Ultima 7 - Black Gate and Forge of Virtue (Part 1)

             CD Rom solution from Bill Commons

First of all a word about your companions, you are told that Iolo
Shamino and Dupre are old pals of yours from previous adventures
but I soon found them to be a pain.  If I behaved like a true
adventurer and helped myself to all the goodies that I found, they
would yell and then leave saying that they would not travel with
thieves.  It was for this reason I did not recruit Shamino and
Dupre on my second run through the game.  Also Iolo decided that
he was leaving and walked off with some items that I needed to
complete the adventure, he relented when I spoke to him but I
never trusted him after that and loaded him up with all the
plunder that he could carry. Funny enough he turned out quite good
after that, with only the occasional outburst of 'is that virtuous
or must we do this'

It seemed alright to murder your foes and rob their bodies but as
soon as you moved their other possessions the outcries started.  I
found that if you double clicked on the chests, backpacks, drawers
or cabinets and transferred the stuff into your own inventories it
was ok but if you dare move them, essential in some cases as there
were hidden keys etc under them, you were in trouble. Another so
called friend called Jaana the healer from Cove was soon
dismissed, she did a couple of resurrections but after that she
always pleaded that she needed time to recover but if you told her
to leave she would always do an immediate resurrection for four
hundred gold.

You start in Trinsic and are met by Iolo, go into the stable and
pick up the key from the dead body. Tell the mayor that you have
found the key and he tells you to talk to Spark, the fourteen year
son of the dead man.  Search Spark's house and open the chest with
the key that you found.  Tell the mayor of the contents of the
chest and his next instruction is for you to talk to the injured
guard.  Do this and from this conversation you are lead to talk
to an old seaman, buy or steal a sextant from him as this will
put a cross on your map to indicate where you are at any time
except when indoors or underground.  Go back to the mayor and
make your final report.  He will then ask you some map
references as a sort of check that you are playing a genuine
version of the game and then he will give you a password to get
out of town.  There are some gold, weapons and gems around the
town but that would be stealing.

There are lots of mini quests in this game which are not essential
to the main plot but serve to increase your attributes and
experience points.  Because of the size and complexity of this
game it sometimes locks up on an answer and you can not finish
this particular part of the adventure.  The way around this is to
make a saved game at the start of the quest and you will have to
go through it again but don't talk to anyone out of turn.

The next town that you come to on the road north is Paws, and this
is also where you will find yourself if you get killed. The
situation here is that a thief is about and has stolen some venom
from Morphin the town butcher.  Talk to all in the town and you
will be told that it is Garrit son of the fellowship leader who is
the culprit and has tried to blame Tobias.  Morphin will give you
a key that opens Garrit's chest and when you open it and tell his
father, the quest is solved.  You may also do a bit of
matchmaking between Polly and Thurston and talk to the woman in
the fellowship rest about her husband Weston.  Another town
inhabitant tells you of a hidden key to the locked storeroom in
Morphin's house, Shut your ears when you get it, it is under a
pot of flowers, and open the storeroom, all I found in there was a
locked chest which I could not open.

Go north out of town and enter Britain.  Carry on through town and
enter the castle.  Talk to Lord British and he will let you take
his possessions, weapons, armour and spellbook and some other bits
and pieces that are locked in a room on the north west corner of
the roof.  He will also give you an Orb of the Moons which allows
you to travel via the moongates and a gem which acts like a
crystal ball, I couldn't find much use for this and it shatters if
you go near Fire Isle so I sold it to the town jeweller.  Lord
British will give you a deed to his ship which is anchored south
of Vesper and again I found that this and the horse and cart that
you can buy are too cumbersome to use as means of travel.  There
are two places that can only reached by ship they are a cave on
Serpents Hold which holds a locked chest with no key and a
magically locked door on Ambrosia, an Island where magic did not
seem to work.

Get the key from the nightstand in the study and pull the lever in
the N/W corner of Lord British's bedroom to open the secret
passages.  Walk around opening the doors by pulling the levers
and make your way to the room on the roof.  When you have
retrieved the things from the room go to the S/W corner of the
roof and talk to the prisoner Weston.  Return to Lord British and
tell him about Weston and he will pardon him.  Go to Miranda and
get a Bill to be signed by the mayor of Cove to stop the dumping
of waste in Lake Lock.  Talk to the gargoyle Wisley and tell him
of the murder of Inamo and he will ask you to go to see Lord
Draxinusom on Terfin and tell him, he will inform Inamo's parents.

Go to see the cook if you have any money and she asks you to go
to Paws to buy some mutton and she will pay you 5 gold per piece.
Don't bother to go to Paws as it is the same price, 3 gold in the
local market.  You can make this transaction for as many times as
you want to build up your finances.  Also if you talk to Brownie
the farmer he will ask you to move some pumpkins for him at 1
gold each.  The other farmer in town will ask you to work for him
by collecting eggs from the chickens but unless you are a crook
and steal some eggs from the his drawers it is not worth waiting
for the chickens to lay.  He will tell you of the spaceship in
his field and the magic hoe of destruction locked in his shed,
unfortunately he lost the key while fishing on Lake Lock.  Visit
the Museum and Illio will ask you to steal the virtue stones,
gosh!  These are used together with the mark and recall spells
later to teleport you around.  Go to the trainer and ask him to
join your party, then use him to train your team for free. He
also has some weapons and armour around.

Ask to join the fellowship and you will be given a sealed box to
deliver in Minoc. Play the game with the Jester and he will give
you a scroll which tells you to visit the fortune teller in Minoc.
Once again you can play matchmaker with the residents of Britain
and catch the mayor in bed with curator of the museum and various
other little intrigues that go on in the castle and the town.
Find Shamino and get your pocketwatch and recruit him if you
wish.

@~More next issue














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