Fun with Serpent Isle

Companion to "Fun with Ultima VII."

Again, if you want the full complete bastard's guide to Serpent Isle, you want to go here.

Fawnish Ale. Looks innocent enough, doesn't it? Heh. Heh heh. After your first experience with it in Monitor, you won't think so anymore. Once you get to Fawn, you'll find it all over the place. Have fun feeding it to various people in your party.

The various kegs are fun to play with, too. In Black Gate nothing much happened when you turned the tap on, aside from your companions bitching at you to turn it off. "Turn it off!" "Thou art wasting it!" "That is perfectly good beer!" And so on. In SI, you still get this, plus a puddle of whatever the keg contained on the floor. Just once, though, I'd like to see someone yell "Party foul!" or "Alcohol abuse!" Or maybe Dupre scooting under the spigot with his mouth open. "What? No, never mind, don't turn it off..."

The coin toss from Black Gate still works. If you have gold coins in your possession, double-click them.

Hand mirrors are fun, fun, fun. Especially with a female Avatar. I'm going on memory here, so this may not be 100% accurate, but you get the picture:

Selece: Hmm...not too bad looking!

Shamino: Thou art truly beautiful, Avatar.

Dupre: As thou art not!

Shamino: Thou art dung, Dupre!

Iolo: Avatar, cease this dallying. Let us proceed!

Shamino: Oh, let her be, old man--she is only admiring herself!

Dupre: Let us press on, Avatar!

Shamino: Thou dost not want her to show precisely how ugly thou art!

Dupre: Thou impudent snot!

I tried this a few times to see if the boys had anything different to say, or if they would take turns flirting with the Avatar, but it was always the same.

Speaking of hijinks involving a female Avatar, Brendann is an absolute pig with her. I swear to God I saw him grab the Avatar's ass in the town hall. He also complimented her on her legs. Pervert. If he were half as good-looking as Templar is, perhaps I wouldn't mind so much. Unfortunately, the game does not give the female Avatar the option of boinking Templar, but does allow her to shag Brendann. Eww.

Getting Dupre's shield back from Luther is lots of fun. Or, more precisely, pissing him off before you go beat him up is lots of fun. He gets downright vulgar.

The story of Lord British's Tyrannical Adventure is not to be missed.

You can still bake bread in several kitchens: one in the northeast corner of Fawn and the hearth in the Goblin camp, plus a few more. The "blood-pie" trick still works. It seems any liquid that can go into a bucket can be used to make bread. I made a backpackload of beer bread one night. Bread made with ice dragon blood is an acquired taste, but considered a delicacy in some parts of the world.

Speaking of the Goblin Camp, there is a sort of butcher's hut wherein you will find the corpses of two Pikemen lying on tables. One appears to be female--Astrid, I presume--and is carrying a Sword of Defense. The first time you take your party in here, your entire party may or may not become violently ill (didn't happen the first time; when I realized I'd seriously screwed up shortly thereafter I reloaded and it did happen that time). On a third first visit (done after getting SI running on the new box), they passed out, then yakked. This is especially significant if you have eaten the meat left out on the counters in the outer room. If you have ever played Xenogears, this scene will look strangely familiar. Except Serpent Isle doesn't ruin the impact for most of the moviegoing public by calling it the Soylent Facility, like Xenogears does. Moral of the story: eat no meat you aren't 100% sure what animal it came from. Don't let this stop you from grabbing the corpses and hauling them back to Monitor to cash them in.

While we're on the subject of the Goblin camp, the wimpy Knight you have to lead back has this annoying tendency to stop following you if you get attacked on the way; once it happens, you can't talk to him and he won't follow you again no matter what you do. If this happens, just kill him and carry him back to Monitor to cash his corpse in; he's gonna die anyway.

One notable difference between U7 and SI: theft is no longer forbidden. You are now free to steal anything you can get your grubby little mitts on without the fear of your Companions bitching at you, walking off in a snit, or trying to kill you for doing so. However, you can get thrown in jail if the local law catches you. And in one jail, if you don't think beforehand and unlock the cell doors (or turn Hackmover on), you will have to kill yourself with a handy iron maiden to get out.

On the subject of law enforcement, be very careful about going into combat with Kalen inside Fawn city limits. More than once, I accidentally whacked an innocent bystander and got tossed in the pokey.

A final note about law enforcement: sometimes guards will get in each others' way, and neither of them will want to move. They'll just stand there yelling "Step aside" at each other for hours. One time in Fawn, I saw a conga line of about six guards stacked up yelling at each other. I'm trying to get it to happen again so that I can give you a screenshot.

