Completed DECENT PERSON SIMULATOR 1985 (ultima 4 lp)

[ore clover]

Chapter X: Run Out of Town for Homicide

We return to the duo, now a trio, of brave virtuosi as they continue to quest for the avatar. When last we left they were exploring the forest town of Yew, hub of justice in Britannia.

Spoiler

Looking at these stats, I was a bit surprised. The history book claims druids are almost comparable to mages in spellcasting, but Jaana’s a bit of a dumbass. For reference, our hero is smarter than both Jaana and Iolo combined (just a bit of shameless intelligence plugging, nothing to see here).

Druids can equip bows, though, so at least she can serve as our current heavy hitter. Until we find one, she equips our second sling while our hero goes back to his trusty staff. We leave the campfire and chat up a nearby wandering druid.

We still don’t know the mantra, but at least we now know the justice stone is green. What was it: blue honesty stone, purple honor…? Oh well.

I start bugging Silent again, but he doesn’t say anything about the mantra. However, that “Beh… beh…”

Perhaps that’s what Pinrod meant about the druids chanting the mantra. Could be Beh.

We check around town again for anyone we missed, and then set off to get to that druid across the river that we spotted earlier.

In the hopes of reaching the druid faster, I discover that Blink only works outdoors (as in, not in towns or dungeons). Blink is the game’s teleportation spell. It functions similarly to a star trek transporter: “This spell disassembles the mage and companions and reassembles them at a spot many leagues distant in any chosen direction.”

Instead we loop up and to the left, following the river, until we return to the entrance of the town. There's a gap, as I figured, so we cross it and double back to the druid. He’s a solemn druid named Calumny, who makes spells.

I glance at the manual, to make sure it doesn’t require any rare ingredients, and answer an affirmative; we also have four spells already mixed in our inventory, but I couldn’t check that in a convo. “It requires but one bloodmoss!” I’m not sure what he means, because the game’s spellbook and manual both say that a double portion of bloodmoss is required, with just a single portion of the other ingredients. Maybe I’ll try mixing it his way sometime.

While touring the town for anything else we missed, we stop by Pinhead (or whatever) again. When asked about justice he responds, “Justice is hardest to find at the point of a sword, the steel is an agent of justice, humanity the perpetrator!” Yeah, yeah, deus vult and all that I guess.

With that, we make our way out of Yew and start traveling back to the nearby moongate.

Ah, more rogues. Now we can see how we perform with a third combatant. We sidestep the rogues and travel through the forest for a while before they catch us up.

There’s only two rogues, though, so you can imagine how it goes. One starts running after a single strike from Jaana’s sling, and the other charges for Iolo. Not wishing to lose any money, we all circle around the rogue for a while until our hero finishes him off in one blast with a fireball.

Oops, we wandered too far to the west; we can see the coast now. There’s what looks like another settlement a bit south and on the coast, but for now we head back for the moongate.

While stumbling through the forest we encounter a couple skeletons.

Jaana sends one packing with her sling, while Iolo shatters the other into pieces with his. Our hero delegates from a safe vantage point.

We find the moongate clearing, and take it back to Lord British’s castle. With all these fights, maybe someone’s ready to level up again.

Oh, okay. I guess we’ll come back later. Before leaving we decide to pay the Seer a visit; see where our hero stands with the different virtues.

Here’s how you reach the Seer. These are sleep fields; walking through has a chance to put some or all of your party to sleep. You could charge through, if you want, though I don’t remember what happens if you all fall asleep. Or, you can use the spell Dispel to remove the fields; they’ll return once you leave this floor of the castle, so make sure you’ve done your business before moving on.

An important note when you’re using Dispel: It only works on adjacent tiles. The spellbook implies that you can fire it across a distance, but that’s not the case. What happened here is I deactivated one of the sleep tiles, and then tried casting Dispel without moving forward. The second spell failed, wasting mana and a potion. It always helps to buy lots of a particular spell, to help minimize the setback from mistakes like this.

I also discovered, to my dismay, that our hero didn’t have enough spell points to dismiss all the tiles; I think it was because of that Blink and Fireball we used earlier. Due to that, and the utterly useless mana count of Iolo and Jaana, we won’t be visiting the Seer quite yet.

Yes, I’m well aware that I probably should’ve just charged straight on. I don’t always think about these things until after the fact, okay?

We leave Lord British’s castle and decide to camp just outside. To do so you press “H” for “hole up and camp.”

That’s a pleasant sight; we look dead. Maybe this is like elder scrolls where awake/alive and asleep/dead are connected.

After resting, our hit points and mana points are restored; also doesn’t look like any extra food was used up. The manual mentions that camping isn’t foolproof; enemies can ambush you while you sleep. Furthermore, I don't think chars will recover more than 100 hitpoints per rest. I also found out that Jaana actually has 19 mana points, instead of 4; I guess she had been busy using magic before joining the team?

We make another go at reaching the Seer, but our hero still doesn’t have quite enough mana points for four Dispels in a row. Jaana probably could’ve picked up the baton, but we blew through our last Dispel potion failing the fourth casting. Oh well, we’ll come back later.

Leaving Castle British, we take the nearby moongate and start heading back to honorable Trinsic, to find a bow and leather armor for Jaana. We blow through a group of four orcs, without taking any hits, along the way.

The bow’s also a bit expensive, but we have money to buy it and some leather armor. With how frequently that stupid orcs and rogues assault us, we’ll make that coin back in no time. Jaana gets the bow, and now our hero is back to using a sling.

Unfortunately they don’t sell anything besides chain mail. That’s okay; Paws or Britain will have what we need. There’s actually another npc in the shop that we hadn’t talked to yet, just off to the right of our view in this pic. He’s an ugly sailor named Sailor Sam. We don’t learn anything other than that he sails the seas of Britannia, so we leave him alone.

I remember that scared kid next to the bull, so we return to see about resolving that situation. The bull doesn’t respond to our attempts to initiate a conversation, so we decide to attack it and hope it runs away.

Heavily wounded, but not fleeing? Uh oh…

We pelt the bull with a couple more stones and arrows, and it reaches critical health. Still not running. We end up finishing it off, and check with the kid.

In addition to thanking us, the boy also tells us where to find the honor rune. Nice, let’s go get that.

Hmm? I don’t remember any guards wandering around down here -

What the hell, was killing that bull a crime? We immediately flee the combat zone to avoid killing anyone else.

We do our best to avoid this small army of police, and disengage from any who attack us. Fast as we can, we run out of the town and back into the wilderness. Since this is an old game, I hope that we won’t be pursued by psychic guards for the rest of our lives. We pop back into town to find out, and the groups of guards have disappeared.

I’m sure that will bite me in the ass later, though. Fucking bull. Was he a citizen of Trinsic, or something?

Damn, I can see it now: Lord British states, "I am disappointed in Jesus Chris' behavior. Jesus Chris is an Avatar of little honor."

Following the kid’s advice, we head back over to the southwest corner of town, where good old Virgil sulks. He doesn’t say anything about the rune, but when we search this spot in the middle we find it.

On our way out, poor Iolo gets poisoned; a quick Cure and he’s back in tip-top shape. With that finished, we decide not to tempt fate and leave Trinsic without talking to anyone else. Just outside of town we meet -

Woah, that’s more than usual. I wonder if they’re stepping up their game now that our little band is growing? Still nothing to worry about; three run away, and the others fall to our stones and arrows.

Same deal with these rogues. We kill two with ranged attacks, our hero immolates a third, and the fourth makes a break for it. One of them managed to snag some coins; we’ve gone from 313 to 262.

We head back to the moongate just south of Trinsic, kill some more orcs along the way, and teleport to Moonglow. It’s pretty much my main stop for spell ingredients, at this point. There are more ingredient shops in the world, but this one is easy to reach.

While we're here, I remember something about this chest from a previous playthrough. We head over, hit “S” and…

Yah hah, the rune of honesty! I can’t tell you how you’re supposed to find out it’s here; maybe asking the mages about the rune will reveal a clue. I basically found this the first time I played the game, because I was trying to steal the contents of the chest. I hit “S” to search the chest, because that seemed like a logical command to use.

After that we head back over to the ingredients shop and mix up a few more spells, including some replacement Dispels.

And that wraps up another update. Where shall our party travel next? Who knows. Find out when we return to Ultima 4: Quest to be a Good Person. Temporarily set back by our run-in with that bull, of course.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter XI: Who Sees the Seer?

The quest is gaining traction. What was once a lone wolf grasping for information is now a veritable party of adventurers. Still on the small side, but full of confidence. Where shall their journey take them next?

Spoiler

First order of business is boosting up our spell counts, particularly Dispel (yes, I’m still trying to get a crack at that damn Seer).

However before we return to Lord British’s castle, we decide to explore the remainder of Moonglow’s island. Who knows, maybe we’ll find something of interest in that forest.

Uh, this is pretty much all we found in the forest. If there’s something hidden in there, I wasn’t willing to scour every patch of tree for it. I remember that there was a bridge I hadn’t explored earlier in the game, due to a sea serpent, so we head back to the northeast tip of the island.

Not much here; I’m thinking that the main points of interest on this island are Moonglow and the Lycaeum. We spot some rogues across the bridge, and decide to approach. May as well begin replenishing our supply of cash.

Two rogues attack, and Jaana sends both packing with her sling before they close in on us. Iolo opens the chest, springs an acid trap, but suffers no poison from it.

We wander about in the forest for a little while, and then decide to swing by the Lycaeum before moving on. Trying that locked door from before, we discover that it is indeed still locked. I also tried using “A” for attack, but APPARENTLY doors are not assailable. I guess smashing down a door would be destruction of property; not the sort of thing decent people ought to encourage.

Onward to Lord British's castle!

First order of business is checking in with the big man to see if anyone’s ready for a level up. Our hero makes the leap, but Iolo and Jaana require more experience. Ah well, we’ll get them there eventually. It looks like a character’s stats increase with each level up, too. I don’t remember the precise numbers at the start of the game, but our hero now has 26 strent, 20 dexterity and 33 intelligence.

And now for another embarrassing experience trying to reach the Seer. Everything goes well at first; I determine that our hero can’t cast more than three Dispels, so I prepare to have Jaana cast the fourth. However it turns out that 19 mana isn’t enough! Which thoroughly confuses and frustrates me. Our hero started with 66 mana before his first Dispel, and ended up with 47 after, resulting in a difference of 19. Simple arithmetic! For what purpose does this not work?

I suppose it could be possible that you can’t drain all your spell points in one go, or a character with a higher intelligence can cast spells for cheaper mana costs. It’s a puzzle that I guarantee I will not remember to test.

Enough is too much. We’re seeing the Seer now!

Our hero and Jaana collapse in a blissful slumber, leaving Iolo to drag them up to the counter. Here’s where I realize I’ve probably been wasting my time. I have Iolo move back and forth a couple times, and our hero quickly awakens. So it was likely the case that we should’ve bullrushed the Seer from the start, instead of spending a decent chunk of Dispels and money trying to reach him.

Whoops

Time to find our whether our hero’s doing a good job being a good person…

At least we’ve kept up the honesty, though I’m genuinely not sure how you even show you’re honest. The Seer’s instruction isn’t quite the same as that truth seeker’s from the Lycaeum, but three cycles is definitely involved somehow.

Okay, guess we need to throw more coin at beggars. Not sure how else to be nice to people through the game’s mechanics.

Ha, no longer a coward amst I! I’ll bet we aren’t completely valorous because of all those guards we just ran from in Trinsic. With all the combat encounters we face, it should be an easy matter to boost this virtue.

Goody, justice prevails.

Hmm, is that a thing? I’ll have to see about donating blood, then.

Yush, letting all those evil creatures flee has made me an Avatar of Sufficiently Adequate Honor!

This is his response for spirituality. Sounds like enlightening the other virtues will build toward obtaining this one.

I don’t know how I’ll boost this virtue. Maybe a visit to Magincia will show the way.

So we’re ready to seek out three shrines: Honesty, Honor, and Justice. As luck (or providence) would have it, we already know the general locations of these three. I think I'll just get those out of the way now, rather than wait until every virtue stands at its peak.

We exit the castle and take a moment to camp out and recover our health and spell points. No evil creatures ambush us, so we set off. Now that I know we’re supposed to Search for runes, we return to Britain to track down that rune of compassion that eluded our hero.

Remembering how Pepper told us it’s at the end of a hallway somewhere in town, we charge toward every dead-end we can find and smash that Search button. We also take the time to throw some more coins at that beggar, Sprite (compassion, ka-ching!).

At last, the rune of compassion is ours! We discovered it at the end of the hallway that connects to the rooms of the inn.

Before we seek out the three shrines, I want to see about boosting the levels of Iolo and Jaana. There’s a bit of a gap in experience; Jesus Chris has 529, Iolo has 315, and Jaana has 193. It makes sense that Jaana has less (or was it fewer?

), since she’s our newest member. However I explicitly recall that Iolo started out one level higher than our hero, so why does Chris have more experience points?

Could it be that a character only gains experience when they themselves kill a foe? I hope not; micromanaging experience gains won’t be fun. We’ll need enemies to fight in order to find out, so we begin traveling towards the mountains to the northwest of Lord British’s castle.

The world map seems to indicate that the mountain range can’t be crossed, but we find a gap to move through. Before we continue northwest we spot an orc group approaching from the east. Now the truth of experience gains will out.

Hmm, I was expecting a bit larger of an attack. Our hero throws a stone, prompting the orc to flee. Can’t risk my honor, so we let him leave. Resuming our trek we cut west, approaching a forest. We skirt along its edge, by the western coast of the landmass. Some more orcs approach from the south, so we meet them in combat.

Same deal as before. Jaana hits one twice, but he decides to run. Fortunately the other stands his ground, trading blows with our hero and Iolo. Our hero deals the killing blow, and the game informs us that 6 experience points are awarded.

Now, Jaana has 193 points. So if the experience goes out to all members of the team, she will have either 199 (6 points to each), or 195 (6/3 = 2 points to each). If it only goes out to the one who killed the target, she will still have 193.

Ohhh noooooo…

That’s why our hero has so many experience points; he’s been hogging the kills! This is an unfortunate development. Because now I will micro most every combat engagement to bring up team members whose experience is lagging behind. I’m too OCD not to.

We continue going up the coastline; I’m hoping that 200 xp will bring Jaana to level 3, so we still need to seek out more enemies. We then turn right and explore a bit of the forests, and bump into some more orcs.

Jaana definitely kills one, so now we’ve guaranteed that she’ll make progress. She also kills another one, and the other two flee. No experience for our hero or Iolo, but at the moment they don’t need it quite as much.

That pretty much seals it; 193 plus 12 makes 205. Now I’ll just have to remember to let certain chars take on enemies whenever I want them to level up.

We start heading back to Lord British’s castle, to see if Jaana can now level up, and run into some more baddies along the way: an ettin, two trolls, and an orc.

First troll flees immediately, after Iolo hits him, and Jaana oneshots the orc. Our hero abstains from combat while Iolo focuses on the ettin, and Jaana the other troll. The ettin flees, so Iolo also attacks the troll; he flees shortly thereafter. Leveling characters while remaining honorabu will be tedious.

These baddies attack us next, and our hero participates this time due to the quantity. Four run, and we kill the other two. With those orcs and skellies vanquished, we have a clear path to the castle.

Excellent. Hopefully that will put her on better footing in the team. She’s gained some stat increases, including an intelligence of 17 for 21 mana points, so now she’s not quite so stupid.

With that out of the way, we decide to begin seeking out the shrines.

We’re heading to the full-moon moongate, which takes us up to the northern coast of the landmass and east of Yew. Here’s the plan: I want to investigate the honesty shrine first. We know that it’s on an island north of Moonglow’s, and there’s three of those. One of them is much larger than the others, so that’s an obvious starting point for our search. We’ll use blink, and there’s a much smaller gap by the island’s west side from which to leap.

There’s also a town nearby this moongate, but we’ll leave that for later. For now, the shrine.

Noticing that poisonous marshland, we plow through the hills instead; slower, but safer.

We loop up and to the right, and encounter a dead-end peninsula. We double back and find a bridge that the world map shows, with some rogues waiting for us on the other side.

We defeat them, and continue east past the bridge. Some skeletons attack us, which we make short work of, and we head northeast through a mountain range. Far as I can tell with the world map, past that mountain range is a lake, and past that lake should be the coast.

Some orcs and a troll accost us, so we give them the same treatment as everyone else. Here’s another peninsula tip; based on the world map, there are two of these to the east of the full-moon moongate. The lake and coast are farther to the right, then.

