Serpent Isle: Wolf Like Me

 

I feel like Shamino is being passive-aggressive here, but I don't know what it's about.

       

The Britannians are in Monitor, but Iolo is in jail. Lord Marsten won't release him to us because we're not knights, and non-knights have no status in this town. Before we do anything, I have the Avatar equip Iolo's two-handed hammer and bust apart the locked chest we found in the cave. It spills out 6 gold coins, a shield, a sword, and leather boots. I give the boots to Shamino to replace the slippers he ended up with after the lightning storm. I arm him with a sling while Dupre gets the hammer. I then pile all the new items in a single chest and give it to Dupre to carry. Shamino gets all the food and torches. The Avatar gets the money and quest items.

   

You have to admire how Origin stuck by the inventory system that everyone hated.

        

Off we go, working around the city in a clockwise pattern. Since we can't know what drawer or table some of the items (e.g., silk stockings, slippers, a hairbrush) could have come from, we search everything--but of course we don't steal. 

        

Even though we could really use this stuff.

              

People we meet:

   

• Cellia of Cellia's Fine Furs. She won't speak to us because we're not knights.

• Krayg the Provisioner. He likes to take walks in the woods, where he's found many ancient ruins depicting the Sign of the Serpent. He'll buy leather goods from us and sells the same, plus adventuring items like belts, backpacks, shovels, torches, bedrolls, picks, jerky, and hard-tack. We have no money yet, so we move on. He has a lot of locked chests; I hope our items didn't end up in any of those.

• Standarr the Armourer. He buys chain and plate armor and sells a variety of weapons and armor.

• Widow Harnna. She's the town healer, though careful to explain that she heals with herbs, not magic. She lives next to a large vegetable field, where she grows her own food and often sells it. Her husband was killed by goblins, and her daughter, Cantra, is about to take the Knight's Test. She's in the midst of telling us about the people in town when she suddenly decides it's time for bed and kicks us out.

• Cantra. A 14-year-old girl, daughter of Harnna. We learn from her that her father is technically only missing, not confirmed dead, but it's been several weeks. That still seems early for her mother to have affixed "Widow" to the beginning of her name. Anyway, Cantra is training to take the Knight's Test when she turns 15. She says that the test takes place in the mountains north of the city: "Thou must follow the trail that leads west from the highway" and beware of goblins. You can enter with only a mace and leather armor, and no companions. She has three tips for the various phases of the test. She follows us around town.

      

Your portrait doesn't exactly help dispel that notion.

    

• Lucilla, proprietor of the Slashing Sword, the town pub. She flirts a bit, but won't speak to us in detail because we're not knights.

• Spektor, the town treasurer. We spoke to him last time, but now we take the time to exchange our gold coins for the "monetari" that the Monitorians use.

• Brendann. Leader of the Command of the Wolf. He plans to recover the Helm of Monitor and take up the mantle of Champion Knight. He has nothing more to say until we become knights. 

    

As long as your motives are pure.

        

• Simon. Oldest person in town and owner of the inn. He's a widower, his wife having been killed decades ago by goblins (he says that most Monitorians eventually die at the hands of goblins). He confirms that Batlin and Gwenno were in town recently. Batlin showed a lot of interest in the ancient ruins and spent a lot of time talking to Andral, the sculptor. Simon believes he left for Sleeping Bull, along with "a warrior, a sailor, and a hooded man." Standarr spent time with the warrior; Shazzana with the sailor (named Deadeye), and the way he describes the "hooded man" clearly indicates that it's a gargoyle. Gwenno left for the east to visit the Xenkan Monks. The Avatar agrees to try some Fawn Ale and promptly pukes. Templar knows more about goblins, and some think there's a traitor in town, selling secrets to them. Simon suspects Krayg.

• Andral. The town sculptor is on edge, as Batlin and his companions apparently stole a relic from his home when they left. It was a blackrock serpent; as Shamino points out, it's a perfect match for the one I had, except facing the opposite way. He says the warrior was named Brunt. He finally says that a Monitorian knight named Wilfred the Slayer went after Batlin's party, suspecting they had an involvement in the disappearance of Wilfred's father.

