Part 57: CASTLE OF TEH WHITE DRAGON - Every Single Villain Or Potential Villain Is Dead Now, But As This Is Ultima, The Game Ain't Over
Every Single Villain Or Potential Villain Is Dead Now, But As This Is Ultima, The Game Ain't Over
Admittedly, the Banes haven't been around that long. As villains they fall somewhat flat (the game being rushed and all doesn't help either). That said, they've accomplished quite a bit in such a short time, including the slaughter of pretty much everyone the Avatar was trying to save. Whoops.
Fortunately for us we can justify this whole
"That's right motherfuckers, you can't pin this one on me!"
"Actually, I believe we can." "Prove it." "Gladly. In Ultima I you killed Mondain, the wizard, and separated Sosaria by destroying his Gem of Immortality, essentially creating the Serpent Isle. In Ultima II you killed his lover Minax, destroying the only other individual capable of controlling their demon-spawn computer lovechild, Exodus. Who, in Ultima III, drew the Great Earth Serpent from the void to guard the Isle of Fire - from you, no less - leading to the Ophidians' collapse and the Imbalance. So basically this is all your fault." "Gwenno?" "Yes Steve?" "I'm bringing Iolo back to life after this." "You wouldn't!" "I wasn't... but you just had to push it."If you're wondering how you can figure out where the Banes have gone, well, you can use the Magic Lens/Moon's Eye/Dreamcatcher, you can let the monks essentially tell you, or you can do one last fairly clever trick.
You know how the Hound of Doskar...
"Woof!"...can track people by their personal items? Well, we've got Dupre's Shield, Iolo's Lute, the book of poetry Beatrix gives Shamino... you get the idea. These can be used with the Hound to track the Banes to their base at the Castle of the White Dragon.
This is not that useful but might have been more handy in the original conception of the Banes sequence, where they were fought separately.
Anyway that bigass castle is the one we want. We couldn't go in there at all...
...but now we've got an invitation.
Come in and join the party...
"Well, you heard the evil twisted scions of Chaos, get in there."
"Is this absolutely necessary?"
"This really doesn't seem like something the rest of us-" "Just get in there. She'll just kill you, lock us all inside, and resurrect you with the monk phone."Entering presents us with our first challenger:
"I shall protect thee... I shall take thee beyond all mortal concerns -- into my kingdom of death!"
"...I'm afraid I don't get it." "Yeah, I mean we heard rumors about this guy and all that but we're mostly here for the Banes." "Perhaps he will prove our initial nemesis, vexing us as we attempt to reach the Banes' inner sanctum."
"Or he'll turn into a dragon and attack us, then die and never be seen again." "...ah! I get it now! White Dragon King, dragon, right. But how does a ghost turn into a living dragon?" "I'unno."And that's the last we will hear of the King of the White Dragon, ever. Don't ask me, I figured he might amount to more too, but I barely even remembered him from the last time I played this. Now I realize why.
"Iolo! You are in so much trouble, mister."
"Come and see the freak show, Avatar!" "The what now?"
"A bunch of mirrors breaking all at once is a dangerous portent... I mean, it might be a good idea to fall back, until we're certain of the threat." "Something is coming out of the mirrors!"
"Holy crap, a bunch of white guys!"
The sequence of events here is a little tricky. You kinda just randomly thread through the castle picking whatever rooms you can.
"Want to sing an opera, Avatar?" "No thanks." "Then allow me to serenade you!" "What is that music?" "Aaaaaaaaaaaah! It's Stones! Run!"
There's a key in the music room. Secret passage back in the mirror room, takes us to a lab where we can grab another.
Those let us get into the library.
"Dost thou like to read, Avatar? I have some hot new titles for thee..."
Alright then, let's read one of these books... uh-oh.
"Fortunately, I have very, very good eyesight." "And can read telekinetically." "What can I say? I'm versatile."
