Grinding is a big part of the earlier Ultima games, including Ultima 5. Whereas some of the later games can be passed at fairly low levels of experience, and whereas others — Ultima 9, especially — ensure that you gain levels as you progress through the major plot points of the game, the earlier Ultimas basically require you to slay large numbers of monsters in order to level up enough to survive the final quest.

And so the Addict spent a bunch of time doing just that.

And then: tragedy! His savegame evidently became corrupted, throwing the possibility of a replay in front of him. Fortunately, he was able to recover some of his progress from a backup he made at the beginning of the month, which limited the amount of replaying required.

And with what replaying he did do, he was able to answer several lingering questions he had about events and locations in the game.