The Return of Werdna: Won!

 

Goddamned right.

         

One of the more obscure films that I enjoy is The Emperor's New Clothes (2001). Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled to Saint Helena, manages to replace himself with a double and return to France in secrecy. Once there, he marches up to the Palace of Fontainebleau and declares himself only to meet stony silence from the bemused guard. It's a funny moment that reminds us how authority is illusory, dependent on a mass of people believing and accepting it as much as it depends upon laws and rules.

   

I was reminded of the film as Werdna emerged from the dungeon and beheld the castle he's always felt he deserves. I don't know what his intentions are, but centuries have passed. I can imagine a similar conversation with some bureaucrat. "You're who now? 'Weirdo'? What kind of a name is that? All right, have a seat and I'll see if I can find someone to 'kneel to your power.' There's a pandemic going on, you know, and a lot of people are working from home."

   

Before continuing, I MALORed down to Level 5 and spun around until the Holy Rollers attacked. The combat was embarrassingly easy, and when it was over, I had a Magician's Hat again. I then zoomed up to Level 1 and prepared to park next to the pentagram for as long as it took to find someone with a "Blade Cusinart [sic]." (I had been using the proper spelling in previous entries.) I found it on my first combat, with a fighter named Bloodmetal. I guess a lot of enemies on "Cosmic Cube" levels carry it, but it's only shown as "Weapon" in the post-combat loot screen. (Thanks to BronzeBob for supplying a clue about this.) Anything else plot-important, the game highlights with a special name.

         

I don't like the sound of that.

     

From there, it was back to the Level 4 witch. After confirming I had all the ingredients, she said she'd give me the Blue Blood Special for free, in exchange for a later favor. I accepted, and my reward was a "dark glob" that resolved as a Dab of Puce in my inventory. I don't think puce is a noun, but there you have it. I was more delighted at suddenly having five empty inventory slots in the Black Box.

   

After a stop at the Level 1 pentagram to refresh my MALORs and party members, it was time to explore and map the castle. I mapped the outer perimeter first. The only way to the interior was through a single opening on the south side, where a "hoplite" (a Greek soldier) demands the password. This is a famously aggravating part of this game, as it requires you to have not only won Wizardry but also have taken notes as to miscellaneous scribblings found in the dungeon. The so-called password, TREBOR SUX, is found at the bottom of a warning plaque as you enter Werdna's domain. There are Oracle hints that point you to it: "Password is your ancient battlecry" and "Seek amongst the historical writings of Trebor's foes for the password." Only the latter is really helpful, as TREBOR SUX is hardly a "battlecry."

       

What is bad Attic Latin? [Ed. As commenter tetrapod figured out, Attic in this example means "from Attica, the region of Greece that includes Athens. It goes with the guard being a "hoplite."]

    

If I hadn't replayed Wizardry in 2013 in anticipation of The Knight of Diamonds, I wouldn't have had a chance of getting the password. If you've been reading me that long, you may recall that in my coverage of Wizardry, I was able to skip much of the final level. My thief tripped a teleport trap on an early chest, and the teleportation managed to put me directly in front of Werdna. I skipped the part of the map with the plaque.

   

In my replay, though, I didn't get so lucky, and my maps of the level do show the phrase. I like to think I would have figured it out, but nothing else in this game absolutely requires knowledge from outside the game (although, as we've noted, many things are hard to figure out without previous Wizardry experience and experience with nerd culture in general). In any event, the need for the password was spoiled for me a long time ago, and unlike most of the other spoilers I saw in 2010, this one stuck in my head.

Once inside the gates, the castle opens up into an area with several buildings and encounters. None of the corner towers are accessible except for a single set of stairs in the northwest one. There are two buildings inaccessible on this level (MALOR works from the castle, but not to it), although they become available on the second and third levels. Note that the overall pattern of the walls unsubtly spells out "RRA III" for Roe R. Adams III. Robert Woodhead and Andrew Greenberg did the same thing in the original game.

      

The main level.

