Serpent Isle: Gotta Find that Mutton

 

A note outlines our lost inventory.

       

When I closed my introductory entry, I remarked about how nice it was to start an Ultima game with the party fully equipped. This was a joke, of course. Within the first minute of gameplay, you're stripped of most of it.

   

This session begins with my party walking south along the coast. I stop to talk to each of them first. Only Iolo has anything to say, and it's about how much he misses Gwenno. I ask all of them to "leave," just to see what will happen, and they all act as if I'm joking.

    

This is ironic, because before the ship is even out of sight, lightning strikes the party, and one-by-one, all of them disappear except for the Avatar. Random items--like a potted plant, a grandfather clock, and a broken dish--appear in their places but just as swiftly disappear. Moreover, half of the Avatar's equipment is gone, replaced by random items. This includes the Black Sword and the spellbook. More on the missing items in a bit. For now, suffice to say that removing them before the storm strikes does not stop them from disappearing.

      

Poor Avatar. Poor, poor Avatar.

        

Alone and confused, I continue to walk south and cross an abandoned dock. Another lightning bolt strikes a piece of garbage and replaces it with a spoon (these items also seem to be randomized). As I cross between two rocks, the air shimmers with magic, and a woman appears. "I have travelled a great distance to meet with thee," she says. "My name is Thoxa." She then tests to see if I am "the promised hero" by asking questions that I have to consult the manual to answer, like "how many different materials can armour be made from?"

  

After I answer them correctly, she hands me something called the Hourglass of Fate. "Keep it with thee always," she says, "for through it the Monks of Xenka can aid thee." In further conversation, she identifies herself as a Monk of Xenka. The monks apparently have prophecies that a hero shall arrive with three companions in "the last days." She believes that the end is nigh, as signaled by the magic storms and strange illnesses. The storms have the power to teleport items and people as well as change them. This has put an end to all ocean travel.

      

The first major dialogue of the game.

      

The prophecies say I can't succeed without my three companions ("thine oldest and most trusted friends"), so either I've already failed or Dupre, Shamino, and Iolo are still alive somewhere. She says I'll find more answers in a cave further to the south, and a friend awaits in a city called Monitor even further to the south. I will eventually need three artifacts: a ring, a necklace, and an earring. The hourglass will resurrect me on Monk Isle if I'm killed. 

   

As she prepares to leave, another monk named Karnax gates in and chastises her for even talking to me. He notes that Xenka's writings say "those who seek to aid the hero shall cause his greatest calamities." Thoxa casts a protective spell at me (a ring of fire) as the two monks begin battle. They cast spell after spell at each other. Thoxa seems to die for a moment, but she rises and blasts Karnax. As he dies, he warns me to beware my friends: "They shall only bring destruction upon thee!" A few moments later, both he and Thoxa are gone. Thoxa's final words are that I'll also need the black sword with the caged demon to complete my quest.

      

This ring of fire is protecting me?

      

(A few side notes: 1) I don't remember any of this. I remember our items disappearing but not the three companions. In my memory, we just wandered south and were immediately in Monitor. 2) I suffered the same issues with dialogue freezing as I did in The Black Gate. I had to review my own entries to remind myself that the freezing happens when I start the game using GOG's launcher, but not when I go into my own version of DOSBox and start it. I compared the two configurations and I can't see anything that could be causing it. 3) If you give Thoxa the wrong answers, she calls you an "impostor!" and runs away. I don't know what the consequences are for the rest of the game.)

  

I'm just recovering from that business when Shamino comes running up, having been alerted by the explosions. Great. I get one of my companions back, and it's Shamino. He remarks that his own equipment has also been replaced, and he's made a note detailing it. As we continue south, he soon spots his magic bow lying among a pile of animal bones. He notes that he has a bear's skull in his posesssion, suggesting a one-for-one teleportation of our stuff. Again, more on this in a bit. We pick up the bow and move on.

       

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

     

As the coastline turns east, we find a dead pig and carve it up for two chunks of ham. The walls of a city come into view, meaning we've missed the cave, so I turn around and head back. Thoxa had told me to look for a red bush. The entrance turns out to be hidden, next to a bush that I suppose is red.

      

Another game that's tough on the colorblind.

      

Past the illusory wall, we find a small room with a chest, a barrel, a well, and a bedroll. Shamino keeps spouting tutorial-like comments ("A bedroll! With this, thou wilt sleep well anywhere"). The chest is locked, but a nearby sack conveniently offers some picks as well as a torch. The chest contains a sextant, a torch, a sling, a dagger, and several items of food. Using a nearby bucket on the well fills it with water, a reminder to the player that the game's sandbox engine allows for such interactions.

