labeled "Crown of Maze Navigation."

           

Did they think all this extra treasure would tempt me? I have one pound free!

         

Back up on the main part of Level 7, in the maze that drained my health, wearing the crown showed me a golden "safe" path along the floor. This took me to a large open area with an orb on a pedestal and a portcullis behind it, trapping Princess Arial in her cell. As I investigated, Tyball attacked me. All of this was a complete surprise; I had assumed I'd find Arial and her kidnapper at the climax of the game on Level 8.

       

Oh, right. I just remembered my primary goal!

       

I hadn't found anything to break the orb, so I had to fight Tyball without magic. He killed me the first couple of times. The third time, I used a few scrolls I had on hand, including "Monster Summoning," which kept him occupied while I attacked his rear. I also used a couple strategic retreats to use potions in the middle of combat. Eventually, I killed him.

        

I didn't get a great shot of Tyball. He was floating in the air for most of the combat for some reason.

          

As he died, he had a speech:

       

Thou hast just doomed this world, meddler! My ritual was designed to release the creature from its bonds, then bind it to the body of yon young lady. Thanks to thee, however, only the first part was accomplished. It is mine own fault. With my brother gone, only I could save our world. Ironic, is it not? I stood ready to save Britannia, and thou did slay me to save but a girl. The creature, the Slasher of Veils, which I sought to bind will soon escape. And its ambitions are horrible indeed. All Britannia shall suffer. Thou hast earned thy reward, fool. Thanks to thee, I shall not be here to see it.

         

I don't mind saying I'm a bit confused here. Tyball was trying to "save Britannia"--from a demon he freed in the first place? Why just, you know, not free it? And why go through all the trouble of kidnapping the princess to bind it? Why not just grab some poor fool who was already in the abyss? 

         

"The Slasher of Veils" sounds like a short story Stephen King might have contributed to Modern Bride.

        

The answers died with him. He left two keys, one of which opened the portcullis (again, how?) and freed the princess. She fortuitously had an "Amulet of Travel" that she could use to flee the Abyss and warn the populace to flee the island. After a quick speech, she took off.

           

I wonder why Lord British never gave me one of those.

The rooms behind the orb chamber contained some interesting books and scrolls, including On the Process of Resurrection and Demonic Summoning and Control: Theory and Practice. A scribbled note indicated that Tyball had killed Garamon but meant to resurrect him. 

Before I wrapped up the session, I wanted to clean up a few things, including the Cup of Wonder. The three visions had shown three different pairs of letters on the cup: IN, SA, and HN. I didn't think of them as mantras because "HN" isn't exactly pronounceable. 

I walked back up to the ankh on Level 5 (I either hadn't found or hadn't annotated any on 6 or 7). I had reached max level (16) at some point, so I used my final skill-boost mantras to increase "Lore," "Sword," "Attack," and "Defense." Then I tried combinations of the mantras from the vision--SAINHN, INHNSA, etc.--until I hit paydirt with INSAHN. "The Cup of Wonder is northeast and above you," the ankh said.

          

          

As it happened, I needed to visit earlier levels anyway, since I had never collected the moonstone and was now drowning in "Gate Travel" scrolls. I used one to reach its hidden area on Level 2, kill some slugs, and obtain the stone. "Gate Travel" takes you to wherever the stone is. I dropped it near a convenient staircase on Level 6.

            

This would have been hard to collect before I obtained my dragonscale boots anyway.

        

The ankh on Level 2 said the Cup of Wonder was below me. The one on Level 3 said it was "west" but not above or below. So I poked around various rooms to the west, playing Cabirus's favorite tune on the flute, until the cup appeared to me in a nondescript room off a river. At last, I had all eight artifacts of virtue. But for what?

          

That could have been more . . . wondrous.

       

Back on Level 7, I tried another stairway to Level 8 and found, amidst gold-veined walls and gold nuggets, an "orb rock." This destroyed Tyball's orb on Level 7 and removed the mana-draining effect. I wonder what would have happened if I'd done that first.

      

It was satisfying how instantly my mana filled back up.

       

Tyball's keys opened the previously-locked doors in the northwest part of the level. NPCs in those chambers told me of the Key of Courage and the Key of Truth, the former accessible from a staircase in the northwest area. I followed it upward, filling in small areas in the northwest of several levels, killing hostile goblins, lurkers, and mages, until I found a key labeled "Key of Courage" in a small room. This key opened a nearby door, where I found a small object also labeled "Key of Courage." So I'm guessing the first key was technically the key to the Key of Courage.

        

Walking through walls of fire on the way to the Key of Courage. Note that the error message keeps appearing.

          

As for the Key of Truth, a seer named Gurstang said he had been looking for it. My dialogue options included a choice to tell him that his "colleague Illomo" was worried about him. He gave me a password to speak to Illomo. Problem is, I can't remember where Illomo is and have no notes about him. I guess I'll search the seers' enclave first, of course. Naturally, there will be a Key of Compassion, of which I've heard nothing, but I'm 99% sure it will come from Judy on Level 5 once I find the portrait of her lost love.

      

I checked on her briefly to make sure she hadn't fallen in the lava.

        

Miscellaneous notes:

               

• Level 7 has a "mellow earth golem" just hanging around a little dead-end room. It feels like there should be something I can do there, but he won't talk and there are no secret doors.

• Every level still has central windows looking into the "volcanic core." They're getting brighter.

           

If you're going to wall off the "core," I'm not sure it makes sense to put windows in it.

        

• Although I had been determined to stick with the Sword of Valor as the primary weapon for weight purposes, I couldn't resist replacing it with an "excellent magical black sword" I found somewhere on Level 7 in a room guarded by a "shadow beast." It does seem to outperform the Sword of Valor.

• I encountered a wisp in one of the small areas near the Key of Courage. He was "mellow," but he wouldn't talk to me. That was disappointing.

          

I thought he'd have some news from the Xornite dimension or whatever.

         

At some point after I killed Tyball, Garamon came to me in a dream and said that the Slasher of Veils was unstoppable, but Garamon might be able to help if I could properly bury his bones, which are somewhere on Level 8 ("beneath Tyball's chambers"). I collected all the bones and skulls I could find on the level and brought them up to the graveyard on Level 5 and clicked on Garamon's grave. It congratulated me for giving the bones a proper burial, but Garamon didn't appear or anything, so I suspect I had the wrong bones. I'll have to keep looking.

         

I "thoughtfully" create a mass grave.

        

It feels like the game is becoming a bit unraveled towards the end here, but my perception might be influenced by the near-desperation by which I'm trying to wrap things up before the inventory bug makes the game unwinnable.
       

Time so far: 27 hours