       

I've only achieved one ending so far, but my feeling from the experience is that the ending you get has a lot to do with the order in which you choose to do things. I don't see how any role-playing or forethought could have led me to one ending over another. I'll relate the particular order in which I experienced the endgame encounters and why it led to my particular endgame, then analyze what I needed to do differently later.

 

There are no random encounters in the three castle levels, only fixed ones. The Oracle flits around, but every time I encountered him, he just said, "**ERR**." Either he doesn't work on the castle level, or I've run out of clues.

    

Or this is a really obscure clue.

    

While exploring the outlines of the buildings, I found two fountains in the northern part of the map. One was broken, "closed for repairs." The other said that it was "open for public bathing" but a "lifeguard must be on duty." The game noted there was no lifeguard and gave me the option to swim in it. I did: "As you bathe in this pool, you are enveloped by a feeling of foreboding. Suddenly the weight of your past evil deeds descends upon your stooped shoulders again!" I checked the character sheet, and my alignment had turned evil. I didn't want that yet, and as I'd accomplished nothing else worth saving, I reloaded and kept myself neutral.

   

I then explored the buildings to the south, which you can enter only from the west. "The edge of town," the game alerted me as I entered, showing me a graphic. I moved on to the next building, "the Training Grounds." I was attacked as I entered by Von Halstern Squires, Squad #3. Their motto, amusing, was: "Wrong end! It's a basket hilt, not a mace, you dummy!" The squad was pathetic, a samurai and five fighters, most with single-digit hit points. I let my allies defeat them.

      

Please.

   

The battle is followed with fights against Squad #2 ("Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork!") and Squad #1 ("Bite 'em, Vlad!"). Both squads are all fighters, and no one with a hit point total higher than 26. They were trivial. I tried Googling the significance of "Von Halstern," and it seems to be another Society for Creative Anachronisms figure. I think we can just assume that's true of all references unless we find otherwise.

   

The next building held Boltac's Trading post, only, as the messages related, Boltac wouldn't sell to me, "even if you paid in Mythril!" I was looking for a lych-gate at Boltac's, as the Oracle had said, "Look to the lych-gate!" and a blimp advertised them for sale. Sure enough, the game noted that I saw "the legendary lych-gate of the Archmage Phred" and that "it has been rumored capable of razing castles when in the hands of one who is truly evil." The game asked if I wanted to steal it. I said yes.

  

I was attacked by Boltac's Anti-Shoplifting Unit ("Gotcha, senile delinquent!"). The "squad" consists of a ninja, fighter, priest, and mage named Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. The mage has 330 hit points and the fighter has 600. I decided to let my allies cast mass-damage spells while I hoped for critical hits with my sword. I was lucky enough to lop off Air's head in the first round and Fire's in the second, which meant that Fire could only get off one TILTOWAIT. 

      

All four elements respond to NUKE.

   

But after the battle, there was no lych-gate in my inventory, and apparently no way to get it. I later thought that maybe it's because I wasn't evil, so I'll go back and check that later.

 

I tried the northeast building, but upon entry, it said, "The door to the inn is locked. Without the large brass key, you cannot gain admittance." Moving on, I decided to explore the small tower in the north. "The tall donjon rises before you," the game said. "It is the citadel of the castle." I thought Adams was being cute with the word dungeon, but I looked it up, and damned if donjon isn't actually a word for a fortified tower. (It of course has the same roots as dungeon.) 

      

Awfully small for a citadel.

    

The tower consisted of three levels. On the base level, I met a group called the Captain's Council, consisting of a ninja, a thief, two mages, and two priests of modest ability. The names were drawn from foes I'd already faced in the dungeon. I cast a LAHALITO or two, but mostly my allies finished them off.

On the second floor was the Council of Barons: a ninja, a lord, a samurai, a fighter, a priest, and a mage. They were capable of some relatively high-level spells, but again they were less difficult than the typical Level 1 party in the dungeon.

      

Are those crowns or a bunch of guys around a table?