The lake, just as the world map foretold. Behold, it also houses a shrine. My guess is that this shrine is connected to the virtue of the town nearby the full-moon moongate; since we haven’t visited there yet, we leave this shrine for a later trip.

We actually tried to enter the shrine, but without the proper rune we are barred from entry. So we definitely need runes to enter, and mantras to meditate. Hopefully the stones from the dungeons aren’t also needed.

As you can see, there’s a marshland to the east of the lake; technically we could’ve avoided it via the dense brush to the north. Naturally we didn’t realize that until after we stomped through the marsh.

Poison for everyone, but we have Cures aplenty to deal with that. We move farther to the east and…

If we’ve properly utilized the world map, that bit of land across the water should be the island we want to jump to.

An update of knowledge and discovery. Will our hero find the shrine he seeks? And if so, will he succeed in pondering the mystery of honesty? Find out next time.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter XII: Thingken About Honest

We now join the Avatar-in-training as he seeks out his first momentous occasion: pure, concentrated thinking at a stonehenge. Will he prevail, or lose himself in his mind?

Spoiler

This should be the perfect spot; minimum expanse of water in between to minimize drowning risk. A group of orcs comes barreling out of the forests, though, so we decide to tackle them first.

Just one? I’m insulted. Iolo flings a stone, and sends him packing. Now, to the island!

As I suspected, you don’t get to specify how far to travel in the desired direction. Who knows where we'll end up? Guess we’ll see you on the other side…

Spoiler

Wew lad, a hair’s breadth less precise and we’d be sleeping with the fish. We begin our search for the shrine of honesty; this being the largest of the islands north of Moonglow we should be rewarded for our effort.

There you are, just as Calabrini said all those days ago. No point in wasting time with investigating the rest of the island; let’s finish what we came here for.

Since this is the shrine of honesty, I choose it as my virtue to ponder.

I had to think about this one for a bit. Hawkwind just said go for three cycles, but that truth seeker worded it as one, two, and three minutes, so that could imply we should start with one cycle. After deliberating, I choose to go with three cycles from the start.

Some dots slowly fill the screen as I meditate. What is honesty? Hmm...

Spoiler

http://www.zenthinking.net/blog/everything-yields-to-honesty

Everything yields to honesty.

When you’re honest with yourself, speaking the truth cleanses you of anger, sadness, hatred, desire, envy and greed. The pain of your inner denials weaken you. When your self-reflection is honest, it exposes all of the lies that you’ve told yourself and that you've been resisting.

You can't hide from yourself for long.
Once confronted, your negative emotions have nowhere to run and they can finally begin to heal.

Everything yields to honesty.

When you’re honest with others, speaking the truth absolves you of guilt, shame, aversion, grief and despair. When you deny the truth that's in your heart, you only inflict further suffering upon yourself.

Honesty will liberate you.
This purifying nature of honesty is one of truth, sincerity, humility and vulnerability; redeeming traits that earn you nothing but trust, confidence and respect.

Without honesty in your life, struggles never end. When truth is ignored, pains only continue to grow until they consume you.

As they say, the truth will set you free, even though it might sting.

But in the end, everything yields to honesty.

“Ahm,” just as we were told at Moonglow. I’m prompted for the mantra three times, once for each cycle.

I’ve done it! Truly, I art an honest soul.

Behold, a vision doth press its bosom upon mine countenance! It’s… uh… hmm.

I don’t know what it means. Maybe it didn’t finish? Should I insert another quarter?

Very strange. We’ve achieved a partial Avatar state thanks to the meditation, but it has only added questions instead of answering them. Perhaps the vision will become clear with further enlightenment. Let us depart this place, and continue our search for knowledge.

We’ll need to blink once more to leave, it’s merely a question of where. Leaping from the southern portion of the island could take us to Moonglow, but would require braving those marshes. Instead, we choose to return to the mainland from where we originally left.

As we travel through the island’s forest we discover that we’re not alone. Two groups of orcs and trolls, including this sizable band of brigands, engage us in combat. Our hero braves the trolls alone, while his companions disperse the orcs.

Here we go again, hopefully we won’t materialize in the middle of a poisonous swamp…

Wow, that was a considerable jump; we’ll have to find ourselves a boat before we fling our bodies into the ocean.

Back to the full-moon moongate we go; that vision provided barely a sliver of information, and I desire more!

More ettin. Nothing we can’t handle, I’m sure.

Bluh -

It’s weapons-free as a barrage of boulders streams toward us. We quickly persuade two of them to vacate, but the others’ attacks hit home.

Here’s a message I’ve seen start popping up recently. The history book identifies phantoms as bodiless (sic) entities, but with visible weapons and shields. However I have seen no floating swords and shields up to this point, and the message always appears after a visible enemy has fled the combat zone. Peculiar.

The battle is won, but we suffered many blows. We have little time to rest on our laurels, as a group of skeletons quickly assaults us.

Though guided by an evil magician, these undead stand no chance against the forces of decency. We send the mage running with his tail betwixt his legs, and continue toward the moongate.

Some more orcs and an ettin attack us on the way, whom we vanquish handily. Our hero casts a Heal on Jaana, since she’s absorbed quite a few hits from all these battles.

We reach the moongate, and use it to return to the general area of Trinsic and Paws. Remembering bits of information, such as the Folley Tavern and mandrake, we make our way to that little village in the hills.

Not before taking a load off. It’ll save us from needing to use another Heal to bring Iolo up to snuff.

Let's make a quick stop at Trinsic first. We still don’t know the mantra of honor, so now’s the time to rectify that issue.

Dost thou remember the seeking paladin who asked us what two things we need for the shrine of honor? Now that we’ve successfully visited a shrine, I can honestly tell him that they’re a rune and mantra.

What the, Aristotle’s in this game too? Why is he associated with honor? Did ol’ Rich just decide certain historical figures exemplified certain virtues? An honest playwright, and an honorable philosopher. Wonder whom else we’ll encounter.

“I search for honor. Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in deserving them.”

Another one of these annoying questions that demand an absolute answer. Despite being of adequate honor, I still say no.

“Strive to be as such.” That’s the idea, mister. Go muse about politics, won’t you?

We find the seeking paladin, and begin following him into a forest. And what do we find? Perhaps that’s the skeleton that knows something about the stone of honor. First, let’s speak with the paladin.

We already have the rune, but no doubt this would’ve proved a better way to acquire it than murdering a dutiful citizen of the towne.

Very good, we know the mantras for the other two virtues I’m ready to meditate on. Now, what does the skeleton have to say?

His name’s Skitle. Shame must be the opposite of honor. So that’s where we’ll find the stone.

“I have seen the purple stone used in altars of truth and courage! Ever been there? It holds items thou shalt need.”

Sounds like it won’t be enough to obtain enlightenment at all of the shrines. Perhaps these dungeons will hold the keys we’ll need to enter the Abyss and reach the Codex.

Before leaving Trinsic we stop by the tavern, hoping to order some more food for our journeys. Unfortunately they only sell individual meals, so we’ll have to stock up when we reach Paws.

Aye yai yai...

That wraps up another installment of the quest for thinking about what it means to be decent. Join us next time as we continue the search for shrines, as well as familiarize ourselves with methods of transport besides our feet.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter XIII: Yar Har Fiddle-Dee-Dee

Welcome back to Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar. Whenst last we left off, our band of merry travelers was preparing to face down multiple foes whilst returning to Paws.

Spoiler

Oh damnit, overshot again. No problem, we’ll just check Britain for food instead. But first, these rogues…

Easy victory for us. Our hero ended up killing two of them himself, so I had Iolo kill the third while he was fleeing. Not very honorabru, but we need all the experience we can get for the followers. On to Britain.

I don’t remember whether they sell rations here, but their armorer does sell leather. Since Jaana’s still getting by with regular clothes, we snag some for her. We look around a bit more, and notice a rations shop next to the bar.

This might be the most expensive we’ve seen them yet, but I’d rather shell out now to keep our supplies lasting. We grab four packs for 160 gp. We’ll make back a lot of that cash from the enemies outside, anyway.

Just one ettin engages us, and we send him running. The next engagement is against four orcs and two trolls. Two of the orcs and a troll turn tail after one hit, while a third orc soon follows. Iolo kills that orc, and our hero kills the fleeing troll after it threw an axe at him on its way. Jaana kills the fourth orc.

Since we found rations at Britain, we decide to postpone our return to Paws. Instead we’ll seek out another shrine. But first…

No level ups, drat.

Using the moongates, we’ll return to the forests in the north. Supposedly the justice shrine is to the east and then north of Yew, so we should be able to find it. There’s a peninsula that looks like an upside-down boot just northeast of Yew, so that’s a good location to head toward.

From here I guess that the boot’s across this bit of water, so we head south and east.

Woah, is that a cyclops? Haven’t seen any before, so I don’t know how tough they’ll be in a fight. Not much we can do to avoid them; this dense brush is slowing us down too much.

Our hero flings a fireball at one of them, to gauge their constitution. It almost kills the cyclops, so we shouldn’t have to worry about damage sponges. As you’d expect from a one-eyed giant, or if you’ve played heroes of might and magic, the cyclopes throw boulders at us. One of them hits Jaana for seventeen damage.

I haven’t paid much attention to damage values so far, so can’t really provide a comparison. For the most part, a single fight isn’t going to be much of a threat if you keep your team healthy. The risk is more in getting lost in the wilderness and running low on spells and food.

Iolo hasn’t been landing very many shots, so he casts his first magic missile. It heavily wounds his opponent, so I suppose it’s not too much weaker than a fireball. Our hero and Jaana scare off the other two, while Iolo finishes off his.

Onward to the shrine! We’ve taken some hits, but we’re okay; lots of Heals in the bag if we need them. We stick to the left side of the boot; better to assume the shrine will be closer to Yew than farther, I say.

Ah, found you! Uh… what’s that over there?

Hory shet, cannon fire! Naval bombardment inbound!! Tactical withdrawal!

The ship lobs no less than five cannonballs at us while we fumble about in the thick brush, bringing Iolo down to 64 hitpoints. We finally scramble beyond its range, fleeing south. We'll have to regroup and make camp.

Two orcs attack us, whom we easily vanquish. Could have been much worse, and we praise the high heavans for our good fortune. With no immediate threats we hol’ up and camp, licking our wounds from the aqueous barrage. From there it’s time to cautiously approach the shrine, and survey the situation. Maybe they've moved on?

Hmph, it seems we’ll need to effect a permanent removal of this obstacle. They’ve committed a fatal error by anchoring so close to shore, though. Keeping out of the broadsides’ line of site, we move in.

Hah! They don’t fire a single shot, and now we’re on them. Using “B” to board, we engage!

Huh? It’s manned by only two people? I suppose it’s possible, of course…

Spoiler

Iolo kills one of them dead, and the other tries to flee. Nowhere to go on a boat, though, and he doesn’t appear willing to jump overboard. Jaana finishes him off.

And now we have our own boat for the taking! With this we can sail the high seas!



Using “B” to board, we can enter the boat and pilot it.

So! How do we make this thing go?

Spoiler

There’s a bit of a science to sailing; it’s not enough to just have strong winds buffeting the sails. In short, sailing directly downwind is actually slower than sailing at an angle. It’s full of physics mumbo-jumbo like lift and drag, but the idea is throwing wind directly into a sail turns it into a bit of a parachute. Whereas with an angle to wind direction, the sail acts more like bird wings. It’s all about using the wind as efficiently as possible. I’ve never captained a ship, so I won’t attempt to explain the details.

It turns out that Richard Garriott implemented the basics of sailing into Ultima 4. Nice level of detail on his part.

Throughout our travels, you’ve perhaps noticed the message on the bottom of the hud announcing wind direction. When it says, “wind south,” as in this case, it means that the wind is coming up from the south; so, traveling north. In Ultima 4 sailing perpendicular to the wind nets the fastest speed, while sailing directly into it is slowest. Technically you need to go through a tedious zigzag procedure to sail upwind, but the game graciously abstracts that away.

Before investigating the shrine, we attempt to sail around to a position that will help us avoid those poisonous marshes. Do you notice the different design of the water closest to the shore? Those are shallows, inaccessible to our sailboat. Basically a boat would lodge itself in the mud, which could cause considerable damage, so the game simply prevents you from even trying to move through. That means we’ll have to brave the marshes to reach the shrine.

We head back to shore, and use “X” to “x-it” the boat (“E” is already used for entering towns/dungeons/etc., so another case of too few letters in the alphabet).

Unfortunately we only have two Cures at this time. That means one of us could potentially die before we could find help, should we choose to enter the shrine now. With heavy hearts, we instead decide to return later when we’ve stocked up on more Cures.

But that means we get to sail the boat some more! Hurray!

We start sailing back down the coast, toward the mainland, and notice some cyclopes nearby. Time to test out the guns!

One hit, one kill (or many kills, depending on how many cyclopes were in that group). The cannons have a max range of three or four squares, so you’ll have to close some distance with targets before you can bomb them. All you have to do is press "F" to fire them. Only from the sides, though, don't forget that.

We decide to use the boat to sail east back to Moonglow, where we can acquire more spells. Not that the wind is making it any easier; wind direction will change every few turns or so, and doesn’t seem to have a predictable pattern.

We continue east for a bit, and then check out the south before continuing. If you’re using the world map for reference, this is just to the east of the boot, and west of a peninsula that looks like a hand giving a thumbs-up gesture.

Now we’re just east of the thumb-up. From here we cut south along the coast; still avoiding open water at the moment. I have a bit of a phobia of both deep space and deep water. Never know what monsters could be lurking beyond sight.

We explore this bay a bit before moving on. It lies to the right of the thumbs-up, and to the left of the peninsula that houses the full-moon moongate.

Do you see that little gate in the mountains? I’ll bet that’s a dungeon. It’s situated on a peninsula that also houses a nearby town, so I’ll hazard the guess that the dungeon is the opposite of whatever the town’s virtue.

We sail north and over the peninsula, continuing east for Moonglow. If you’re following along with the map, we’ll need to pass another peninsula and then cut south.

Here’s that peninsula. Ah, and it looks like some nautical nasties wish to engage us. They close for battle, but not before we let loose a couple cannon shots.

Nixies, Ultima 4’s equivalent of mermen. Just like the more grisly, non-disney mermen stories, these nixies prey on humans for their flesh. Well the game doesn’t specify, but why else would they attack boats without provocation? Boost awareness of coral reef conservation?

We’re all equipped with ranged weapons, so it’s a simple matter of flinging projectiles until they leave. They hurl tridents at us, but don’t pose any real danger before fleeing. Sea creatures don’t leave loot, so we continue our voyage to the east. Soon we hit the edge of this final peninsula, and start moving south toward the islands just north of Moonglow’s (sailing is an alternate method of finding the honesty shrine, if you don’t trust the Blink spell).

Naturally the wind chooses now to approach from the south, slowing our progress. In exasperation I cast the Wind Change spell, hoping to speed up progress. Pretty self-explanatory: just choose a new direction for the wind to come from. It’s not as useful as it could be, since the wind could very well change direction right after you cast the spell, but handy if you’re feeling impatient.

We sail east of Moonglow’s island, head south, and cut to the west. Should take us right to the town.

Ah, another dungeon; must be Deceit. For reference, the shrine of honesty can been seen just a bit to the north; the dungeon's on a smaller island next to it. Could be an indication that a particular virtue’s dungeon can be found nearby its town, and/or shrine.

There’s Moonglow. I do declare our first voyage a success!

This time we were able to overcome an unexpected obstacle, and then turn it to our advantage. After a quick resupply we'll be ready to tackle that shrine again. Await the continuation of the quest in anticipation!

 

[Darth Roxor]

You can't direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

- Tyrax Lightning

 

[ore clover]

That's ridiculous; of course you can direct the wind. All you have to do is manipulate pressure differences within a frame of reference no smaller than the entire planet. Quite simple, really. Any experienced wizard could pull it off.

Chapter XIV: More Boating and Shrine Thunking

Another chapter in the chronicles of Britannia commences. Our trio has just sailed from the northern shores near Yew to the island that houses Moonglow.

Spoiler

First order of business; restock on Cure spells. With those we’ll be able to approach the justice shrine safely. We also mix up a few more of some other spells, too, such as Heal and Magic Missile.

Now it’s time to discover just what sort of memory capabilities this game has; will our boat still be outside when we leave Moonglow? Or will it vanish, a casualty of the engine limitations of the era?

Excellent, it remains! We decide to use the boat to return to the mainland, just in case it disappears should we teleport away for a while.

Before we leave, we decide to grab some more rations. Like I’d thought, the prices here are cheaper than most everywhere else I’ve checked. I should think they’d be more expensive, though, since we’re a bit isolated on an island.