No new keys, so we have to head up to the second floor landing and back down into the lounge, where Shamino shows up with a nightmare.
"Come in and relax, Avatar." "With the horse?" "With the horse." "But that makes no sense. What does a horse have to do with being in a lounge?" "Well, I... I guess there's heads of animals on the wall, and..." "But none of HORSES." "Baaaaaaaaaaaaanes!" "Yeah, yeah, get lost, Shamino." "WOOB WOOB WOOB!"
Another key to a seemingly random room somewhere in the castle.
This time to the weaving room. I'm not sure why a castle has a prominent room for weaving stuff right off the main hallway.
"Want to try some spinning..." "Do not say it." "...and dying, Avatar?" "Goddamnit, Iolo."
There are quite a few Exult-crashing traps in this room. You need to flip the switch behind the wool and then cross to the other side of the room.
Finally taking you to the door the last key you got unlocks.
"Welcome to mine own private shooting gallery, Avatar..."
The next room is full of blind-fire shooting traps, which fortunately do not crash Exult when they hit you. Unfortunately, they explode or shoot swords or something, which is actually fairly dangerous.
"At least I got out of that alive." "Don't you mean we?" "Oh, sure, of course." "Aren't we missing someone?"
"Whoops!"Fortunately, Petra is as easily revived as a Create Automaton spell. She doesn't even seem to care. And neither do I!
You can dick around here if you want but I'll save it for Cheater's Corner because it doesn't actually matter. Just head north and downstairs.
"Hurry, Avatar, I am waiting for thee..." "No you're not, you're constantly warping into the same room as us and telling awful jokes, then summoning monsters t-" "Yeah, he already left." "He did leave some gazers for us to fight!" "Well whoopdy-shit."
"Thou'rt not here to sleep, Avatar..." "Didn't you just leave?" "So?" "You could've just walked next door and saved us all the trouble." "But I walked out of a mirror! How cool is that?" "Not particularly."
The key there leads us in here with some headless and Iolo (again).
"So, thou hast found my playroom..." "Oh sure, I ask him for an iron maiden for the bedroom for decades and he gets two as soon as he thinks I'm dead."
The next room has a switch that leads into a back area, but we actually want to go south into the main hall.
This is a hint. You're in the final room, so you better get ready.
"I have never looked or felt more stupid nor been more powerful."
"Wait until the end of Pagan." "Why?" "Muahahahahahaha." "Dick."
"Oh hey, random fire, that's always a good sign." "I had almost tired of waiting for thee, Avatar. Thou art some hero... it took thee long enough." "Weren't you bugging us all day?" "Eh, screw it, let's just kill them."
"This is going to end up exactly the way everyone expects it to, but what the hell, let's see if I'm wrong for once." "Kill Iolo!" "And all the others?" "Sure, afterwards."
With the full weight of Gwenno's matrimonial rage bearing down on him (also a variety of arrows and the Black Sword), Iolo the Mad is the first Bane to fall.
Once you've captured a Bane with the repaired Black Sword (if you didn't repair it, or don't have the Soul Prisms, you... may be in trouble), you need to use the sword on the appropriate prism. You can't screw this up because the Black Sword can somehow store all three Banes at the same time, contrary to the game's implication.
Which allows us to kill Dupre and, in turn, Shamino:
"Puny mortal!" "You guys never had a shot at me when you didn't have the godlike powers of Chaos itself, what makes you think you can do it now?" "...the godlike powers of Chaos itself." "Oh right, that. Well, time to get dead and in my sword, Anarchy." "WOOB WOOB WOOoooooooooooooooo-" "God, I'm so glad somebody stopped that from happening yet again."
The Black Sword does its one remaining job, safely imprisoning the Banes within the treated Soul Prisms. Now if we had the slightest idea what we're supposed to do with them, we could continue the plot.