       

Do you need to be here, Shamino?

     

There are fewer books in town than in Britannia, but there are a few:

   

• Fighting is an Art by Johnson. A treatise on combat, with such gems as: "Anyone caught running away from battle should be put to the sword immediately, lest others feel that they may let their womanish fears prevail." Again, even women must be knights in this town. Why do they put up with it?

• The House of the Unicorn by Gannt. A silly poem about unicorns by someone with no sense of rhyme or rhythm.

• Principles of Economics by Hyle. A surprisingly long textbook on economic theory that doesn't seem to have anything specific to do with the Ultima series. You could read this to business students and they'd nod.

• No Such Thing as Fairies by Gannt. Another poem. This Gannt has some issues.

      

Gannt: Serpent Isle's worst poet.

      

• The Dwellers of Serpent Isle by Byman. A history of the setting, recounting how "the man-daemon Lord British" imposed his will on the Sosarians 250 years ago, causing several factions to flee to Serpent Isle.

• The Crying Lute by Gannt. The poem recounts a knight's grief at losing his lover to a goblin attack, ending with: "I will sit here by the fire and softly strum / Only my lute knows the hollow man I have finally become." I know I've said it before: Unless you're writing blank verse, meter is as important as rhyme.

• Guide to Knighthood by Graeme of Monitor. A lot of talk about courage.

• Courageous Deeds by Andrew of Monitor. Describes how when the Sosarians arrived at Serpent Isle, they squabbled over who should be first to step on the new land. While those of Fawn and Monitor argued, the mages simply teleported themselves. The whole band was then attacked by trolls, but Kosric and Pedigar, the lords of the old Monitors, fought them off. Last session, we found both Kosric and Pedigar's ashes in the crypts. The epithet "Thunderbolts from above" attached to Kosric makes more sense as Andrew tells us that "Thunderbolt" was the name of his sword.

    

Other notes from town exploration:

   

• I sleep on the street one night, as I haven't found the inn by the time it gets dark and don't have any local money anyway. As in The Black Gate, I don't know what my companions do while I sleep.

       

What do you mean "we"? What are you all going to be doing in the meantime?

     

• There's a constant thunderstorm going. The lightning strikes and the squawk that accompany them are so annoying that I turn the sound off after a while.

• There's no east wall to the town; there's a mountain range there instead.

• Double-clicking on a flute causes some flutish notes to play. But double-clicking on a harp or lute just causes an image of notes to appear on screen.  

• Spektor has one of those ball-clicker things on his desk and you can double-click on it to set it in motion.

• NPCs have small conversations with each other, like an early version of what we get in games like Oblivion. I guess they did this in The Black Gate, too. I just didn't note it there. 

       

At least no one's seen a mudcrab lately.

     

• There's a cat named Smudge running around town. If I double-click on it, Shamino says that he hates cats.

        

What's wrong with you?

      

• On the south shore is a dock with a derelict ship, but its gangplank is up, so I can't access the hold. I wonder if the "Telekinesis" spell exists in this game.

      

I'll bet all my stuff is in that hold.

     

• A couple of large facilities in town have their doors locked: the Banquet Hall and the List Field. I can see knights on the List Field, but I can't get to them to talk with them.

• Streets in Monitor: Banquet Street, Bear Street, Dock Street, Kosric Road, Leopard Street, Melina Street, North Gate Street, Pedigar Street, Town Hall Road, Warriors Road, West Gate Road, Wolf Street.

       

The wall of Wolf Street.

      

I haven't spoken to everyone, but some of them are behind locked doors during the day, so I decide to head out and try the Knight's Test. The North Gate guard opens the portcullis and we head up the stone road. We pass a three-story tower with a guard on the roof before a road branches off to the west with a sign saying "Knight's Test." The road ends at a house, where Shmed sits alone at a table. We give him the password. He gives the Avatar a mace and leather armor, taking his other belongings, and insists that Dupre and Shamino stay behind. Shmed leads me to the test. As he shuts the door behind me, he lets out an ominous chuckle.