It’s time to brave the open waters. Moving directly west should eventually bring us near Paws. With the wind flowing perpendicular, we’re well on our way at top speed.

We spot some shallower waters as we continue west. An uncharted island, perhaps?

We turn to investigate, but what’s that over there? Looks like some sort of vortex to me, so we quickly move north and away from the island. We can always visit later; no need to risk wrecking the boat.

We’re close to the mainland now; there’s a group of three islands just off the east coast that we’re sailing past now.

Cutting north, we decide to see about finding Lord British’s castle. Mayhap some level ups?

There it is. Just a quick check.

Great, Iolo’s caught up a bit with our hero. Jaana hasn’t leveled up yet, so I guess we’ll have her focus on more of the enemies in future encounters.

Rather than sail all the way around the continent again, just to reach the justice shrine, we head back to Moonglow. We’ll anchor there, and use the moongate to resume our quest. This will be a good opportunity to see whether it will continue to stick around.

There’s the Lycaeum; we’re close. We cut south, and as we’re traveling we spot another ship coming right at us!

Woah, and here I thought two people manning a boat was gutsy. Perhaps he took inspiration from Joshua Slocum?

He charges onto our deck, and Jaana trades blows before finishing him off with a fireball. We leave his boat floating in the water, and continue on to Moonglow.

Uh oh, another ship…

Holy hell, return fire!

Gewd lawd, I haven’t saved in almost two hours!!

It can’t end like this!

Somehow, even though they got the first shot off, our foes’ boat sinks to the bottom before ours. Uh… just as planned!

We start moving toward Moonglow, when a bunch of giant seahorses approach. Ultima’s seahorses are magical, apparently.

Not a tough fight. The seahorses fling magical attacks at us, but we throw stones and arrows right back. Jaana and our hero kill two, and the third flees.

As we head back to the coast next to Moonglow, I notice that the ship’s health bar is slowly regenerating every move. Regenerating health? Pure decline!

We move back and forth next to town, bringing the ship’s health back up to 50 before disembarking. We head back to the moongate, deal with a group of five orcs and a troll along the way, and use it to return to the general area of Lord British’s castle. We make a quick stop, waiting for this moongate to materialize, and then teleport back to the general area of Yew.

Onward to the justice shrine! A couple groups of orcs and trolls try to stop us, but they stand no chance against our might.

We return to the shrine, and charge through the marshes. Only Jaana ends up poisoned, but we hold off from using a Cure; she could just get poisoned again on the way out, after all.

Here we go again. Three cycles, like before.

Spoiler

https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/thinking-about-justice

How do we think about justice? Is it an act? An ideology? A philosophy? We are divided in our understandings of justice between those who seek fundamental social change versus those who seek incremental change and between those who argue that justice exists versus those who think it is a ruse – between internal and external perspectives. However, a promising axis of scholarship aimed at bridging these divides is emerging. Thinking about Justice introduces readers to these three ways of thinking about justice in a variety of contexts including prisons, policing, the courts, youth crime, Aboriginal people, the media, poverty and work in the sex industry. Ultimately, Thinking about Justice seeks to embrace the potentialities of justice, to explore the avenues through which justice seekers interact, debate and achieve some mode of cohesion and find a new, inclusive way forward.

Now we find out if Beh actually was the mantra. We go through this process three times, and…

Yes, another partial Avatarhood achieved! Will the vision be clearer this time?

Uh, the vision hasn’t changed at all. What could it mean?

Slightly related, have you noticed the marks in between our food and money counters? I didn't see until after meditating over justice, but they started appearing after we meditated at the honesty shrine (you can check the screenshots if you want proof). Perhaps a shape is forming, and each virtue brings us closer to discovering what it is. Better not be a dickbutt.

We leave the shrine and cure Jaana; the marshes didn’t poison anyone else on our way out.

As we make our way back to civilization, three separate orc groups move to kill us. Two orcs attack us first; we kill one and scare off the other. A single orc comes next, and we send him packing. Two more orcs round off the attack, and we handily defeat them too. We then journey through the forests, in search of Yew and its adjacent moongate.

Checking the world map, for these two bridges, I notice that we’re north of our intended destination. We cut south and quickly find Yew, and then turn west for the moongate. We use it to return to Lord British, but Jaana can’t level up yet.

With that, I save the game and decree the expedition a resounding success.

Another thrilling journey under the bag. We’re now two shrines down, with six to go (as well as a bunch of dungeons whose purpose I still haven’t determined). Join us next time as we begin to track down the honor shrine, as well as revisit Paws.

 

[octavius]

I can see how the game can come across as boring. If you haven't played it before, and aren't using the cluebook or a walkthrough, a lot of time has to be spent on meticulous npc conversing to figure out what to do.

That's actually the fun part of the game IMO, what with the combat being rather slow and boring, and there being too much random encounters.

Truth be told, I figure more than half the reason I didn't progress very far before quitting originally was due to not taking good notes; I'd leave off for a few days, and then forget the clues I'd learned. This let's play has helped a lot, since I'm now checking over everything while writing the updates.

Normally I'd recommen screenshoting every important conversation, but since you're doing an LP, I guess you screenshot everything.

 

[ore clover]

That's actually the fun part of the game IMO, what with the combat being rather slow and boring, and there being too much random encounters.

Normally I'd recommen screenshoting every important conversation, but since you're doing an LP, I guess you screenshot everything.

I like it, too; I get to feel smart when I end up remembering something important, and it gives the game an overall atmosphere of nonlinear investigation. In my opinion, it handles an open world main quest much better than more recent open world games since they didn't try to shove a linear plotline into the nonlinear gameplay format (there's a world crisis, and you need to stawp it naow!).

Definitely demands some decent note-taking, although the lp pretty much covers that.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter XV: Horses and Hellions

When last we left off, our trio had narrowly avoided becoming fish food, and left their new boat docked by Moonglow while they traveled to Lord British. What does the future hold in store for them?

Spoiler

Our main objective at the moment is locating the shrine of honor. It should be in the general area of Trinsic and Paws, so perhaps we’ll pay them a visit too.

Three rogues attack us; one falls and the others run. Those skeletons pursue us as we travel south; there are only two, so another easy fight in the bag.

You fool, Iolo! This is not the time to be poisoning yourself; we’ll need those Cures for when we seek out the shrine!

We continue south, and some more rogues and orcs move in to fight. The rogues reach us first, and swipe some coins, but we’re victorious.

Poisoned again! Iolo!

I’m pretty sure Paws is somewhere east of this bridge, so that’s where we’re going. Three skeletons engage us; Iolo and Jaana kill one each, while the third flees.

Ugh, more bridge trolls. I should’ve traveled to the nearby moongate instead of walking.

As we beat them into submission, we encounter this situation. Those trolls are attempting to flee, but they don’t want to approach any of us in the process. Since we’re on both sides of the bridge they’ve chosen to shuffle back and forth in the middle, throwing the occasional axe in our general direction. Eventually they realize the top right corner is vacant, and use it to escape.

We cross the two bridges, and see Paws in the distance. There were a few things we hadn’t pursued yet in Paws: inquiring about mandrake at the Folley Tavern, and buying horses.

This is the same response we receive from everyone in the tavern. I’m confused. Didn’t Swindrik tell us to seek mandrake here? Did he send us on a wild goose chase? Maybe someone in the vicinity of the tavern knows, or perhaps I should just ask everyone in town about it. Asking a few randos doesn’t reveal anything, so for now we decide to return to the stables. We have plenty of spare cash, so let’s try out horses.

Well, that was nice of him; only had to pay for one horse for all of us. I wonder what sort of benefits this will provide?

That door over there on the right seems locked; we couldn’t open it whether mounted or dismounted. We’ll have to find ourselves some magic keys.

We ride the horse out of the stables, but so far it hasn’t changed anything; our movement through brush and hills is still slowed. While testing this, we notice a lone shepherd at the southern tip of town.

Some shepherd you are. I’ll bet he wouldn’t bother rescuing the stray lamb lost in the mountains. We throw some topics at him, and he responds when we ask about runes. “Around there in the nook of the mountains!”

Eh, Paws has a rune? Does it even have a virtue? I assumed he was talking about Trinsic’s rune, so we didn’t search around. We’ll just have to come back here again later. We wander outside, and a group of cyclopes attacks.

Ah, new monster. That plant thing over there is a zorn. Other than having a mouth on the top of their head, zorns can phase through walls or anything else in their way. They also have a much more annoying ability, that we’ll see in action in a bit.

This fight deals us a fair bit of damage; Iolo went from 284 to 161 hitpoints during the combat, mostly from trading blows with the zorn.

We hardly move all of ten squares before another band of cyclopes comes charging at us.

What the… didn’t we just kill all of you? We begin engaging the cyclopes, and I have Iolo cast a Magic Missile to speed up the process.

Hmm, failed? Oh well, must be low on spell points. We close in for up close combat, and Iolo and Jaana start taking some hits. No problem a few Heals won’t solve.

Huh? Our hero definitely hasn’t used up all his mana, so why? Uh oh…

This is the other ability of the zorn: they negate magic, whether offensive or defensive. That means we have no way to heal until after this fight finishes. The situation is much more dangerous than I’d expected. We quickly kill one cyclops, and scare off another. Our hero and Iolo try to tagteam the zorn while Jaana fights the last cyclops.

Not good, the monsters are going for Iolo. He won’t survive much longer under this barrage. Our trio are all doing a poor job landing hits, and instead of running away the second cyclops decides to throw a few boulders at Iolo first.

Jesus Chris!! Are we about to suffer our first casualty? I direct Iolo south as fast as I can; rather he flee the fight than die.

Like a weight lifted off our shoulders, the fight suddenly turns around. That second cyclops finally fucks off, Jaana kills the third, and a good hit from our hero sends the zorn running. With a second stone our hero kills the zorn; after all the trouble it caused us, no way we’re letting it live to negate another day.

We start to cross the two bridges nearby Paws, and some bridge trolls attack. Iolo moves out of the combat again while we deal with them. Our hero gives him a quick Heal before he leaves, bringing him up to 106 hitpoints.

Whew, we survived a bit of a scary situation back there. But the quest continues. Before we go for the honor shrine we decide to return to Moonglow to resupply on spells; we’ll use the moongate by Britlord’s castle.

Some evil wizards attack us along the way, but they’re hardly a speck on the radar compared to what we’ve already surpassed.

Poisoned again! Iolo, you’ve been a useless fuck for the past half hour! I’m about ready to take your lute and shove it up your ass!

:trigglypuff:

We stop by Britbong’s castle before teleporting, to see if anyone’s leveled up. Horses can’t klimb ladders, though they can open doors, so we leave our horse down here while we chat with British. Unfortunately no one’s gained a level, so we klimb back down the ladder.

Hey, where’d the damn horse go? We were gone for all of ten seconds! What a disloyal mount; that’s the last time I bother with horses. All we accomplished from buying it was draining our purse by 200 gp.

We use the nearby moongate to teleport down nearby Trinsic, and then use that moongate to travel back to Moonglow (certain gates will take you to certain destinations more often).

Well, would you look at that. Our boat’s still here; the other boat we left empty in the water nearby is also still floating in place. A couple bridge trolls attack us, we best them, and then we buy some more spell ingredients from Moonglow.

Since the boat stuck around, we decide to sail it back to the mainland. Maybe we can use it to find the honor shrine, and bypass the marshlands entirely.

Our trio set off into the deep unknown once more, in search of virtue. What will they discover? Find out next time.

 

[Darth Roxor]

shamefur horse

 

[ore clover]

Chapter XVI: Den of Baddies and Another Shrine

When last we left off, our trio had set sail from Moonglow to return to the mainland. Will they find the shrine they seek?

Spoiler

Back into the deep waters. I just hope there’s not some giant cthulhu monster in there somewhere.

Uh oh, sea serpents ahoy. Fortunately the wind is not impeding progress, and we quickly leave them in our wake…

… until the wind decides to screw us over. Looks like a fight can’t be avoided.

With fireballs tearing through the masts, we angle around and let loose our cannons.

Luckily for us the serpents attack us on our terms, instead of just bombarding our boat to ruin. We scare two of them off and kill the third. Onward to the mainland; we’ll fix the boat along the way.

Hmm, looks like the same island we passed earlier. How about a little side trip?

Ah, there’s some sort of settlement here. We anchor the boat and head to shore, entering the town.

Spoiler

Ah, it’s Buccaneer’s Den. This is supposedly where we can learn more information about Mondain’s relic. The guards by the bridge are appropriately mean looking, and one identifies himself as Roofus. “We guard the bridge slime!” Not sure what he means by that. Slime on the bridge, or are we the slime?

Bluh! Ye olde cursing in Ultima? Clashes a bit with the theme, though. I’d find it hard to take someone seriously if they told me, “Kindly go fuck thineself!” I tell him that I am, in fact, a wise ass. “Thou had best ditch it then!”

We decide to chat up that orc next (“You meet an ugly orc!”), named Boris. He smuggles black market items, “Magic keys, magic gems, that sort of thing. Dost thou need such an item? I just gave the guild shop a new supply!”

I’m not sure what magic gems do, but we could definitely use some magic keys. We head down south to a nearby building, filled with rogues.

Arrh, pirates! “We raid the coasts of Britannia, fun eh! Art thou a pirate?” When I tell him we aren’t he says, “Thou had best leave this place ‘fore there’s any trouble!” With that in mind we leave that building alone and head east instead. Looks like they sell arms and armor over here.

This fellow hopes to find magical plate, and asks if we know where to find some. I remember seeing magic chain in Trinsic, but I don’t think we’ve seen any magic plate yet. Buccaneer's armor selection is basic; just cloth, leather, and chain. Nothing we don’t already have if we can wear it. We decide to check out what sort of weapons they have to offer.

Unlike their armor offerings, the weapons are not bad: crossbows, flaming oils, magic bows, and magic wands. Flaming oil works sort of like a fire grenade, costing 5 gp each, and I assume magic wands fire magical projectiles. I inquire about the two magic weapons, and the store keep won’t even tell us the price. He flat out informs us that we can’t afford even one. Guess we’ll need to return with more coin.

What? You make crossbows, Iolo? Is there some reason you’ve never built one for yourself? We could certainly use that weapon, but we hold off for now since it’d cost most of our money. Best to check out the smuggled items at the guild shop, first.

The fellow to the right of the counter is Jeremy James Scirlock, a sneaky thief. He offers to provide information, “Dost thou seek a special dungeon?” I start throwing out some names I’ve learned, like Deceit and Shame, but he doesn’t respond to any. Perhaps there’s a specific dungeon I’ll need to inquire about later.

We travel through the hallway to the north, and open a door to the guild shop.

Looks like they sell torches too, in addition to the magic items. We still have the same two torches I began the game with, so we won’t need anymore of those. He sells magic keys in bundles of 6 for 60 gp, so we grab a bundle. Still not sure what gems do, so we decide to hold off on buying any to make sure that we can afford the crossbow.

The rogue over next to the counter is named Slysam, but he responds with, “What’s it to you?” when we ask about his job. I throw a few topics at him, such as skull and Mondain, but he doesn’t give any info. We leave the shops and check out a patch of forest nearby.

This towering wizard warns us that, “To step into those woods will seal thy doom! In there lies the dark side, enter not! Shalt thou go on?” We’ll probably need to investigate that eventually, but there’s no rush.

The other fellow nearby is a plump merchant named Marsor. He says that he sells wine and has his own vintages, as well as vineyards on an island northeast of Buccaneer’s Den. He asks me to join him in a glass, but I can’t figure out how to initiate that. We leave him and head back to the pirates from earlier. That’s probably the tavern, so we should at least ask about the skull.

Most of the other pirates in the tavern don’t even have unique names (“I am Sailor”), and just want to sing one of the songs featured in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland; the one that goes, “Oh, a sailor’s life is the life for me, as I sail across the bounding sea...” and so on.

This fellow, on the other hand, asks us if we’re looking for information, so we ask him about the skull. “Be warned that if thou dost ever use the skull, except to destroy it, all thy virtues will be lost!” That’s certainly good to know, but he doesn’t tell us where we can find the relic. Oh well, if it’s in a dungeon we’re bound to find it eventually.

Before leaving the Den we buy Iolo a crossbow, selling his sling and a dagger we’ve held onto since Jaana joined us. As we cross the bridge, I wonder about the serpents in the water. We wander over to one and…

Oh, I guess they’re not npcs. Iolo kills it with two crossbow bolts, which I’m pretty sure is an improvement over a sling.

Nice, the boat repaired itself in our absence. Now, onward to the shrine!

