Ultima Underworld II: Test Anxiety

 

The Avatar starts to regret his life choices.

    

I begin this session by returning to the (now) deserted prison tower I first visited. Altara said to use her rod at places where the Guardian has touched the world. In this world, the only place I can think of is the magic prison cell at the top of the tower. I reach it and pound the staff against the floor. There's no textual confirmation that anything has happened, but the screen shakes and there are some freaky theremin effects, so I suppose that's enough.

   

Next stop: Killorn Keep. It's time to get into that secret basement. I head down through the barracks. The guard at the door tries to stop me, but I tell him to go pound sand. He reacts predictably. The combat that follows is easily the hardest in the game so far, though rendered a bit easier by the fact that I can just go back upstairs to rest and heal. Still, I have to reload about four times. The guard is supernaturally hard, and the reason for this becomes clear after I hit him about half a dozen times and he sheds his human body for the form of a demon. I spend a lot of time and a few wands killing him.

       

There are going to be a lot of demon shots in this one. I don't know if any of them are supposed to be gargoyles.

    

The massive door behind him is locked, but I'm surprised to find that I have the key on my keyring. I must have found it on a previous trip. The diamond-shaped room beyond has brass walls and a lava pit in the center of the floor. "Spacey twinkles" float in the air, as do two large "brain creatures." This is clearly the Guardian's place of power in this world, which I confirm by whacking the ground with the rod and getting the same audio-visual experience as last time. 

   

The weird guts of Killorn Keep.

     

I suspect that the brain creatures are what's keeping the keep flying. I wonder what would happen if I killed them. But I don't go beyond wondering; the creatures are "peaceful," and I have some friends and unfinished quests in the rest of the keep. If I think the Guardian's forces need to die, I can take them out more selectively.

   

On the way back to the exit, I run into an NPC I haven't met before: Relk, captain of the guards. He says that he's heard I am "wise in the way of virtue" and asks me to see him in his quarters sometime. After I pay Merzen to identify some items (I decide afterwards that I've sunk enough money in that money sink), I go looking for Relk, but I can't find him in any of the keep's chambers. I hope that wasn't important.

    

This could be interpreted a couple of ways.

      

The ice world is next. The fountain plaza in the old city's ruins seems to be the only place of importance in the entire area, and indeed the staff works here. Afterwards, I speak to the ghost of Beatrice, who says I've brought her peace. In the Talorid world, the place of power is in the chamber where new Talorids are made.

       

The welcoming committee as I return to the Talorid world.

      

It's time now for an unexplored world! I enter the south-southwest facet of the gem and find myself in a stone corridor. It dead-ends in a secret door, which opens into a large room. I find a robed man in a corner. He introduces himself as Elster, a student of the Scintillus Academy of Magic. He seems to think that I'm a professor, but I disabuse him of that. It transpires that we're in the staging area for the final exam, "a series of mazes and deathtraps [that] has claimed some of even the best students." Elster, he admits, is far from one of the best students, and thus he has been delaying taking the test--for 63 years. He says he keeps hitting the button on the wall that's supposed to summon a faculty member, but no one has shown up. "I fear some disaster may have befallen the Academy up there on the surface."

   

I open an eastern door, which takes me to another large room. There are three pressure plates on the floor and a gold coffer nearby, which I can use to weigh down the plates. Each plate opens a different portcullis. The middle one leads to a room with a couple of mongbats, and I soon determine that this area is the game's first respawning and grinding opportunity. Every time I cross the threshold of the room, another couple of mongbats appear. 

   

A teleporter in a different corridor brings me to an icy, frozen area. The moment I step off the arrival platform, I go sliding across the ice and am dumped into a chilly river. Remembering the jumping trick (jump until you stop, after which you move really slowly but can control your movement), I make it through the large, empty area. A button opens a door, which leads to a moving bridge across some lava, which leads to the exit.

       

Why does it always have to be lava?

      

The next area is smaller but far more difficult. A Wand of Telekinesis lies near the entrance corridor, which opens up to a deep room full of lava. A 5 x 3 grid of stone columns of varying heights seems to be the only way across the lava to the exit on the other side. It takes me a lot of practice (and reloading), but I train myself to jump the right distance to get from pillar to pillar. The extra twist is that each of the six pillars against the east and west walls have buttons next to them that raise and lower various pillars. Weirdly, though, it only takes the two buttons at the end of the first row (the first two you would encounter) to create a path that works. I don't know what the Wand of Telekinesis was for. You can't possibly see the buttons from far enough away to use it.

