Ultima 7 - Black Gate and Forge of Virtue (Part 4)

                CD ROM solution from Bill Commons

@~Continued from Issue 41

Explore again until you reach a series of magically locked doors.
Save often as it is easy to lose any of your party.  Open these
doors and fight Selwyn and his henchmen to walk through the wall
by his bed and gain access to the roof.  Search everywhere and
find a blue key.  Mark this area, and walk on to the lower of the
two platforms.

The upper takes you to the orchard north of Britain.  In the new
room, walk through the north wall avoiding the sleep field and
exiting by the S/W corner.  Follow the passage round and enter the
room with two new platforms and a switch.  Push the lever to open
a secret wall back in the sleep field room at the top right
corner.  Enter this wall and use the blue key to open all the
chests, take what magic armour that you need and return to the
room with the switch.  The right platform goes to an area near
Skara Brae on the north beach so step on the left platform.  This
goes back to Selwyn's bedroom.

Walk through the wall again to get to the roof the after
looking around enter the mirror in the S/W corner.  The four
mirrors in the new room are, top in, down one to hut in Yew forest
where the Firedoom staff is hidden, do not give this to your crew
as it is not very accurate and can kill them.  It is best ignored
as you probably have better weapons.  There are also some reagents
and magic rings to pick up.  Recall to the roof and save.  The
other mirrors are, third down breaks and the last takes you to a
beach with pirates on the north shore of the Drylands.

Go down the stairs to the bedroom and make your way out of the
previously magically locked doors to the cave passages.  Turn left
and arrive at a place with fire fields in it.  You can cast reveal
spell to show the caltrops and pick these up and drop them out of
harm's way in all dungeons.  Go it alone again through the next
bit and enter the sphere.  I haven't a way through the moongates
but I kept going until I reached the prism with a few save games.
I needed the hourglass or I was thrown back to the start.  When
you pick up the prism again the area crumbles.

Now to do some minor locations, Dungeon Destard has a Unicorn in
it and some traps.  You can see several dragons and lots of
treasure but no access to it.  The way to this is to go out of the
dungeon and follow the mountain around in a clockwise direction.
You will find another entrance, in here are a gang looking for the
unicorn and lots of regenerating dragons.  The treasure here
totals about 3500 gold and after this you will not have to collect
any more gold unless you want to go on spending sprees for ships
and wasting it on the gaming tables at Buccaneers Den.

Go back to Batlin and tell him of the dragons and he will let you
join the fellowship.  If you can't answer his questions about the
manual, everyone will talk rubbish until you get the answers
right.  The next location is Vesper, not much going on here,
follow the little girl at 12 noon and note that she talks to the
learned gargoyle, they ask you to keep it secret.  Get the amulet
back from Bjorn for Lap-lem the gargoyle.  The mines have lead
chunks which can be changed into gold with the create gold spell
also some blackrock.  Have fights with two gargoyle haters and two
human hating gargoyles.  Lord British's ship is anchored here.

Next is Serpents Hold.  Talk to all and discover that someone has
damaged the statue, if you keep talking you will eventually get
Knight Pendaren to confess.  Lady Tory will ask you to rescue her
baby, you will have to go to the Spirit Woods south of Trinsic and
fight the Harpies, when you give her back her child she seems most
disinterested, I had fun trying to put it in the cradle though.

Contact the Time lord and he will tell you that to destroy the
final cube you will need special helmets made from caddellite.
You will have to go to Moonglow and ask Brion, Nelson and Jillian.
You will find out that you have to go to the northeast sea and
visit an island called Ambrosia, when you obtain the caddellite
you must take it to Zorn in Minoc to make the helmets.  Go to
Ambrosia, the location is under the compass sign on your map.
Enter the cave and wander through to the room with the three
headed hydra.  There is a secret door in the north wall of this
room.  Defeat the monster and go south to pick up one piece of the
mineral for each of your team.  It is not worth letting the liche
out of his room.  There is nothing in there and he regenerates
anyway.