   

Another illusory wall takes us to a room with an ankh altar and a skeleton. I'm in the middle of constructing my own theory as to what happened (a Britannian was stranded here and died) when I realize there's a note next to the body. The note is from Erstam, the author of the game manual, and it contains the text translated from "Ssithnos, the Great Hierophant" that begins the game manual. It hints at the war that consumed the Ophidians and describes the interactions between the forces of Order, Chaos, and Balance and the nine virtues that grow from them. We are unable to open a locked chest next to the altar (all the picks break and I have to reload), so I have Shamino take it with us.

       

Looting the strange cave.

     

I expect to find Dupre or Iolo in the cave, so I'm surprised when I don't. I check the other walls for secret passages. I'm not a fan of the way secret doors work in this game. Give me the old Ultima IV system of looking for breaks in the brickwork.

  

We move on to the city wall, which extends from the northern mountains to the southern ocean. A small skiff or a willingness to swim a few meters would defeat the fortification, but we have neither. There's a gatehouse with a portcullis and a guard pacing on the other side. We catch his attention. He demands my name and business. Figuring "the Avatar" will mean nothing here, I give my name. "Another stranger," he remarks, and on prodding, he mentions an "enchanter who materialized in the center of town" and is now in jail. He directs me to Lord Marsten to learn more.

      

What is this even guarding? There's nothing that way but a little beach and a cave.

         

Whoever it was--clearly either Dupre or Iolo--interrupted a funeral for several guards recently attacked by goblins, against whom the Monitorians have been at war for generations. The leader of the patrol, the Champion Knight Astrid, remains missing. She was wearing the Helm of Monitor, which the Monitorians took from a goblin chieftain of old. The goblins have also conquered one of the towers that the Monitorians set up along a trade road to Fawn. It turns out that the people of Monitor worship Courage and think little of the people of Moonshade, who worship Magic, or Fawn, who worship Beauty. 

   

The guard--Flicken--reluctantly agrees to let us in, but we're accompanied by two pikemen until we meet with Lord Marsten, who is currently in the crematorium. Flicken is a Knight of the Bear, one of three "commands" in Monitor; the others are the Leopards and the Wolves. Flicken has nothing but contempt for the Leopards, who include Lord Marsten and someone named Spektor, and the Wolves, whose leader is a gadabout named Brendan. The heads of the commands take turns acting as Lords of the city. They do not believe in monarchy: "we left our ancient homeland to escape a tyrant who thought otherwise."

      

It's funny that a town that forces everyone, even women, to become knights still adheres to the concept of "loose women."

     

Someone starts asking for food as we head into the city, so I throw him a hock of ham. Honestly, of all the things Origin tweaked after The Black Gate, how was this not one of them? In this case, though, I misinterpreted. It was one of the guards. "Is it meal time yet?" is apparently one of the things they just say, along with "Pay the tariff!," "Knave!," and "Move along!"

    

We pass a field of corn stalks and come to an intersection, where a sign, in Britannian runes, proclaims the intersection as West Gate Street and Kosric Road. I don't know if I noticed in Gate whether clicking on the lower sign produces a different message than the upper one, but it does here. I double-click on a lamp to turn it on, even though it's daytime, which based on your comments has probably just put the game in an unwinnable state.

         

No one's going to complain that I didn't give enough detail for this one.

     

The next building to the north is the Crematorium, where I'm supposed to find Lord Marsten and get rid of these pikemen. The first guy I speak to on the inside introduces himself as Renfry. He says that Marsten, Spektor, and Brendan are all in the crypts, paying their respects to the dead.

   

The building has a large furnace with stone stairs going up to a door on the top. There's a lever next to the door, and a kind of conveyor belt sticks out the bottom of the machine. The impression I get is that bodies are loaded in the top door, the lever activates the bellows, and the decedent's ashes come out on the conveyor. They're then collected into an urn, several of which line the shelves. I try to maneuver the pikeman into standing on the door as I activate it, but it doesn't work. The furnace comes on, but he doesn't fall.

      

It's too bad Dupre's not here to see this.

