First stop along the way was a chicken farm run by a man named Mack. Mack has been outcast as a lunatic because he claims to have seen a UFO. Turns out, he's telling the truth. I found it in his back field:
(This is, in fact, a craft from the Wing Commander video game series)
We talked to Mack about the story of what happened, meeting an alien, and accidentally slaying it. He then talks about the Hoe of Destruction - a powerful weapon accidentally enchanted by a mage. It is locked in his back shed but he lost the key somewhere around Lock Lake. I'll need to keep an eye out for it.
Just beyond we found the first moongate:
In past playthroughs I have used the moongates a lot to travel. This time around I will rely on the flying carpet, the Help spell (which is a linear circle spell that teleports you back to Lord British's castle), and eventually the mark and recall spells which I'll introduce later.
Cove is just beyond the shores of Lock Lake. The lake is a complete mess - garbage everywhere:
Amongst all the rubbish is a lot of useful gear, so we took a slow walk around the lake. In previous playthroughs I have cleaned up the entire lake by hand - even enabling cheat codes to remove the splashes of muck that you can't normally pick up.
We had to battle our way around and deal with swamp poison, but we eventually found a key inside a dead fish. We went back and Spark equipped the mighty Hoe of Destruction:
We didn't find much else of use on the lake (yet) other than trout to eat but I will take another look later. Arriving at Cove we stopped and talked to Nastassia who looks after the Shrine of Compassion:
De Maria the Bard mentioned how sad Nastassia was, being the only person in town without a lover.
I spoke to everyone in Cove. The most important place was the mage Rudyom's house. We found some of this infamous blackrock, and a magic wand he created which is able to detonate blackrock causing a massive explosion - it could be handy later.
Although his mind is going, Rudyom was able to point me to his notebook of findings and warn me about the wand or "transmuter". We also purchased some spells off him, the second level spell telekenisis will come in particular handy. He also mentions his flying carpet (the one I already have) and hints at its location.
Another important meeting was with our old companion Jaana, who we invited into the party. Jaana is not a great fighter like Shamino or Dupre, but she can periodically heal or even resurrect the dead provided she is rested. Jaana joins us as the fifth member of the party. Jaana came with almost no gear, not even a backpack. She does have a pet hawk that she uses as a weapon.
It was the wrong time of day and everyone started heading off to bed. We slept for a while but decided to take a quick trip to Serpent's Hold to train up my companions before returning to Cove. Unfortunately, I spent all my gold on magic spells... so I was only able to train Spark. I need to obtain a lot more gold if I am going to fill out my spell book and train my whole party.
Back in Cove I delivered the bill to Lord Heather who signed it, and asked me to return it to Miranda in Lord British's castle. I checked in with Nastassia who asked me to go to the forests of Yew and find out what happened to her father Julius (De Maria told me the story how he was slain by a beast) - and then kissed me! I think we have a bit of a romance going on...
And with that there was nothing more to do in Cove for now. I returned to Britain and gave Miranda the bill. My most pressing needs were to find equipment for Jaana, and to get some money.
Next up we will explore Britain and rob a bank!
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