Classic Games Revisited
Ultima VIII: Pagan Walkthrough
7.6. Ancient Necromancers
7.6.1. To the Upper Catacombs
Leave the tomb and walk south out past the fenced gate, and west along the dirt track until you reach the end of the fenced area. Immediately turn north and walk to the other end of this fence. Now go northeast. You will come upon another fenced gate with some red mushrooms growing at the base. Be careful; not only can the mushrooms hurt you, you will be attacked by a horde of ghouls and a ghost. You can choose to kill them or avoid them (run away from their view and return after a few moments).
Finally, enter the gate and go around to the east of the stone building. Walk in through the door and into the central passage between the pair of gargoyles. Stand next to the rock wall and cast Open Ground. Step into the opening that forms in front of you and you will be in Upper Catacombs 1.
7.6.2. To the Ancient Necromancers
Throughout the catacombs you are likely to come across ghouls, skeletons and, more importantly, weak ground. Sometimes the tile under you will fall away into a pit and you can climb back up. At other times the tile will fall into lava. There is a chance you don’t fall along with it if you are running past but you will die immediately if you do. The route I have chosen is fairly safe but save often.
Run north past the skeleton, large doors and fire shooters until you are halted by a fence. On the western wall will be two switches. Flip the one closest to the fence to open a gate. Past the gate, go east until you can go no further, north to face up to a skeleton, a couple of strides east and north again. Take the next path east (if you go north too far, you will encounter an automatic door that closes as you approach, you need to turn east before this).
Now track all the way east past a pile of skeletons until you come upon (another) automatic door. Once it closes, walk back past the skeleton pile and return so that it opens, and go through. Go north and turn east when you can. Again turn north when you can, go all the way to the end of the corridor (a dead body here has an irrelevant note about the Skull of Quakes, another dead body has notes about the dangers in this area), east to the end, then south. Take the first path east and continue east past the junction until you reach a more open area. To the north is a room with a cobwebbed door and a ghoul inside.
Do not enter yet. Instead, walk up to the door and climb up (opening the door or leaving it closed makes no difference). If you have any Death Disks, this would be a good opportunity to use them to kill the ghoul. Otherwise jump across next to the ghoul and kill it. Open the jewelry box, discard your leggings and equip the magic leggings instead. Make sure you have a decent amount of hit points before continuing because you are about to take an unavoidable hit. If you landed on the platform, climb down (you may need to move the ghoul’s body out of the way) and walk towards the door. The ground will open up and you may fall down. If you don’t, walk into the pit to fall down.
If you do not pick up the leggings now, this building and the jewelry box will vanish after finishing with the necromancers, and its contents can be found upon the ground here when you return.
You’ll get a little hurt as you fall down to this subterranean map, but we are now ready to meet all the ancient necromancers. Almost. First, collect all the reagents in this area. There are bone shards right next to you, and the barrels in the western alcove hold some more reagents. Don’t miss the fourth barrel hidden in the corner.
You may be attacked by a skeleton while going about collecting the reagents. This is a good place to use the Grant Peace we created in Vividos’ library to give it permanent death so it will not bother you again while you are scavenging.
You are going to need at least one more Death Speak though you are expected to have a total of 6. So go ahead and create as many as you wish (vial of blood, bone shards).
7.6.3. First Necromancer
Travel north (run to avoid a falling stalactite), going west when you are able. A chest in a broken down building will have a few more reagents that you should take. Once you’ve got them, go further west towards the wall, south, and west all the way as soon as you are able (keep running or you’ll get hit by stalactites). Climb up the stairs and use Death Speak on the necromancer to speak to him to learn the recipe for Mask of Death (wood, executioner’s hood). Go ahead and create it.
7.6.4. Second Necromancer
Go back to the chest (east, north) and go all the way east. Before you spoke to the first necromancer, the ridge here was impossible to cross but the stalagmites growing up from it have now dissolved away and you can climb across. You will first come upon a kith and then three daemons as you run west and north. You are expected to use Mask of Death to avoid combat, but just run past all of them to achieve the same outcome.
