Ultima Stones
Ultima I Home | Atlas | Development
| Economics | Equipment | FAQ
| Hostiles | Library | Magic | Quests | Walkthrough
| Who's Who
Ultima > I Mondain > Walkthrough
Walkthroughs & How To
The first task is to advance your character to a point where you may stand toe-to-toe with a young wizard named Mondain. Yes, I said young wizard. You'll be meeting him before he's actually immortal, but we'll get to that later. The game is an obvious hack and slash advancement mechanism. All NPC's outside the cities are hostile. They will kill you if you don't kill them first. For each victory you get money and experience points.
As mentioned in the Atlas:Dungeons section, after coming out you are re-imbursed some amount of hit points based on what you lost fighting inside. This fact makes fighting in the dungeons more economical. Also you can trade in your gold for hit points with the kings of each castle. As you get more money, you get better weapons and armor by buying them at shops. You can also donate to the magic pools of each castle for weapons, if you're lucky enough. Stealing is also possible. Remember though if you rouse the guard you'll have to fight your way through any of them blocking your path to the exit, often four or more.
Visit the landmarks often, whether or not you're on a quest to find them. Their aid is in the form of added attributes and, in the case of one, random equipment. It takes a certain number of moves before you can enter a landmark after having been in one, so you can't keep entering and leaving. Just enter one every time you come across it. Keep track of your attributes with the z command and visit appropriate landmarks to advance the lacking ones.
Beyond that, you also interact with the populace and the kings. One important place is the pub. Great places for gossip, a barkeep picks up many things which he will tell you if you spend some time buying his ale. These are clues only and you don't need their help if somehow you got the tips "somewhere else."
You can quest at any time, but it helps to have the means and the strength built up as detailed above. As detailed in the Quests:King section, you can advance your attributes and find better equipment on some quests. This goes in-line with the above section. But on the others, you are eventually rewarded with the Gems!
These aren't ordinary baubles. The gems are crystal keys to a time travel vehicle. The time ship is just another piece of technology lost in this place by alien visitors such as the phasors, shuttles and aircars. But the princesses know about it and know that you need it to help the world.
Therefore, as you become more capable of delving dungeon depths, (always helps to have ladder up and ladder down spells) you should take on the quests to get these four gem keys. Now, as for what princesses know ...
Most people are nobody's to princesses except other royalty. There is one exception, space aces. What's a space ace? Advanced technology lying about was left by space-faring visitors. Those visitors happen to be one side of a space war. Among their kind, a space ace is a flight officer with 20 enemy kills under their belt.
So, you want to be a space ace? Join up! After all the work you would have done to make it this far you should have in excess of 3000 moves. This means that the shuttles and armor will be available for purchase. Though you can buy the armor at any protection shop, the shuttles are only sold in certain cities. The most obvious is the towne right next to castle one. Grab a vacuum or reflect suit (space craft aren't much for protection) and buy a shuttle. Hop aboard to fly to a space base.
Everyone deals in trade up there, so you're gold will pay fees for your craft. Pick a craft, and hyperspace until you find a hotbed of enemy activity. Use Inform and search command to find the enemy occupied sectors. You will have to hyperspace into several battles to record 20 kills. Once you have (there is a message if you're not keeping count), you hyper back to where you started, board your shuttle (assuming you haven't been using it for combat ;} ) and set down on the planet. The Quests:Space section has more info on the particulars of space travel and combat.
Remember, your gold is your fuel and shields, don't go up without enough to dock several times. Don't run high speed into docks and planets, you'll crash.
You can attempt to rescue one of the princesses at any time. Surviving the attempt, though, is the thing. Much like stealing from the stores of the castles, you'll call the attention of any guards nearby. Worse yet is that the task is a two step process and already starts with a 50% chance of failure!
One: yes, Gwino the jester does have a key, and yes it does open a cell where the princess is being held. But there are always two cells, and Gwino's key could be for either cell ... 50/50 to start with. Now here's where the race starts.
Gwino must die. You get the key to a cell upon her death. You also start calling the attention of every nearby guard. At this point a blaster, a reflect suit and a couple grand of hit points are a good thing if not absolutely necessary. If your lucky, Gwino would have danced her way into the cell area so as to avoid the close quarters of the throne room guard. You open the cell, or not.
Second: whether or not the princess is now accompanying you, its time to run for the exit. Avoid any fights you can or win through if you have the points to waste. A possibility is to whittle down guards by using the walls in order to keep combat down to one-at-a-time rate, concentrating your fire on a single guard while avoiding two of his buddies giving aid.
When fate smiles and the "damsel" has been "saved," the princess grants far more than a thank you. She heals you 500 points, gives you a reward of 500 pence (5 crowns) and the deed warrants 500 experience points.
The real reward only comes if you are a space ace with greater than 8000 experience a.k.a. level 8 or better. After the above gifts, she reveals to you information about a Time Ship. Such a thing would be quite useful for going back in time, before Mondain was immortal, and defeating him then. Hmm ...
The princess does not mention where exactly the Time Ship is, but gives you a direction (its always to the northwest), pats you onna head and sends you away. When you do find it, whoa! Take the opportunity to wait and set up your character for as soon as you board it, your next stop is the past, inside the very sanctum of Mondain! It would be a Good Idea™ to get into a reflect suit and grab a blaster.
Suddenly you stand before the guy who apparently caused all the trouble. Oh and look, his gem's not finished, what timing! Now, the room is hostile. All walls are scorching hot, and there are random heat bursts from the floor. Mondain is quite the sorcerer. His magic attacks are heavy and he can transform to a bat to escape. He won't start the fight unless you're threatening by attacking first or by getting too close. While he is in human form, he will attack you anywhere with psionic spells and magic missiles. As a bat he'll run from you until he can heal enough to attack as a human again. These are the key reasons for having that blaster.
You can start by running up behind him and wail with the blaster. Once he's a bat you can continue with the blaster or switch to light sword, I've found it's hits more consistent, an "elegant weapon." Either way works and you can now hold him one of two main ways. Flush the bat over to the left of the room, dance around, not letting him go, to get a bead and hit 'im! Or, in some cases, hold him in the gem chamber (especially with the blaster, but it takes some luck with his dodging). But ultimately, this can be premature.
Now, while the gem still exists, you may see him wilt to the floor. Depending on where you are in the room, its either a great thing or a ploy. If you're right by the gem, you grab it, it shatters, and that's it. If you're over on the left, he might heal enough to jump up to a bat before you grab the gem, though it is possible to make it back before he does. You cannot actually beat him physically while the gem exists. He may not be immortal yet but that's just because the gem isn't finished. As with the ways to attack him above, there are two solutions. First is grab the gem after you've beat him to a heap on the floor. Second and easiest in my opinion is running right up at the beginning of the fight and grab the gem (or perhaps after you've pounded on him a bit). It hurts, ALOT! It just happens to shatter in pieces when you interfere with Mondain's link. You'll have about one quarter of your previous hit points left. The only difficulty is if you are weak in attributes, you may not be able to kill him after you destroy the gem. The good thing is you can have enough hits to get him to transform so he can't attack. Now you can pound on the bat-wizard and when he goes down its final! (This may take a while, that bat can sure dance!) You just ended the threat of the wizard, are ya happy?!
Not a problem!
REALLY THAT'S ALL THERE IS!