A handy tip: Never ever ever ever give valuable weapons to generic automatons (i.e. ones that aren't Petra). I equipped a generic automaton with a Juggernaut Hammer, watched it go offscreen to kill an evil Gwani, and then watched it return sans hammer. I scoured the area. No trace of my Juggernaut Hammer. This automaton became spare parts in short order. (Update: a reader--same one that provided me with the Wisp-Baiting stuff--informed me that this automaton can only be faulted for throwing the Juggernaut Hammer. Apparently, the thing disappears when thrown. I'm still pissed off at that automaton, though.)

In Skullcrusher, there are two sets of big brass doors. One you have to blast open to get to the Chaos shrine, and one that you just cannot get through no matter what. If you turn Hackmover on and rip the door off the hinges, it leads into what appears to be an unfinished area of the game. SAVE BEFORE YOU GO IN HERE. Things will get weird if you go in too far. You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. You may find yourself in another part of the world. You may not find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile, but you just might find yourself standing out in the middle of the ocean. Same as it ever was, my friends. Same as it ever was.

After Dupre's trial in Fawn, go visit Kylista in jail. Don't know if a male Avatar does likewise, but instead of the usual "Might I speak with thee?" "or "Hello, milady" type pleasantries, mine greets her with a cheery "Surprise!" Listen to her sob story. Now it is payback time. See that bucket of water on the floor at the end of the hall? You know what to do.

I haven't found dirty diapers anywhere in the towns yet (it's entirely possible I just haven't looked in the right place), but every so often the teleport storms will deposit them at your feet. I am pleased to report that they work just as well in Serpent Isle as they do in Britannia. I immediately picked one up, took it back to Fawn, and used it to take Kylista down one more notch. No, I'm not terribly fond of the little bitch. Ahem.

Now, we all know what happens when you use dirty diapers on people. Have you tried clean diapers? Use them on adults and watch them complain.

Speaking of the teleport storms, every so often they will actually give you useful items. Mostly food and bandages, occasionally jewelry you can pawn, and sometimes even magic or fur boots. Keep walking back and forth at the spot just outside Monitor where it hits (you'll have to walk far enough North on the road so that whoever's in the rear of your party passes that little patch of weeds on the right side of the road), walk past, and hope for the best. After I killed Simon off, I took over the inn. I hung out at the storm spot and collected various statuettes and potted plants that rained down from the heavens, then took them back and redecorated.

Filbercio's love palace holds some unnerving surprises. In the bedroom, you will find: a whip. A banana. A DIAPER. There are some things that Man was not meant to know.

Various torture devices yield amusing antics from your Companions. The rack, in particular. "Who wants this?" "I do!" "I shall do it!" "Me! Me! Me!" Just watch out for the iron maidens. Try 'em out, but save first. I don't remember who said this, but it pretty much sums up what happens: "Blood everywhere, dead Avatar."

When you go hunt the Banes down in the Castle of the White Dragon, the Wantonness Bane will make some very frightening comments about "special plans" he has for a female Avatar. Brr.

Once you've trapped the Banes, but before you force-feed the various Waters to your Companions, talk to Dupre a few times. I thought he was okay for a minute. "I must have ale! Bring to me a woman!" But then he popped off with "I shall slay you all!" So, off to the Temple of Discipline I went. Yeek.

Getting the copy protection questions wrong can be lots of fun. Watching Shamino pop off with "Ask not what thy studmuffin can do for thee" sent me into a giggling fit the likes of which the world has never seen.

Try talking to cows. You and your Companions stand there and yell "Moo!" at them for a while. Parrots are also fun to talk to. The one in the House of Wares is particularly amusing, as we find out that Shamino is not terribly fond of parrots either.

Parrot: Pretty bird!

Shamino: Ugly bird!

Parrot: Speak for thyself!

Shamino: Hey!

Talking to sheep is... amusing. And, of course, the exploding cats found around Serpent Isle are good for a few giggles. The first few times you double-click the cat, the Avatar will call it and Shamino will say "I hate cats!" The next few times, nothing will happen. Don't stop yet. A few times after that, the cat will say "Meow." This is the point at which you want to get Shamino as close to the cat as possible (doesn't make any difference in what happens next, but it looks much better that way). A few double-clicks after the cat starts meowing, the cat goes up with a resounding BOOM and Shamino flees, bitching and moaning about those bloody cats.

Just to be mean, I turned Hackmover on and tried to drop live cats into Shamino's backpack. Unfortunately, they wouldn't stay there.

And, finally, a warning. It's happened to me, it's probably happened to a few of you: sometimes Xenka does not show up and make her speech after you do the Chaos Serpent bit. This means you do not get the Ophidian Sword. And chances are, if it's your first playthrough, you won't even realize you're missing something important until the Great Earth Serpent is demanding that you slay it with a sword you don't have. Bonking the Great Earth Serpent with other weapons is fun to watch for a while, but it gets old really quick. Fortunately, you can simply open the forbidden Cheat System Spellbook and cast a spell to summon item #710.

Comments

Add New