These three islands are part of a larger group of six, to the north of Trinsic. We found them by sailing straight west, so they’ll be a good landmark to use whenever we need to return to Buccaneer’s Den. We move a little closer to shore, to see if there are any spots to disembark on the mainland, and a lone orc attempts to commandeer our vessel. We did fire off two cannon shots, though, so maybe there were more of them at first.

Let’s not stop by Paws, shall we? No reason to tempt fate if we can avoid it. We sail south beyond the six islands, bombard some rogues and skeletons with our cannons, and make a quick stop at Trinsic. My plan was to buy some more rations, which was the original reason we approached Paws, but unfortunately Trinsic has none to offer.

We leave the boat next to Trinsic, choosing to first scout out the area, where the shrine is supposedly located, by foot.

There are three peninsulas south of Trinsic, which are likely spots for housing the shrine. Heading directly west we find one dominated by impassable mountains; no shrine here, I’ll wager. We fight off those rogues, and afterward notice what looks like glowing spheres floating toward us.

These are wisps. The manual says that they can teleport all over the battlefield, but the only time they used it was when one fled the fight. We kill the other three, and continue our search. Some rogues, skeletons, and orcs attack us along the way. We easily best them, and Iolo’s definitely pulling his weight now that he has a decent ranged weapon.

Aha, there you are. For geographical reference, heading south from here would take us down the longest of the three peninsulas. I also notice that the water is deep enough to bring a boat right next to the shrine. So instead of mucking it through swampland, we head back to Trinsic.

Along the way this freak attacks us. It’s a headless.

Spoiler

The manual doesn’t go into any details about how exactly it came to be.
After a couple hits it runs away. Not too dangerous compared to the other new monsters we’ve seen recently.

Onward to the shrine!

Here’s the tip of the peninsula directly south of Trinsic. A little further west, and we’ll loop around the longest peninsula.

Looks like the water’s too shallow on this side, so we’ll have to sail around the islands in the general area first. Six sea serpents attack us, too, but like before they close into range so that we can pelt them with projectiles. We fend them off, loop around south, bombard some orcs and ettin, and then make our way up north to our destination.

Here we are, ready to ponder the mysteries of honor.

Spoiler

http://appiah.net/books/the-honor-code/

An eminent philosopher shows how honor propelled moral revolutions in the past and could do so in the future. One of the New York Times Book Review’s 100 notable books of 2010. Also a Times Literary Supplement 2010 Book of the Year, and a Best Book for Christmas 2010 in The Independent.

How does moral progress happen? How are societies brought to repudiate immoral customs they have long accepted? In The Honor Code, Kwame Anthony Appiah explores a long-neglected engine of reform. Examining moral revolutions in the past—and campaigns against abhorrent practices today—he shows that appeals to reason, morality, or religion aren’t enough to ring in reform. Practices are eradicated only when they come into conflict with honor.

In gripping detail, Appiah begins his work with a portrait of the often-deadly world of aristocratic Britain, where for centuries gentlemen challenged each other to duels. Recounting one of the last significant duels in that world—between a British prime minister and an eccentric earl—Appiah shows a society at the precipice of abrupt change. Turning to the other side of the world, Appiah investigates the end of footbinding in China. The practice had flourished for a thousand years, despite imperial attempts at prohibition, yet was extinguished in a generation. Appiah brings to life this turbulent era and shows how change finally came not from imposing edicts from above, but from harnessing the ancient power of honor from within.

In even more intricate ways, Appiah demonstrates how ideas of honor helped drive one of history’s most significant moral revolutions—the fast-forming social consensus that led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire, and recruited ordinary men and women to the cause. Yet his interest isn’t just historical. Appiah considers the horrifying persistence of “honor killing” in places like Pakistan, despite religious and moral condemnation, and the prospects for bringing it to an end by mobilizing a sense of collective honor—and of shame.

With a storyteller’s flair and a philosopher’s rigor, The Honor Code represents a new approach toward moral inquiry. Ranging from a great mandarin’s abandonment of an ancient Chinese tradition to Frederick Douglass’s meetings with Abolitionist leaders in London, Appiah reveals how moral revolutions really succeed.

Same procedure as before: announce the virtue as honor, meditate for three cycles, and use the mantra Summ. After going through the process, I gain partial Avatarhood in the virtue of honor. Hooray!

Still not sure what’s going on with these visions. Perhaps seeking further enlightenment will light the way. Regardless, our job here is finished. We weigh anchor and return to Trinsic.

Our hero has made a significant dent in his quest for enlightenment, but now it’s back to seeking out new towns, followers, and information.

Jesus Chris Will Return

 

[ore clover]

Chapter XVII: Tasteful Interactions with Secret Walls

Three virtues conquered, five to go. It’s time for our trio to kick it into full gear and return to the fray.

Spoiler

Here we rest, next to Trinsic (that’s our boat, no worries about us being attacked). Now that we have magic keys, we should be able to jimmy locked doors; how about we return to the Lycaeum and give it a whirl?

We hop in the boat and sail down to the nearby moongate, which we’ll use to reach Moonglow more quickly.

If I haven’t mentioned this already, I apologize for forgetting to. The two moons have different orbit speeds; the right moon changes phase more quickly than the left. Due to that, certain moongates are better for taking you to certain locations than others. If you want to teleport to Moonglow, your best bet is using the waning gibbous moongate nearby Trinsic. I think I incorrectly identified this as a waning crescent a while back; my mistake.

Heh, there’s that abandoned boat we left in the water. Guess no one will be claiming it. We head up north to the Lycaeum, and straight to that locked door.

The game doesn’t actually notify you once you complete the action; you’ll still have to open the door afterward. Always be sure to check before trying to jimmy the lock more than once!

We make our way inside and speak to that mage over there. He’s a tall, agile man named Lord Terence who’s a librarian.

“Art thou looking for a particular book?” If we need to find one I’m unaware of it, so we tell him no. “Feel free to browse.”

Here’s the library, alphabetized a bit strangely. We start lawnmowing the rows, mashing S for search as we go, but I guess no particular books catch our eye. Until…

We breeze past the shelves and involuntarily snatch off a tome. The Book of Truth? I guess we’ll be needing that, but I haven’t the slightest idea how or why. We decide to head back to Terence, perhaps learn something about this book from him.

Not helpful anymore, now that we have it. He doesn’t give any other details, so we head back into the library to chat up the druid.

Estro says that his job is research, but won’t tell us anything about it. He also doesn’t say anything about the book, so we leave him to his studies.

As we leave I remember that Father Antos is nearby; supposedly he knows something, but we didn’t ask the right questions last time. So, we head back to him and throw some more topics his way.

He knows about the Book of Truth, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to know to ask him about it. I also asked him about mandrake, but he didn’t say anything about that. I’ll have to remember to come back to him later with new topics, just in case he knows something else important.

Before leaving we decide to harass everyone about the Book of Truth, to no avail. While we’re speaking with the lord and lady, I notice a passageway up to the left that I don’t remember seeing last time I was here. We start moving toward it and -

Hmm, now it’s gone. Couldst this be an invisible wall? We make our way to the spot the guard was standing on.

Waow! If I were a less virtuous soul, we’d have just hit the jackpot. I leave the chests alone, but now we know that we can walk into walls to find hidden passages. Something to keep in mind.

We leave the Lycaeum and tangle with some orcs and an ettin, as well as a single rogue, while returning to Moonglow.

These bridge troll ambushes are beginning to annoy me. It takes a few minutes, but we best them. While in Moonglow we ask a few people about the rune, but no one gives an answer, and grab five packs of rations while we can get them cheap. From there we teleport back to Lord British’s castle to continue our journeys.

Two chars gain a level in one sitting, wonderful! While I’m in the castle, I remember that there are some rooms that don’t appear accessible.

Spoiler

I don’t think the telescope provided an image of Lord British’s second floor, but we won’t necessarily need one. Do you notice how the squares in the centers of the top two towers are smaller than of the lower two? The top left tower has a ladder, so perhaps that means the top right tower has one also. Since we’re already on the second floor, let’s check for secret walls up here.

We forcefully press our bodies against Lord British’s throne room, but nothing gives way. We try the same thing down the corridor out and to the right, which leads to the gaol, but no luck. Time to try the same thing downstairs.

Yahah! We’ve found it. This is just through the door to the right of the ankh in the water, if you need a reference.

It’s a straight corridor, and here’s some people on the other side. The guard, other than being burly, doesn’t offer anything new. The shepherd behind the door, on the other hand, has more to say.

Her name is Shawn (is that a wombyn’s name?), and she watches the water. It brings her peace, allegedly. I ask her about that, and she mentions that she comes from a proud city; Magincia, I assume. She then, in the usual Ultima 4 npc tradition, asks me whether or not I am proud. That’s such an irritating question, since answering no would undoubtedly prove that I actually am.

“Hmm.” She doesn’t say much else, and also won’t move out of the way. Since we can’t explore that room at the moment, we instead klimb up the ladder to see what awaits us.

Nothing new so far. We ignore that guard and travel south through a straight corridor.

I wonder if answering all these questions un-proudly is helping me boost my humility meter. I tell him that I am not the most valiant, and he says, “Still flee not from battle!” I don’t think we’ve every completely abandoned a fight, besides when we fled those guards in Trinsic, so we’re doing pretty well on that front.

Those two doors over there can’t be opened without using a magic key. Hopefully it’s worth it.

That guard has the same valor dialogue as the other, and beyond him is a featureless tower that requires jimmying through locked doors to access. Overall this seems to be a waste of time. One cool thing, though. Those two guards outside are actually at the front gate on the ground floor; we’re viewing them from above.

We thrust ourselves upon some more wall segments, but can’t find any secret passages. Defeated, we head back down the ladder. Shawn’s moved away from the door, at least, so we charge in.

If there’s something useful in here, I’m not seeing it. I guess our explorations of Lord British’s castle have concluded, for the moment. We ask Shawn to join us, but she refuses.

Since I currently can’t enlighten myself in any other virtues, let’s seek out more towns and followers! We’ll use this moongate to investigate that town in the mountains to the north, by the full-moon moongate.

I wonder what we’ll discover here.

That’s it for this update. Up next we’ll begin investigating more towns, and hopefully find ourselves some more followers.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 18: I'm sick of typing out these damn roman numerals. No wonder Rome collapsed...

Our trio has finally visited a new town for the first time in a long time. What will they find within, I wonder?

Spoiler

Minoc.

Spoiler

The town of sacrifice, according to Lord Limey, home of the tinkers. Hopefully we’ll soon acquire ourselves another rune, shrine location, and follower.

We speak with the guard directly below us. Other than telling us that his job is to guard, of course, he also shares some of his personal musings. “I often wonder if I will ever have to give my life in the line of duty. Understand my dilemma? Of course, if it came down to it, I hope I would do it!” Just what we’d expect from the town whose theme is sacrifice!

We move over to that fellow to the right.

That’s the tinker character model, for those of you keeping track of class appearances. This fatass is named Shentis, and his job is to welcome us to the town. And that’s about it. “Self sacrifice is a needed virtue!” As opposed to unneeded virtues.

We move down the road to the right, and approach a fourway crossing. There are just more introspective guards, so we turn south and approach a weapons shop.

A cute bard. Were it not for that retadred name I’d be all over you. She sings songs, so I let her have her moment. “Very well: the raven sings, the raven saw and in the corn he sayeth ‘CAH’. Dost thou like it?”

Ah HAH! That must be the sacrifice mantra. As you can no doubt tell I’m quite pleased with myself for figuring that out immediately upon seeing it. I tell her that I do like the song; of course if she hadn’t given me a clue I would’ve told her it was complete dogshit.

“Thanks.” Aw yeah, we’re pretty much at first base.

If you remember, these are the magical arms that we were told about way back in chapter 5. Seesha made it sound like we’d die without them, so perhaps we’ll save up some dough later on; she was probably demonstrating hyperbole, so maybe I’ll just ignore her at my own peril.

We wander over to a door on the right.

Woah, that dude’s standing in the middle of fire. Those are fire barriers; walking through them will deal damage to some or all of our party. He also won’t walk close enough so that we can talk to him without walking in ourselves. We’ll come back later when I feel like dealing with the barriers. We head outside and speak with a tinker hanging out just to the side of the shop.

Hoping that Merida will tell me where the shrine is (even though I think I already know its location), I ask him about it.

“But first I need the mantra! Know ye the mantra?” I answer yes, and he says “Good!” Yeah, thanks a lot for that, bud.

We speak with the shepherd on Merida’s right, whose name is Damon. “I stand here and think.” Great. A penny for your thoughts? “Oh, just about things. Can’t a man just think to himself?”

A man standing around in hills and dense brush wishing he could be left alone with his thoughts? Sounds like a henpecked husband if I ever heard one.

Other than that he does tell us to “Listen to the bard’s song for in its verse lies the key!” Would’ve been useful a couple minutes ago, but I appreciate the gesture.

This road’s not in very good shape. For all the tinkers boast about their hand-crafted wonders, I should think they’d be able to engineer a solution to this overgrowth. Ignoring the guard we wander up to that building, currently occupied by some beggars and other npcs.

“Within this house are many poor and destitute souls.” Poor, unfortunate souls? All they need is a bit of benign witchcraft to solve their problems.

Spoiler

“Wilt thou help?” Of course I will; anything to boost my compassion. “I would join thee.” Oh, woudst thee? This isn’t another bait and switch, I hope.

Another disciple joins the fold! We’ve just about reached the max party amount a modern rpg will tolerate. We’ll check Julia’s stats later. For now, we begin socializing with everyone else in the building.

This one’s a ragged old man. Unfortunately he’s also another npc that requires me to ask him the right question before he gives up the goods.

The other npc is named Jude. Here’s here to redeem himself. “I will not speak of my sin!” Perhaps we’d better steer clear of this one. There are two beggars further up, so we toss some coins to both of them before speaking with the kid.

This small muddy girl won’t accept any money, so we depart the poor house and move over to a building to its left.

“I have travelled (sic) clear from Skara Brae. The rune of our city is missing! Know thee of the rune? It is not in Skara Brae.”

Hmm, perhaps that’s the rune that Paws has tucked away in its mountains. We leave Mike Ward and speak with the nearby tinker. His name’s Azure, and he carves runes. Maybe he’ll tell us where to find this town’s.

“Ask my sister, Mischief.” Azure and Mischief? If that’s a reference, I’m not getting it. We’ll keep an eye out for her.

Let’s peek at Julia’s stats. Decidedly below-average all around, but she’s only level two so there’s plenty of room for growth. I think tinkers can wear most all types of armor, but we don’t have a lot of money right now to afford any.

We wander down the corridor to the right and see a kid standing outside the rooms.

Super.

“The way I figure it, if thou art kind to others they will have reason to be kind in return!” What a load of nonsense. Sounds familiar, though; didn’t you say something like that, Iolo? You should adopt Alex.

Alex also asks if I’ll give to the needy, but thankfully won’t accept any money himself. No one’s staying in the rooms, so we leave the inn to begin our search for Mischief.

We eventually find her in some hills to the south. “This and that,” is her response to job, so I’m thinking she’s a thief. But that is unimportant right now; share what you know of the rune!

“The rune of sacrifice is hard to get. It lies within the fires of the forge!” Oh, guess we’ll be revisiting the forge. “Return when thou dost find it!” Uh huh, whatever.

Whoops, I cast Blink instead of Dispel. Gotta stop mixing up my utility spells. We Dispel the first fire barrier, but the rune isn’t there. Next square over is also empty, but now we can talk to the blacksmith.

He tells how he makes the very best weapons, but doesn’t seem to be aware that there’s a rune in here somewhere. I wonder how he’s still alive?

I have Jaana cast the next Dispel, which takes her mana from 33 to 15. It cost her 18 instead of 19? Maybe I was right about the Int stat boosting efficiency. Since there are only two more squares, we just bullrush them for the rune.

Found it; mission accomplished. We make our way out of the town. Hmm, was there something else I was supposed to do? Oh well.

Let’s continue seeking out more towns. There are two moongates I haven’t traveled to yet, synced up with the first and third quarter phases. From the world map it looks like there’s a settlement next to both of them, so we use the moongate nearby Minoc to travel to the third quarter moongate.

We’re on a group of islands in the southwestern region of the world. When we enter town, we’re informed that we’ve discovered Skara Brae.

lol

Spoiler

“I seek the ‘one great truth’! That which lies within the codex!” Better register and start lurking, then. Don't forget to equip the ring.

Next we speak with the fellow just below that giant ankh. He’s a fighter named White and he quests. “Many quests are very dangerous! Art thou fearless in all things?” Only lunatics have no fear at all. “Danger is real! I am not afraid of tomorrow; I have seen yesterday and I love today.” Okay, Ice Cube.

, I presume.

