Ravenloft: Strahd's Gesticulations

 

What is he doing with his right hand?

         

Last session, the party began its assault on Strahd's domain, hoping to find the last of the items necessary to wormhole out of this hellscape with Trimia's Catalogue. We explored the Larders of Ill Omen (basement) and the parts of the main floor accessible from the front door.

   

We begin this session moving up from the basement into a section of the main floor that's cut off from the others. We open the door and immediately run into a zombie golem, easily the toughest enemy we've faced so far. It slaughters us (full-party death) within a few seconds of meeting it. It does the same in a couple of reloads.

   

Finally, with every buffing spell we can think of in effect ("Aid," "Shield," "Invisibility to Undead," "Prayer," "Blur") and a couple of blasts of a Wand of Fireballs the moment it appears, we manage to kill it before it kills us. The rest of this small area has nothing but stairs going up to the third floor.

 

A zombie golem ruins our day. I can't really interpret this enemy's image. It looks like he's wearing a dog on his back.

       

The fight illustrates the problem with combat in this game: it's too fast to be tactical. If you want to cast a spell against an enemy, you basically have to prepare it ahead of time. Once the enemy is in melee range, there's no time to be clicking around the inventory screens and spellbooks—no time, even, to swallow a potion or cast a healing spell on an ally. Again, I lament that the developers didn't pioneer the real-time/turn-based toggle that we saw in Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven (1998).

     

What is a zombie golem, anyway? A stone golem is made of stone; an iron golem is made of iron. A zombie golem is made of . . . zombies? Is it undead? ("Invisibility to Undead" didn't seem to work, if that's any clue.) In any event, the only thing it was guarding was a stairway up to the third floor.

   

We head back to the basement and try a second stairway to an unexplored part of the main floor. There are lightning bolts bouncing up and down a long corridor here, and I find that we can avoid them if we walk in the precise middle of the corridor. There are four buttons on the wall. I don't know what three of them do, but the fourth opens a nearby wall and disgorges two more zombie golems. To fight these guys, I have to exploit pathfinding a bit and hide behind a table.

       

Not the first time, won't be the last.

        

The room in which the zombie golems were waiting has no items and no exits, but I soon find an illusory wall, which takes me to an empty cell with a Blood Key. This is the second key I've found this session.

   

I take a stairway to the third level, called the Court of the Count. The area is swarming with doom guards, who are easy. After killing them, I head down a corridor and find, on the other side of some spinners, a bunch of potions, arrows, and a suit of magic chain mail. An adjacent chamber has three Oils of Fiery Burning. 

   

By this point, I'm testing every wall for illusory doors, which is a good thing because this level is full of them. A couple are behind skeletons embedded in the walls. Other encounters:

    

• A gargoyle guards a door. The door opens to a bedroom occupied by two vampires. 

      

Vampires in this game can be appropriately terrifying.

        

• A large throne room with several gargoyles. The throne faces a blank wall which has a secret door in it.

• A room with four doses of Keoghtom's Ointment.

• A library. One of the documents on the floor is labeled "Strahd's Notes." In them, Strahd complains about Azalin, the Lord of Darkon, a lich which has somehow appeared in his land. An assassin sneaked into Azalin's fortress and stole two items of power that she used to escape this dimension. The objects later returned about the time that we arrived. The note also indicates that the Vistani have been feeding information to Strahd, including information about our arrival. The "items of power" probably refer to the items we need to use Trimia's Catalogue. Strahd seems to want them for himself so he can escape. There are also several mage scrolls in here.

       

Strahd really needs someone to help him clean up.

          

• Wandering down a corridor triggers a cutscene in which we look over the town of Barovia from a high balcony. 

       

I didn't know Strahd's fortress was so elevated.

         

Then we're on Level 4, "Rooms of Weeping," where we encounter more doom guards, another lightning bolt hallway, and yet another zombie golem, which takes me three or four reloads to kill. There's a long hallway of statues and a bedroom with another vampire. There's a dining room with what might be a wedding cake on the table, plus some interesting portraits on the walls, one showing what might be a family, one showing a man and bride, only the man's face is monstrous or something. Again, the graphic quality is maddeningly not quite there, but we're entering an era in which visuals alone can contribute to the narrative.

     

What do you think is on the right figure's head?

             

A large study in the center of the level is full of gargoyles. On the floor is a letter from Strahd to the leader of the Vistani, the gypsy woman who told us she couldn't read our fortunes without a missing tarot card. She apparently sent information about us to Strahd. I wonder if I can confront her after we get out of here. There's yet another scroll of "Raise Dead" in here. If I had played the way the game intended, my two lead characters would both have constitutions of 4.

      

Someone's not getting a tarot card back.

        

A button opens a secret area with a keyhole that none of our keys fit. That doesn't change even when I find a Silver Tower Key in a hidden area east of the study. It's guarded by yet another zombie golem, and this one kills me so many times in a row that when I finally kill him with only one character dead (Quill), for the first time in the game, I accept the constitution loss and "Raise" him. 

    

We take the only stairway up to the next floor, labeled "Main and Secondary Towers." The "level" consists of a single room with a keyhole in the middle of an axe. The Ravenloft Tower Key opens it. A stairway leads up from here, but the automap continues to show us on the same "level." It does this for each small tower level, even though we ascend four times.

  

There are doom guards, lightning bolts shooting from the walls, illusory walls, a button that opens a wall, and some dude called an "inquisitor" who sounds like he ought to be hard, but dies before I can get a screenshot. The inquisitor turns out to have been torturing a prisoner hanging from chains in this tower. One of the dialogue options suggests that he's meant to join our party as an NPC; I groan at the idea of giving up either Mischa or Glorianna. Fortunately, he says that he'll find his way out on his own. He tells us to seek Bray Martikova, a member of his "brotherhood," show him a feather, speak of the "Nest," and answer his challenge with: "TIGANESS, ILKE ELUCE-A-KEEN." As I leave, he turns into a raven and flies off.

     

What does he have under his arm?!

          

Before I leave the castle, I decide to go back to the study on the Rooms of Weeping level and re-verify that none of my keys open the lock. It's a good thing I do, because I had overlooked one of them. The Blood Bat Key that I found on some previous level opens a wall, on the other side of which I find Madame Ruth's missing Tarokka card.

      

In case the player is too thick.

          

A stairway from here goes down into the Dungeons, which I guess are different from the Larders of Ill Omen. The whole interface changes to an ebony color as we enter.

       

A plaque in the dungeons.

            

The Dungeons have two major sections. On the west side, we have a bunch of small, locked cells, some with zombies inside. Zombies are easy.

      

A zombie is freed from a dungeon cell.

        

The right side has a bunch of large crypts. This area is swarming with zombie golems who, as we've seen, are not easy. There are maybe eight of them, and I don't want to turn every battle into a lengthy session of resting, buffing, and reloading, so I mostly kill them with tricks. They have trouble fitting through crypt doors for some reason, so jumping into an empty crypt and shooting them from within seems to work. A couple of the crypts have vampires, but they're only hard if they manage to level-drain the characters, and I keep "Negative Plane Protection" active for such situations.

       

Shooting a zombie golem that I've trapped behind a chair.

         

In this area, Somers and Quill hit Level 9 and Glorianna hits Level 10. Glorianna's leveling is being wasted because she doesn't have any Level 5 spells. There are only two of them in the game, "Cone of Cold" and "Hold Monster," and I haven't found a scroll with either. Somers got her first Level 1 cleric spell. Somehow, I thought that when she got cleric spells, she'd be able to use cleric scrolls, but this is not the case. I also thought that when Quill hit Level 9 as a ranger, he'd get a mage spell, and that also is not the case.

        

A single Level 1 spell! Strahd is doomed.

      

The large crypt area has lightning bolts bouncing around for no reason, plus a puzzle by which we have to find a couple of obscure buttons to open a central crypt, which teleports us to the entrance to a long hallway stretching off to the south. The hallway passes several alcoves as it leads to a large chamber with a sarcophagus in the middle and a throne on the far side.

      

One of those buttons.

      

At once, Strahd is before us, baring his vampire fangs. No guises this time. "You have caused me trouble, more trouble than you are worth, and I shall crush you now—simply crush you." He gloats that he possesses Lord Dhelt's amulet. The party, about six steps behind, basically says, "Hey, aren't you the same person as Vladislav, who accompanied us in those caverns?" Strahd insults us some more and attacks.

       

"The comfort of laughter fades as my impatience grows" is my new catch phrase.

           

He immediately starts launching fireballs at the party—a constant stream of them that show no signs of adhering to the normal rules about spells-per-level. To avoid them, we dodge behind pillars, of which there are many in the room, then leap out and start swinging. Within seconds, he folds his cloak around himself, teleports to another part of the room, and resumes his barrage of fireballs. In the few seconds that we had in melee range, Quill was busted down a couple of levels.

   

He ultimately kills us all. We reload and try again, but he seems impervious to spells, and our melee attacks never do more than 1 damage. After about half a dozen reloads, I come to the conclusion that we're here too early. Clearly, we're meant to follow up with Bray Martikova and maybe even the Vistani.

        

I  just don't understand why he's blue.

       

I reload my latest save, from before we triggered the encounter with Strahd, only to find that it's in the hallway on the way to Strahd's crypt, and the door has closed and locked behind us. I can find no switches or illusory doors. "Knock" does not work.

   

My normal modus operandi is to save Game A only when the party is completely safe, usually in town. Game B is my "working save" during exploration. Only somehow in all the reloading in Strahd's chamber, I managed to accidentally save both the A and B slots, not to mention the autosave slot, on the wrong side of the door. My earliest save from before that is . . . in the Elven Warrior's Crypt. The first level of the Elven Warrior's Crypt. 

     

Look, whatever you're going to say, I already know. I need a better save system. I need to back up my saves. It's ridiculous that I haven't found a solution to problems like this after 16 years. This is amateur nonsense. I know, okay?

       

Lots of text, so here's a room from earlier that I thought looked cool.

        

Anyway, I experiment with hex-editing and manage to get the party position changed so that we're on the right side of the door. I think it's a little unfair that the game lets you wander into the final battle like this before you're ready.

   

Having found nothing else, we leave the castle and head back towards Barovia. We now have all the items we need to use Trimia's Catalogue except for Dhelt's holy symbol.  

     

Even though we're not feeling charitable towards the Vistani fortuneteller, I'm curious what happens if we return to her and hand over her lost card. The answer is: the option to visit the Vistani camp is no longer among the dialogue options when talking to the Vistani in the tavern.

     

I have no idea where to find Bray Martikova, so it's with a bit of luck that I happen to talk to the tavernkeeper (who is right next to the Vistani) and see the option to use the NEST keyword. We exchange our passwords, and he tells me to go to a warehouse in the southeast part of town. There, we'll find a contact. "They will know who you are and they will escort you to yet another party, someone more able to offer our thanks."

       

I would have just walked up and said, "NEST." Glorianna had to create a whole backstory.

      

I find the warehouse in the southeast and discover three suspicious-looking characters awaiting me. I'm not the only one who thinks they're suspicious: my characters say, "[Bray] told us nothing about a band of brigands." The leader takes exception to the characterization and demands that we swallow a sleeping potion so he can take us to a secret place. ("'Tis more certain than a blindfold.")

    

I think the two flanking guys literally use the same sprite as "brigands."

          
With no choice available, we agree. We awaken in a room with a giant raven in front of us and the "brigand" leader in the background. The great raven introduces himself as Pyoor Twohundredsummers (does he have to update this name every year?) and says he'll hear us out because of the wereraven we rescued from Strahd's tower. He has a lot to say:

   

• Count Strahd von Zarovich used to be a noble warrior. He freed the land from a tyrant named Dorian. Later, he became a vampire lord and turned evil. 

• To defeat Strahd, we'll need the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The artifact was crafted when Strahd was still a mortal.

• Pyoor doesn't know where the Holy Symbol is, but he gives us a key and a "special reading device." He says the key will open a door in the "cursed church." In it, we'll find three manuscripts that tell the location of the holy symbol. We'll need the reading device to read the scrolls.   

       

The raven lord fills us in on Strahd.

       

The human senses danger and tells Pyoor that they need to leave. Pyoor agrees and tells us that if we're able to defeat the enemies closing in on this place, we'll have proven our worthiness.

     

A scan of the map reveals that we're in some place called the Greater Catacombs Beneath Barovia. Two doors lead from the room. We choose one and begin exploring what turns out to be a very large, twisty map.

    

I think this is the largest dungeon in the game so far.

       

Encounters:

   

• Revenants. I think this is the first time they've appeared. They can paralyze characters, which happens quite a bit. I find a couple of "Cure Paralysis" scrolls to counteract it, and of course Mischa can memorize the spell.

      

A new type of undead.

