It's been a long journey. We've traveled the world by foot several times over, mapped out every town, every dungeon, gathered eight rocks, eight runes, farmed a whole lot of magic, and destroyed way too many pitifully weak monsters and brigands to count. Did we become better people? As far as the game knows, sure!
But after more than 65,536 steps, it's almost over. There's one more adventure here; The Great Stygian Abyss.
Zdown/Yup do not work here!
Level 1
It's a linear path to the main chamber, through eight rooms.
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Lava lizards wade in lava and spit more lava at us. A good Tremor makes them run.
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Lava bridge! Don't worry - the air around the lava is perfectly safe.
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End of the lava corridor - hydras flank the passage south.
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Never mind. It's more lava. Hope you guys can spare 15-60 HP.
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| Daemons and a magic sleepy field. |
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Another? Ok.
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We must be getting near the end.
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Oh no, how do we get out?
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Made it out!
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There are a lot of spiders, rats, and ghosts in this main chamber. Two poisoned fountains ensconce the corners, and an altar lies in the middle.
I try searching. I try using my key. Neither produces a useful result and each time two or three monsters attack. Then I try using my black stone - this one hasn't been useful yet.
Ah, yes, Ultima IV's famous final exam! Yes, I've been paying attention, and taking notes. The virtue is Honesty, and the corresponding stone is Blue.
Level 2
This level opens with a 3x3 grid of serpent encounter rooms.
The corridor after leads to a ladder down, but it isn't the way you want to go.
The correct passage is behind a secret wall, full of poison fields and an altar.
Level 3
Four encounter rooms surround the altar.
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| South |
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| Surprise! |
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North is about the same.
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So are east and west. Look at Katrina and Geoffrey being smart.
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Level 4
Four rooms to the south, one secret wall to the east. South is obviously the wrong way but I see what's there anyway.
Past the secret walls, we can see the rest of the floor.
A firey magic field lies ahead, and two spooky encounter rooms are behind it.
The other two rooms:
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Shouldn't there be a balrogn here?
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Oh, there they are.
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The altar lies in the middle.
Level 5
The fountains here are all poisoned, and five encounter rooms separate the main chamber from the corridors south.
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North - the Balrons cast Negate, making it impossible to dispel the fields protecting them.
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| West |
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There we go!
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Center. Jeez, that's a lot of reapers.
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| click |
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South. Searching every inch of the slow-moving terrain for the secret lever to open the way out is fun.
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East, for completion's sake. Don't worry, this room floods with poison as you step across it.
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Beyond this plus-sign formation of rooms, the corridors to the altar.
Level 6
That's a lot of rooms! In fact, the rooms in the middle of the map here are a maze of caverns.
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North-center
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| Northeast |
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East - can't get anywhere this way
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North-center, entered through a false wall
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| Center |
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| West |
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| Southwest |
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| South-center |
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Back to the center
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East again, coming from the center. Clearing all those sleep-casting Balrons is tricky.
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The Balron's nest hides the correct way out!
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| Southeast |
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A secret bridge out!
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South of the secret bridge
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Alternate route going west
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Last room of the maze
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| Emerged! |
The three unexplored rooms around the altar don't have anything except gremlins and trolls.
Level 7
The only points of interest in this phallic dungeon are the rooms to the northwest of the start.
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Why is there even treasure at this point? Yes, it's a trap.
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Find the secret latch!
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Use Negate here unless you want the Balron to make your life more annoying.
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Almost there!
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Level 8
Another encounter-room maze separates the ladder from the corridors to the final altar.
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| North |
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| Northeast |
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East - that treasure is super trapped.
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| Center |
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Center, after a bit of ghostbusting
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| West |
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| Southwest |
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South - this is the wrong way and will loop back to the start!
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The secret correct way forward
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Freedom for a little bit
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I follow the corridor, and,
Oh, this is new! Not challenging, but new!
I'm out of Tremors at this point, but my doppelgangers are helpless against a volley of magic shots, magic throwing axes, and magic bolts. Katrina and Geoffrey are a bit useless, but that's okay. They're good company.
Next room,
Thirteen of Ultima IV's strongest monsters. The big open arena is kind of nice - I can actually use all of my characters for a change, instead of having half of them be in the way.
The niche where the dragons roosted opens up a room to the north.
All these Balrons mean a nonstop barrage of sleep magic, and I can barely move! I squeeze off a Jinx cast first, and a lot of them hurt themselves in the confusion, but not before my whole party dozes off except for Geoffrey who becomes trapped behind all the sleeping bodies and literally can't do anything helpful.
A second cast drives off most of them and I mop up the rest with anyone awake enough to help.
The north and west passages seal themselves off after dispelling the barrier field in the center, so we go east.
I know from the map that going north will just loop back to the maze area, and I can see the secret wall in the corner, within the lava, but I still want to see what goes up north, so I save-state and go.
More doppelgangers. Weirdly, we spawn on the north side even though we entered from the south!
Going north goes into a corridor, which does indeed loop back to the northeast sector of the maze.
As it turns out, there is a secret way out of this early room. A switch near the northeast corner will subtly shift one of the bricks near the southwest corner. Entering that space opens up the north wall, allowing you to skip most of the dungeon!
Back on the critical path, a series of secret levers opens the Balron's prison, and it opens the south wall.
I answer "humility" and offer my black stone.
A voice rings out, 'What is the Word of Passage?'
I confidently answer.
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| Crap. |
Yup, turns out your list of goals had an important one left unfinished.
ReplyDeleteI thought "INFINITY" might be the word of passage and the "pure axiom" might be deducible when the time came. Wrong on both counts!
DeleteThere's one other little thing bothering me. Why does Ultima IV need to have the program disk inserted when you get booted out of the final dungeon? Normally when you leave a dungeon, it just needs the Britannia disk. That it demands the program disk on this failure does seem a bit ominous.