The Ormus Saga II: The XYZ Affair

 

     

I had to start over with The Ormus Saga II because I had been relying on save states rather than saving my character to the disk, and I accidentally overwrote all the save state slots trying to get Ring of Elanor to work. There's no particular reason to use save states for Ormus, as you can save from anywhere and saving and reloading both seem to work okay. But I have a long track record of C64 games, particularly those on tape, for which I can never get saving to work, and adopted the convention a long time ago of hitting ALT-S frequently as I play. That very muscle memory got me in trouble here.

   

It wasn't so bad, though, because ever since I learned that every town, keep, and dungeon has exactly eight treasures, and that the character gets an experience bonus after finding the eighth, I felt the need to start tracking how many I found. Unfortunately, I've rarely been able to get to eight. Ormus's locations often have areas blocked by locked doors, magically-locked doors, force fields, water, mountains, other pieces of furniture, and lava, each of which requires a different item or spell to bypass, none of which the starting character has. Many of the treasures are on the other sides of those obstacles.

     

Something needs to get me either past that chair or through that wall.

       

The joystick-only interface is so annoying that I was frankly considering bailing on the game, but I forced myself to slow down and keep notes. This is a paradox that I've repeatedly discovered while writing this blog: If I find myself impatient with a game, sometimes the solution is not to play faster, but to slow down and document everything. In a first-person game, this often means making maps, if I'm not already making them. For this kind of game, it means creating the sort of workbook that I've used for many Ultima clones, with tabs for locations, NPCs, equipment, monsters, and open tasks. (I'm keeping it in Google Sheets, so you're welcome to take a look.) Either way, completing the documentation becomes a goal in itself and increases my enjoyment even as it increases the amount of time I'm destined to spend on the game.

     

Finding the eighth treasure.

       

Since I had explored counter-clockwise the first time, this time I explored clockwise from Remfield. I hit the Temple of Ghur; two dungeons; the towns of Coldwater, Borger Springs, Greenfields, and Welling; a castle called Arbon; a tower called Skymount, and a small hut. Each had eight treasures, even though the huts were all in one room (every piece of furniture had something) and some of the castles had them spread out on four or more floors. The gold I found in these locations was enough to keep up my army and buy occasional equipment upgrades; battles in the wilderness remained rare.

    

Various findings:

    

• The enemy always attacks the Royal Palace moments after the character first leaves Remfield. A player who doesn't figure out quickly how to buy troops and send them to the palace is in for a short, frustrating game. The reason that the enemy always attacks the Palace is that every other town starts in enemy control. You have to free some of them before the enemy has any other place to attack.

• The game is a bit like Ultima II in that you have an inventory of usable items—maps, keys, magic keys, torches, skulls—that can only rarely be purchased. You generally get them at random for killing monsters or searching furniture.

      

Nice. Those are expensive.

     

• As you can see from that list, there are indeed both keys and magic keys. I was wondering about that during the last session. 

• All temples have monsters in the corners. It's one of the few reliable ways to find them.

• Every week, "payday" rolls around. The character gets money for every free city, town, and keep but also has to pay soldiers in his active army (i.e., not stationed at any particular location). 

       

Oof. I should have gotten rid of some of those soldiers.

       

• Monsters so far have included zombies, giant snakes, mean trolls, orcs, giant spiders, squids, seadragons, and pirate ships.

• As I checked out the inventories of each new city, I upgraded to a magic shield, magic armor, and a magic bow. So far, each of these is the best item in its class. 

          

Hell, yeah. It took the Avatar almost the entire game to get to this point.

      

I was curious how the game would approach dungeons—remember, every location in its predecessor is a menu—and it turns out that they're simply multi-leveled, indoor, top-down locations like towns and castles, but using outdoor terrain. An occasional chest or barrel hides the eight goodies that each dungeon has. A beginning character can't get very far in dungeons because so many of their areas are blocked by mountainous squares (which require a climbing pick) or lava, which I have not yet found any way to cross safely. I suspect a spell is going to be involved.

      

I guess I'll need to return later.

       

Speaking of spells, I found two magic shops among the towns I visited and logged, and between them, I bought nine different spells. Of them, there is only one that I a) know what it does, and b) can cast. That's CURAX, which cures poison. FOREMIS supposedly dispels force fields, and AN PULVIS removes obstacles, but neither work when I cast them. I suspect I need to reach a higher level. My character is still Level 1 because I haven't found a temple since the game's beginning.