        

• On the floor, we find a Barovian coin. Somers pipes up that maybe we'll find enough to buy that potion from the Vistani. I continue to find them throughout the level, fifteen in total, and of course the damned things don't stack, so I'm constantly fighting for inventory space.

     

First of all: there. Second, I'm not sure I agree with your premise.

       

• Wraiths. These guys can level-drain.

     

A couple of them guard a keyhole.

      

• A spinner.

• Fireballs shooting down corridors for no reason. This is getting old. Coincidentally, forcing the player to dodge random, inexplicable fireballs is something that this game has in common with Pagan.

     

Is there a never-ending fuel source in there? Why don't these fireballs cause permanent damage to the opposite walls?

       

• Hellhounds, not quite as hard as the last time I encountered them. 

• Two magic rings: A Ring of Protection and another Ring of Fire Resistance. With two rings and two Potions of Fire Resistance, I'll have a better chance against Strahd.

• Mischa hits Level 9 against some hellhounds. Now I don't need to carry scrolls of "Raise Dead," since Mischa can cast it. 

• In a corner, a regular sword and a Shield of Lightning Protection. It has a +1 enchantment, too, making it as good as my existing magic shields. 

    

A series of keyed doors, buttons, and illusory walls open the ways from section to section, where I continue to collect keys. I have to backtrack a number of times to search for buttons or illusory doors. It takes a while. When I'm done, I have 14 coins. The Vistani wanted 15. It strikes me that it's more likely that I missed a coin than the fifteenth coin is found somewhere else. So I have to loop through the entire level again, studying the automap for little dots, finally finding the last coin in a central room.

   

The exit from the caverns is a ladder in the northeast corner, with a final spinner just in front of it. We emerge from a trap door into a house in the center of Barovia. I haven't been here before, so the external doors must have been locked. A man and woman sitting in the room where we emerge have nothing to say. 

   

We return to the tavern and buy the potion from the Vistani. I'm confused about why we need it given that our current plan seems to be to defeat Strahd, get Dhelt's holy symbol, and use it along with Trimia's Catalogue to teleport out of this place. But I'm curious what will happen if I swallow the potion and enter the fog, so I head back to the Svalich Woods and give it a try. A cutscene shows us passing through the fog and arriving in a new place, labeled the Undead Forest on the automap. The party is instantly killed by treants.

     

Pushing through the mists.

        

So I'll save the potion for later. In the meantime, some miscellaneous notes:

    

• A "Detect Magic" spell that I cast very early in the game has never worn off, or else I have some object that casts it constantly.

• I made the mistake of casting "Cause Light Wounds" early in this session. For some reason, I thought it was a missile spell. Instead, it causes the cleric's hands to glow. I kept waiting for it to wear off, which it never did, making Mischa's left hand useless for most of the session and stopping him from using his throwing axe. Later, I realized that all I had to do was to have him attack once, either by moving him to the front rank or waiting until we were outdoors, and the spell would have disappeared.

• I noted the two Old Svalich Roads, where I did some extensive grinding, are now empty of enemies. I also checked out the Cemetery Grounds and found only a couple of stray wights where they'd been plentiful before. I assumed that enemies respawned indefinitely, but now I wonder if there isn't a cap, and they stop appearing once it's reached.  

       

Somers's commentary is apt. I had forgotten about that door.

         

I really expected to win this session; I thought my second visit to Strahd's castle would be my last. It looks like I have to go back to the Old Church now, and perhaps at some point to the Undead Forest before I'm able to confront Strahd again. I'm still enjoying the game, but my "upcoming" list hasn't budged for two months.

   

Time stamp: 32 hours 

    

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

10/26/2026 

Pagan: Destiny Is Always Right

Not terribly resourceful. I just followed the right wall.

       

Ugh. Pagan. Fine.  

    

I start in the Pit of Death. Commenters have already alerted me that I'm lost, that I need to head back to the Upper Catacombs and try to find other pathways. I don't feel like it. I just keep looping around this area:

    

• A corpse has a stuffed torax on it. Aww.

• I keep getting killed by gouts of flame, fireballs, and lava.

     

You can't see me because I just fell down the hole in the middle.

        

• A corpse behind a grating has a plaque nearby: "MARIOTA CONVENTICLER."

• Ghouls, skeletons, ghosts. A troll. Mandrils.

• The screen repeatedly shakes for no reason whatsoever. 

• More of those rolling, spiked balls.

