Classic Games Revisited
Ultima VIII: Pagan Walkthrough
7.3 Magical Hammer
From Mythran’s house, go west until you can go no further (avoiding red mushrooms and avoiding or killing any changelings), then turn north. Along the northern wall will be the cave that houses the Bone Crusher (called Hammer of Strength in the unpatched game). Once inside, go north to the end, then north-east past the troll, east again along the narrow passage, all the while avoiding or tanking through the fire shooters. Turn south after you have passed the high ledge and quickly run south and east as far as possible to avoid falling stalactites.
At the end, you will come upon a chest. Do not open it yet. Instead, inspect the skeleton at the end of the passage to obtain 3 scrolls of trap destruction. Use one of them to eliminate the trap on the chest, then get your new weapon from it. You may or may not want to equip it; its max damage is higher than Korghin’s Fang, but it doesn’t give you the ability boosts and the overall damage output of the dagger usually turns out better due to its much better min damage.
Now double-click the Recall item in your backpack to return to Central Tenebrae. We are now going to acquire yet another weapon upgrade, a pretty important one.
7.4 The Slayer
From the waypoint, we need to return to East Tenebrae (south from the waypoint up to the castle wall, jump down, south across the wooden bridge, under the stone bridge, and east).
In East Tenebrae, turn north, east, north and east along the road. Follow this as it zig-zags north, east, north, east in quick succession, and then all the way east ‘into the wall’. You will exit to a map called East Road.
From the East Road wall, take a couple of strides east and turn north along the road. Take the first fork east and follow the road until it forks again. Go south until the road ends. Go east (off the road). You may encounter a couple of ghouls when you go off the road. It is up to you whether you wish to engage them or not. You will reach a dilapidated house with a skeleton inside. Here is the entrance to Treasure Cove aka Slayer Dungeon. Walk to the middle of the house and you will fall into the dungeon.
Eliminate or ignore the troll, it’s up to you. Turn west and read the book on the pedestal if you wish. Open the door and continue west until you can go no further. Turn south, past a large blue platform. (On top of the platform is the second book if you wish to read it.) West again until you can go no further (you’ll meet a couple of skeleton warriors that will come to life If you hang around), south again all the way to the end, west to the end (stepping on the spiders will kill them), south and west to the end of the corridor. You will now be at a door.
This room houses a few peasants and another troll. In the northwest corner is a backpack with a key that you need. My suggestion is to use the invisibility scroll you picked up at Salkind’s house to acquire the backpack, leave the room and close the door behind you. If you’d rather massacre the troll, that’s up to you. You could get a little unlucky with stealth though, if one of them blocks your exit (or even access to the backpack) long enough for the invisibility to expire. You can still eventually run away but if you want to accomplish this purely with stealth, it might take a save and reload.
Now return to the large blue platform (from outside the room: east, north, east, north, east at the skeleton warriors). Travel north until you come upon another door and a gate blocking your way. Open the door and flip the lever to open the gate. This will also summon a ghost. If you run back south all the way to the blue platform, wait a couple of seconds and go back to the gate, the ghost should disappear. Or you can take it on with your magical dagger or hammer.
From the gate, go north to the end, east to the end, north again and east again. At the end of this corridor will be the third book if you wish to read it. North again will take to you the end of a platform surrounded by water. Climb up the short wall and jump to the island. A ghoul will wake up on the top platform. Climb up when it’s either not near you or at least facing away from you and either kill it or jump down to the other side. Walk to the end of this platform. It is safe enough to make it to the next island in two jumps even if you choose to go via the disappearing stone in the middle.
If you are playing the unpatched game, these jumps are much more difficult. Take the stones to the northeast which don’t disappear. You will have to measure an appropriate distance to reach the first rock. If that is successful, you can jump further northeast-ish to the next rock, and then north to the island. You could choose the middle path too but don’t save while standing on a disappearing rock. The whole exercise might take a few reloads; you might even find an easier path for yourself.
The partially-dressed skeleton here has a purple potion. Drink it for the upcoming fight against a Seeker, lying in wait to the west. You may of course choose to pick it instead of drinking it. If, like me, you picked up the backpack earlier instead of just the key within it, you will have to drop it temporarily otherwise the game will refuse to add the potion to your inventory. Once the seeker is defeated (or if you are able to avoid it), unlock the door with the key you acquired earlier.
Two skeleton warriors will try to kill you as soon as you enter. Since they cannot be permanently killed, your best strategy is to kite them away from the door to one of the corners of this room, rush through the western door and close it behind you. Walk up to the cobwebbed door and climb up. Placed on a platform here is the Slayer, one of the best weapons in the game. It has a 10% chance to kill an enemy outright, no matter how many hit points it has.
To leave this cave you can climb down, and open and walk through the cobwebbed door to return to East Road (in the northwest corner). We are now as equipped as we can be at this point without cheating.
If you wish to avoid some later travels in the game, you may wish to acquire Executioner’s Hoods from the northern end of this map before continuing. Read about where to get them in 7.5.3.