The Let's Play Archive

Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle

by Nakar

Part 21: SLEEPING BULL - Surprisingly, This Is The One Place In Serpent Isle Where We Get The LEAST Bull Part 2






Silverpate's Treasure is critical to the plot. We can't find it yet, but we can get on the trail. If you're attentive, you might even be able to guess what happened with Batlin and Angus... but I don't want to spoil it yet, so I'll only hint.



The first step is to notice this false wall in the back of the cellar and open it.



It leads to a chest with a key, and a switch. Also an exploding locked chest. Flip the switch...



...and there we go, we can descend even further!



It looks like Silverpate's old prison. We're definitely on the pirate's trail.



A bizarre name for a room, isn't it? Beyond there's a huge room with a nine-chambered building full of switches. I'll go into what those do in a sec. First, we head to the northernmost point in the room.



There's a chest there, invisible but not too hard to spot, with a couple scrolls and a bag of cash and one potion. The potion is glowing blue and white, which is a color that didn't appear in The Black Gate (well, it did, but only as a quest item). In Serpent Isle, this is a potion of warmth. Why do we need warmth? Well, half the island is a tundra, so I'll leave it to you to guess when those will be handy.



This is the most important thing we may ever loot in Serpent Isle. It's just one scroll, sure, but once transcribed into the spellbook we'll be getting later, it's the key to buying every other spell, plus anything else we could possibly want. Get this before you go to Moonshade and don't lose it. The other scroll is shit, but take it anyway.



Fountains around the room provide various benefits. Well, one poisons you, so I guess that's not really a benefit. The far northwest fountain confers invisibility, which is kind of useless, but cool.



Five chests in a row. You want the second from bottom; all the others blow up on you. Inside's a big key and a map.



Behold: Silverpate's treasure map! But this is strange; it looks like Silverpate's treasure was buried all the way up in the frozen north, near the north sea and Skullcrusher Mountains? How could an old retired pirate get all the way up there to hide his treasure, and how would he ever get it back?



The key from the first switch room opens the way to the center switch. When flipped, it appears to do nothing. What it actually does is activate an elaborate teleporter system that allows you to teleport into the Sleeping Bull's rooms (hence Wardrobe Room; it leads into the closets of each room). Nothing great up there, but it's a cool effect. Silverpate was pretty crafty.



Paired torches means illusionary wall.



As you can see. There's some treasure on this end, but the part of real interest is up north...



...past some gazers, which are the first monsters in the game that don't completely suck...



To a strange serpent floor engraving identical to the one in the Monitor catacombs. There's also the teleporter I mentioned earlier, a key to open it, and another map.



Just what is the Dark Path? And why did Silverpate mark one particular branch of it? Again, file it away for now, we'll get the means to make sense of it a little later.



If you don't flip any switches and take the teleporter it just goes back up to Devra's bedroom. Other than that, you can rob the inn and poke around elsewhere in the basement caves.



It's nothing amazing though. More cash is nice enough.



Finally, back in the main tunnel where the illusionary wall was, a wine room!



There are two casks inside that produce "magic wine." Except they don't actually produce wine; they produce beer. I'm not sure if it's particularly magic beer, but there you go.

So Silverpate dropped his shit off in a cave at the North Pole. I have to admit, it's a pretty good spot for it, but how does it all relate to Angus's disappearance and Batlin's meddling?