      

What keeps them in motion?

       

• Lots of lava. Lots of jumping across lava. What looks like safe spaces often give way into pits (instant death) or shoot gouts of flame.

• Lots of spell reagents. Not sure I really need them.

• I come across a big building. A plaque: "CONVENTICLE OF THE DEAD." This seems interesting. But the door is locked and won't open. 

     

Ah, my old nemesis. We meet again.

      

• A troll's room. It's a disaster. A backpack has a deed to a torax in it. The owner of the deed is Toliver P. Barkley. (Is he an NPC?) The torax's name is George.

     

The lack of a 5 in this document is bothering me.

         

• A roomful of exploding mushrooms has a chest at the far end. It has an axe, 8 obsidian coins, and a couple of potions. Not worth it.

      

A doorway brings me into Stone Cove, near the entrance to the Hall of the Mountain King. Continuing to follow the right wall would have me loop through the Mountain King's domain again, then enter the cave that brought me here from the catacombs. I don't think I ever explored the rest of it, so that seems like a fine idea.

      

A short distance through the caves, encountering nothing more exciting than a . . . mimic? Doppelganger? Whatever the hell looks like the Avatar. I don't feel like going back to the manual. Anyway, a lever opens a gate, and my Key of the Scion opens a door. I can't tell you how much I love having an additional key that isn't activated with the (K)ey command.

        

Whatever these things are.

       

The door takes me into a new cave, an enormous one, with a raised plateau in the center. Stone bridges criss-cross each other overhead, and it takes me a while to figure out how to get onto the bridge network. The plateau has a little pond in the middle, and a white stone bridge brings me to a platform in the pond. It has an emblem of a large fish carved into it. Suddenly, a tentacle comes out of the water, and a woman's voice asks: "Who dares?!"

   

"Are you . . . Hydros?" I ask, since the only other option is "Goodbye."

   

"Indeed," she responds. "Know that it is into my domain that you have trespassed. Why do you disturb my rest?"

     

"I wish the power of Tempestry," I say, again as my only option. 

    

"A wise request from someone who has made a difficult journey to my current home. Alas, your request must go unfulfilled. Trapped here as I am, I cannot help you."

   

"What can I do?" I say, choosing it over "Goodbye" and, hilariously, "Too bad."

   

"Ah, you will assist me then. My gratitude will be boundless, mortal. The task is a simple one. Merely open the ground next to the gravestone of my captor's beloved, releasing the waters on the cliffside. Do that and I shall be free."

        

What happens if you just say "Goodbye"? I need to save more often.

       

As per the Chronicle of Pagan, Hydros's captor was Kalen. I looked through all my notes and screenshots but couldn't find his "beloved" named anywhere. Could it have been Mariota? Why would I help free Hydros? She doesn't seem like a nice person.

      

Curiously, I don't see any Blackrock in the area. I thought that was how Hydros was imprisoned. 

 

I keep on. An opening leads out of this area and into another . . . cave. I need better language to differentiate them. Probably also need to make a rough map. I pass by a troll, then come to a spiked wall with just enough of a gap in the spikes that I can jump over it. Continuing on:

   

• At another wall, a lever (which I nearly miss) opens a grate that lets me crawl through. Another lever turns the world upside down. Enough with that nonsense, Pagan. It wasn't fun the first time.

      

I have lowered the grate, but those spikes still look like they're going to hurt.

       

• Two more trolls, but I've found that trolls don't seem to want to attack if you just leave them alone and stay out of their direct path.

• A chest, which explodes—also never gets old!—has a couple of potions and a pair of magic leggings. My armor class goes from 14 to 15 and I save two pounds.

    

A doorway leads to a cave full of mushrooms. There's a gravestone here: "ALEXIS. HER SPIRIT TO LITHOS I GIVE." Next to it is some kind of retaining pond. I guess this is probably Kalen's beloved. Now I have to weigh the likelihood that the developers would set all of this up just so the Avatar could make a bad decision. It wouldn't be the first time—I think of the whole "Oppression" subplot in Ultima V. 

         

This might have been a mistake.

        

I take a save, then cast "Open Ground." A channel opens up in front of the grave, and water goes rushing out of the retaining pond. I start to loop my way back to Hydros's chamber, running past a whole bunch of enemies that I don't feel like fighting. More encounters:

   

• A stairway leads up to a chest. It is completely surrounded by a fence. There are stone pillars in the room of different heights, and it looks to me as if I'm meant to climb up the shortest pillar, then jump around to the others until I can get over the fence. But I can't make it work. I leave very frustrated after 20 minutes. Let me know if there was anything vital in that chest.

