Some — most — of you will hopefully remember Wes Locher as the author of Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online, which was released in 2018 (Locher also spoke about the book on an episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug). If so, you’ll be happy to learn that he has just released a second volume, Braving Britannia: Tales of Melancholy, Malice, and Peril in Ultima Online.

Here’s Locher’s description of what the book is about:

This second volume of the Braving Britannia series collects interviews with 30 more of the game’s players as they share treasured memories of slaughtering the weak, protecting the innocent, founding successful roleplaying communities, meeting future spouses, bonding with family and friends, decorating expansive castles, or just causing trouble for everyone around them.

Meanwhile, the author returns to Ultima Online for the first time in more than 15 years, hoping to discover whether the game is as special as he remembers it, or if his feelings are merely rooted in nostalgia.

And if you missed out on the first book and want to see what Braving Britannia is all about, here’s an excerpt from this second volume:

While many players enjoyed Ultima Online for decades, Lee Sale of Alberta, Canada, only partook in the MMO for a year. Though Sale’s time with the game was brief, it left an indelible mark.

Sale became a gamer at the proud age of three when his father brought home a Nintendo Entertainment System with copies of Super Mario Bros. and Final Fantasy in tow. Fascinated by the digital worlds he found inside the drab gray cartridges, Sale hungered for more. As he grew older, he craved more depth, more story, and bigger worlds to explore. After experiencing Chrono Trigger on SNES in 1995, Sale subsisted strictly on the latest RPGs. Any game that offered an epic journey, plot twists, and god-like monsters quickly found its way into his possession.

Heavily into computers as well, Sale was fascinated by the internet. He spent 1998 fiendishly researching whatever random interest spoke to him, visiting Flash-heavy fansites littered with clipart and animated GIFs. It was during one of these fateful deep dives that the middle schooler stumbled onto a kernel of information that caused all of the synapses in his brain to fire at once.

“One night, while digging through the archives of Angelfire fansites I saw mention of a ‘massively multiplayer’ game,” he said. “That was the first time I heard the acronym ‘MMO,’ and I was intrigued. From there I clicked the link to UO.com and my teenage nerd brain was blown. You can play with thousands of other people?!

“The fact that someone said: ‘let’s have thousands of people in the same massive world without loading screens’ was like discovering alien technology.”

The groundbreaking world of Ultima Online was everything Sale wanted out of a video game: the journey, the twists, the monsters … and best of all, he’d be able to share the experience with total strangers.

“The game was an astounding $70,” Sale said. “I’d have to endure two months of chores for my parents to fork over the money. In the meantime, I spent my evenings reading the FAQ on the official website. I’m sure I had it memorized. I would literally fantasize about UO every night, and play out scenes in my mind about the adventures I would go on.”

While Sale’s body physically completed chores around the house, his subconscious was already in Britannia, living a life of adventure. During all that theoretical playing, Sale came up with plenty of ideas for how to improve the game.

“The most embarrassing thing I did during that time was email the UO staff weekly about my ideas for future additions to the game,” Sale said. “I hadn’t even played it yet! I still wonder about the poor staff member that had to endure some child rambling about a game they hadn’t even seen in action.”

With his chores completed and a stack of cash burning a hole in his pocket, Sale headed to the nearest electronics store to pick up his copy of Ultima Online. Giddy with anticipation, he jumped onto the Great Lakes server. Sale’s first character, “Delita,” was named after one of the main characters from another game he loved, Final Fantasy Tactics.

Finally, Sale could navigate a world, which until that moment, he’d only seen in his dreams. Upon stepping foot in Britannia, Sale looked around … and found himself completely underwhelmed.

“I’d built up such a grand image in my mind that nothing could actually live up to that level of hype,” he remembered. “Keep in mind, I’d never seen any actual gameplay. I had developed my version of the game in my mind, with very little to reference.

“I actually remember feeling a little disappointed on my first day, but eventually the experience grew on me. I also remember trying to convince my grandma that every person in the game was a real person I could talk to, and she became legitimately concerned for my mental wellbeing.”

Wanting to experience more of the digital world, Sale consulted the cloth map that came with the game and routed a path south to the sprawling city of Trinsic.

“I didn’t realize that items stored in your bank box were universally accessible no matter which city you were in,” Sale explained. “Before setting out on my grand adventure, I packed up all my belongings and gold and set forth.

“You can probably see where this is going.”

Halfway to Trinsic, Sale crossed a narrow bridge and came to a sudden halt when an invisible force blocked his path. Sale successfully pushed through the hidden barricade after several attempts but found himself blocked once again, just steps away from the other end of the bridge.

“I was having significantly more trouble clearing the second barrier, and that was the point,” Sale said. “Suddenly, the invisible wall revealed itself to be an ominous-looking player mounted on a horse who was using their hiding skill and steed to cleverly block the path. Very innocently, I asked if he could be so kind to move out of the way, to which he replied, ‘In Flam Grav.’”

As a wall of fire spell erupted across the bridge, Sale turned and ran back the way he came. The first invisible wall also revealed itself to be a mounted player. Another wall of fire left the bridge fully involved and Sale with nowhere to hide.

You can grab Braving Britannia: Tales of Melancholy, Malice, and Peril in Ultima Online from Amazon; it’s available in paperback format thereat. The first volume — if you haven’t read it yet — is still available there, as well.