      

Finally, on Level 3, I met the Great Dukes of the Realm. A message specifically named them Duke Akbar ibn Murad al-Ben Muhammad ibm Hakim ("Ibm" is probably a deliberate misspelling to make a play on IBM); Duke Siegfried von Halstern; Duke Cariadoc of the Bow; Duke Vissevald Selkriksson; Barak Duke Hasdrubal; and Duke Sigmund the Wingfooted. These are all SCA figures, which is fine, but as usual I wish the game had bothered to do some actual world-building. It just gets worse from here.

The dukes attacked me. Each is a good lord with at least 570 hit points, but oddly they were only capable of lower-level spells. Success came down to whether more than one or two per round targeted me in physical combat. It took two reloads, but my allies and I eventually carried the day.

      

I love this message.

     

Triumphant after the battle, I stepped forward--and plummeted two stories to the ground. The upper levels of the castle are all meant to be understood as small walkways or rooftops. Unfortunately, there's no indication of where they end, so you have to figure it out from context or do a lot of reloading. The Winged Boots don't keep you aloft.

Moving east from the battle with the dukes led to a similar drop-off, and that was all there was. Sure there must be some purpose to the room, I tested the walls and found a secret door just north of the entrance. It brought me to a "wizened old scholar" who introduced himself as Master Bertram, curator of the treasure room. "I have an item that you dearly require," he said. "Tell me what it is, and it shall be yours!"

   

Or I just kill you and take everything.

     

This was my moment! I confidently answered AMULET. "Wrong!" he said. Confused, I tried AMULET OF YENDOR, forgetting momentarily what game I was playing. "Wrong!" LYCH-GATE? "Wrong!" I went through the Oracle's hints: ILIAD, QABALAH, ROOTS OF THE WORLD, BOTTLE. All "wrong!" BRASS KEY got me nowhere.

   

I nearly moved on, but I wanted to solve this thing. I grabbed the manual to see if the amulet is ever called anything except The Amulet. I tried MYSTICAL AMULET, but no deal. As I was reading, this paragraph caught my eye, referring to Werdna's research into the amulet:

  

The scroll appeared to be written by the apprentice to the wizard who opened the gate that night so long ago. His mind seemed to have been blasted by what he had seen, for only stray bits and snatches of thought were scribbled on the scroll. He kept repeating over and over again something about the glowing eye of THE GOD, which I took to mean the amulet. He also ranted about losing the Mythril Gauntlets entrusted to his care, and groveling for forgiveness from someone or something. The last part of the scroll was filled with dire prophecies and fears for his own eternal torment.

          

Thinking I had it, I tried EYE OF THE GOD and GLOWING EYE OF THE GOD and EYE and GLOWING EYE, all with negative results. It was almost as an afterthought that I tried MYTHRIL GAUNTLETS, and damned if that didn't work. I assume they're necessary to touch the amulet, but as we'll see, that's not the ending I got this time.

   

I left the tower the quick way (rather than fight the barons and captains again) and tried the stairs to the tower in the northwest. The second level is ringed by what I suppose is the castle ramparts. In each corner is a one-square walkway surrounding a 1 x 2 tower. Each of the corners of the tower has an encounter with a single "sentry," a fighter with 76 hit points. Along the ramparts, you meet heralds--bishops with 91 hit points. As the heralds die, they call for help with their trumpets, and you have to fight an "honor guard" of six mid-level fighters. All of these combats are trivial.

 

Level 2 of the castle. The blue area is open air.

    

Next to each of the towers is a stairway up, leading to the 1 x 2 top of the towers. If you step anywhere else, you fall two stories. Three of those tower tops have a battle with a group of crossbowmen, again trivial. But the fourth has you fight The Innkeeper, a high-level ninja who drops a brass key. I suppose there's a danger of decapitation in this battle, but I won in one try.

       

The third level, or most of it. I didn't get through the door at (4,12).

      

With the key in hand, I entered the Adventurer's [sic] Inn. In the foyer, I met the Walking Wounded ("Oh, groan! Not you again! Man the crutches!"), a hapless party composed of pre-wounded characters I met on lower levels. I brushed past them. The inn had a few rooms with nothing in them and two ways up: a staircase and an elevator.