     

Trying to jump up on that pillar.

        

• A body in another troll cave has magic arm guards. My armor is now 17, and I save another pound. There are a lot of other minor treasures in the cave. 

       

I got in this troll's way.

         

The screen is misty as I return to Hydros's cave. Much of what was dry land before is now water. There's thunder and lightning. I return to the platform, and the tentacle appears again.

   

"Ah, I am now free! Thank you, foolish one, for your actions. Consider my gift of your wretched life as payment for your part. Now I will have my vengeance upon your pathetic kind! I will slay the descendant of my jailer! Let us see who can reach Devon first, groundling." So you won't be teaching me Tempestry, then? 

    

I find a new teleporter pad on my way out of here. It appears in the list of destinations as "Carthax Lake." I'm glad for it, since I feel the need to go to the palace and warn Devon, but I want to be able to resume my exploration pattern when I'm done. When I arrive at the palace, I again wonder why there's a chair facing the pad on the palace roof. It also appears that the mist and thunderstorms have come with me. I rush to Devon's chamber, where thankfully he's alive.

     

It would make more sense if this was a guard post. People shouldn't just be able to teleport onto the palace roof.

       

"The Lurker is free!" I warn. Devon replies that the torrential rains kind of gave it away. "Tell me, friend, how did this come to pass?" I meekly admit that I freed the titan. (Although "I know not" is another option.)  He says that he's not surprised—he sensed when we first met that I was an agent of change, for good or ill. He says that an unchecked Hydros will soon flood the land, though, and I have the responsibility to stop it. He suggests that the sorcerers may be able to help.

       

Note the "foggy" effect on the screen. Or maybe it's just a bug.

         

You know what annoys me? I tried to go my own way by just resolutely following the right wall, and I ended up doing things exactly in the order that the Zealan gods told me to. 

      

I warp back to Carthax Lake and re-enter the caverns that brought me here, continuing to follow the right wall. I soon come to a blocked door. A lever opens one block but raises another. I look around and find a barely-visible switch on the wall, partly hidden behind a wall and a spike. I have to click madly around the area for a few minutes before I get the precise set of pixels that will activate it.

    

I come to a large cavern with a huge lava lake in the middle. On the other side, an NPC catches my eye and speaks. He says that we're in the Mouth of the Daemon, which used to be "the first test for those wishing to join the Sorcerer's Cabal. Someone has rendered it mostly useless by directing an underground river this way." Whoops. What would have happened if I'd come here first? I sheepishly admit to doing it. He says if I want to reach him, I'm going to have to learn to fly; he recommends that I seek the sorcerer named Bane.

         

The NPC lays out the new comment rules for the blog.

        

So again I've managed to stumble into exactly the place the game wanted me to go. Is free will an illusion? Next game, I'm following the left wall, I don't care how unnatural it feels.

   

The game keeps switching between misty and not-misty as I try to find my next move. I can't find a way to cross the lava. I confirm that "Rock Flesh" protects me from damage, but the Avatar still goes "gah!" and gets stun-locked if he tries to cross the lava with the spell active. So I head back into the caverns to see what comes next. I'll probably find Bane next whether I want to or not.

     

The caverns wind around a bit, and it's a while (with nothing interesting except jumping over water) before I find another door (which opens with the Key of the Scion), which causes me to emerge in the sunlight on a stone path. "One world lies in ruin, nothing more than a charred shell," the Guardian says as I explore. "The other will soon fall." That's a new one. I cross a bridge and start exploring an island:

   

• A bunch of mandrils (I keep wanting to call them "cazadores") swarm over the corpses of two people on bedrolls next to a fishing boat. In between them is a book, which turns out to be yet another copy of Killer Jokes. Boom! Hah, hah! I'm so amused! This is fun! 

• A man in blue robes roams the shore. He says he can't help me, but I should talk to Stellos. 

      

I later learn that the "generic" theurgists all look like this and never have anything to offer.

       

• I find a teleporter pad, which becomes available as Argentrock Isle when I use the Recall Item. (Was "item" the best they could do? It looks like a ring. Why not "Recall Ring"?) My notes say this is the home of the Theurgists as well as a silver sword named Protector. And hey—I was supposed to find a magical axe called Deceiver in Stone Cove. I wonder where that was. 