         

I can't see any other way to reach that chest.

       

I know from King Argon that to beat the game, I have to:

   

• Solve the nine tasks of the god-servants.
• Go to the mystic flames in the mountains.
• Yell the Holy Word.
• Enter the Halls of Carion.
• Speak the three Eternal Words, backwards. 

    

I have not made much progress on this main quest. By the end of the first session, I knew the names of three of the god-servants, and I didn't learn any more this time. I did learn the Holy Word. In Wishek Falls, a woman named Madame Lane gave it to me as QTMNFEQ, but said it was encoded using an "ancient elven technique." According to her neighbor, Sullivan, that "ancient technique" is a simple Caesar shift of one place. However, a third NPC named Willis says that A and E are exceptions and always shift to each other. That gives the final result as RUNOGAR. That sounded familiar, so I looked up my notes, and that was the Holy Word in the first game. I guess someone who's won The Ormus Saga has an advantage.

       

Standard pronunciation?

       

Speaking of puzzles, an NPC named Allan in Monter Bay says that Tolkien's The Hobbit has the solution to one of the god-servant's riddles in Chapter 5. This is the chapter in which Bilbo and Gollum exchange a bunch of riddles, so I guess I'll just have to wait for that one.

     

I'll get right on that.

     

To this main quest, an NPC named James in Coldwater added something else. He said there were 25 treasures hidden across the land: three in the world of the undead and 22 on the mainland. He further said that I would need to find all 25 to succeed. So far, I have the locations of 8 of them. I've only dug up one. It was 4 squares away from the coordinates I had been given, and it had 3 jewels, 1 silver, 3 linen, and 2 CURAX spells. I'm not sure why I would have needed to find that to win the game. Maybe finding all the treasures is one of the god-servant's tasks. 

       

I don't like where this is going.

      

Most of the NPCs have just flat-out given me the coordinates for the treasures, but one of them, Jones in the town of Welling, had to make it a puzzle. He gave me an algebraic formula for figuring out the coordinates; I had to get the values from two other NPCs. This was the sequence:

   

Y = north coordinate

Z = west coordinate

    

Y = C + (4 x 6)

Z = (Y x 3) + D

C = 4 x 7 + 2 

D = (5 x 9) - 34

     

I'm aware none of those parentheses are necessary, but that's how the game gave them to me. 

         

This NPC is part of the problem.

        

I realized as I talked to NPCs that there's something I don't understand about the backstory. I don't know how much of it is left over from the first game, how much is kept deliberately hidden, and how much is just inept storytelling on the part of the author. This is the relevant text from the backstory in the game's introduction:

       

After reading the compendium, you know of the black book called Ulbore. The book has finally revealed the terrible truth about Sullivan and the Brotherhood of the White Rose. It is now up to you to complete 9 tasks provided by god servants in order to rescue the kingdom from the Armageddon.

       

So what was the "terrible truth," and how does that segue to needing to complete nine tasks? And who is Sullivan? I don't believe the first game mentioned Sullivan or the Brotherhood. Whoever Sullivan is, he appears to have been murdered. Princess Sheila says that King Argon feels responsible. All the conspirators who killed him have themselves been killed except for one named Gorab.

     

That's my summary of where I am with the game. Since I don't think the entry is long enough, I'll pick up from here and relate part of my journey in real-time, starting from Monter Bay, the last city I visited. It's on the east coast of Beryland, and I'm still working my way clockwise. I'm at full health and have 414 gold pieces, 44 troops, and 35 food. I immediately send 20 troops to Monter Bay, as I had to liberate it to explore the city and it otherwise has no garrison.

       

Checking my surroundings.

      

I check my coordinates and note that I'm not too far from a treasure. Monter Bay is at 96N 221W and there's a treasure at 64N 217W. It's dark as I head out. I'm out of torches, so I won't be able to see much of anything until the sun comes up. I use a map to get a sense of the area and see that the treasure is surrounded by swamp, which will almost certainly poison me. Not a problem; I have a CURAX. The bigger issue might be navigating around these rivers. If it gets too tough, I'll wait until I have a skiff.

     

As the sun comes up, I get a message that the enemy is attacking the Royal Palace. I have plenty of troops there, so the battle is quick. Unfortunately, I can't afford to replenish any of the soldiers I lost, since I need them to force my way into the next enemy-held town I encounter.

      

Defending the Royal Palace. Again.