      

What a badass name.

    

I took the staircase first. It led to a second floor with four rooms, each the meeting place of some chivalric order or guild--and it turned out that they were all happy to see me. The Tyger's Cubs introduced themselves as Cormac Kyle, Patri ibn Cariadoc, Krisha von Halstern, Alison von Halstern, Mitchell of Clan Mitchell, and Luke Maximillian. They took the Pennonceaux from my inventory and thanked me for returning their banner. In return, they gave me a ball called the Orb of Dreams.

I tried using the Orb of Dreams and had a nonsense dream drawn from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in which a large white rabbit complained, "I'm late! I'm late! For the life of me, where is the opening?" Or is that some kind of hint?

        

This game sure has a thing about rabbits.

         

Across the hall, I met the Order of the Laurel: Baroness Kathryn Goodwyn, Sigismund Vasa Care, Johannes von Nurenstein, Gabriella Maddelena Pisano, Arwen Evaine Merch Gwynth, and Salaamallah the Corpulent. They took the Daub of Puce from me, planning to use it to "touch up the old painting of Trebor." In return, they gave me the Arrow of Truth. I tried using it. "The fickle finger of fate spins . . . and points at you!!!'

   

The next room had the Order of the Pelican: Master El of the Two Knives, Aravis Katheryn Delclare, Jaella of Armida, Alisoun MacCoul of Elphane, Steffan ap Cenydd of Silverwing, and Anne of Hatfield. They thanked me for restoring the Temple of the Dreampainter and gave me a Maintenance Hat. It just said "Clap! Clap!" when I invoked it, but I knew immediately what it was for.

         

This is just getting embarrassing.

         

Finally, I crossed the hall and interrupted a meeting of the Ladies of the Rose: Khadijah of House Hakim, Wanda von Halstern, Diana Alene, Kunegunda Henschel von Schattenberg, Ecaterina Amber of Tospenwood, and Mara Tudora Kolarova. The game even makes a distinction that some are "their graces" and some "their excellencies," which are of course SCA castes.

They congratulated me for "chivalrous action towards [my] most bitter enemy, Trebor." I feel like I'm getting credit for a lot of things I did for the sake of survival, namely restoring the temple and putting Trebor to rest. I'm also getting credit for hoarding items that sounded like they might be needed for solving a puzzle.

      

It wasn't chivalry. I would have sent him to Hell if it were an option.

         

Anyway, the ladies couldn't stand my "foul stench" and attacked. I failed to take a screenshot of the battle, so I don't know what their classes were. It couldn't have been hard. 

   

I dropped back down to the courtyard and headed for the broken fountain. Sure enough, the maintenance cap "instilled in [me] the knowledge you need to repair" it. When it was fixed, I bathed in it, and as I suspected it turned me good. My allies took one look at me and fled in terror. Fortunately, that wasn't a permanent effect, and I was able to head back to the Level 1 pentagram and get more.

       

If only it were this easy.

     

Squeaky clean, I returned to the Ladies of the Rose, and they were satisfied: "Receive our token of grace. Keep it on thy person at all times, for it is a royal pardon for thy crimes, and none shall bother thee whilst thee wear it!"

      

What were my crimes, really? I set up shop in a dungeon and fought off adventurers until I died.

        

Here, I'll just pause and say that it's cool that Werdna can change alignments, but it ought to have been harder than just bathing in a couple of pools. Roe Adams worked on Ultima IV, for heaven's sake. There was a real opportunity here for some role-playing choices. What if I'd had the power to either save Trebor's soul at a cost of some of my attributes or consign him to hell for even more power? What if I'd had a choice as to whether to fight or greet the castle denizens? I know, blah blah blah, that's not what this game is about. I can still lament why it wasn't better.