     

Hmmm . . bear, leopard, or wolf. Any chance I could be a Knight of the Cow?

    

Both Caladin and Cantra have given me some clues. "In the first chamber," Caladin said, "speed is the clue. Do not look back, or ye'll be a goner."  Cantra said the same thing. Thus, as I move down the hallway and the explosions start, I just keep running. 

         

I'm not sure how this tests my combat abilities.

       

The corridor ends in a locked door, but there's a passage to the south, which I take. Suddenly, two "magic gremlins" appear out of nowhere, shouting "KAL XEN," and attack. I'm not prepared for the ensuing combat, and while I fumble for the "Combat" key, they actually manage to kill me! 

  

I'm resurrected among the Xenkan Monks. Karnax is there, apparently not dead. He starts saying something to me, but I just click through the conversation until I get to a point that I can reload. On a second try, I kill the little bastards, although I have to chase one down the hallway. The body of one of them disappears, but the other has two black pearls. 

        

This doesn't feel very knightly.

     

A locked chest sits in the corner beyond where the gremlins attacked. I beat at it with my mace until it breaks open, spilling out a golden key. I return to the locked door, unlock it, and move on.

  

I come to a junction with doors to my north, south, and east. The north door is the only one unlocked, and my key doesn't work on the others. The north door leads to a large room with a stone pillar and a red key on top of it. Large, flat rocks are scattered throughout the room. Clearly, I'm meant to build a stairway up to the key. "Look upwards," Cantra had said. "Be prepared to climb."

      

The game is just showing off its physics.

      

But the room has another surprise: snakes hide beneath the rocks. The snakes die in one hit, but they get in a few hits of their own. By the time I finish stacking the rocks high enough to reach the key, I have 3 hit points left and I'm poisoned. The poison soon wears off.

    

Back at the intersection, the key opens the south door. A short corridor leads to a large room with fireballs shooting from the north to south wall. With another "KAL XEN," a cyclops appears. After a couple of deaths and reloads, I note that he seems oddly uninterested in attacking me. I walk past him, get the next key, then return to the intersection, closing the door behind me. At this point, I note that I have 5 hit points. I had forgotten that hit points regenerate on their own. I wait around until I'm up to 10, then return and kill the cyclops as I don't like leaving enemies in my backpath.

        

For some reason, I thought it was important to include a picture of the Avatar opening a door with a key.

      

The last door opens to a north/south corridor. The north branch soon ends at a locked door. A sack in front of the door has yellow (healing) and red (cure poison) potions. The south one twists around to a room with a couple of chests. Lighting bolts and fireballs shoot from the walls as I pass, but they miss. The four chests are trapped and empty. Cantra had warned me that "some things are invisible," so I search the walls and find a secret passage, which leads to the next key.

  

Next room: a lever opens a passage to a large room with a bunch of mice that I slaughter. There's a key in the mouse room and another in the lever room; they unlock the next two doors. After the second, the dungeon splits into north, south, and west paths. I take the northern one. It winds around (fireballs shooting from the walls) to a table with a claw and a note which advises me to prove my dedication by using the claw on myself. I'd be suspicious, but Caladin had said something similar. 

   

I continue exploring. Another cyclops appears in a corridor, and even though my hit points have regenerated to 17 by now, it takes me five reloads to kill him. I'm not sure I ever remember an Ultima game this hard. It's not like there are a lot of tactics I'm overlooking. I'm getting sick of clicking through that stupid dialogue with Karnak. When I finally kill him, the cyclops's body has a gold nugget and a club. Then, in another corridor, some invisible guy--or, rather, "sporadically visible guy"--in armor attacks and kills me instantly. I reload and wait to regenerate from the cyclops battle before I try again. That makes the Avatar start complaining about food, but at least I kill the warrior. A note on his body indicates he was hired by someone to kill me.