       

64N 217W turns out to be right on the edge of an inlet. Of course, the treasure isn't there. I find it four squares to the north and west. It consists of 1 silver, 2 copper, 3 linen, 1 wood, and a magic axe. The magic axe sounds cool. I haven't seen one for sale. I equip it, get out of the swamp, and cure my poison.

        

A pretty good haul.

     

I soon encounter an orc. I attack with my magic axe and am happy to see that it's a ranged weapon. It hits him—and immediately breaks. I remember this from the last game. Ormus decides that the next time you fight, whatever weapon you have equipped is going to break. The only way to avoid it is to reload and equip a different weapon. No way am I losing my magic axe after one hit, so I reload, equip a dagger, watch it break, change back to my magic axe, and finish off the orc. I get 16 experience, 47 gold, and a key.

  

Combat is such a rare and minor part of the game, at least so far.

      

I almost don't see a little hut to my west. I enter. The location is labeled only "a small hut." The map consists of a single building and a fenced garden to its south. A tree in the garden has some gold. The building has a locked door, which I open with a key. Inside are two barrels (gold in both) and a bookcase (magic keys). A barrel in some woods has maps. There isn't any furniture left, so I start searching ground squares in the house and garden and find a couple units of jewels. 

 

Treasures are rarely hidden in random squares like this.

     

A zombie attacks in the northeast corner, and I kill him for 14 experience, 52 gold, and a nugget. Then I spy a troll by a pond and get 18 more experience and 28 gold. Then another one appears. This turns out to be the best grinding spot in the entire game. I'm tempted to stay until I have enough money for a ship.

    

After an entire night spent searching the walls of the buildings, the pond, and other terrain features, I can't find the final treasure. I'm not willing to search every square on the 576-tile map (I might if I could do it with "S"), so I reluctantly leave. 

       

The magic map of Caldara.

      

Not too far south of the hut is the city of Caldara. It's naturally occupied by enemy soldiers. I attack with y 24 troops. There isn't much strategy to these battles. You can either "attack," or fire a single volley at a single column of soldiers, or use a "weapon" which damages multiple soldiers at once. Weapons are single-use items that cost 24 gold pieces to replace, but you need a few of them because attacks only hit one soldier at a time, some soldiers require multiple hits, and you have to destroy the wall in front of them first. We're evenly matched here, and it takes me a couple of tries to win. I'm down to 4 troops when I do.

     

Caldara is a standard-sized city. My normal practice is to use a map when I first enter a location, then keep the screenshot handy for reference. Like many cities, most of its shops have ladders and thus rooms above them, but I rarely need to take a shot of the second floor. Night falls halfway through my visit, but the screenshot helps me navigate without requiring me to waste a torch.

         

You rarely have to worry about getting lost on the second floor.

       

The first thing I find is a boat shop, where I have enough money for a skiff (451 gold) but not a ship (3801 gold). I'll come back. The skiff, meanwhile, will get me across small bodies of water and increase the chances I can fully explore a city. A weapons shop has nothing new. At the troop shop, I replenish my lost troops and buy enough to garrison this city when I leave. At the inn, I replenish health and mana and buy a little extra food. 

   

There are two very valuable NPCs. Steve, above the weapon shop, gives me the name of another god-servant: NIKODEMUS. The town's mayor, Maddock, living above the inn, tells me of the Trigonom, which lets the wielder enter the Land of the Dead. It is assembled from three amulets, each of which is at a different temple.

      

I'm pretty sure I was supposed to try in the first game.

      

I find all the treasures and get 75 experience points. The treasures are five units of gold, one of silver, one of jewels, and a Stone Key, which seems like a unique item. I stop at the pawn shop on the way out of town and sell my excess treasures. I end up leaving with about as much gold as when I entered.

   

The enemy attacks and retakes Caldara the moment I step outside. I don't even have time to even save first. I re-conquer it, re-enter, replenish my troops, exit, and immediately send 20 to garrison the city.

   

Again, I realize I'm close to another treasure: the one from the algebra puzzle. Of course, I can't find it. I search for a five-square radius around the chest (which shouldn't be necessary, since Jones said the formula was its "exact location"). I double-check the solution to the puzzle (54N, 173W). I even go all the way back to Welling (without saving) to verify I wrote down the clues correctly. Nothing. Either I'm not going to be able to win the game because the author bungled his own algebra clue, or you're all about to tell me I somehow failed at simple math. 

    

Time so far: 9 hours