     

We wait a bit, but Lord Marsten doesn't seem to be in a hurry, so we enter the crypts, which are behind a curtain. The Monitorians apparently inter their dead in small chambers in rough-hewn caves. They place urns of ashes atop pedestals with plaques, although there are a few coffins with bodies, too. As we search for Marsten, we read the plaques:

    

• ELENA, WORTHY OF IMMORTALITY
• EDMUND, ARCHER PAR EXCELLENCE
• PEDIGAR, STRENGTH AND VALOR
• SARAH, SWIFT OF BLADE, STRONG OF HEART
• ROLAND, REDEEMED THE HONOR OF OUR LAND
• RANDALL, INTREPID AND BRAVE
• CALADIN, GOLDEN-TONGUED KNIGHT. Instead of an urn, Caladin's pedestal has a crossbow. I think I know what happened there, but I leave it for now.
• MELINA, ADEPT IN THE ART OF WAR
• REYNALD, VALIANT AND GLORIOUS
• SAMUEL, THOU WERT NEVER MATCHED
• TERRENCE THE PURE
• KOSRIC, THUNDERBOLTS FROM ABOVE. Note that one of the streets was Kosric Street. Nice little bit of world-building.
• GROAT, NO KNIGHT SWIFTER THAN THEE

       

No in-jokes there, at least not as far as I can tell. It's nice to know my Britannian is as good as ever. I don't have to consult the manual once. I also note that despite all that's been written about this game, no site offers a transcription of those plaques nor mentions Kosric and the street named after him. The CRPG Addict is a pioneer once again!

 

There's a large chamber in the crypts with a square relief of a serpent on the floor. I assume this is one of the teleporters that Erstam talks about in the manual; it's somehow activated with a serpent's jawbone and the right tooth or combination of teeth. I assume I'll learn more about this later.

      

The label kind of gives it away.

    

The four men are lingering around the tomb to Groat, who must have been killed in the goblin attack. I note with some amusement that it's at least three times as large as the other crypts because of course it has to accommodate the four NPCs. 

  

The first one I speak to is Caladin, grandson of the entombed Caladin, who Renfry didn't mention. He's upset about his grandfather's missing ashes, which confirms my theory that they were deposited by the teleportation storm and currently in the possession of a confused Iolo. Caladin is the commander of the Knights of the Bear and offers to train us, specializing in strength. From his dialogue, I get the impression that the patrol ambush and the loss of Fawn Tower are the same event. Caladin believes the patrol was betrayed by a fellow knight. The Bears suspect Krayg the Provisioner, a Wolf.

      

Is the face tattoo really necessary? Yours looks more like a bat than a bear.

      

As we say goodbye, he recommends that we take the Test of Knighthood, as anyone who isn't a knight isn't accepted in Monitor. The test takes place in a special dungeon after Lord Marsten grants permission. He even gives us three clues, but I'll cover that later.

   

The second man is Spektor, the town's treasurer. I'm getting the impression that the Leopards are all bookish sorts; he freely admits that he's not much of a fighter, and he notes that if he can pass the Test of Knighthood, anyone can. He has information on Iolo, the "enchanter" who disrupted the funeral. He says I should speak to Marsten. I'll also need to return to Spektor to exchange currency.

      

What do you bet he does care?

   

Marsten is wearing the same blue tunic that I think Patterson wore in The Black Gate. He recaps what we've learned about the goblin ambush and the missing Astrid, who was apparently his lover. He plans a retaliatory raid but won't talk about it to someone who's not a knight; apparently, those who don't want to take the Test of Knighthood are banished at age 15. He also mentions his ancestors fleeing Sosaria and the "Beast British" who would impose his philosophies on everyone. He's a bit more specific as to why: The mages of Moonshade value illusions, so they rejected the association of mages with "truth." The people of Fawn worshiped Beauty, not "unconditional love." Those of Monitor thought that Courage was the most important virtue, not equal with the others. As critical as I've been of Lord British, it's hard to sympathize with any of this reasoning, particularly Fawn's. I suspect I'm not going to like that place very much.

      

"We prefer to force our own philosophy on people."

         

There's an option to say "I serve Lord British," which I try, and Marsten breaks off dialogue, saying that "no servant of the Beast shall be aided by any Knight of Monitor!" He refuses to talk with me after that unless I explicitly renounce Lord British, but no one else seems to have a problem. I reload anyway.

     

Conversation with Marsten confirms the roles of the commands. The Bears are the true warriors; the Leopards are the thinkers, artisans, and administrators; the Wolves are the builders. There's probably some association with Chaos, Balance, and Order here, but I'm more interested in how the three roles mirror those of the Night's Watch in A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones to you television viewers). There's probably no direct association, but it's an interesting coincidence.

   

We ask about Iolo, he only says that he's in jail. It seems a weird place to ask his permission to take the Test of Knighthood, but we do. The password to the test, which is administered by someone named Shmed, is "Courage is the Soul of Life."