    

The next area is easy again--a maze of staircases in a large room full of easy enemies like rats, skeletons, and giant spiders. I have to find two keys and then the exit door. There's lots of jumping, but otherwise nothing special. 

     

Fighting a giant spider in a maze of staircases.

     

I notice some writing on the wall as I enter the next area: "Section Five: Effects and Constraints." This suggests that I missed similar titles in the previous four sections. I also notice that if I go to sleep, my mana does not recharge. Presumably this is to make the students pass all the tests on one mana pool. Since I have used no mana at all, except for "Night Vision" and healing, I start to wonder if I'm doing these tests wrong. All the alternate spells that I think might help, such as "Levitate" and "Fly," require runes I don't have.

   

This area takes me a while, and I get a bit confused. There are two doors out of the main chamber. One leads to a portcullis which blocks the exit. Near the portcullis is a chain. Pulling it just seems to release skeletons (another grinding opportunity). There are three corridors that dead-end in switches and a pole manifestly meant to flip the switches. At first, I don't understand why the pole is necessary because you can just walk right up to them. Later, I notice pressure plates on the floors, so I guess the plates probably negate the switches. Instead, you have to use the pole to flip them without crossing the plates.

      

Skeletons look pretty cool with "Night Vision."

     

Anyway, through some combination of things, I open the south door, jump across a pit, and get a key that opens the portcullis (again, how?). I kill a couple of skeletons for good measure on the way out.

   

This test is starting to get kind of long, I think as I enter the next area. And it doesn't seem to involve much magic--or, at least, the creators left non-magical alternatives for what might otherwise be magical solutions. The next area, according to the etched stone I am now primed to look for, is called "Risk Avoidance." The first room is large, with four pillars in the center creating a small area shaped like a "plus," strewn with bones. I figure out the puzzle after I bungle it. Stepping on any of the plates between the pillars causes a friendly, motionless headless to spawn in a different opening. These headless are clearly meant to soak up the damage from crossbow bolts that fire at you when you step on the central platform to collect a key. But I just suck up the damage and continue.

       

This headless is supposed to take an arrow for me, but that just seems mean.

      

The key opens a door to a teleporter maze. Some of the teleporters promise to return me to the beginning of the world, not just the level, so I have to watch out for them. (They're all marked with some nearby etching.) Some sketched notes help me figure out what teleporters lead to what destinations, and before long I'm out of the area and on to Level 7, "Nonreversible Processes."

   

This level has another pillar puzzle. To get to the exit, I have to jump from one stone pillar to another arranged in a 5 x 5 grid. I find that if I stand just at the edge of one, I can make it to another with SHIFT-JUMP, but it's easy to accidentally walk off the edge. The more difficult twist is that each pillar has an arrow on it, and stepping on the top of that pillar causes a different pillar to disappear in the direction that the arrow is pointing. Since I can't see the directions the arrows are pointing until I'm standing on top of them, I functionally end up having to map the entire area. I finally make it to the exit, then realize I don't have a key to the locked door or any more spell points left to cast "Open Door." I have to start the entire level over.

         

The trick is to never jump on a pillar that points to another pillar that you need later in the sequence.

        

I finally make it to Level 8, which is just called "Section Eight." It starts with a teleporter puzzle that I don't understand. A nearby message on the wall says: "3, 5, 2, 9." The rest of the maze has four rings of teleporters, and every time I step in the wrong one, I'm taken back to the beginning and an enemy spawns. Every time I find the right one, I advance to the next ring. I can't figure out what the numbers mean, so I just find my way through via trial and error.

   

I finally exit the test. The long-decayed bones of some academy instructor lie under a nearby table which has exam scores from previous students. There are several rooms off the exam area, and one of them has a note from a mage named Devrow who has noted "something monstrously powerful" approaching the planet. 

      

This suggests that some of Devrow's own colleagues were responsible for summoning the Guardian.

    

There's an exit back to Level 1, but I decline to take it. A large room has a pentagram on the floor with more bones strewn around it. I determine that this is the Guardian's place of power and successfully use the rod. There are some runes on the floor, and I finally get HUR and UUS. I nearly miss the blackrock gem in the middle of the pentagram, but fortunately I find it.