      

Never take a contract to kill someone who can reload.

      

Near the warrior's body is a secret door between two torches. It leads to the final room, where a note tells me to mingle my blood with the ashes of Gurnordir, the goblin king, in an urn on a table. I cut myself, use the claw on the urn, and a wolf appears. Fortunately, I'm able to kill him on the first try. I pick up its body (I assume I'll need its skin and meat) and head for the exit.

       

Using the claw on myself.

     

Shmed wanders in just as I reach the door. "How didst thou survive the Knight's Test?" he wonders. "We fixed the place with traps to be absolutely fatal." Little does he know. He then says that "she" seduced him into killing me and attacks me. It's three more reloads before I get out of there with a new set of chain armor and a two-handed sword. At Shmed's cottage, I reenlist Dupre and Shamino, eat my fill of some sausages, and reclaim my gear from a chest.

         

Well . . . you did a good job.

        

On my first time through Skyrim, once I finally got out of Cidhna Mine, I slaughtered everyone in the city of Markarth. All I can say is, the people of Monitor are lucky I'm the Avatar in this game. Still, I'm in a dark mood as I re-enter the city to look for an explanation. Unfortunately, no one has one. Caladin and Marsten just tell me to go to Lydia for my tattoo, Cellia to make a cloak out of the wolf carcass, and Lucilla to make a stew of its meat. I visit them in that order, not entirely happy about getting a permanent face tattoo just so I can free Iolo from jail. He owes me.

   

Cellia says it will be a day to make the cloak, so we head back outside to explore a bit around the city. But I'm no more than a few steps from the gate when I suddenly turn green, and my companions remark that I need a healer. Sighing, we turn around to go see Harnna. She says she can heal me temporarily, but to do so permanently, I'll need an ointment made from Varo leaves, which I can get from Delphynia the horticulturalist in Fawn. Harnna suspects that I got the affliction from the tattoo.

   

I take continuous damage as we head to Lydia's shop. She admits to the poisoning immediately and attacks, calling me the "pawn" of the "demon British." We kill her and find a poisoned dagger, 45 monetari, and some bandages on her body. 

       

I don't really care for him, either.

      

I don't know what the game intends, but if I'm poisoned, I'm not waiting 24 hours while the screen flashes red every 15 seconds, the Avatar says, "Ouch!," and Shamino keeps remarking that I look terrible. Iolo will have to wait. So will the stew. The map shows Fawn due north of Monitor, so that's where I head. It's 15:36 as we leave the gate. I'm hoping we can make it by nightfall.

  

We slaughter a deer on the way for dinner. North of the Knight's Test road, another road heads west from the main path. A sign reads: "TO FAWN." Not long after we turn down this path, we're ambushed by goblins, and two reloads convince me that I have to keep the Avatar out of combat because the poison has left him with single-digit hit points.

       

I'm not sure if I'm yowling because of the goblins or the poison.

      

We race past the goblin-occupied Fawn Tower and reach a white-brick paved bridge. A man approaches us. "There hath been trouble of late here in Fawn," he says. A second man, scarred and ugly, approaches from the south. He introduces himself as Ruggs, "a poor sailor whose visage offends the good people of Fawn." He's trying to get a message to his "lady love," who apparently lives in the city. Fortunately, his lady love is none other than the herbalist, Delphynia, so we agree to carry the message. "Thou mayest find her at the greenhouse," he says.

      

It's called a "restraining order" for a reason.

   

The guard demands my name and business, though none of the "business" options get at the real purpose of my visit. I tell him I'm "merely visiting." Just as we're about to pass him, he says, "We have enough to worry about what with storms, goblins, and Fellowship troublemakers." That naturally catches my attention. All he'll say is that someone from that organization has been captured by the captain of the guard.

   

On the other side of the drawbridge, I take another hit of poison and die.

   

I guess there's no avoiding those monks.

   

Time so far: 2 hours