       

Our first Batlin clue. Marsten appears to have been wiser than Lord British.

      

Before he lets us go, he asks what we're doing in Monitor. In the subsequent conversation, Brendan mentions a "fat sage," whom Marsten threw out of town, and an older woman with a "fine bone structure" who must be Gwenno. An argument among the men as to whether there's a "spy" in town takes over the discussion, and we never have a chance to answer.

  

We turn to leave, but suddenly Dupre comes rushing in with two guards at his back. He says he found himself in a woods full of goblins, so he took shelter in the city, but the pikemen won't leave him alone. Until this moment, I assumed we'd find Dupre hanging out in a bar; I think the authors missed an opportunity there, although maybe that characteristic of Dupre's was getting a bit old. Anyway, Dupre has also lost half of his items. He adds to Shamino's list.

      

Marsten deftly avoids talking with Dupre.

      

With Dupre in the party and no more guards tailing us, we head out (forgetting to speak to Brendan) to look for the jail and Iolo. It takes us a few buildings to find it, but I'll relate those adventures next time. It consists of four cells, three of which have corpses, suggesting that the Monitorians just throw people in jail indefinitely to rot. That's what happens when your only virtue is "courage," I guess. Iolo is pacing back and forth demanding his release. There are no jailers in the building and my lockpicks break on the door.

       

At least they gave him a bucket of water.

     

After speaking with Iolo briefly, we search around until we find Marsten in Town Hall. This time, we have the opportunity to explain what happened. Alas, Marsten says that we'd have to be knights to vouch for our friend, which means I'm going to have to solve that little quest before we can free Iolo.

      

Don't be a smartass, Marsten.

     

I had hoped to have the party intact before I began worrying about our missing equipment, but since that's delayed, I take the time to go over Shamino's list as well as loading an earlier save to compare inventory slots. Shamino's list has only the new items we found in our possession, not what we lost. I remember the last time I played this game (15-20 years ago), I wished I'd kept more careful track of what I lost and what replaced it.

   

To compile the list below, I had to do some save scumming. By default, the items that replace the Black Sword and the glass sword appear in the backpack, along with four other items that replace things that were in the backpack. To figure out what replaced what, I had to have the Avatar hold each of the items in his hand, the only single slot that can contain anything.

     

• My spellbook was replaced with a chunk of pumice.
• My Black Sword was replaced with a ruddy rock.
  
• My glass sword was replaced with a pinecone.
  
• The blackrock serpent was replaced by a pair of fine stockings.
• A hunk of mutton was replaced by a bottle of ice wine.
  
• A leg of meat was replaced by 83 filari, a currency from one of the cities. Shamino's note oddly doesn't mention the money. This is the only trade in which I came out ahead.
  
• Rudyom's Wand was replaced by a strange apparatus.
  
• My magic armor was replaced by an enameled breast plate, "suitable for ceremonial occasions."
• My magic helm was replaced by a woman's fur cap. Shamino's note says it's "ridiculous." I think it's very practical and not obviously a woman's at all.
• My magic gauntlets were replaced by a ring. Shamino's note says that it's a "finely crafted ring, of silver, of a size to fit a small woman or child." I don't know what to make of the Avatar wearing it, then.
• Dupre's Magebane has been replaced by a blue egg.
• Dupre's Shield has been replaced by a Shield of Monitor.
• Shamino's 24 burst arrows were replaced with an odd hairbrush. "Crude," according to Shamino.
• Shamino's dagger was replaced with a severed limb. The note clarifies that it's a "bloody hand." Actually, I suppose the hairbrush could have replaced the dagger and the hand could have replaced the burst arrows.
• Shamino's swamp boots were replaced with a pair of slippers, "such as might be worn in the privacy of one's home."
• Shamino's magic bow was replaced with a bear skull.

   

We'll add Iolo's stuff to the list when we get him back in the party, but I know what one of them will be. I look oddly forward to slowly finding the lost items and returning their replacements. It does seem odd that my party was so thoroughly afflicted in just a couple of seconds, though. In any event, having noted everything, I can move things around and equip the party properly. I think I'll put all the new items in a single chest to better keep track of them.

      

The Avatar's old and new equipment. The bedroll on my back and the pouch on my waist were found after the lightning strike.

       

Look at that. I've just finished my second entry on Serpent Isle of over 3,000 words, and I can't be more than 20 minutes into the game. It's nice to be writing about a game that's so thick with plot and NPCs. I hope you don't mind if it goes a little slow.

   

Time so far: 0 hours