Ultima IV: Wrong

No introduction or preparations this time. My party's full and well optimized, I've got plenty of supplies except for Zdowns and the ingredients needed to make more of them, not much cash, and I don't feel like farming gold when I'm likely to find some in a new dungeon I'm pretty sure I can survive.

Wrong, the dungeon of anti-Justice, lies deep in the High Steppes mountain range north of the Serpent's Spine where Despise's entrance is hidden, and can only be spotted by trudging slowly around the north coast. I go there next.

I have Geoffrey, who lags behind the party by two levels, do as much of the killing as possible. With no access to magic spells, he can't conjure any big wipeouts like Tremor or Jinx, but at least he hits real hard with a magic sword, able to kill just about anything within three hits, and isn't too shabby with a crossbow either. And the spellcasters can support with Sleep, Negate, Heal, and if things get bad enough, Protect. Quickness seems like overkill and the manual suggests there are aging side effects but doesn't elaborate.

 

Level 1

Yep, that's a swastika mosaic. Zelda might have had its manji dungeon, but there's no mistaking this clockwise one for something else.

Nothing to do here but take the secret exit down - I image you probably wouldn't find it without a peering gem.

Level 2

I'm right next to two ladders going down, but first I explore the spider-filled, slime-dripping passage. Geoffrey is allowed most of the kills; unfortunately he can't use any magic at all, so it's crossbows while cowering behind Julia's plate and Katrina's crook.

The passage winds around past two fountains, both of them healing, before returning to the start. I take the north ladder first.

The black room before it has a fixed encounter.

Level 3a

 

Magic death ball on this floor, behind a false wall! I test in on myself - it deals 400 damage and improves dexterity/intelligence, or it would if I weren't already maxed out on my stats.

We can make a logical, but possibly pointless insight here. Despise, the antithesis of Compassion - Love's virtue - has dexterity-boosting orbs. Wrong, which opposes Justice, a combination of Truth and Love, boosts dexterity and intelligence. Hylothe's orbs boost strength, dexterity, and intelligence, and opposes Spirituality, which is composed of Truth, Love, and Courage. Therefore, dexterity must be aligned with Love, intelligence with Truth, and strength with Courage.

There's two ladders down - I take the southern one first.

Level 4a

 

Just a straight shot in a cash-filled corridor to the ladder back up.

3a's other ladder down leads to...

 

Level 4b

 

The ladder down here is surrounded by four fixed encounter rooms.

North - Geoffrey holds a chokepoint; the trolls are too stupid to walk around it.

 

Level 5

Ah, what a dumb level. Every tile you can step on blows out your torch - just find a ladder going down, any ladder will do.
 

Level 6

 

What seems like a dead-end passage has four secret sub-passages going south, each one blocked by magic fields. The center two have healing fountains and damaging orbs - they also have fixed encounter squares that must be fought going both ways.

The leftmost and rightmost passages have ladders going down. I take the left one first.

No, moving my whole party through this winding, narrow passage wasn't annoying at all!

Level 7a

 

Not much to say here. There's a straight path to the ladder down, and a long windy path to an effectless fountain and a stat orb. Spellcasting, immobile reapers like to spawn here.

The right wall conceals a passage. You might not realize that without a peering gem.

 

Level 8

Four fixed encounter rooms wait between the ladder and the stone room.

This fight is insultingly easy

I deploy a rare tactical energy field here - the trolls funnel themselves right in

This fight is even more insultingly easy... but it's a one-way trip.

Check the gem - the stone room is west, not south! Dispel the fields to find the passage.

The south path from the Zorn room is a linear corridor to the Altar room of Truth, from where you could exit south to Hylothe and leave, or you could just turn back to Wrong and Xit out. Instead, though, I use Yup to backtrack and explore the roads less traveled.

Yupping back to level 6, I try the rightmost passage.

Oh. That's a lot of thieves.

Level 7b

Money! Hold your excitement - it was just over $300 worth.

Level 5 can't be Yupped to, so I walk there, and then Yup back to 4b, and take the left-side ladder up.

Level 3b

Just the negative space of 3a. A linear, Z-shaped path to the ladder back to level 2.

I Xit out and Gate back to Britain.

For my pains, Geoffrey gains two levels!

 

Four stones found, four to go.

Ultima IV: Blatant powergaming

 

It seems I'm settling into a pattern - spend cash, buy stuff, farm reagents, visit a dungeon, check in with Lord British, repeat. This pattern makes perfect sense for this session; I'm full on cash, low on some supplies I want to use, and I know where I want to use them.

To my surprise, I'm actually running quite low on peering gems - I thought for sure that the initial 80 or so I bought last time I went to Vesper would last the entire game. These can only be bought at Vesper - I Gate to Minoc and walk there, buy all the gems I can carry, and all the torches and keys too for good measure. I still have $8,439 after this.

Next I Gate to Skara Brae, buy thousands of rations, and all the reagents I can craft into spells, from both the seller here and the seller at Paws. I don't skimp on the exotic spells this time; I can always farm more mandrake and nightshade, and I can do it rather efficiently. This leaves me with $4,115, but gets me a good supply of powerful magic - more Gates, lots of Kills, Negate, and Tremor. That exhausts my supply of mandrake and nightshade.

Moonglow comes next, and I weave its cheap spider silk into some staples - Blink, Heal, Xit, Yup. I max out on all, and still have $3,414.