   

I returned to the inn and took the elevator. On the way, the Von Halstern Chivalry stood aside for "the noble Werdna," so that was a battle I didn't have to fight. The elevator led to Gilgamesh's Tavern, but there was nothing to do there. I stopped before a west exit from the tavern. "Halt!" a message read. "No further may thee travel unless thou hast decided to seek thy destiny in the Amulet!" 

        

I just realized I switched off CGA graphics at some point, and no one bothered to mention it.

     

I said yes, and entered battle with the Softalk All-Stars Less One ("For Margot and Al, one more time!") A little Googling later told me that the Softalk All-Stars refers to a group of heroes discussed in the March 1982 issue of Softline magazine as examples of a Wizardry adventuring party. Each was contributed by a different reader; for instance, Sezmar the Samurai was the alter ego of John Hanny of Avon, Connecticut, and Sarah the Priest was created by Deborah Conover of Brookline, Massachusetts. The "minus one" refers to the fact that Roe Adams's own hero, Hawkwind the Ninja, is absent.

 

This was the hardest fight in the game for me. It took me nine reloads. Just like Applet's Angels on Level 1, two of them are capable of TILTOWAIT, and unlike the Angels, they have insane hit points. My strategy was to target Tuck the first round, hoping for a decapitation before he could cast, and equally hope that my allies softened the rest enough that by the third round, I'd be able to take my sword to Prospero. Another part of my strategy, I suppose, was hoping they chose something other than TILTOWAIT. On the tenth try, I got lucky.

         

What is their symbol? A peppermint Life Saver?

       

I saved the game inside the door beyond, but then I spent some time exploring the edges of the rooftop outside, taking lots of falls and having to reload. In one corner, I found a pack rat's nest, and searching it rewarded me with "the Nyin," which appears in my inventory as a Void Transducer. I couldn't figure out how to use it for anything. Because I had reloaded from falling, I would have had to fight the battle with the Softalk All-Stars again if I wanted to keep it, so instead I just marked where it was and reloaded from inside the temple.

   

Inside, I got a message indicating I was in the Temple of Cant, where "we support the fundamental freedom to worship the god of OUR choice." There was an immediate throw-away battle with five priests and a bishop of moderate levels. The game got a chuckle out of me with the character names.

      

Additional characters could have been "Touch Of," "Resident," and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and."

     

Moving forward, I reached a final door, which was guarded by "Lord Hawkwind of Skara Brae, elfin ninja--the last member of the Softalk All-Stars." I knew that Adams was responsible for "Skara Brae" appearing in both The Bard's Tale and Ultima, but I didn't know there was a reference in the Wizardry universe, too--nor that Hawkwind the Seer from Britannia had an alter-ego in Wizardry.

        

Careful, buddy. We're not on thou terms.

         

"Thou shalt not pass this way, this day or ever!" he announced, and I suspected he was right. The entire session, I'd been awaiting the battle for which I'd need the Level 10 dink, and this is clearly it. "You are about to battle a living legend," the game announced before the combat, but "battle" turned out to be generous. Hawkwind has 1,000 hit points and an armor class of "VL," which I assume means "very low." He didn't even "noticeth" my allies' MADALTOs and TILTOWAITs, and every attack I made against him missed. Meanwhile, he parried every round, and the game offered an escalating series of things that he did instead of fighting. "Lord Hawkwind laughs!" it began, followed in the next round by, "Lord Hawkwind chuckles!"

       

This battle would go faster if I hadn't brought all these demons.

     

In succession from there, round after round, he snickered, read Pikestaff (an SCA magazine), answered his mail, filed his nails, sent out for sushi, ignored me, pet his dragons, paid for the sushi, fed sushi to his dragons, pretended to take a nap, really fell asleep "(from boredom)," woke up, brushed his teeth, brewed tea, oiled his blade, and said his morning prayers.

        

Where could you get sushi delivered in the 1980s?

     

After that, things took a dark turn. He petitioned to offer me up as a sacrifice, filled out the sacrificial order form in triplicate, got approval for my sacrifice, bound and gagged me (I could participate no more in combat from this point), anointed me with sacrificial oils, and at last sacrificed me to Kadorto. "Kadorto is pleased," the game said, "but considers you to be a very poor substitute for a goat!"

