Ultima VIII, Day 3

So the game continues in the third day! As mentioned last time, the quest involved in his day was to seek out some corpses, talk to them, and then jump across lots of dopey Zelda-esque platforms. Well, actually, the latter was not specifically sated, but I've learned that it is implicit in all quests in Ultima VIII. The necromancers, of whom I took several screenshots which I have no room for (due to the need for an absolutely essential two-shot sequence later), were mostly friendly, except for one who did not trust me, and called me "meat." What an insult. Just what are you? Rotting meat! Not very logical, Necromancer. Anyway, they taught me some spells one or two of which I actually used. Specifically, I used "grant peace" to banish some ghosts. There is also an "avoid death" spell that the necromancer who told me of it said I would need at some point, but which I do not seem to need. Leaving the necromancers put me on the roof of the catacombs, and leaping off required some extra healing potion because they are very tall indeed.




From there it was off to Tenebrae to be confused wondering what the heck I did wrong, and then subsequently off to the catacombs again in order to go talk to Lithos, the Titan of Earth, and connoisseur of corpses: "Her rotting flesh will perfume my garden of delight" was most definitely his most memorable line. The way there was riddled with danger, mostly in the form of more Zelda transplants, including mysterious rocks floating in mid-air for no reason, rising and lowering stones, and everyone's all-time favorite--Vanishing platforms! I also had to explore this annoying area where pillars produced dangerous blue fields between them, though once I got to the end, I received the treasure of the appropriately named, "Blue Field Passage Gem." Ever wonder how the Avatar just knows the names of stuff you click on? It was particularly silly in Serpent Isle; click on a weird glowing circle and it says "Chaos Serpent Eye." Oh...of course! In any case, this quest was kind of tiring, due to the sheer amount of craling and jumping and monster ignoring you have to do. On the plus side, I found a sweet axe called Deceiver nearby. My only complaint is that it isn't very fun--Slayer claps thunder when you kill a monster; Flame Sting burst flame, but this one just sorta kills things, with no special effects :-(

When I returned to the necromancer (what's the guys name? Vividos or something? I keep thinking of "Vardion" but I know that's not him) he told me I was now able to seek the Birthplace of Moriens. He describes the amazing experience he had there, though not in any detail. He also made me totally confused by giving me "the key of the scion," which looks exactly like the magic wand with a skull that is used to cast necromancy spells, except this one actually oens doors...somehow. Anyway, it opens a lot of the locked doors I found in mapping the catacombs, and one of them is labeled "The Birthplace of Moriens." In the pre-patch version of the game, it was labeled as "Towards Fate Do You Travel," and the Birthplace did not exist. That's the kind of totally bizarre problem that I just do not understand--how can that have gotten through any kind of playtesting, or even a brief survey of how the quest was supposed to be accomplished?

In any case, the end result is not as inspiring as implied by Mr. Vividos. You can almost see the little speech bubble over the Avatar's head saying, "What, this is it!?" Fortunately, just around the corner there's a bunch of Zelda traps that you can easily escape, including...well, I won't say dumbest, but man it's silly...the rolling spiked ball. I think it's in the top 5 absurdities of Ultima VIII. Let's make a list:



1. Morgaelin's complete lack of continental shelf
2. Rocks floating conspicuously in midair
3. Physics-defying spiked rolling balls
4. Vanishing midair red platforms
5. The skull of quakes

The Skull of Quakes you ask? Why, it's found pretty nearby to the spikey balls I just described. What possible use could a skull of quakes be? Isn't it obvious that you would go somehow place it inside a mysterious red half-circle, thereby causing an earthquake to open a teleport pad? When I first played Ultima VIII, the only reason I thought to do this was way into the game, when I was literally double-clicking the Skull of Quakes and trying its little cross hairs on everything. So bizarre! Ahhhh.

If you have other notable absurdities, please add them in comments! I might start having to approve them due to excess spam, but I hope not to...