“I write magic. Dost thou believe in magic?” Our hero would be a pretty inept wizard if he didn’t. “Magic missiles need but 1 part ash!” I still don’t know why these experts keep giving us one ingredient for simple spells.

I ask him about magic. “One lives by believing in something. Great discoveries are made by those whose feelings run ahead of their thinking.”

Feelz before realz, a legitimate philosophy since the 19th century!

These blatant easter eggs are killing my immersion.

At least this storyteller is a bard instead of an honest mage. “Stories are good for the spirit! Remember, no one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of others! Art thou good in nature?” The binary question notwithstanding, that’s a paraphrase of one of his actual lines.

“Be sure thy net good well exceeds they net evil!” Based on my Seer visit, I think I’m doing decently enough in that regard.

We leave those four to their philosophical deliberations and investigate a building to the right. Looks like an inn and foodstore.

Woah, we’ve found a cheaper source of food than Moonglow. Guess we’ll stop by here whenever possible.

“The light of philosophy.” Skara Brae is the town of spirituality, if you don’t remember, so I guess that translates into light-seeking. “In philosophical minds the familiar excites wonder! Dost thou always tread the right path?”

Are these questions designed for six-year olds who don’t realize that answering yes is a bold-faced lie? “Few can, but strive to do so!” Thanks, I try.

The other ranger in the store is named Michaelangelo (sic), and he strives along the path. Eh, no sculpting? Maybe he’s the ninja.

“Art thou far along the path? Fear not, thou shalt be!”

The inn of spirituality is haunted? We’ll have to check that out sometime. We actually did wander into the room and search, but nothing happened. Probably have to go to sleep first.

Heading up to the north section of town, we find an herbs shop. There’s a mage hanging around, so we talk to him first.

I see lots and lots of shoes in my google images search; if he’s a philosopher, modern consumerism has buried him away.

“I cast great big spells! I can cast: jinx, kill, and view! Dost thou know what these spells have in common?”

Those all require the rare ingredients nightshade and mandrake, so we currently have none in our inventory. He doesn’t say anything about mandrake, but he tells us to, “ask the barkeep at ‘The Axe-n-Ale’ in Vesper about nightshade.” I don’t think we’ve found Vesper yet, but that’ll be something to keep in mind for when we do. Unless it’s like with mandrake, where no one will end up telling us anything.

We mix up some more spells via the herb shop, and then speak with a beggar just outside.

I suppose we’d better give her just one, then; never know what could happen if we don’t follow her instructions. After that we throw some topics at her, and she tells us to, “ask the child Barren,” about the mantra of spirituality. Huh, that makes two npcs named Barren. Oh well.

We wander over east for a little bit, and see a kid nearby some rocks. Barren.

We’ll just jot that down in our memory banks. So far no one’s told us where the rune could be, though; still not sure if the one in Paws is one and the same.

There’s a radiant ranger just to the north, named Mitre.

Popehat says, “It is no longer in the dungeon Hythloth, it is gone! Ask of the stone at the Tap in Trinsic!” Is hythloth a real word? Did she mean to say sloth but had a stroke? Gives us another reason to return to Trinsic, anyway.

We still haven’t found a follower from this town, so let’s start asking about. A lot of the people here are historical figures, so they’re probably not viable candidates. That one ranger, Shamino, said something about seeking the inner truth of the codex. Maybe that’s a clue.

Bam, child’s play. I technically already knew he was a follower, from my previous attempt to play the game, but I figure that comment about the codex is supposed to tip you off.

Stats are comparable to Julia's; we’ll have to give them the lion’s share of the fighting for a while.

I'd better put a stop to this bloated update. We still have a couple more people to speak with in town, and then we'll move on. With the party growing, things might start heating up! Stay tuned to find out.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I have travelled (sic)

:cheersmate:

 

[ore clover]

friggin british persons can't spell their own damn language i swear...

Chapter 19: All You Need Is Love

When last we left off, our trio (now a quintet!) was continuing its investigation of Skara Brae. We rejoin them in this noble undertaking.

Spoiler

“I am a teacher, I enrich young minds.”

I prompt him to teach, and he asks if we know of the abyss. “A word of passage is needed at the last gate!” He tells us that Zair the Wise in Paws knows more about the word. Going to have to remember that. Up next we speak with the healer.

Here’s something I haven’t seen before. Perhaps this is what the Seer meant for how to boost the sacrifice virtue. Our hero donates twice, and after that the healer stops asking the question. So either we can only do this twice, or the game won’t let you bring your health below 300. The other party members can’t donate any hitpoints, just the protagonist.

“Spiritual is stronger than any material force.” He doesn’t seem to have much else to say, so we leave this wounded fellow and ask around a bit concerning the rune. After a few minutes we give up and speak with an npc we missed earlier, standing just outside the healer’s.

I have to wonder about all these earth people in Britannia. Aren’t we supposed to be in a different world? So has Lord British plucked all these people from their different times, or are these in fact different men? Perhaps I’m overthinking simple easter eggs.

Anyway, Buddha’s job is to teach. “When one has pity on all living creatures then is one noble.” He’s probably going to rattle off the seven steps to nirvana, or whatever it was. I ask about noble: “If one speaks or acts with pure thought, happiness will follow like a shadow that never leaves.”

We can’t seem to get anymore if-then statements out of him, so we decide to make one last check of the town before leaving. Out of curiosity, we try talking to the ankh near the entrance.

Huh, I didn’t realize ankhs talked. Wonder if it’s a spirit, or some sort of computer program.

I ask about the rune, and it asks me about the mantra. I reply “Om,” and it says, “Search for the rune of spirituality in the treasure chamber of Britannia!” It also tells us to enter the gate of full moons to find the shrine.

Not sure where the treasure chamber is, but we did see some chests hidden behind a secret wall in the Lycaeum. Maybe we’ll swing by there later and investigate. Guess that means there's a different rune hidden in Paws.

Time to leave. I remembered that there’s some sort of settlement to the west of Yew, so we teleport to the nearby moongate and begin the search.

Traveling directly west brings us to the coast, and based on the world map it looks like we’re still north of our target.

A branched river blocked our way, so we had to backpedal east a bit to circumvent it. Looks like some orcs want to fight.

Leveling our new members could be a problem. They have melee weapons, and are standing in the back, so most of the orcs are dead or running by the time they cover the distance. I’ll have to remember to reorder the party lineup before we get into more fights.

A little further west, and we find the settlement. Looks like it’s a castle, though, so probably no new runes or party members to find.

Spoiler

When we enter, the game informs us that we are now in the Empath Abbey. Oh great, a bunch of monastic betazoids is just what we need.

Uh, pretty sure that wasn’t on the list of virtues… so no. “Visit the small shrine within the abbey!” A shrine that will saturate me with love, should be intredasting.

Just north of the gate guards is a kid named Chinup, the greeter.

I just wanted to find some more followers, and instead we’re beset by a bunch of hippies. No, we’re not searching for love. “Perhaps then the oak grove.” Sure, we’ll check that out.

We take the path to the left, ignore a guard, and cut south. Looks like there’s a room with a beggar and an ankh.

Humlock seeks salvation. “I am but a poor destitute beggar I have nothing! Will you give me some money? I would be soooo grateful….”

Lucky for you I’m trying to be a compassionate person, you mooch you. We toss him some coins and then approach the ankh.

Maybe these ankhs are supposed to be spirits of some kind. Deities? This ankh resonates thoughts, whatever that means. I ask about resonating, and it asks, “What are thy thoughts?”

Yet another npc that forces me to work for my information. The dialogue mechanic of this game in a nutshell:

Spoiler

The general theme of this abbey seems to be love, so I use that prompt. “Seek ye the candle of love for only with it and two other parts might thou enter the abyss!” Oh, maybe that’s what Chinup meant; guess we’re searching for love after all.

“Dost thou have it?” No. “Ask the bard beyond the secret passage!” Hopefully it's referring to a secret passage in this abbey.

We backtrack and head up north, to where the lord and lady of the abbey reside.

In a moment of déjà vu, he tells us that he rules this province and prompts us to ask his lady for the details.

Great, tell me about this province. “Our people believe in love as a way of life and live it to the fullest!”

Yikes, we've stumbled into a commune. I don’t know what you mean when you say love, but I think I’ll stick with my eight virtues.

“Dost thou seek love?” Yes, unfortunately. “Then thou may find it!” Pretty sure that’s the same response the Lycaeum’s lady gave us, and just as useless. We try the door over to the right, but it’s locked so we need to burn through another key.

“I counsel those who enter the grove.” When I ask her to counsel, she says, “Herein thou may find insights into love, within thyself or the others here in the grove.”

We just want our magic candle, okay? Please keep your love shenanigans to yourselves.

Another chance for me to sit down and be humble, I suppose. “Strive for love!” We bid her goodbye and speak with the bard up to the right.

“I relate love and compassion.” I ask about compassion, and he says, “Of the eight avatar attributes compassion is derived from love alone.” When asked about love, “When the three combine in eight ways love alone is compassion.”

Oh, so love is one of those three principles that the virtues make up. Could the other two be faith and hope? We head directly south and find a druid next.

Lol, what a name.

She ponders love and justice. Looks like we can learn more about how the virtues interact with the principles in this grove.

On justice: “Justice is one of the eight avatar virtues and derives from truth and love.” Oh right, the Lycaeum denizens were babbling all about truth. So love and truth are two of the principles. With that in mind, perhaps the Book of Truth is another one of the three items we’ll need to enter the abyss.

On love: “When three build eight, truth tempered by love becomes justice!” Looks like there’s a ranger over there to the right.

He follows the spiritual path. “My spirituality is not a religion, but a searching to know and improve my own inner being.” On being: “My being is based on my own truth, love and courage.” Okay, so courage must be the third principle. Honor, valor, sacrifice, etc. probably derive from that.

There don’t seem to be any other npcs in this grove, so we leave and rub up against the walls of the throne room for passages.

Here’s one. We ignore the guard and check around for more passages.

Some treasure chests are just below the previous secret wall. We quickly search through the room, but don’t find any runes. Defeated, we decide to speak with the guard.

Not sure what pass she’s talking about; didn’t notice any mountains on our way over here. When I ask about danger she says, “Well not compared to a dungeon altar room! Hast thou solved the altars?” These npcs may as well be asking if I’ve won the game. If I had solved them, do you think I’d be wasting my time in a location where we can find clues about solving them? Stupid guard.

“From them a three part key is gained, needed to enter the chamber of the codex!”

Right, so here’s how it seems to be going: We need to find three items in order to enter the abyss, which houses the codex. To find the codex, we need to enter its chamber. To do that we need a three part key, gained from the dungeon altars. The dungeons house virtue orbs, so they’re probably involved too. And I also need to master the virtues to be able to enter the chamber.

The question remains, though: What is the codex, and who placed it where it is? Lord British probably didn’t, since he doesn’t seem to know anything specific about it. Who designed this elaborate puzzle lock to seal it away? A goody who wants to reward humanity once one proves worthy of finding it, or a baddie that expects no one to do so due to human weakness?

Questions, questions…

We return to the fork, just above the entrance, and head right. We dip south and investigate the npc in that room.

“I am a lady in waiting.” She doesn’t give specifics, but I assume she’s Lady Marcy’s servant. Not much of a talker, so we leave her and speak with a nearby druid.

Another Antos? “I hold great wisdom. What dost thou ask of me?” I throw some topics at him, but they’re incorrect. Father Antos had information about the Book of Truth, so maybe Brother Antos has information on one of the other items? Unfortunately I didn’t think about this while talking to him, so we’ll just have to come back here later; maybe he knows about where to find the candle.

We’ve had enough of this love commune for now, so we decide to leave and explore some other locations for a while.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 20: Fighting Insomnia

Spoiler

When last we left off, our quintet had braved the horrors of a hippy commune in order to learn more about the quest. Now free from its grasp, they continue the search for new locations and followers.

There’s another settlement on a large island south of the mainland, so we’ll use our boat to reach it. We anchored nearby Trinsic, so it’s off to the moongates.

Some orcs attack, and we use the opportunity to boost up the exp of our newcomers. I still haven’t gotten around to reordering the party, so I just had the ranged members hold off while the melee duo moved in. Shamino lands more hits, and kills an orc and a troll, while Julia kills an orc.

Combat’s going to be more tedious now, but I can ease it up a bit. You can use “E” to exchange positions of every party member that isn’t the protagonist, who must always take the lead. This way our melee hitters can begin their charge sooner.

We continue trudging through the thick brush, and two orcs and an ettin catch us up. Shamino and Julia both score a kill, and we move on.

Several minutes, and combats, later we find Yew. We tussle with those ettins, grab some food packs, and then head west for the moongate.

First, a quick rest. Nothing like camping out in the middle of the forest after a long day of battling monsters.

Eh, what’s that noise?

Uh oh. That’s the first time this has happened. Maybe we should have set up a watch schedule…

Our hero uses Awaken to bring the rest of the team out of their slumber; a couple of them wake on their own.

Iolo sleeps through most of the fight, since I didn’t think it was dangerous enough to bother using another Awaken. Despite all the rogues we didn’t lose most of our cash, so that’s a win for me.

Just in time, Iolo; you can help us wrap up the last enemy.

We kill the last rogue and then make our way to the moongate; we’ll try resting again some other time. From here we teleport to Lord British to see if anyone’s leveled up.

Drat.

Before teleporting to Trinsic we pay another visit to Britain. They have an inn in town, so we can use that for a safe rest.

Only one bed, though, so I guess we can only heal one member. Between the five I suppose Julia needs it the most -

Oh shit, we all just piled into a single bed room at once. That damn love commune has corrupted our quintet’s poor morals.

After that brief lapse in judgment we make our way to the nearby moongate.

There you are; right where we left you. Time to explore the islands to the south.

… after a quick stop at the Den for more magic keys. Never know how many locked doors we’ll bump into in a row.

We also buy some magic gems, now that we can afford them. I’ll have to try those out later, although I’m not sure what they do; on that note, I’m not even sure how we use them in the first place.

On our way back south we take the time to engage any landlubbers we see. May as well take advantage of every opportunity to boost up experience.

I also remembered that Dupre is still hanging around in Trinsic, so we take a quick detour while we’re in the area.

Dupre still won’t join us. Feels bad, man, and all that. Our melee members took some hits on our way here, so we grab a room at the local inn.

Great, it happens in towns too? Why were we even strolling around at night?

Nothing we can’t handle, although we do lose some coins in the process.

This is Winthrop, the fellow we were told to speak to about finding the rune; he hangs around just outside the inn rooms. All he does is direct us to the kid we ended up dealing with anyway. Still not sure how we were supposed to peacefully resolve that bull situation, but at least it hasn’t permanently impaired our ability to complete the quest.

Some rats and pythons attack us on our way out of Trinsic. The rats aren’t an issue, but the pythons have weaponized their venom into a projectile form. Shamino, Julia, and Jaana end up poisoned. We can easily Cure that, but it’s another example of why you should make sure to always carry plenty of Cure spells as soon as you can get your hands on them.

We’ll get around to visiting those islands eventually, but first we’ll stop by Paws. We can grab some more grub, and track down whichever rune lies hidden here.

Following the shepherd’s advice we search the nearby hills and fine the rune. This one’s the humility rune. I think the only runes we haven’t found are spirituality and valor. We know spirituality is hidden in a treasure room somewhere, and we can probably assume that valor is in the town of valor.

I also remembered that locked door we found a while back, so we jimmy it before leaving. What will we find in here?

Oh boy, another bull encounter. He attacked us, so as far as I’m concerned that gives us free reign to demolish him without fear of legal reprisal.

This one is smart enough to flee, so we let it live. It also happened to be carrying 88 gold pieces, so we graciously accept the donation to our cause.

She’s the stable hand. “I saw the way ya dealt with ol’ Red Eye! Ya haven’t come to steal a horse I hope?” After the performance of our last one, I wouldn’t even bother stealing more.

“Then must be to see Smith!” Who’s Smith? “The talking horse!” Talking horse, yeah right; his name’s Ed, not Smith.

We can speak with one of the horses, but I don’t know if he has any unique dialogue; all the topics I threw at him elicited no response. Maybe we’ll swing by later.

For now it’s back to the ship to continue our adventures.

 

[Darth Roxor]

What's the max party size? It looks like 8 judging by the window.

 

[ore clover]

Yeah, max party size is eight. One for each class, from the looks of things. Although that means we'll have to pad our team out with a shitty shepherd... not sure I want to bother looking for one.

Chapter 21: Combat Sidetracking and Prism Peering

Spoiler

The Quest to Read Ancient Books of Good Things continues! Our quintet has just finished with more business in Paws, and are ready to journey out into the world of Britannia again.