        

I mean--for dinner, sure.

       

Anyway, I am 100% sure the answer to winning this combat is to have a dink with me, and my first thought was to reload and go grab one. But the post-pardon reaction by the Von Halstern Chivalry intrigued me, and I wondered whether the Captain's Council, Baron's Council, and Duke's Council similarly had alternate messages if I carried the pardon. Deciding to check this out instead of getting the dink turned out to be a fateful decision.

   

Inside the tower, the Captain's Council announced they would bend their knees to me if I paid one million gold pieces as a "weregild." I had nearly two million by this point, so I said sure. They gave me a Rallying Horn. Upstairs, the Baron's Council asked me to sign a parchment that "pledges [me] to reinstate the traditional rights and privileges stolen by Trebor!" I agreed and got a Signet Ring.

    

Sure. I'll never take it off.

     

Finally, the Duke's Council noted my "god-given sword" (I guess it was important to get that), the support I'd achieved from the various groups, and my having lain Lord Trebor to rest. They asked if I was "willing to prove [my] courage and nobility by accepting single combat" from each of them, using no allies nor spells. I said why not.

       

There's going to be six severed heads here soon.

        

It turned out I didn't need to fight the combats. "By thy willingness to accept the challenge, in conditions most unfavorable to thyself," Duke Akbar said, I had proven my chivalry.

     

Looking around at his fellow dukes, Akbar continues: "Because of all that thou hast become, and for the many fine deeds thou hast done for the good of the realm, we have decided to offer to thee rulership of all of our lands and estates in the hope that thou wilt govern justly, and reunite our strife-torn dominions. We would have an end to this constant warring between our people and the many monsters that dwell in the planes adjoining ours.

"Thou art our best hope to stride the worlds. Wilt thee give up thy quest for the Mystical Amulet and accept the title of overlord with all its power and responsibility? Consider our offer carefully, for only once will it be offered! Wilt thee assume now the throne and take the crown?"

       

It's a trap!

         

I said yes. Everyone started shouting "Long live the overlord Werdna!" and "Vivant!" But the mood was spoiled by a whisper in my ear: "Remember--a favor owed . . . someday . . . be seeing you! Cackle Cackle." This was, of course, the hag who had made the Daub of Puce. But I couldn't have gotten here without it, so there's no way to get this ending without this ominous warning. I wonder what Adams had in mind for the payoff for this.

  

The endgame continued with a "future historical footnote":

      

Under your benign and enlightened rulership, the realm will enter a golden age of pace and plenty. The evil acts of the past will be forgiven, and your people will surely remember you fondly! But even so, as the years pass, you will always wonder . . .

"Have you forgotten something?"

      

That final line had me casting curses at the screen, but in kind of a good way. The game earned that one.

    

Go #$*@ yourself.

       

There were a few more congratulatory screens. I was awarded the rank of "Wizardry Master Adventurer." There was some text emphasizing that there are other potential endings ("Freedom of choice is one of the great gifts of Lord Maya!"). Then it gave me three code numbers for some reason.

        

What do these get for me?

     

Whew. Sorry these Werdna entries have been so killer long. In addition to potential alternate endings, there are lots of smaller questions I want to answer:

   

• What would the guilds say if I didn't have their items?
• What if I turned evil again after getting my pardon but before visiting the dukes?
• What if I dropped the sword or any of the other objects before visiting the dukes?
• What if I didn't have the objects they required when visiting the guilds?
• What does this Void Transducer do?
• Do HAMAN and MAHAMAN work after I've turned good?
• Will Boltac's sell to me if I'm good?
• Can I get the lych-gate if I'm evil?
  

   

So we're not done with the game. Expect the answers to those questions soon. In the meantime, I can finally say that I've won The Return of Werdna, and I did it with only one outright spoiler (TREBOR SUX) and having had to un-ROT-13 only one hint (to do with the Cuisinart). I feel pretty good about that.

   

Time so far: 64 hours