"Well, so much for those guys. They weren't so tough." "They did manage to kill almost everyone though." "Oh well, nothing we can do about it now." "Don't you have a magical hourglass that-" "Yesssss, nothing at all."
"And also you planted the Silver S-" "We did all we could and all I care to, get it?" "Yes ma'am." "Maybe we should pull the guys' corpses out of the flames. Also Petra should probably get off Iolo's head." "Oh! I'm sorry, Gwenno." "You know what? Actually, just go ahead and stay where you are if you want. We're not in any hurry."Some Time Later...
"Well, we dealt with the Banes. Now let's resurrect my dumb friends so we can make fun of them for getting possessed and committing genocide." "Is that... all we're going to do?" "I guess we could draw mustaches on them." "They all already have mustaches." "Good point." "I meant more something like putting them on trial. You know, for mass homicide." "Ohhhhhhh no, no more trials. Not in this game."
"I'll get right to the whole resurrection thing as soon as the chick in this scene pays the pizza guy."
"Oh my, she doesn't have the money!"
"I wonder how else she can pay for that pizza?"
"Ooooooooooooooo."
"Whoa." "Alright so, this may take a while."Eventually you can resurrect all the companions, but they're insane in the membrane, so you need to give them the appropriate water of Order. You might ask yourself, "Why bother? These douchebags murdered all of Serpent Isle!" Well you're right, but the game isn't going to let you make any progress until they're cured.
Note that unlike when you try to dump the water on the ground (Gwenno and Boydon will helpfully stop you from doing this), you can fuck up and give the wrong water to the wrong guy and have to go back for more. So remember:
Shamino was Anarchy and gets Ethicality.
Dupre was Wantonness and gets Discipline.
Iolo was Insanity and gets Logic.
"Oh boy, what the hell just happened?" "I have good news and bad news for each of you. Shamino, the good news is you're the MageLord of Moonshade. The bad news is Moonshade now has a population of six." "...uh." "And Dupre! The good news is all those douchebags in Monitor are dead. The bad news is, you did it."
"Errrrm." "And Iolo!"
"...yes?" "The good news is Gwenno is alive." "Hey, babe." "The bad news is she couldn't tell the difference between you and a robot and also she's the one who killed you." "I have a feeling something very bad just happened." "You guys don't know the half of it."The very instant you've cured the three Companions, Karnax jumps in:
"Wait, what? I don't remember this part of your dumb prophecy." "Well, technically speaking you've already fulfilled most of it. This part's a little new to us too." "Thou art the Hero from Another World. It is for thee that she doth return. We must hurry!"
"What the hell is going on again?" "I honestly don't know." "Shouldn't your real companions be here to hear all this, Steve?" "I dunno, they kinda haven't stopped crying after we told them what they did."
"The energies from beyond the Void now converge upon this place and time. It is the moment when Xenka shall move across the eons and bring us the light of prophecy..."
"What up?"
There's a few things you can do in the Castle of the White Dragon if you want to dick around in optional areas, but there's basically no treasure, so it's pointless.
You can, however, hear such gems from the Banes as:
"Come and dance a jig with these fine fellows, Avatar!"And then get attacked by skeletons.
Or the dining room, where Shamino will tell you:
"Thou'rt just in time for lunch, Avatar!"And then you get attacked by gremlins.
And in the kitchen:
"Come in, come in Avatar. I have prepared something special for thee."And then you get attacked by ghosts.
Also there's a key in here, if you can spot it. Unfortunately it just opens a few random doors that don't go anywhere important.
Except the nursery, which has some diapers you can turn into dirty diapers with your dead baby.
"Wouldst thou watch the children for me, Avatar?"Shamino will say. And then you'll get attacked by skeletons or something. They like sending this shit after you an awful lot. I think some jesters attack you in one of the rooms, I didn't really go over this empty castle with a fine-toothed comb or anything.
And then there's the back tunnels of the lower level, which lead to a bunch of totally empty bedrooms. Woo.