I tried finding out more about mandrake again, but I don’t know what I’m doing incorrectly. I tried speaking with the barkeeps themselves, but it doesn’t look like I can interact with them beyond buying food and ale.

Before leaving we decide to speak with Zair about that word we’ll need to enter the abyss. He’s the mage by the counter, if you recall.

Nothing we don’t already know; all he’s done is send us in the right direction. We’ll just have to find that hidden village in Lock Lake one of these days; we should also be able to find out how to mix up the Gate Travel spell there.

We’re about to set off for greener pastures when we see some rogues inbound. We’ll deal with them first before moving on. It ends up being just one rogue, whom we easily scare off within a few rounds.

We decide to take a quick jaunt up north to Lord British, to check up on experience. Some sea serpents attack us after we disembark, but thankfully ignore our boat.

Two of them prefer to keep their distance, so Shamino doesn’t get any opportunity for a kill. Iolo and Jaana handle the brunt of the work, and our hero abstains due to his higher level.

We clear them out and duck into the castle.

Neat, and Julia should be close behind.

Onward, to new lands and experiences!

As we sail back south we notice some headless, so we park next to shore and let them attack. Don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s no friendly fire to worry about in Ultima 4; a party member can shoot through their buddy to hit an enemy. Same deal with baddies, though, so it’s something to watch out for if you’re facing opponents that can use ranged attacks.

As we approach Trinsic we notice some orcs on a small peninsula. We end up spending the next ten minutes or so fighting group after group of enemies, taking care to let Shamino and Julia handle the majority of them.

We’ve also adopted a new strategy. Since Julia has a melee weapon she can’t do very much to finish off fleeing opponents. So we just box them in before they can escape, forcing them to fight on. It sounds pretty scummy to me, but we haven’t lost our partial avatarhood in honor yet so I assume it’s not a problem with evil creatures like orcs.

Hopefully Julia will level up soon. 200 hitpoints is all well and good at the start of the game, but she’s a bit of a squishy hindrance against these tougher opponents. Good thing we have about a dozen Heals in the bag.

I also accidentally stumbled upon what the magic gems do. While waiting for those orcs to arrive I tried to speed things up by hitting “P” for pass. Its actual command is “Peer at Gem”, though, and we were treated to this:

That little pink icon spins and flashes, representing the party’s position. The magic gems are basically a “view world” consumable. Not necessary for the towns, since we have the telescope images to fall back on, but could certainly help us pinpoint our position in the overworld if we ever get lost in a forest, or something along those lines.

After we finally defeat every enemy group in the area we head back down to Trinsic. Remembering what we were told up in Skara Brae about the white stone, we stop by the Tap to ask around.

Nobody responds to white or stone, so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Dupre still won’t join us yet, either. Guess I’ll come back here later and try again.

We fight some more ettin, and then sail back to Lord British.

Yesh, 300 hitpoints min for everyone.

There are some giant squids hanging about next to our boat, so we wander up and around the forests, just north of the castle, before returning to the boat. I probably don’t need to be this cautious whenever we encounter new foes, but better safe than sorry.

That’s better. Now we’ll just sail south and -

Oh, you’re back. We fling several cannonballs at them until they go belly up. Now we can -

Oh for God's sake...

We stand our ground and begin firing off our cannons, but the pirates decide to charge us full speed. Prepare for boarding action!

Now that’s more like it; a proper crew mans this ship. We plop our melee fighters along the junctions, with support from the ranged fighters, letting the pirates approach one and a time.

Too bad they didn’t bring any bows or slings with them. With nowhere to run, the whole lot of them fall to our weapons.

We make a quick stop next to Trinsic to save our progress before moving on. Next time we’ll actually visit those southern islands, like I said we would last update.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 22: We Are Sentri

Spoiler

Continuing right where we left off:

South to those islands! There’ll be nothing to distract us this time.

Uh, well, almost nothing anyway. The nixies make their approach, but we smash them to shit with cannon fire before they can close for boarding.

This island just below us is the first of five small islands that border a much larger one. The big island has a settlement according to the world map, so we’re headed there.

Here are the next two; the big island should be just past them to the east.

Here we are. We move a little farther east and then anchor, making the rest of the journey on foot.

A little bit south and we can see what we’re here for. Another castle unfortunately; personally I was hoping we’d found Jhelom, realm of valor and fighters. We enter the castle, and are informed that we’ve found Serpents Hold. As I remember, some beggar here is supposed to tell us about magical orbs.

Spoiler

This must be the fellow we want. I ask about orbs and he tells us, “An orb of blue light will raise thy strength, dexterity or intelligence, but at a cost!” Hmm, depending on the cost I probably won’t bother; we’re gaining plenty of attribute points just from leveling up, and the combat isn’t exactly demanding minmax strats. Not that we’ve seen any of these orbs yet, so it’s something to jot down and forget about for now. I make sure to toss some money his way before we move on.

Huh? You look like a guard; what are you doing by the gate? Oddly enough, the other guard is also a stately baron named Sentri. Must be an error.

Hello, beautiful paladin. As with other settlements she’s here to welcome us. She doesn’t say much of anything else, so we take the corridor to the left.

Oh good; only the gate guards are bonkers. Samuel asks if we’re looking for someone, then sends us on our way when we reply that we aren’t. We duck into that room to our right, and meet a bold fighter named Garam.

I hope that doesn’t count as arrogant; we do, in fact, fight with courage. Haven’t abandoned a fight once. Oh, except for all those Trinsic guards ofc. Damn bull.

We ask Garam to join us, but he refuses; guess we’ll need to visit Jhelom for our fighter. After that we backpedal to the middle of the castle, and head down the corridor to the right of the entrance. It holds another tower with guard, and fighter inside a room.

Not sure if that’s a shout-out to the game series or not; it’s a pretty generic exclamation, after all. “I feel that when on a quest my life has purpose! Art thou on a quest? Then thy life has meaning!” Unfortunately he doesn’t want to join our quest, so we leave him and return to the entrance. We head up north and go through a door on our left.

“I train warriors to fight with courage!” We ask Shyra about training and she says, “Train well and thy courage can grow with confidence. Wilt thou train?” I tell her yes, but I don’t see any way of actually training in here. We wander over to one of the rangers to see about training.

He doesn’t give us a name, but does tell us that he’s training to survive the dungeons. “I plan to conquer the secret of the altar rooms. Dost thou? Ask our teacher about the rooms for she knowns (sic? couldst this be another brit colloquialism?) much!”

We ask Shyra, and she tell us, “In the altar room of courage use the red, orange, purple and white stones!” That means there are probably three altars, one for each principle. I wonder if using the stones at an altar will consume them, or if we need to use them repeatedly, but in different combinations for each altar?

The other ranger has the same training dialogue, so we leave and check out the room across from this.

This seasoned fighter doesn’t seem to have anything else to say. It seems that Serpents Hold trains warriors for the land, based on all this dialogue. We try to speak with the npc behind the counter, so that our hero can donate more blood, but receive no response. Pretty worthless healer if you ask me.

We throw some topics at him, and he responds to health with, “I alone survived the shipwreck.” I ask, and he tells us that the boat was named the H.M.S. Cape. He also asks if we’ve ever heard of her, but I certainly haven’t. I tried looking it up, but the first results lead to an Ultima wiki so I assume it isn’t an irl reference. He doesn’t mention where he shipwrecked, but hopefully it was somewhere nearby this cluster of islands.

We leave the healer’s and enter the throne room.

These guards direct us to the fellow on the throne, identifying him as Sentri. Maybe they’re triplets.

His dialogue is the same as the gate guards’. He says that he rules this province: “Yes, these islands and much more.” He doesn’t mention what the much more is, though.

Looking at the telescope image, I notice that there are a couple chambers to the left and right of the throne. So we do what we do best: molest walls until they give way.

Behind those guards over there are some treasure chests. The guards each say that they guard their lord’s treasure, and that said treasure is not for us. They also ask if we intend to steal the treasure. A bit of a dumb question to ask; no matter our intentions, our answer will always be no. “Wise move!”

I don’t see any way around them, so hopefully there are no runes hiding back there. We head up the corridor and speak with a nearby druid.

Another one of yous? “I have important information.” But we need to provide the proper subject, as usual. I throw as many topics as I can remember off the top of my head; unfortunately that didn’t include book or candle. I’ll definitely need to try that hypothesis later.

We check out the secret wall on the other side, but this one just has guards and treasure chests; no other npcs.

I also just noticed this while reviewing the screenshots: Do you see that white notch on the brick wall directly to our right? It looks like that’s an indication of a secret wall; the wall on the other side of the throne also has one. That could make finding secret passages easier.

For now our visit here has finished; we can always sail back when I remember to ask Antos about those items. Time to head back our boat and -

Wup, another bridge ambush. Now they’re inviting ettins to hang with them? We scare them off, hol’ up and camp, and then check out the rest of the island before sailing off.

Nothing else here, by the looks of it. We board the ship and decide to use it to sail to Skara Brae; I want to grab some more cheap food, and we can then sail up north to another group of islands with a settlement.

Here’s the southernmost island in the cluster, due west of the biggun.

The wind decides to be an unhelpful ass, prompting some giant squids to catch us up. Guess we’ll see just how dangerous they are.

Only one survived, though, and it doesn’t do anything before dying in one hit from Iolo’s crossbow. The manual mentions the power of lightning releasing upon anything the squid grasps, so I guess that means they either shoot lightning or do magical damage.

Heading directly west from here should take us by Skara Brae’s group of islands. Onward!

The wind simply refuses to work in our favor. It’s giving me cabin fever.

Uh oh, sea serpents. We manage to dodge their attacks, and let loose some of our own, before they reach the boat. Two attack, but one quickly dies and the other flees.

Land ho! Judging by the world map, this should be the island directly beneath Skara Brae’s.

Hmm, a shrine? I don’t remember that; perhaps I’ve mixed up my settlements. We try to enter, but are kept out due to not having the rune. It’s identified as the shrine of valor, so here’s hoping that means Jhelom is just north of here.

There’s the settlement. Looks like I really did mistake this spot for Skara Brae. We walk in to find…

Jhelom, the haven of fighters. With any luck we’ll find the rune, the mantra, a follower, and have a crack at meditating on valor. Find out next update.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 23: Jhelom and Valor

Spoiler

Spoiler

Guards at the front are a bit assholish. One of the others says, “We guard the gates and these passages! These passages are restricted.” Won’t specify why, though.

My cross-examination is grueling, but he resists. We leave those passages’ secrets undiscovered, moving into town. Just down the road we notice a fighter hanging round in the brush.

This thin fighter announces the town’s virtue: valor. Where paladins are known for honor, fighters are known for their valor. “There is no holier spot of ground than where defeated valor lies. Art thou brave?”

Not quite sure what he’s saying; the ground where a slain fighter that stood his ground is holy, perhaps? Or maybe just that valor is holier than everything else, so if it were defeated that would be the holiest spot.

Either way I answer that I am brave; might be proud, but we don’t usually flee from fights. “Fortune helps the brave!” He doesn’t have anything to say about the rune or mantra, and won’t join us, so we move on to the adjacent guard. He doesn’t respond, so we instead head up to another fighter nearby some trees.

This one’s identified as a valiant warrior; valiant enough to join our troupe, mayhap? “True valor is seen not in the force of arms, but in the force of will! Art thou valiant?”

I guess it’s the same question as before. “Then never flee unless the need is dire!” He has nothing more to say and won’t join, like Timrod, so we say goodbye and wander into a building just above. Looks to be a weapons, armor, and healing shop.

Hmm, that is a strange name. Makes me think of X!XX!X from Secret of the Inner Sanctum. He says that he seeks the stone; the red one, specifically. He identifies it as the stone of valor.

He also asks me this question. I almost answered yes before I remembered that Lord British said an Avatar has already mastered all the elements virtues; that makes me only a partial Avatar.

“Then thou shalt need the red stone in one altar room to get the third part of a key!” No doubt he’s talking about the courage altar room. Valor must be courage bereft of love and truth. Fighting for the sake of fighting, in other words.

He doesn’t mention where we can find the stone, but I figure it’s in the dungeon of cowardice, or whatever the game considers the opposite of valor to be.

Our hero also takes a few moments to donate his divine essence to the hospital. An Avatar’s life must be that of sacrifice!

Here’s another location where we can buy crossbows. Also axes and halberds, new items; the halberd can be used to strike over the heads of friends, but you can already do that with ranged weapons from farther away. Not sure it’d be worth it.

Some quality pieces of armor, too. I imagine we’d need a lot of coin for these.

“I search for valiant fighters! Art thou valiant?” This better not be docking humility points. “Strive ye to defeat all evil! Kill not non-evil creatures but still always stand thy ground!”

Maybe that means we can kill fleeing evil creatures, like orcs? Haven’t been penalized for it so far.

We leave the shops and duck over to those trees where we spoke with Slithe. Within we find a lone npc against the corner of the brick walls.

He tells us a fable: “I search for valor! I find that ‘tis easy to be brave from a safe distance! Know what I mean?” We certainly do, since sixty percent of the team uses ranged weapons. “That’s my problem.” I call it fighting smart, Aesop. Or at least minimizing combat duration.

He’s also kind enough to tell us the mantra. “The mantra of valor is ‘RA’ use it in the shrine on the next isle!” Doesn’t mention the rune, though, so the search continues. From Aesop we head south to an inn and pub.

Lol, insert your favorite star wars joke here. “I seek the inner light! I come from Skara Brae and am on my way to Yew. Hast thou been to Skara Brae?”

Yup, best feed prices in all Britannia (I fink). “A fine city!” Seemed more like a pilgrim’s cove to me, but whatever you say.

He also mentions that Yew is based in justice, but we knew that already. No info on the rune, and he won’t join, so we speak to the shepherd next to him.

Oh boy.

Uh...

Oh shit. That’s bad news if you’re asking random strangers if they’re the baby-daddy. When I say no she says, “Thank god!” Not sure if you’re complimenting or insulting me. This woman’s something else, that’s for sure. I dare to ask if she’ll join us, but she refuses (Thank god!).

Gravnor’s a grave fighter (according to the game, not me trying to make a bad joke). He also seeks the red stone. “It is found on an altar! Dost thou have it? It lies in the dungeon Destard!”

Uh? I don’t see why they couldn’t have named it Coward. He also won’t join, which I expected. I think it’s a safe bet that npcs that tell you important clues probably won’t join the team; then they’d no longer be able to remind you of the clues. From there we wander over through some doors to the left, into the inn rooms.

“I clean the rooms. Is there some problem with thy room?” We don’t have one, so that answer must be no. “Oh, thou had me worried!”

This room’s locked. Makes sense, but we jimmy it anyway; we still need to know where the rune is, and we must leave no npc unquestioned.

“I battle for Lord British! Are you a valiant warrior?” Yes, again. “Thou dost deserve the rune, ask Nostro!” Okay, now we have a name to look for. We leave the inn and start double checking every npc we see.

Looks like we missed this fellow last time we were over here. “I fight for valor! The valiant soul fears not its own visage! Art thou the most valiant of souls?” I haven’t even achieved partial avatarhood in valor, and even then it’d probably be the height of arrogance to answer yes. “Thou should seek the shrine of valor! The mantra need be known, ask Aesop!” Neat, although we’ve already covered that step.

The other two wounded don’t respond, but this fellow does. “I fell in the dungeon ‘Destard’. Hast thou found its altar room? Find it!” I wonder if the three altar rooms of the principles are in different dungeons than the virtue orbs.

After we speak with just about everyone we can find, and still haven’t seen Nostro, we return to the inn rooms; there were a couple we hadn’t investigated. Another fighter is staying inside one of them, also with a locked door.

gaem o thrones spoiler

You sure grow'd up.

“I lead into battle! I desire to fight again in battle!” Sounds like a man with a wish, and he also doesn’t tell us any important info. Perchance you wish to join us?

Damn, paladins and fighters must be really heavy hitters if they refuse to join from the onset. That accounts for six followers, adding up to seven with our hero. I guess we really do need a shepherd to fill out the ranks…

I took a peek at the town map, and noticed what looks like another room just south of Lord Robert’s. We head back, and find this secret wall (you probably already noticed it while we were speaking with Robert earlier).

Some treasure chests, and no runes to be found, but also another secret wall over to the left. I’d like to say that we immediately investigated it. However, this was before I’d noticed the little white mark on secret walls. What actually happened was we dry-humped most of the town’s walls for several minutes before returning here and discovering this.

That gets us into the town walls, at least. But how are we supposed to circumnavigate those pools of water? I ponder this conundrum for a bit, and then an idea sparks. If you remember, the waves of water in this game are usually shown going side-to-side, not up and down; you can double check with pics of us sailing, as well as when we’re in locations like Lord Brit’s castle where water can be found.