Advance to Minoc and get Zorn to make the helmets.  Fly to the
small island next to Serpents Hold and enter the retreat.  Get the
key from the caretaker and enter the caves.  Make your way through
to the cube generator, you will be on your own but will still have
access to your companions' inventories.  Do this slowly as there
are many firebombs and I think you have to take the damage to
trigger the next path opening, keep an eye on your health, magic
fails here so drink a yellow potion or go and make a cup of tea if
you are low and when you come back your points would have
recovered.  Save often and eventually you will reach the cube.
Keep the three prisms for later.

The Time Lord will now tell you to go to Buccaneers Den.  Now that
you have the cube the fellowship leaders will have to tell you the
truth.  Go to Buccaneers Den and talk to all.  You may visit the
Baths and be entertained by the lady of your choice and if you
insist you can go with the man and get a 'hello sailor' response.
Get the key to the dungeon from Sintag, or go into the fellowship
hall and use the secret door at the back.  Hook is not there but
plenty of monsters and treasure.  Kill the jailor and release the
prisoners.  You find out that the ship Crown Jewel sails daily
between this island and Avatars Isle so that is your final
destination.

There is a large key in the chest that is in the first room that
you reach in the dungeon, take this as it opens the main doors on
Avatar's Isle.  You can if you wish now visit all the fellowship
leaders to see if they tell the truth, but when you get to Batlin,
he just vanishes.

On to Avatar's Isle at the southern end.  Open the doors with the
large key and go to secret room behind the throne of the Guardian.
Pull the switch and the double metal walls will lower, enter these
and go on to another metal wall which lowers as you approach.  In
the room with the switches and winches I did this.  Move left
switch, top left winch moves slightly, pull top switch down and
left winch spins fast, this opens the far left cell, the one with
the body in it.  Search body and get the key.  Move the barrel and
pull switch, this opens a secret door in the south wall of the
cell.  Go through this and follow the passage along to the locked
door.  Open this with the key from the body.

The next bit is a bit of trial and error, You need to get to the
far right and also to pull the switch on the pedestal in the
centre.  I just kept pushing switches and walking and then used a
telekinesis spell to throw the central switch.  You will find
yourself later in a room with a dragon and oodles of treasure.
This is not a lot of good to you now, for as they say "you can't
take it with you". There are some traps in this room but you want
to go across the stepping stones and south then east.  Pull the
lever and keep going.

Enter the fellowship hall and have a fight, remove the medallion
and the north wall opens, on through a secret passage northward,
fight the liche to arrive at a room with two platforms.  Stand on
the left one and arrive at another room with two platforms.  Kill
the skeletons and make your way north again.  More passages and on
to a liche and an energy field which closes.  Cast dispel field
spell and on to the next platform.  Stepping on this leads to
another double platform room and again go on the left one, all the
right platforms take you back to the previous ones, with a couple
of exceptions.

You will soon arrive at a throne with a plaque.  This says "the
throne of many changes". Sitting on this makes different passages
appear, be quick though as when you double click on it some of
your gang think that you are playing musical chairs and they sit
down.  One of these causes a passage to open leading to a passage
south with a skeleton in it, he has a blue key.  Sit down again
and the north wall opens, go past some monsters and open the door
with the blue key to lead to the Throne of Virtue.  When you sit
on this and then sit on the other throne you can go to the NW
corner and stand on a platform which teleports you to the Black
Gate.

A tough fight ensues with Hook and all the other heads of the
fellowship.  When you win, Batlin disappears to fight another day.
Place the three prisms in the corners of the triangle and the beam
of light surrounding the Black Gate shuts off.  The Guardian then
gives you a choice of returning home or destroying the moongate
and be trapped in Britain forever.  Destroy the gate with Rudyon's
wand and watch the end sequence.











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