• On the west end of the island, there's some kind of glyph, or maybe just a pattern in the stone, on a stone platform. I can't get anything to happen here. 

• West of the glyph, the land ends at a pair of stone pillars. The first time I visit, I would swear that the game takes control of the Avatar and forces him to jump off the ledge between the pillars and into the sea. Also, the Guardian chuckles, also suggesting that something suspicious is happening. But when I reload and investigate again, this doesn't happen. 

      

In the screenshot, it looks more like a void than an ocean.

        

The Theurgists (healers who worship Stratos, the air titan) occupy a large compound in the center of the island. The first one I talk to is named Cyrrus, who turns out to be the son of Corinth and Gwillim, the ranchers in the Valley. He misses home greatly, and he's haunted by the inability to save his sister from a kith's bite when he was young and still coming into his powers. He really doesn't want to live on Argentrock Isle, but he can't escape the fact that he has a natural talent for theurgy (enough so that his comrades call him "Holy" Cyrrus). He pines for Jenna, the barmaid, and misses his old tutor Bentic. I have to tell him that Bentic was executed by Mordea. Nothing material comes from the conversation, but he's the first NPC in the game that I've actually liked.

       

Giving Cyrrus the bad news.

         

Moving into the compound, I meet Xavier, a healer, who is also responsible for administering the first two tests for those who want to receive Stratos's enlightenment. They are the Test of Wisdom and the Test of Centeredness. The Test of Wisdom consists of five questions, and Xavier recommends that I study at the library first. 

 

The "library" is actually the monastery. There, I read books on the spells "Intervention" (a wall of air that acts as a shield), "Hear Truth" (allows you to hear both what the speaker is saying and what the truth is), "Aerial Servant," "Healing Touch" (light healing), "Divination" (know location, day, and time),  "Restoration" (full healing), "Fade from Sight" (invisibility), and "Reveal" (dispel invisibility). The books give the syllables for each spell and a "focus" but don't really tell how to cast them.

       

One of eight spellbooks.

          

Other books give insights into Stratos and the virtues she prizes, most by relating some kind of parable. We learn that Stratos wants her followers to be honest to a fault, impartial, clever, kind and forgiving to children, and quiet. My favorite of the parables concerns the virtue of wit, or cleverness. A healer was called upon to administer to an injured knight, bested in combat by a vain warrior named Yevaud. Yevaud crowed that he was the best warrior in the land, but the healer said he knew of a better one. When Yevaud demanded to confront this supposedly superior warrior, the healer led him to a cave and said the warrior was inside. Yevaud emerged from the cave some time later, battered and bleeding, and complaining that the only thing in the cave had been a swarm of mandril. The healer said yes, and those mandril had recently killed a small child. By dispatching them, Yevaud had done something good with his blade and thus emerged a superior warrior. I like this story. I think it might be the best book in Ultima canon. I find myself wishing that Ultima IV had offered similar stories reflecting the eight virtues.

      

There are two more NPCs in the monastery. One, Torwin, is a young and upcoming Theurgist, proud and haughty of his magical skill and the speed at which he has passed the various tests. "No one here has the raw talent and ability I have. And I will suffer no one to surpass me." I suspect this is going to be a problem.

    

Torwin's boast about constructing focuses on the first try is a bit laughable given what we later learn about how focuses are constructed.

        

The second is Stellos, the eldest and informal leader of the Theurgists, who call themselves the Order of Enlightenment. He is over 200 years old and has gone blind. "It is the price I pay for being able to serve Stratos so completely." He explains that theurgical spells require a "focus" that the theurgist must make himself. I say I want to learn air magic, and he says that I'll have to join the Order by passing the two tests that Xavier administers.

       

I feel like there has to be a catch.

         

With my notes and screenshots in hand, I return to Xavier and tell him I'm ready for the Test of Wisdom. He gives me five questions. In short, they are:

   

• Will I welcome home a runaway child "after several years of debauchery and crime," or will I turn him away?

• My brother is accused of thievery, and I know that he's guilty. Do I testify against him?

     

One of Xavier's questions.

         

• To heal a child, I'll have to make a sacrifice. Will I sacrifice my hearing, speech, sight, or life?