What I really want, though, is resurrects, and I need more mandrake for that. So I farm 99 of it, and 99 nightshade too. And craft them and other exotic spells.

I repeat this loop. More mandrake. More ash and ginseng. More crafting. More ash and moss. More garlic and pearls. More silk. By now the money is starting to run low, but Mandrake is free. So, more mandrake. More crafting.

 

Once I can't craft any more because I'm out of mundane ingredients, I refill on both mandrake and nightshade and Gate to Skara Brae and spend almost my last penny. And craft some more.

Waste of a perfectly good Saturday morning? Perhaps. But I rationalize that all this magic could come in handy, and if it doesn't, then I never have to do all this again.

 

Now then, I have some unfinished business in Hylothe - first I refill on gold in the Balron's basement, and then I farm the NDE orbs, using my Resurrect stockpile so that I can revive their victims as I collect them. Within about a half hour, everyone's stats are completely maxed at 50/50/50.

The most immediately obvious benefit from this is that my spellcasters have more MP than ever. Ahab, the mage, gets 99, Jaana the druid 75, 50 for Iolo Dupre and Shamino, 25 for Julia, and not a drop of mana for Katrina. They also rarely miss in combat, and I assume they do more damage too but this is difficult to confirm.

 

There's one more part of this pattern - the checkin and free healing.

Sweet - finally at level 8!

Geoffrey awaits in Jhelom's inn. After weeks of play, my party is complete at last.

While I'm here and full of cash, I visit the armory.

Magic plate runs $7,000, and I can only carry $9,999. Dupre the paladin is the only character allowed to wear it - even Geoffrey the fighter cannot - the best he can do is Dupre's old magic chain. So I spend another $2,000 on standard plate mail, which can be worn by Dupre, Julia, or Geoffrey. Julia, who cannot wear magic armor of any kind, gets it, and Geoffrey gets Dupre's magic chain hand-me-down, plus a crossbow sold at the weapons shop across the street. That leaves me with $399 - exactly enough to buy 57 black pearls at Paws, which I craft along with some leftover mandrake into 57 iceballs.

One last thing I gotta do.

Ultima IV: Ehtolyh

Well, I went back to Despise and farmed dexterity orbs. Worth it? Probably not - I also restocked and re-restocked reagents around the world, using Gate to zip around quickly, crafted lots of those powerful Tremor spells, some others too, and re-farmed Mandrake by waiting in the Fens of the Dead for months and months so I could craft more Tremors and more Gates.

The farming process can be sped up with a little bit of RNG manipulation; during the dual new moons phase, spam the 'S' key so that you attempt a search on every input polling cycle. During the rest of the month, make sure you pass at least 15 times - that will all but ensure that your first search during the next dual new moons will get you something.

All of that is less tedious than fighting through Despise normally, though the XP reward wasn't bad either - I let Shamino do all the Tremor casting, and he gained a good ~500 XP for it.

Before continuing the adventure, I went to Jhelom to buy stuff at the armory - I had about $4600 which bought me a crossbow for Shamino, and some magic chain for Dupre.

That left me poor again - so I went right back to the bottom of British's dungeon to farm gold. After filling up, I decided, why not explore the rest of the dungeon, but in reverse?

 

Level 7

Another confusing, infinitely repeating dungeon! It's easier visualized like this:

But there's nothing interesting here.

 

Level 6

A passage leads south to a series of three rooms.

Ettins, trolls, cyclopes, and a zorn guard some treasure. The map says there's a room to the left, but I can't find a way there, so I magically Yup out.

Level 5

 

Oh boy, three ways up, one way down, and three rooms between here and the way down! I want to see the other side of level 6, so I go through the rooms.

Shit. Gremlins!

Well, this is a bit macabre.

Lava lizards bathe in hot magma and leave burning puddles where they spit.

Level 6b

 

Coming from the other side, I can visit the left room.

Oh. This was unexpected!

A glitched room script puts us in the wrong corner of it! Thankfully, it's possible to leave. But I guess there's no way to visit the center room here.

I cast Yup to return to level 5 and...

Oh, what have we here?

Level 5b

 

A different part of level 5 entirely!

The orb, it turns out, kills you outright, but raises all of your stats by +5. Or in my case, just strength and intelligence, since I'm already maxed out on dexterity. Well, I have resurrects, so death is temporary, but the stat boost is permanent.

There are two orbs on this floor and I let Ahab have both of them, before taking the southern ladder to level 4.

Dead end! I try the next one - also a dead end.

The third one goes somewhere...

 

...and right back down to level 5a.

 

The southern ladder going up is a dead end. The east ladder goes forward.

 

Level 4

I have seen this dungeon floor pattern before.

The split

The merge

Level 3

Another orb of near-death experience. Ahab gets this one too - now my stats are fully maxed out.

We go to the north junction room.

Just a dragon and some treasure I can't carry.

North goes to an HP-refreshing fountain. South goes to the way up.

Level 2

 

Just a straightforward walk to the ladder going up - no special rooms or gimmicks here.

Level 1

 

Another orb, and right next to the dungeon exit! With enough resurrect spells, I could max out everyone's stats pretty fast. And I have a few, so I use them to get started - it's enough to max out Iolo and get Julia to stats 37/50/41.

A secret passage leads left through a three-tile poison field, but I find nothing at the end of it.

I leave and cast Gate to go back to Britannia for healing - no more of this balloon hot air. Shamino alone, who I had been using to cast Tremor at the start of most fights, gained a level, bringing him to level 6 with the rest of my party.