Part 17: Serpent's Hold and Spektran

Before we can head to the Tetrahedron Generator in Dungeon Deceit we have a few errands. Firstly, we traveled to the Fellowship Meditation Retreat just west of Terfin:

A man named Ian was guarding the entrance. We asked him about Elizabeth and Abraham and he mentioned that had traveled to Buccaneer's Den. The town of pirates seems odd place for such 'upstanding citizens' to visit. He also talked about the retreat and how only Fellowship members with a key are permitted to enter. Ian gave me a key (noticing my pendant). He mentioned one rule - not to enter the cave out the back as it is off limits. We decided to pass on exploring the retreat for now and instead traveled west to Serpent's Hold - not for any other reason that we had not yet explored it:

(My hidden agenda is I know there is a cache of magic weaponry that I would like to get my hands on)

The first thing I noticed outside the infamous knight's hold was one of the statues of Lord British out the front had been defaced, and there appeared to be blood on the ground beneath it.

Speaking to everyone here is what I found:

• The lord of the hold, John-Paul asked me to investigate the defacing of the statue. He suggested I speak to Sir Denton first.
• Sir Richter (the armourer) gave me some stone chips that were found at the base of the statue.
• Lady Tory who has some powers of intuition told me Sir Jordan has been nervous lately and I should speak to him about the statue. If you remember, after our adventures in Dungeon Destard we found a baby in a harpy nest just outside "lightning whip cave". Well, turns out Lady Tory is the mother of that baby - and we returned him and placed him awkwardly back in his cradle.
• Sir Jordan, when asked about the statue, said he heard the sounds of fighting the evening the statue was defaced. He also heard a woman cry out in surprise. He thinks it was lady Jehanne.
• I confronted Jehanne and she broke in front of me. She claims her husband, Sir Pendaran, defaced the statue and battled another knight who chanced upon him. The blood belongs to the other knight he battled.
• I went to Sir Pendaran and confronted him - and he admitted it. It stems from his resentment of Lord British and his 'ruling class'. Ideas The Fellowship are pushing to their members (he is one). There was no need for battle, Pendaran agreed to beg his fellow knights for forgiveness.

Exploring the castle we also saw the glorious cache of magic weaponry I had mentioned earlier:

From left to right a magic sword, sword of defense, firesword, juggernaut hammer, great dagger, magic axe, and a magebane.

There's a bit of a puzzle to get the weapons. It starts with the fish lined up in the kitchens. One of the fish is facing the wrong way and is in fact a lootable corpse. Inside the fish corpse was a key. There was another key under a shirt in Sir Richter's room. The keys still didn't open the door to the weapons vault so we explored a little and found a cave south of the castle.

The fish key opens a key inside the cave, and along with the shirt key opens the weapons vault! Back when I first played the game I never figured that out.

The cave with the third key is a bit tricky. There was a "Gazer" there that one hit killed me a Death Bolt a couple of times. I ended up casting Death Bolt myself to end it quickly and get to the chest.

We left Serpent's Hold after returning a baby (which we had been dragging around in our backpacks for weeks... into very dangerous places... without feeding or caring for it...), solved a statue vandalism crime case, and with Iolo rocking a juggernaut hammer - the best ranged weapon in the game.

Next we traveled to the Island of Spektran in search of the ethereal ring:

Martingo, the Sultan of Spektran, is as mad as any of the mages of Britannia - but I think he was mad before the ether was disturbed. He speaks to an invisible girlfriend named Lucinda - in fact an entire invisible harem. He also sold me a banana for 3 gold...

The key thing is that he agreed I could take the ring if I could get into his vault - which he suggested was impossible. 

The vault itself was not so complicated, but was guarded by a stone harpy - perhaps the most dangerous enemy in the game. Luckily, Shamino had a collection of glass swords on hand and we slew the beast with a single strike. On its corpse was the key to the vault.

We took the ring (along with all the other magic rings he had in storage) and headed back to Moonglow to get Penumbra to enchant it.

Next time we will enter the Dungeon Deceit and restore magic across Britannia!