• My king has been fatally wounded in a battle. As he dies, he wants to know how the battle is going. We're losing badly. Do I tell him the truth or lie so that he dies happy? 

• I'm in a tavern, and my comrades start boasting of their deeds. Do I join in and "tell of the glories of Stratos" or remain quiet?

   

I get them all right on the first try, mostly since these scenarios are all drawn directly from either the texts or NPC dialogue. The game could have made it a bit more challenging and meaningful by offering dilemmas that required knowledge of the virtues but with different fact patterns.  

    

Next comes the Test of Centeredness. It takes place on the stone tower with the glyph that I found earlier. The Avatar stands in the center while the winds of Stratos push and pull him in various directions, trying to knock him off the tower. If he falls off the tallest side, or falls off any side while at less than half health, it's fatal. Meanwhile, he can walk or run in the direction opposite the one that the winds are trying to push him. The whole thing lasts about 30 seconds and takes me a couple of tries.

      

I did this once in El Paso and spent the next six hours trying to flush sand out of my eyes.

          

Xavier is now done with me, and Stellos has the next test, which is to construct one or more focuses. They must be made with a special silver found only in the caverns beneath the monastery. The silver must then be taken to Korick on Tenebrae, who will create the focuses. Finally, the focuses must be brought back to the monastery and laid on the Altar of Focus. This will imbue them with Stratos's power.

   

The caverns are the usual annoying combination of monsters and fireballs randomly shooting out of nowhere. It takes me a while to identify the silver ore, as it just looks like any other background rock to me. I don't know how many I need, but I pick up as many as I see.

      

Silver, gray, and pink are identical colors to my eyes, alas.

        

While there, I find a building with no apparent doorway, so I use the magic door scroll, and one appears. Inside the building, on an altar, is the sword Protector, as described in the book My Dearest Prevan. The monastery has two copies in case the player hasn't encountered it before now. The axe Slayer has served me well, but it takes a lot of hits before the thunderclap sounds and the enemy dies. When that happens, it's a great weapon, but I'm starting to resent all the hacking that I have to do before the d20 rolls a critical hit (or whatever is happening). In subsequent tests, Protector seems to kill enemies a bit faster, and more important, it increases my armor class by 5. I'll keep Slayer, of course, but I'm going to continue to test Protector for a while.

       

It seems like a waste of potential to just leave it here.

           

With my backpack full of silver ore, I teleport back to Tenebrae and walk to Korick's workshop. He gives me eight options for focuses, one for each spell I read about. Of course, I want all of them, so I go through this dialogue tree eight times, until my backpack has eight silver talismans.

     

What does a "closed eye" talisman look like? A football? (Answer in screenshot below: Yes.)

      

I then teleport back to Argentrock Isle, enter the monastery, and put the focuses on the altar one by one. Each one is imbued with magic, brightening the icon. Now, when I click on the focuses, I cast the related spell. Much nicer than having to mix reagents! (The Avatar's mana score puts a limit on how many spells he can cast at once, though.) The "Divination" spell is my favorite, since it tells me the official name of the area I'm in. I don't need to come up with new names for identical-looking caves.

        

Turning the dull talismans into proper focuses.

        

I have to wrap up here, but I feel like I made some progress, and I liked the game more by the end of this session than at the beginning. Exploring Argentrock Isle felt like a classic Ultima experience, and the books and NPCs were more interesting. I'm still confused about a couple of things, though. First, how do the Theurgists get to Tenebrae and back? Does everyone have one of these Recall Items? Do they take boats? Do they go through the Catacombs every time? If the latter, do they all have Keys of the Scion? How do they cast "Open Ground" to get back?

   

Second, I wonder about the nature of Stratos. How is she the one good titan? I suppose Pyros might turn out to be good, too. That would have a nice symmetry: two good, two evil, one each male and female. But their association with elements confuses things; as building blocks of the world, it doesn't feel right that elements should be assigned "good" and "evil" roles. It feels like good and evil should be independent of the fundamental nature of reality. I had been assuming that they were all evil; perhaps Stratos is, and she's just done a good job fooling her followers. Anyway, no spoilers, please. I don't mind if the answer is "PAFO."

     

Oh, and was I supposed to do something with that Skull of Quakes? Cast it into some lava somewhere? I just noticed it in my backpack and realized I never figured out its purpose. 

      

Time stamp: 38 hours  

    

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10/24/2026