I futzed around in King English’s castle, chatting about the eight virtues with that weird sorcerer. I guess he’s going to be my virtue scoreboard (and so far I’m batting 0-8). Later, in the tiny town of Britain, I learned from a “saucy woman” named Pepper (is she spicy as well?) that one of the runes was right in town. It didn’t take me too long to find. Progress! I’m already doing much better as a shepherd than I did as a bard. Maybe I’m just asking the right people the right questions. Now if I could just find some kid named Cricket, who knows the mantra for this rune. Knowing my luck, he’s probably trapped in a well on the other side of the world.
I bought a new sling, gave the local beggar lots of money (hoping to earn some compassion points in return), and learned that an artifact from Mondain (remember facing him in the first Ultima game?) is still around, and that’s not good. I asked the bartender about it. He needed some money to defog his memory. I increased my offer several times, realizing too late that he was keeping the money from my previous offers! Bankrupt and without information, I set out to get some gold. I fought some things in the forest with little difficulty (allowing them to flee when they’d had enough, which I guess I’m supposed to do). I returned to the unsavory barkeep and laid 100 gold on the table, whereupon he referred me to some beggar named Jude. I see how this guy operates; he makes beggars out of all of his clients!
I headed east and saw that the moongate was up. But at 2800 moves and one rune, I decided I’d had enough for one night (and you've probably had enough of this as well). Tomorrow, my sheep and I go through the gate!
