Ultima IV: Cove and other drugs

I started this session with a moongate trip to Verity Isle. Spider Silk is a necessary component for many important and useful spells, and it's cheapest in Moonglow at $3/each.

The sextant helps me place the island precisely on the world map

But first I completely map out the island and its surroundings. There's a lot of opportunity to fight, and perhaps allowing the occasional cowardly orc to flee will raise my compassion score somewhat?

In Moonglow, I give the crazed beggar $99 in a single lump sum, just to see if that helps my compassion score, and also donate blood before I go reagent shopping. Commenter shamhat says virtue can't be spammed, so I may as well go back to being consistent, but also be generous. With limitless silk I recraft all my Blinks, my Heals, and some Sleeps and Xits, and I still have over $4,400 left.

I go back to Britain - the next place I want to go is nearby, so I may as well check in at base while I'm here. I take the opportunity to donate some blood here as well.

Hawkwind, as usual, reports no improvement to my compassion. But...

That leaves compassion as my only virtue that needs improvement, though I still need to elevate honest and humility, which requires runes that I don't have yet.

I head northeast to Lock Lake, where I have been told I can find the candle and the whereabouts of the white stone, but first explore the mountain ranges north of Britannia Bay. Another dungeon entrance is found deep within.

 

At Lock Lake, I use a gem.

Blink gets me in.

This new, hidden town, is unimaginatively known as "Cove." It's been awhile since I've mapped out one of these!

• Mentorian stands near the entrance and when asked, teaches me the Gate spell - it needs ash, pearl, and mandrake.
  
• A talking seahorse named Blissful tells me she knows much of the codex, but tells me nothing of it, deferring me to meditate at the shrine instead.
• A boy hiding in the cliffs by the lake tells me that I may only approach the abyss by ship, and that I must have a magically strengthened hull. He directs me to ask Blissful for more information.
• Blissful tells me to meditate at the shrines of honesty, compassion, and valor, for 3 cycles, to learn how to enter the abyss.
• Four mages gather around a campfire and give cryptic clues.
• "The one pure axiom is more endless than the changing tides, more eternal than day and night!"
• "The 1 pure axiom encompasses all things."
• "The whole of the axiom is greater than all its parts!"
• "The combination of the three principles of virtue equals the measure of time and space!"
  
• Sloven stands on the south end of the river, and when asked about the stone, tells me to ask the ghost of Isaac at Skara Brae's inn.
• The shrine on the northeast side of town tells me that to enter the codex chamber, I must be 8 parts Avatar, have 3 parts of the Key, know the Word of Passage, and know the Pure Axiom.
• A secret passage in the shrine, through a damaging, torchlit alcove, contains the Candle of Love.
  

My next stop - the Shrine of Sacrifice. It's not even worth taking the moongates, so I just walk across the Bloody Plains, and while I do that, I take the opportunity to investigate a conspicuous patch of swampland - a commenter told me that mandrake must be harvested at the right time.

I park over it, wait for dual new moons, search, and...

 

A mandrake root! One mandrake root. You know what would have been fantastic? If Calumny mentioned that this only happens during new moons! I wait another month here to see if I can get another - I do. This is a real boring way to farm Mandrake though, and the only spell it needs that seems worth casting is Resurrect, so this is all I collect for now.

 

Onward to the Shrine of Sacrifice, another eighth, and another vision.

I walk to Minoc, stop by its poor house to donate some more alms, and take the moongate here to Skara Brae. I go in during dual new moons - the spookiest time to visit.

We rest at the inn. - there's no sign of Isaac, but I rent it again. And again. The third time...

 

I ask about the stone.

Next stop, Magincia, by way of Jhelom's moongate, to talk to a snake.

He attacks, but not before I have a chance to extract two bits of information - that Barren of Paws knows about the rune of humility, and Britain's pub can tell me of the black stone's location.

First, I go to Paws via Trinsic's moongate, stopping at the Fens of the Dead in between to search for Mandrake during the new moons.

And I find it.

Barren is found in the southwest corner of Paws, and tells me to search the southeast corner of town. I do, and find the rune there.

I also take the opportunity to restock on some reagents, and notice something. I haven't got three Mandrakes. I have 18 Mandrakes! Now, suddenly, farming seems possibly be worth it. Possibly.

I blink back to the Fens of the Dead and farm mandrake for a few more months, and accumulate 99 of them. This is a long time spent waiting, and I don't get Mandrake on every single cycle, but I figure 99 has got to be enough to last the entire game.

While I'm in this quadrant of the world, I also farm nightshade, which is located in the very middle of southern Spiritwood at J'F" by C'O", and can also only be harvested during new moons (which, unlike Calumny, Trinsic's Virgil was actually kind enough to tell me).

I craft a few exotic spells right away - Iceball, Jinx, Kill, and View, and give them a try in this area.

• View does the exact same thing as using a peering gem. A complete waste of nightshade and mandrake.
• I cast Jinx on a pack of snakes - for a few rounds they spit venom at each other and scatter themselves, reducing the pack by almost half.
• An Iceball cast at an Ettin instantly kills it.
• Kill cast on another does the same.
  

 

Then I walk back to Britain, mapping out the last unmapped tiles of Southern Britannia.

In town, I donate both money and blood, and head to the pub to tip the bartender and ask about the black stone.

Right back to Cove, where I had found a "Merlin" without anything interesting to say the first time I was there.

 

I return to Britain and donate again before checking in at the castle. Hawkwind still assesses no improvement to my compassion, but British does promote Shamino and Dupre to level 6 and 4 respectively.

Current goals:

• Explore the world
  
• Explore the dungeons
• Find the blue stone in Deceit
  
• Find the white stone on top of Serpent's Spine
• Verity Isle: Find the black stone during dual new moons
• Find the bell at N'A" L'A", near Moonglow
• Meditate at the shrines of honesty, compassion, and valor to learn how to enter the abyss  
• Find the purple stone
• Trinsic: Speak to the mage after finding the purple stone
  
• Reach level 8
• Recruit Geoffrey at Jhelom
  
• Be compassionate
  
• Find the Shrine of Humility
• Find the Rune of Honesty
  
• Become an Avatar
• Paws: Get mystic arms from Sir Simon and Lady Tessa
• Find the three part key
• Learn the Word of Passage
• Learn the Pure Axiom
  

 

My world map: