Ultima VII, Day 2

After my experience of the past two hours, I suspect that my blog for Ultima VII is going to be a very long series of micro-commentaries, because the game is so rich in detail that I have not yet grasped many threads of the primary plot. Today I primarily explored the remainder of Britain, and then paid Cove a quick visit. Britain proved to be chock full of mini-quests.





First of all, I now have three extremely low-paying jobs: I make bread for the baker, I gather eggs for Max, and fetch pumpkins for Brownie. Now I am rolling in the dough quite literally! I also caught Patterson hooking up with the curator of the museum (whose stones of virtue I pilfered handily) and told him he needed to end his affair. Baking bread was enjoyable, but frustrating--the damned baker continually picked up his bags of flour and failed to put them back down! He also periodically stole my bread from the oven. Very annoying. I dropped by Iolo's Bows, and was disappointed that I didn't get anything free, but I was happy to note the high price that serpent venom fetches with a certain apothecary.

Cove was less interesting, save for the moderately OK-looking shrine maintainer, Natassia, whose dad was killed and whose mom comitted suicide shortly thereafter. Most of the other characters in the town didn't have much of anything to say, to my surprise, considering how verbose the people of Britain tend to be. Rudyom did complain about his inability to cast spells, but he was less insane than I expected.

A brief trip to Yew followed, where I met Tseremed, and as a result I now desperately want the coversation files from Ultima VII so that I can read how all the various companions are introduced in conversation with him. After that was a little pixelated nudity in the nearby Bee Cave, and a quick visit to Smith who, to my total surprise, referenced Martian Dreams! With Spark having made a note of Savage Empire when I first met him, I have to wonder if there might be some Underworld reference buried in the game somewhere.

That's all there is to note so far. I gathered a lot of chain armor from various fighters whom I encountered (and who died) on the road to Yew, but I am looking forward to some magical booty later in the game. I'm not sure what to do next, actually--Chuckles has sent me to Minoc, and the Coveians seem also distraight with that city, so that may be my next stopping point, once I finish with Yew anyway.

Obviously this game is progressing more slowly--new job anxiety has made me less excited about gaming, for some reason, but I'll try to keep up! Someday I might even get around to uploading screenshots :-)