Linguistic Dragon has, it would seem, become well and truly hooked on Ultima 5:

I fired up Ultima V again intending to get a session in, visit a couple towns and get some clues, do a shrine quest or two, maybe try and get a level for some of my current party, and that’d be that. Instead I fell victim to the RPG version of ‘one more turn’ syndrome – “Okay, maybe I’ll just do one more shrine quest… maybe I’ll just visit one more town… well, I’m not far away from getting Shamino another level… maybe I’ll just play a little longer…” On and on it went in that vein, and before I knew it, I’d lost a good portion of my evening and had far more exploration and clue-hunting under my belt than I’d planned on, and my notes just kept going. It always takes time for me to really click with a game, and I’m never quite sure where and when that point is, or even, really, what causes it to happen. All I know is that I’ve never got to that point with Ultima V before – until now. It was slow going in the early stages, but now that I’ve broken through that nebulous barrier, whatever it was, I’m practically having to wrest myself away from it long enough to scribble down my thoughts on it and type these posts up.

Consequently, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover in this one.

And, indeed, the latest update to the Ultima Journeys site is a lengthy one indeed; do be sure to click on through and read the whole thing.

And let us hope that Linguistic is able to sustain the momentum that marks this latest update:

The pieces are coming together, and I think I’ve learned all that I can from the people of Britannia. My next steps, then, are to gather the Crown Jewels and defeat the Shadowlords by collecting the three shards in the Underworld. I think my best bet would be to start with the crown, as that way I can find the last Council member and hopefully gain the Word of Power for Hythloth in the process, and its protection from magical attack would be useful in my attempts to gather the rest of the items I need. So I think that’ll be where my next session begins – the assault on Blackthorn’s castle. I’m getting really excited, I’ve never gotten this far in the game before so I’m anxious to see how all of this goes! I still can’t decide when to storm Stonegate, either… I suppose we’ll see how the run for the crown goes and I’ll make my choice from there. In any case, the fight’s only just begun – now it’s time to start outfitting my group for the depths. It’s going to be a wild ride indeed.

…because if so, the Underworld is going to make for a riveting read, methinks.