Maybe it’s not natural water, but actually some form of magical barrier. If that’s the case, we could Dispel it.

Right on the money! Who’s that over there, and why art they in a tower surrounded with barriers?

Still haven’t found Nostro, but maybe this mage has something useful to tell us. “I am locked up in this tower.” Why? “I am being punished for my crimes.” Wonder what you’re in for. “Does not matter, I can help thee! Dost thou have a ship?” Sure, but we already have a mage in the party, thanks. “Then thou dost need a sextant ask the barkeep for he knows more!”

Really? We’ve been doing well enough without. Guess I’ll try to remember that.

I surmise that Nostro is probably somewhere in these walls, so we use the rest of our Dispels searching every single tower. As you might expect, we find him in the tower farthest away from our starting point.

This withering soul seems to be a victim of circumstance, or the town didn’t feel like paying him. “This passage runs around the city! Wilt thou lead me out? I am saved!” Don’t see any harm in doing that; but what of the rune?

“The rune is buried in a tower!”

Here’s the rune, in the southeast tower. Nostro’s pretty annoying; he clings next to your party and follows you everywhere. We lead him out into the town, but couldn’t seem to find any spots that he’d be happy abandoning us at. I was only able to return into the walls without him by getting him stuck against some npc, or trees. On our way back out he immediately greeted us just outside the inn rooms.

Since he made no attempts to let us know when we’d finished our job, we decided to leave the town and head to the shrine. He’ll probably be stuck in the walls again when we return.

Meditation time! Technically I hadn’t maxed valor last time we visited the Seer, but we’ve fought plenty of battles since then. Let’s give it a whirl.

Hmm... what could be the meaning of valor?

Spoiler

https://newearthparadigm.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/the-journey-into-my-heart-valor-i/

The Journey into My Heart – Valor – I
July 4, 2015 by New Earth Paradigm

Six Virtues of the Heart

This is a continuation of my inner process using the material of the Wingmakers/Lyricus Teaching Order. Source documents and links to prior parts of this series can be found at the bottom of this post.

May 17, 2015
So this brings us to the Sixth Heart Virtue – Valor. Until I began working with these qualities of the heart, I had given little consideration to this word; it was not part of my vocabulary, period. Why say “valor” when “courage” is available and more commonly used? I had only encountered the word valor as it related to war and battle scenarios – “The Better Part of Valor” and all that. I was quite surprised to read James’ thoughts about this virtue and I see now that, like “courage,” the term “valor” can be applied in many situations that occur in daily life. Here are James’ words.

While valor is generally used in the context of war or the battlefield, it is, as an element of love, linked with the act of speaking truth to power, especially when an injustice is committed. It is common in today’s social order to pretend ignorance of the injustices of our world.

As usual, the Lyricus teachings expand my Understanding of commonly used English words. Valor is an element of Love that is linked with the act of speaking truth to power.

That is a profound statement. When I first read this phrase “speaking truth to power,” I immediately thought of the Native Hawai’ians protesting the construction of the 30-meter telescope of the sacred mountain, Mauna Kea. The element of this protest that made it different from other protests was the element of Love, linked with speaking truth to power.

I borrow another phrase from author, Lucia Rene, who distinguishes “power” from “abuse of power.” In her book, Unplugging the Patriarchy, she writes that true power does come from a combination of Love and Will – third chakra balanced with heart chakra energies. She further describes how this last era has been an exploration by Humanity of both power and the abuse of power. The shift that Humanity is currently experiencing is our completion with third chakra issues in order to move into the exploration of fourth chakra issues. This made perfect sense to me when I read it. It still does.
We have confused true power with the abuse of power, as the latter expression is mostly what we’ve been dealing with at the end of this cycle. We’ve arrived at a place where we’ve become so used to being dominated and victimized that we have equated abuse of power with true power.

Power is based in Love; abuse of power is based in fear and remedied with force. Force is not power, it is a reaction to fear of being abused. Hence, the common belief that one must strike down the enemy before he strikes you. The last sentence of this first paragraph is also revealing of our depreciated state. “It is common in today’s social order to pretend ignorance of the injustices of our world.”

Injustice has become so widespread as to appear normal. Everyone is feeling the injustices born from millennia of abuse of power, so one of the most common reactions to this is to go into denial and pretend ignorance of the topic. How are the “injustices of my world” any more important than the ones I’m dealing with in my life? Where is the Love for one’s fellows? Perhaps more importantly, where is the love for myself? It was long ago squeezed out by the ruthlessness of the abuse of power. Have we learned the lesson now? Are we ready to move on? The movement atop Mauna Kea is encouraging. The People are remembering that true power is based in Love.

July 4, 2015

Independence Day in the United States, my country of origin for this lifetime. My second Independence Day in a row observed from halfway around the world in Morocco. The principles of Valor are gloriously celebrated by Americans on this anniversary of our nation’s birth. As I re-read my writings of a few weeks ago, I realized that I had described the work of the Hawai’ian people on Mauna Kea incorrectly. I can see now how my old paradigm perspective “bled through” in my writing. I will quote the paragraph in question and re-interpret it now in light of my newer way of holding that situation.

“. . .When I first read this phrase “speaking truth to power,” I immediately thought of the Native Hawai’ians protesting the construction of the 30-meter telescope of the sacred mountain, Mauna Kea. The element of this protest that made it different from other protests was the element of Love, linked with speaking truth to power.”

When I read this paragraph this morning I realized that the reason the People on Mauna Kea are succeeding is that they are NOT primarily “protesting” the construction of the TMT. They ARE, first and foremost, standing for the PROTECTION of their sacred mountain, whose “voice” they represent. The “protest” of the construction is a secondary outcome of their STAND FOR THE LAND in “Aloha Aina” – love of the land.

This insight made me ponder whether this is actually part of the definition of Valor – “standing FOR something or someone in Love and Compassion,” rather than “countering or opposing injustice.” I think this stance makes an incredible difference. Clearly, our forefathers were opposing what they were experiencing as British tyranny. HOWEVER, I believe that first and foremost, they were standing FOR their vision of a country, conceived in freedom, liberty and justice for all. AND they were fighting for their perceived “Motherland” on their “home turf.”

Standing FOR something as compared with fighting AGAINST something makes a huge difference in one’s ability to carry out an action from a place of LOVE. Love sustains any endeavor of the Heart and provides the energy needed to endure over time.

As we come to the close of this “era of the lessons of power and abuse of power” let us remember that we are standing FOR our freedom and our evolution as a species, rather than fighting AGAINST our perceived oppressors. For me, this position, based in love, is indeed the “better part of valor.” It will see us through this chaotic passage – the final exam, perhaps – of our time in 3D duality/polarity and allow us to “graduate with honors” into the lessons of Love.

Bam, nother one down. But what of the vision?

Finally, something different; now we’re seeing a partially constructed menorah. I’ll just log that away for now; no point in trying to solve this puzzle before we’ve seen the vision at each shrine.

With that another update concludes. We’ve halved our way to Avatarhood, and are filled with confidence. Join us next time as we continue the journey.

 

[Darth Roxor]

OY VEY

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 24: Nautical Tribulations and the Final Rune

Spoiler

Another milestone for our hero, and another step closer to his destiny. With the meditations complete, our quintet prepares to embark once more. Where will their journey take them next?

Our food supplies have been dwindling more quickly now that we have nearly double the mouths to feed. I say we sail over to Skara Brae for its superior prices.

Technically we could’ve just jumped through the moongate right now, and be next to Skara Brae in an instant. But I want to be able to sail our ship back to the mainland, rather than leave it anchored out here.

Two rounds of cannon fire end these evil sneks. Let us continue our journey north to Skara Brae!

In between Skara and Jhelom are some small islands, just beneath a peninsula. Using the world map we continue following the coast north.

Here we are. While in town we grab some more spell ingredients, to replenish all those Dispels we spent to acquire the valor rune, and twelve packs of rations, bringing us up to 390. Should last a little while.

We then wasted a few minutes sailing up the northern coast, until I realized the boat would be just as hard to reach if I left it up there. Better to park next to Britlord’s castle instead.

This spot is just north of Empath Abbey, where the sea flows into a river that runs through the land a bit.

We also make a quick stop back in Jhelom. Remembering what Senora told us, we ask around the bar about sextants. Nobody spills the beans, and the barkeep won’t talk about anything besides selling us food and drink. Every time someone’s directed us to a tavern for a given topic, we’ve come up empty handed. Either I’m very retadred, and missing something obvious, or there are some bugged conversation topics; not sure which it is.

We bought some tavern food while here, and I realized that it fills up your food counter. However, I wouldn’t recommend using tavern food to do that. They sell each plate for 2 gp. Ration vendors sell it in packs of 25, so that’s the same as paying 50 gp for a pack. I don’t even like paying 35 gp, myself, so it’s not something we’ll get in the habit of doing.

After bugging everyone in town about sextants, we decided to explore the adjacent islands; I was hoping we’d find a dungeon in these mountains. No dice, unfortunately; the mountains extend all the way across with no perceivable entrances to a dungeon.

Uh oh, these fellows show up as we head back to our ship. Using our astute powers of awareness, we wait until the pirates are looking directly at us before running through their firing zone; they angle the boat to fire, but by then we’ve already reached our ship.

We hold our position, forcing them to board on approach. An easy victory.

Some serpents and squid attack us before the nixies can approach; both groups fall to our might. While sailing back east another group of squid and serpents attack.

These water enemies are annoying. Instead of standing in one spot, so our ranged warriors can trade blows with them, they like to move back and forth as if they don’t know who to attack. Draws out the fights longer than they need to be.

I just want to return to Britannia; please stop bothering us, creatures of the deep!

We loop around south and start our northern climb to Lord British’s castle. Along the way we stop to bomb some baddies. I don’t know why I keep doing this; I don’t think we gain any experience from it. Maybe I just like exercising my absolute power of destruction upon hapless landlubbers.

We reach the castle, fight some orcs just outside, and then dash in to see if anyone’s leveled up. Nobody has, but we get the chance to try something else out. If you ask Lord British about his health, he’ll then ask you about yours. If you answer no, he’ll heal the entire party free of charge. Something to keep in mind if you want to conserve your spells and are worried about ambushes while resting.

We take the time to speak with Hawkwind again (as you can see we charged right through the barriers this time), to see how our hero’s doing. We’re not quite ready with sacrifice, compassion, or spirituality, but apparently we’re all set with humility. Guess all those stupid questions paid off. First we’ll need to find its shrine and mantra; a visit to the ruins of Magincia will probably help.

Before leaving I take a peek at the map for the castle’s first floor, and notice what looks like a secret room directly behind the ankh in the main hallway. Since we can’t cross through water, the two rooms on its sides could have secret walls. Notice that white mark on the wall in the guard room?

Looky thar, that’s a lot of treasure chests. As with all treasure rooms we’ve found we search all over.

Ho ho, we’ve found it! Since we also found the humility rune in Paws, this means we now have all eight of the runes. All the shrines are accessible to us.

Using Lord British’s moongate, we return to Minoc in the mountains to the north. I recall that Mischief asked us to return to her after we found the rune; let’s see what she has to say.

Oh good, we’ll probably need to know that later. I don’t remember where Alkerion is, but if we speak to everyone we’ll find him eventually.

We eventually find him inside the poor house. If it’s used on two separate altars, then the stones probably aren’t consumed in the process. It’ll be a matching puzzle, I gather.

From here I decide to take us to the shrine in the nearby lake, having completely forgotten that I haven’t maxed out sacrifice yet.

After going through the three cycles we’re treated to this message. Perhaps all the shrines give you tips for improving their virtues, although I’m pretty sure I know how to boost everything from here out. We at least know that this is the proper shrine for sacrifice, so I know where to go once I’m ready.

We head back to the full-moon moongate, downing multiple groups of orcs and ettins along the way, and teleport back to Skara Brae. Time to juice up my sacrifice meter!

That’ll conclude this update. Next time we’ll start looking around for Magincia; no better time than now to find its shrine and mantra.

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 25: Spooky Scary Skeletons

Spoiler

Once upon a time there was a city full of proud peepol. Because the peepol was proud, demons descended from the sky and said "you should be humble." The city was destroyed, and then the peepol was ded.

Now our quintet searches for this mythical ruin, in the hopes that exploring its nooks and crannies will bring our hero another step closer to full enlightenment.

First we’ll boost up our food supplies while we can. Practically feeding an army at this point. It'll only get worse once Dupre and Geoffrey finally get off their asses and join us.

This is also a good opportunity to see if that haunted inn has anything unique going on; our hero needs to recover some health, so that he can donate again, anyway.

After all that buildup, we’re treated to nothing. We quickly jog outside town to camp out and rest; want to make sure our hero’s health is 500 so that he can donate twice instead of once.

That’s done. Before we set out we also grab some more herbs to stock up on Fireballs and Cures. Now to find Magincia.

So, how shall we find Magincia? Up to this point no one has told us where to search to find it, so we could sail aimlessly for a while until we bumped into it. However, there’s another way. If you look at all the moonphases shown on the world map, you’ll notice that one is missing: the waning crescent. Even though the map shows no location related to that phase, we should still be able to enter the gates.

Coudst it take us to a sekret location? Spoiler: yes it does, I checked it out the first time I tried playing the game. We still need to be at a particular moongate to get the timing of the moons right; Jhelom's will do.

Whoops, we wandered into marshlands after exiting the gate. Wasting our new Cures already.

Now, let’s take Jhelom’s moongate while the right moon is a waning crescent. What shall we find?

That ruin over there is Magincia. I’m still not quite sure where in the world we are, but we know of a guaranteed route here whenever we need it.

Spoiler

We make our way across the wrecked bridge and quickly notice two things: We’ll have to walk through poisonous marshes to continue, and there’s a demon on the other side. We’ll have to press on eventually, so no better time than the present!

No one takes any poison damage, and the demon makes no attempts to engage us. Oh, maybe he’s an npc, like the baddies at the Den, rather than an opponent?

“I welcome thee to Magincia! Proud city of the high seas!” I ask him about the shrine, rune, and mantra (you never know) but he doesn’t say anything about them. When asked about Magincia he says, “Magincia fell unto the realm of darkness for the foundation of their virtue was ill-placed in pride! Art thou proud?”

Well the Seer said I’ve maxed humility. Uh… does that mean I’m not? The demons wrecked the town because they were proud; will he attack if I say yes? Is this a trick question?

I feel like I’ve been tricked into saying that I actually am proud. Damn demon confusing me with his whiles.

We move a little closer into town and see some sort of blue gelatinous thing nearby.

Oh, it’s a ghost. “I haunt Magincia.” I can’t get it to say much else, so we trot over to that skeleton.

“I did value myself far too greatly, that pride was my downfall. Art thou always humble?” These dumb questions. I say no, even though I’m pretty sure I have actually been answering everything humbly (besides to that demon a moment ago, anyway). “Take no pride in humility, lest ye destroy it!”

Yeah, I’ll probably have to recharge my humbleness a bit. He also mentions that pride is “A terrible thing!” No info on the shrine, rune, or mantra.

Ugh, I should’ve bought way more Cures. This trip is going to go south very quickly. We’re still lucky, and pass on to the pub without taking poison.

“I regret.” That’s quite the job. “I was proud, strip thyself of conceits, only the humble are pure!” Wat humble? “The root from which all virtues grow! Dost thou seek purity?”

I’m tempted to answer no, cuz humble, but I say yes. “Then ask the snake of the rune and stone!”

Hmm? There’s a snake right over there. Guess we’ll see what he has to say in a bit.

We decide to speak with the other skellies here first. This one’s a jabbering skeleton. “Me and my brother are the last two of the great Meridid family. Thou has heard of us of course, yes?”

Uh, no? Is humble response, yes? “You must not be from near these parts!” That’s true. One of the skeletons is named Ghostly, and haunts the town, so I figure that’s just a generic npc name here.

Makes sense. Guess he used to be the barkeep. “I was once a powerful merchant! My wealth was boundless, I held great power! A proud soul surely knows not it’s worth!” Is that a typo, or a clever ellipsis? “A proud soul surely knows not that it is worth!” Hmm, maybe not.

“Dost thou see?” I have no clue what you’re trying to say. “The world goes on without me.” Mhm hmm, woe is you.

The fourth skeleton doesn’t respond, so it’s time to leave the pub. Since we need to cross the marshes to reach the snake, we’ll check with him later.

Nothing to say? Alright, let’s check with those ghosts over there.

Oh, the snake crossed over in the meantime. That’s good; now we can talk with it.

Huh? What’s the meaning of this? The snake gives us no chance to initiate conversation, moving in for the kill. Hoping to avoid his poison attacks, I have Jaana and Shamino fling fireballs. The snake dies in two hits.