   

Yet another door leads to yet some other kind of series of tests. I'm all tested out, but I do my best. An initial door requires EX YLEM to open. Next is a door with a faraway button that requires ORT POR YLEM ("Telekinesis") to open. I fall into a pit with a monolith which takes me to a lake of fire with three doors. There are a few safe places to get out of the fire, and I end up resting there a lot, passing days and days in this one small area. An imp in one chamber guards a chain; a demon in another guards a key. I need both to get through the doors on the far side of the chamber, in between which is yet another demon. To defeat him, I have to unload virtually all of my remaining wands and scrolls and swallow my remaining healing potions.

  

Fortunately, he's trapped himself at the end of the room.

    

Once out of this area, the corridor just takes me back to the beginning. This doesn't seem right, so I start testing walls, and I find an illusory door in one of them. It opens into a small room with a single treasure chest. The chest contains a bunch of gold, a black pearl, and, at last, a FLAM rune. An illusory wall in this room leads to a corridor that ends in some of those light bars that imprisoned Bishop in the first world I explored. And of course I don't have the Fraznium gauntlets with me to get through it. 

     

This is not cool, Ultima Underworld II.

    

I return to the entrance to the world exhausted, starving, and badly poisoned from the last demon I fought. Elster is gone; he must have tried to enter the test. I search around, but there doesn't seem to be any shortcut back to the top, meaning that whatever's behind those bars better not be that important. Did I miss a clue somewhere that I would need those gauntlets?

    

As I return to Lord British's castle, I see that I reached Level 13 at some point and I have 18 skill points to spend. Nystul is the first person I run into, so I learn "Mana" and "Casting" from him and have him do whatever he does to the blackrock gem. I pick up another level in "Attack" and "Defense" from Geoffrey, then go study "Lore" from Nelson until I'm out of skill points and still can't identify everything in my pack (I get up to 28 points). 

      

I guess I'm going to be taking piles of gold to Killorn Keep for a while longer.

   

Nobody has anything new on Tory's murder. Feridwyn mentions a river I found in another world, noting that it has saved the castle from thirst. I don't know whether the game assumes I'm ferrying back water on the side or if other people are using the teleporter. Lord British is useless. Patterson says he's heard of the world peacefully ruled by the Guardian and wonders if living under the Guardian's control is necessarily all that bad. 

       

You can take the man out of the Fellowship . . .

    

A couple of people tell me Charles is excited about something, so I track him down after going down to the cellar to stuff some food into my backpack. He's excited about having found an old key next to a document about a battle with a sorcerer. I take it from him. 

   

Charles's discovery resonates with another of my priorities: finish exploring the Britannian sewers. Even before Charles discovered his key, I was planning to use the old "cast EX YLEM in another world" trick to try the still-locked door in the south of Level 3. Equally important, the HUR and UUS stones should let me reach at least one place I couldn't before: the top of the waterfall on Level 3. I go there, walking on water, and cast "Jump," which allows me to leap to the top of the falls. Down the river and around a bend, I find a ghost guarding a small chest. He dies in a few blows. The chest has a Chain Cowl of Valor and an unidentified magic scroll. Not everything I was hoping for, but not bad.

        

I finally make the leap.

      

At least Charles's key works. It opens into a large room in which an upset ghost flies around over a locked chest. I use my Wand of Smite Undead to kill the haunt, then open the chest with the key he drops. The chest has some gold, a gem, a scepter, a magic scroll, a NOX rune (finally!), a key, and a moonstone. That reminds me that I found a moonstone somewhere else, so now I have two. I can use them for the "Gate Travel" spell if I ever get the VAS stone.

     

A red ghost! Does that mean something?

     

Speaking of VAS, it and TYM are the only runes I'm missing now. I can live without TYM; it's only use is the "Freeze Time" and "Speed" spells. But VAS is used in four spells I really want--"Daylight," "Gate Travel," "Greater Heal," and "Fly"--and several others that will be very useful. Still, with what I have, I should start experimenting a lot more with spells. I'll report on that next time.

   

I didn't like this session much. The mage's academy section dragged on way too long and then really screwed me at the top (assuming I need to get behind those bars). I recognize that it's my fault--I suspect I was meant to leave it for when I was stronger or had more spell options. Knowing that it's my fault just annoys me more. I'm also really annoyed that I spent so many skill points on "Lore" and still can't identify half the scrolls in my pack. Still, I feel like I made a bit of progress, and I can't imagine there are more than two or three more worlds to go before the Guardian's threat is (for now) neutralized.

  

Time so far: 32 hours