We drop Iolo off back at the Hostel, leaving Book and Mariah in the party. Mariah, naturally, has the much-passed-along and much-loved sling now.
Manroot, eh? Let me consult my book... Ah, near Minoc, at latitude 54, longitude 182, there is a swamp of poison. Search there on the darkest of nights!
Level 3, yo.
Fuck you, door to Hythloth!
It is dark, something something grue.
We can see! Yes, we're on level 8. The backdoor to Hythloth leads to a central column that takes you straight to the bottom floor. But we don't have any reason to explore the Altar rooms yet, so...
As the "furthest" exit from Hythloth is surrounded by mountains, this is the only way to access it.
We ignore the device to the west and head back inside, finding a crystal ball around the first corner.
Mariah is canonically female, but the game doesn't distinguish. Anyway, touching this ball costs you 700 HP (only level 8 characters can survive) but gives you +5 STR, +5 DEX, and +5 INT.
Clearly the thing to do is have my main touch it also.
Yep.
Rise now and fight again, and be more cautious in the future!The penalty for dying is to be teleported back to Castle Britain. Whatever your money total was, it's set to the starting allowance of 400 gp. Since we had less than that after blowing all our cash on a Sextant, we got a free stat boost and a little bit of money from the ordeal.
So I do the logical thing and grab Shamino and Jeff.
And repeat the process.
Two or three times.
Everyone but Iolo's stats raised, I drop Shamino and Jeff back off and leave with Mariah again.
This time we Exit Hythloth and head for the lighter-than-air device.
It's a balloon!
A balloon that drifts wherever it likes! Seriously, you have very little control over where the Balloon goes. It can only land in flat grasslands, and left to its own devices you might eventually drift over one.
The closest thing you can do to control the Balloon is cast the Wind spell, and choose which direction the wind will blow
from. So if you want to go north, you need to choose that the wind blows in from the south. Then you hope you drift to where you're going before the wind, quite at random, changes on you.
It's as if someone looked at the Final Fantasy airship and said "This is good and all, but how can we make it really obnoxious?"
Well, that's interesting.
Eventually we land near Moonglow, allowing me to buy some Moss and Garlic so Mariah can cast Wind.
Every reagent seller in the world is blind, so every time you buy ingredients you can choose to rip him off to save money, or pay/overpay to increase your Honor and, I think, Justice.
We swing by Spells Unlimited to scribe Negate, too.
Back adrift, we happen to float by a cave. With adequate control over the wind, we land nearby to explore it.
It is the dungeon Despise, where the Stone of Compassion is hidden!
It is full of monsters, both in random encounters and scripted rooms!
Including some we've never seen before. A Gazer, the beholder ripoff there to the far left, can put my party to sleep with its ranged attacks. They're quite dangerous, as people can stay asleep for several turns even with monsters pounding on them.
Like that.
These guys are pushovers, though, weaker than the skellingtons in the overworld.
But the exit is not to the south, as advertised.
Secret passage!
Full of treasure!
Treasure chests only give you the usual random amount between 1 and 99, so any appealing treasure horde has multiple chests to loot. This one has almost a dozen.
Secret passage in the other direction!
On to another trove...
Eventually our Light spell goes out.
Three doors. (The middle door is the right one, as the ones on the sides just lead to the middle room.)
After the fight, we're free to roam...
Secret passage
inside a wall. Dick move.
Needless to say, giving alms to this guy is important to getting the Stone. It still doesn't have to be more than one gold.
One stone down. Having taken it there's the stairs in the corner to get right out.
So out we go.
What we've learned:
- Manroot can be found in that suspicious swamp, but only during two new moons.
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Topic: No bald kids or blue cat-people -- Let's Play Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar! (Read 9571 times)