So much for learning about the rune and shrine. The chest contains some money, but that’s it. Guess we’ll keep searching; mebbe there’s a friendly snake somewhere around here.

The ghost up there was another Ghostly, and I’ll bet these others are too. One or more could be unique, though, so we’ll have to try and get at them somehow.

After this ghost moved I checked for a secret wall, but found none. Looks like the ghosts can phase through walls; too bad we can’t. I still don’t want to risk poisoning everyone, so we head around to the skeleton behind the counter.

Just couldn’t speak with him across the counter, it seems. It also turns out that all that, “I’m big boned!” stuff is actually true! “I run this shop. Why, the food shop of course. Can I interest thee in some rations?” Yes (hope that was humble). “Hmmm, our stock seems to have spoiled…. Well, we’re expecting more any day!”

Still not taking poison. Rather than risk charging through all the marshes in the southwest corner, we’re going to see if there’s another way up to the north.

We also talk with Virtuebane again, to see about reversing our prideful response, but I can’t tell if this actually helped. Maybe we shouldn’t talk to him anymore.

This one’s the skeleton on our left. He rattles his bones. “Bones, them bones, them dry bones… Art thou dead?” Almost answered yes; all this pride’s throwing me outta whack! “Watch out for Nate!” Okay, whatever. Hopefully that was the snake we killed earlier.

The skelly up top is named Wierdrum. “I haunt, and I haunt, and I haunt! A haunting job takes more than a lifetime, it takes forever!”

We leave the third skeleton alone for now; still trying to avoid the marshes.

“Pride goeth before, shame cometh after! Art thou proud? Thou shalt find shame!” I think one of the dungeons is named Shame, so maybe that was a positive prophecy.

Had to wander around the counter to talk with this one; the poisoning has begun.

“I was hung for my sin of pride!” That’s HANGED, not hung. Unless he means his sinful pride bestowed large genitalia upon him. An equally possible consequence.

“Art thou proud?” I’m very tired of this question. “A grave sin!” Shut it, I’m trying to be humble!

Uh oh, we can feel it now. May as well go all in! We loop around the right side of town, but all those ghosts have vanished. Where’d they go?

Why you sunsubitches!

We're in trouble. Every time we take a step, everyone loses a couple hitpoints. We have enough Cures and Heals to last a little while, but I definitely didn't come here prepared for this much poison.

With the poison constantly killing us, I panic and send us straight for the exit.

That didn’t go very well at all. We’ll have to come back later, with many more Cures at the ready. For now our journey has ended in a temporary setback, but we will rise again!

 

[Darth Roxor]

2spooky

 

[ore clover]

Chapter 26: went for a five minute hike, spent half an hour lost in the woods

Spoiler

Our quintet sleeps off the burdens of Magincia, sulking in defeat. We will return to this ruin, but for now we depart.

We’ll use Magincia’s moongate to teleport back to Moonglow, with the gate near Trinsic as a stepping stone. We’ll need some more spells after all those Cures spent.

While waiting for the gate to reappear we decide to rest again, to top off our hitpoints. Instead, we receive this message. Everything seems to be in order, so I don’t think we have some magical curse inflicted upon us. It’s probably just a design decision to prevent rest-scumming.

After mixing some more Cures, and grabbing more food, we stop by the inn. Our hero can’t donate any health as long as he’s below 400, so I’d rather fix that quick as we can.

Once again the party insists on walking outside at night, instead of just staying indoors where it’s safe. Note the sleeping homeless dude down there by the wall; nice attention to detail.

With his health restored our hero donates 200 more hitpoints to the cause. Hopefully he doesn’t have hiv, or something.

That’s the one-man boat we dealt with a while back; guess they’re persistent entities in the game world. Unlike horses.

Using the moongate, we teleport back to Lord British’s castle to check up on our hero’s progress.

As I’d feared, his humility’s lost some ground after that visit to Magincia. Hopefully I can just wander around to every Tom, Dick and Hardy that asked me those yes/no questions to refill it.

However, our hero has also maxed out his sacrifice. May as well handle that now since we know where to go.

We teleport to the moongate near Minoc and start our journey. Past this bridge we should find the lake with the shrine.

First we have to deal with some bridge trolls ofc. We kill the ettin and a troll, letting the second one flee.

Loads of orcs intercept us, slowing progress. It’s extra experience for the inconvenience, at least.

Here we are, ready to think about what it really means to lead a life of sacrifice. When you make a sacrifice you give up something of yours to make life better for others, right?

Spoiler

https://mic.com/articles/101540/so-...t-here-s-11-simple-rules-to-follow#.JRPq8GQQ1

So You Want to Be a Male Feminist? Here Are 11 Simple Rules to Follow

Published Oct. 21, 2014
by Derrick Clifton
Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Aziz Ansari. John Legend.

These are a few of many male celebrities who have recently come out as feminists. Emma Watson's high-profile #HeForShe campaign and the White House's launch of #ItsOnUs against sexual violence have encouraged many more men to think critically about feminism. More importantly, about why it's necessary to affirm and practice gender equality, given the many ways institutional sexism and the patriarchy have created environments where conventionally white, masculine, cisgender men have power and privilege.

Keep in mind that a feminist, as defined by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes (and various gender identities). Although some believe that men have no place in the movement, others argue that strategic social movements should build bridges of solidarity. It's not about focusing or coddling men, but instead about recognizing that people who have privilege can operate with respect and understanding by taking the leads from those who have been marginalized.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivers a TEDx presentation entitled, "We Should All Be Feminists."
Source: TEDxTalks via YouTube
For men who wish to truly engage in the struggle for gender equality, here are some ways they can help help while remaining cognizant of how their identities may limit their understanding of women's struggles:

1. Understand that women are leading the way and affirm their capable leadership. Don't assert yourself at the forefront.
Feminism has primarily been a movement for women, led by women. Although bell hooks wrote the iconic Feminism Is for Everybody to encourage all people to become invested in the struggle for gender equality, maleness is still privileged in a society that promotes male perspectives and experiences at the expense of women's.

For men to insist on positioning themselves and their maleness ahead of women's voices is to ignore that a man's voice will, on the whole, be perceived as more legitimate, even when he's not speaking with any authority or accuracy on issues pertaining to women.

2. When it comes to issues that directly pertain to women's bodies and experiences, be quiet and listen.
For people who have penises and a male reproductive system, they will never know what it's like to have a period, go through menopause or bear children. If a man is conventionally masculine, straight and not transgender, he is much less likely to encounter street harassment and sexual assault or be told that his gender innately makes him unfit to fully participate in various aspects of the workplace. And should he dare to speak up in favor of gender equality, he likely won't face online harassment, including death and rape threats, as was recently the case for feminist gaming critic Anita Sarkeesian.

Instead of talking over women or worse, making unfounded assumptions about what they experience on a daily basis, be quiet and listen to what women have to say, and redirect other men to their voices.

3. Men don't get to determine if they are "allies" to the feminist movement. Women do.
As a man, being a feminist isn't some special badge you earn after going to a rally, speaking out for gender equality or holding another man accountable for sexist behavior. It's not about getting "ally cookies" or a pat on the back every time you do something that's considered pro-feminism. Rather, it's about making sure your actions aren't sexist, transphobic or reinforcements of gender-based bigotry. It is not going above and beyond to act respectfully and in solidarity with women working towards gender equality.

4. Take responsibility for addressing men's issues with other men, rather than expecting women in feminism to do all of the work.

So-called men's rights activists gather at a 2014 conference in Detroit.
Source: A Voice For Men via YouTube
Men who are ignorant about feminism — and even so-called men's rights activists — often critique feminists for not addressing what they describe as men's struggles. Some of these issues include the disproportionately high male suicide rate, how the court system regards fathers in custody battles and the perceived abandonment of survivors of sexual violence.

On the one hand, these criticisms miss a pretty large point: Feminism can, and already has, helped men as well as women.

Additionally, men, especially white men, are already positioned to work towards resolutions, since institutional sexism gives them a disproportionate hold on the levers of power. Instead of railing against the women in feminism, it's important that men take steps to work with each other, as well as with feminist leaders, to recognize how the struggle for gender equality plays a key role in many of these efforts.

5. Use your male privilege to encourage other men to work towards gender equality, under women's leadership.

Source: Manish Swarup/AP
Once you feel that you have a stable understanding of what it means to be a feminist, motivate other men you know to join in the push for gender equality. Being a feminist shouldn't be seen as a chore, a job or a simple label, but rather as a lifelong commitment to ensuring that institutional sexism comes to an end.

But, as the CEO of Microsoft recently learned, that commitment should run deeper than tokenization, or telling women, from a position of privilege, how they should approach key issues such as the gender pay gap.

6. Don't use the label of "feminist" as a way to try to get women to like you — that's disingenuous and counterproductive.
We've all heard the horror stories of men using feminism to get dates or new female friends, thinking the label may prove they are somehow "softer" and not as ignorant as more conventionally masculine "bro" types.

However, this "nice guy" approach can backfire. Beware of the male feminist who behaves as though his feminist sympathizing makes him more entitled to female sexual attention, even when he shows little to no understanding of his privilege. Instead, this logic objectifies and belittles women with the assumption that they can be manipulated into liking someone who really doesn't care about their position in society.

7. When given opportunities to execute professional tasks related to feminist issues, consider referring other women instead.

Former professor and news commentator Hugo Schwyzer appears on CNN to discuss sexual harassment in schools.
Source: CNN Video
Women have been at the forefront of feminism and civil rights efforts for more than 100 years. But by and large, institutional sexism often renders women and their experiences invisible, because male needs, thoughts and opinions are usually elevated above their female counterparts'.

So when organizations or news outlets ask for a "male perspective" on issues such as feminism and gender equality, ask what the needs and goals of the conversation are in order to discern whether or not you can truly speak from a place of experience, education and expertise, especially if the topics are related to issues that mostly affect women. Don't be afraid to suggest a female peer if you're not the best suited for the event or discourse.

8. Educate yourself about the history of feminism and how women of different backgrounds have approached the movement.

Source: Edward Kitch/AP
Feminism means different things depending on the country, its laws, racial and ethnic groups, class stratification and the prevailing world religion, among other factors. In the United States, feminism encompasses enslaved women writing about their struggle for both their womanhood and for their full humanity to be recognized and respected. It includes the fight for suffrage, reproductive justice, access to education and equal employment opportunities.

Often, those struggles have privileged the perspectives of mainstream white women, at the expense of women of color who endure universal but differing struggles, given disparities along the lines of race and class. It's all the more important, especially in a "post-racial" society, to make sure the history of feminism isn't whitewashed.

9. Ensure your feminism is intersectional.

Source: Mikki Kendall via Twitter
Before diving into feminism, men should remember that what's often heard in the mainstream doesn't provide a complete snapshot of the movement.

Many women in feminism have long rallied to ensure that the fight for gender equality is inclusive and cognizant of everyone, including people of color, queer, trans and gender nonconforming people, people with disabilities, differences in class and ability, various faiths and non-faiths and other identities and situations. That's because intersectionality ensures that various goals and needs are addressed to truly elevate everyone, rather than focusing on the experiences of those who have relatively more privilege.

It's a critique against mainstream, white-centered feminism levied by Mikki Kendall and feminists around the world in August 2013 with the viral hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen:

10. Acknowledge that sometimes, women need opportunities to discuss feminist issues without the presence of men. And that's okay.

Participants from the December 2009 conference, titled, The Courage to Lead: A Human Rights Summit for Women Leaders.
Source: United States Mission Geneva via Flickr
When hashing out difficult conversations, ideas and questions about women's issues and the direction of the movement, it can be challenging to deal with interjections from men who derail the conversation due to their relative lack of understanding.

In addition, some women may feel more comfortable discussing their bodies and their experiences absent the gaze and presence of men, whose thoughts, needs and desires are privileged in virtually all sectors of society. Instead of taking offense, practice respect and compassion by minimizing yourself in the situation, and by simply asking if there's any way you can be helpful outside of the closed dialogue.

11. When women criticize your involvement in feminism, don't talk over them or talk down to them. Actively listen and be accountable.
Sometimes, in doing the work or attempting to be helpful, people make mistakes, and that's a human thing to do. But listening to constructive criticism and being accountable for missteps is what separates a responsible ally from someone who is clueless about their privilege.

Instead of talking over women or talking down to them, ask questions about how you can be most helpful. And, given institutionalized sexism and male privilege, figure out how you can work with women in leadership to remedy any damage done. Because that's what true allyship and solidarity look like in feminism.

**************

Men saying they support feminism is just one small, albeit important, step in breaking down these disparities. Going forward, men need to take the next step: challenge and dismantle their preconceived notions and stereotypes of women and gender identity. They can and should do this while affirming the leadership of the many women who have paved the way.

Another partial enlightenment, another vision. Looks like a

chewtoy bone with a couple fishhooks sticking out the sides. There’s probably some deep, metaphysical symbolism going down here.

We make a couple moongate jumps and end up nearby Yew. We could teleport some more to get back to Lord British’s castle, but we decide to walk instead. It’s not too far to the south; surely a straightforward hike awaits us.

After traveling south for a bit we come across this clearing. If the world map is any indication, we should only have a little farther to go before we find the mountain range just above the castle.

I remember this gap in the hills; the castle should be very close now.

We travel farther south, and some orcs close in pursuit. Castle should be somewhere over to the right, I fink. We wreck the orcs and continue.

Eh? I guess we took a wrong turn somewhere. We turn round and start heading southwest at the fork instead.

Woah, what’s that monstrosity? It flings some fireballs at us as we approach; must be some sort of fire lizard.

Lava lizards, and a dragon? This is an escalation of force I didn’t expect.

The lava lizards can spit persistent blocks of lava onto the battlefield; they’ll dissipate after someone comes into contact with them, but still something to avoid if possible. The dragons breathe fireballs as their ranged attack. Fortunately, these enemies aren’t much sturdier than others that we’ve faced. After the wow-factor of their initial appearance, they go down decently quickly.

We finish off the lizards, start moving south some more and… what the fuck? Nobody said anything about sky golems being in this game! If they're anything like I remember, then we'd best avoid them. We begin retreating south, but have nowhere to go besides hills and dense brush. We duck over to the west, crossing a bridge.

Whew, I think we lost them. But where the hell are we now? Here I thought it’d be a simple matter of walking back to Lord British, but I haven’t the slightest clue where we ent up.

Well we may be lost in a forest, but at least we don’t have to deal with -

Meet liches. One of these baddies took three hits in a row from our ranged fighters, and was only barely wounded, and they use some sort of magical attack similar to evil wizards.

We manage to fend off this first wave, but they’re no pushovers. In addition to taking a while to die, they knocked Julia down from 180 to 128 hitpoints. Manageable, but not the sort of encounter I want to repeat very often.

Without giving us a moment to rest, the next group attacks. Only half as many liches, but now there’s a couple of demons in the mix. Although we’re able to tank attacks from dragons and liches, so how hard could this be in comparison?

What the shit? I didn’t cast anything!

Oh boy; demons can cast sleep spells? This could go south very quickly. Oh well, maybe we can deal. If we can just kill the demons, the problem goes away. Plus, maybe they can’t cast it more than once per encounter.

This blows.

Julia does her best to face the lich, while our hero keeps her alive with a Heal.

Good thing we have strenght in numbers. We’re able to wake up most of the team, and kill a lich and demon in the process.

If you check out the History of Britannia, it mentions two different hellspawn enemies: demons and balrons. Demons are the red and gray ones, balrons are blue and red. Between the two, balrons are more dangerous than demons; I’m pretty sure he’s the one throwing around the sleep spells.

Eventually we scare them off; just to be an ass, the balron casts a couple more sleep spells on his way out.

We may have pulled through that fight, but if we’re put to sleep against four or five liches/demons I shudder to imagine our chances. We need to find out where we are right now!

Judging by our location via the gem, it looks like we overshot the castle by a large margin. Using that bridge and the positions of water, I determine that we’re on our way into a peninsula the ends just above that group of islands to the south of Skara Brae. We’ll need to head northeast to escape this hell forest.

We start making our way to freedom, and also take a quick breather to recover some hitpoints. Never know when another group of liches and demons could approach.

These baddies waylay us, but that group of liches is actually just one; nothing we can’t handle.

We encounter some more rogues, as well as some wizards and a couple lava lizards, but none of that compares to the horrors we’ve already bested.

Safe at last.

Today we braved a perilous forest, and also achieve further avatarhood. Tomorrow? Who knows. Even once we've mastered all the elements virtues, we'll have a quite a few items to seek out. This quest's far from over; stay tuned for more.