Linguistic Dragon has been busy indeed, having posted not one, but two new entries in his ongoing attempt to pass Ultima 3. He first set about readying himself for the assault on the Castle of Fire:

First on that list was to track down the remaining two marks for my party. I’d already found both the marks of Kings and Fire in the Perinian depths, but I knew I needed four in order to complete the game and strike down Exodus, so there were still two more to be found within the depths of Sosaria. With that in mind, I plunged into the dungeon of the Snake to see what could be unearthed from its passages. The trek to the bottom was fraught with a good deal of peril – I kept running into dragons and their brethren, usually in very rapid succession, and I was starting to get a little worried that my HP would give out, so I used Trevor’s recently expanded magical prowess to zip the party down a couple levels. Sure, I probably missed out on some treasure that way, but I also missed out on potential gremlins – they were back for this game after vanishing from Ultima II (at least that I noticed), and I must say I didn’t really miss them. At least they only stole 100 food from a single party member this time around, instead of half my inventory! Still, I want to know how the little dickens can carry so much of it…

Anyway, with the mark of the Snake now branded onto my party, that only left one more mark, so after poking around for a while I eventually found my way into the dungeon of Doom. Though it had a very foreboding name, not only did the bottom level have the mark of Force that I was still missing, there were simply scads of treasure lying about – surrounded by traps and gremlins, yes, but careful maneuvering meant I could claim it all for myself! That filled my coffers by a goodly amount, and I zipped down to Ambrosia once I had Aric Sequitu the party out. I’d upped everyone’s dexterity to somewhere in the mid-30s range on previous trips, so I maxed out Trevor and Aric’s and made some headway on Ivan and Olivia’s before I made my way back through the whirlpool to seek out the Time Lord in the dungeon of Time – which took a bit to find, I hadn’t used the moongates in a while and had to remind myself how they worked.

And it turns out that the various slaughters he inflicted on the town of Yew were…not entirely in vain:

…I think I’ve gathered all that I need to take on Exodus. All that remains is one last thing…

…which I saw to in Yew in the midst of one of my rampages. I was told at some point that I would need an invocation to get past the silver snake, and that to find the invocation I needed, I would need to pray in the Circle of Light. Four clerics in Yew welcomed me to the Circle whenever I walked into it (just before I let my party brutalize them), so during one of my gold-gathering trips I strode to the center, prayed (for mercy, presumably, good grief my party’s done some heinous acts during this adventure), and was told to yell “Evocare!”

And so he began his assault on Exodus’ stronghold:

With my four intrepid adventurers now set to conquer their last obstacle, I guided them onto the nearest ship of mine and set sail for the Isle of Fire. The Mark of the Snake that I’d branded them all with allowed me to pass by the snake guarding the entrance, once I’d yelled the invocation of “Evocare!” Right on the other side of the snake, a gaggle of giants (what is the proper term for a collective of those…) was waiting right next to where the moongate lay. I really liked that design choice, by the way – dropping a moongate where the lair of the Big Bad was visible but not accessible? Gives a good taste of what’s to come without being entirely clear and/or letting you into the endgame long before you’re ready. (Supposed-to-lose fights kind of bother me on principle.)

My party was sufficiently advanced enough to dispatch the miscreants without any trouble at all (most of them went down to one hit to Ivan and Olivia’s bows), so I pressed onward to the castle and made my way in. Carefully I passed over the fire-edged drawbridge to the castle, hurried through Exodus’ front lawn (thankfully I avoided getting attacked by the grass), and was greeted by two demons and what looked to be a balron. None attacked me, the demons statuesque sentinels that told me none left the castle, and the balron acting as a steward of some sort, telling me to choose my path well. The entry hall was full of lava, the path winding around it leading to a force field with a guard on the other side. So began my first fight in the castle!

And, in fact, he managed to finish the game:

And then there I stood before the strange terminals that comprised Exodus’ physical form. Remembering the words of the Time Lord from my meeting with him, I made my way to each of the four panels, letting Aric insert the proper card into each. One by one the terminals shuddered and collapsed, first to the Love card, then Sol, then Moons, until finally Aric placed the Death card into the last panel, it shook, and the whole castle reverberated with the defeat of Exodus proper. I was treated with the victory screen, and once again told to report my feat! (Which is basically what I’m doing here.)

With Exodus struck down, that ends the reign of the Triad of Evil and the Ages of Darkness – and it was a rip-roaring good time! I’m eager for Ultima IV, but I think I’m actually going to miss Ultima III, I’d love to see what a different party would feel like. As always, I’ll have one more post following this one with my closing thoughts on the game in the coming days – then it’ll be time to rid myself of all the questionable deeds I’ve done in the past three games!

We can expect to read his closing thoughts soon, I expect.