As you are traveling north, you will see a raised platform. Our quest requires us to continue north, but in a backpack on this platform as well as to the west of the platform are some reagents. The problem is, if you attempt to retrieve them, you will be set upon by a ghost and several ghouls. Climb up to the first tier and cast Mask of Death on yourself. Now climb up again and take everything useful from the backpack. Either jump down to the west (the fall might hurt you a bit) or jump west via the first tier if you feel confident about how much time you have left on Mask of Death, and locate the backpack next to the table. Take the contents. Ignore the chest; it is trapped and empty.
You could, of course, choose to fight the ghost and ghouls instead of using Mask of Death. Fighting the daemons if they follow you is not recommended; they hurt a lot. If you didn’t need to use Grant Peace earlier on this map, you could use the one we made on any one creature if it becomes too deadly.
Now return to the eastern side of the platform and continue north all the way, east all the way, north a bit (walk along the western wall) and west into the alcove. Climb up to the high ground and Death Speak to the second necromancer who will teach you Rock Flesh (Wood, Dirt). You will need at least one right now. We are scarce on resources so we can prepare more later. Climb down and exit the alcove.
7.6.5. Third Necromancer
Before continuing, cast Rock Flesh on yourself. The upcoming passage is charged with lightning and will kill you if you don’t. Go north and run all the way west until you can go no further. It is a long trek—ignore the raised area along the way and just keep heading west (there is a vial of blood on a skeleton, and a pile of bone shards next to another skeleton on the way, but we have quite a few of those). Along the rest of the route stalagmites and stalactites will regularly attempt to hurt you. Head south. You will come across what looks like a dead end, but you can pass through a narrow opening in the southwest to continue south.
In a backpack next to the kith there are a few reagents. You can ignore it and keep running, but it contains dirt which we don’t have too much of. Fight it or ignore it, going all the way south, east and north as the passage winds that way, then east to the third necromancer. Death Speaking to him will reveal the recipe for Summon Dead, but it is not a very useful spell (don’t waste any reagents). At the end of the conversation, you will be transported to a new area surrounded by water.
7.6.6. Fourth Necromancer
There are plenty of reagents on and around the skeletons. Run east past the electric gates and jump over the chasm where you will be attacked by a skeleton and a couple of ghouls. Once you kill the skeleton, you can throw it into the water so it won’t bother you again. A little further to the east you will find the fourth necromancer. Watch out for the stalactite that falls as you approach him. You no longer require Death Speak but can use it if you have any left (there is no further use for that spell in the game). Speaking to him will reveal the Grant Peace recipe, and you will be teleported to yet another new area.
There is no necromancer in this area, just a changeling and lots of reagents. Walk east to a grassy region and collect as much as you want before entering the fenced throne area: there is nothing around the edges of the map. Some executioner’s hoods are growing at the base of a tree, and the two chests flanking the entrance to the throne room have more stuff.
Inventory clutter: if you haven’t noticed already, when combining items with different graphics, the whole pile takes on the graphic of the item you are dragging. To reduce inventory clutter, you can choose to impose the smaller graphic onto your pile (executioner’s hood here or blackmoor earlier) by always dragging the smaller one onto the larger item/pile.
Walking towards the throne will transport you once more to a different region.
7.6.7. Magical Armor
Going a bit east and north of where you begin will take you to a skeleton with a couple of reagents and an empty trapped and locked chest. We don’t really need them.
Head south and jump over the water (you can jump from the southwest corner of the outcrop). Follow the landmass to the east, walk around the raised platform and climb up to the first tier. Hugging the northern pillars, walk up to the candle. Collect the reagents from the bag and take a very small step south so that you can reach the armor. Going any further can cause the ground under you to give way, plunging you to a watery death.
Jump down from the platform and return west to where you crossed over the water. Now go all the way west until you reach lava. You can walk up to the tiny bit of land jutting out to the northwest. Walk to its western edge and jump across. The game may deem your landing point to be lava even though it looks like solid land, so save first; it might take a few tries. In the patched game, you can safely jump to the perpendicular dent in the ledge wall. Climb up and go west and then north, following the formation of the rock. At the end, jump on to the small island to the south to be transported to a new area.
7.6.8. Fifth Necromancer
If you are unlucky, a kith will immediately corner you in your spawn point. It can be quite difficult to kill from this vantage point so you may be better off reloading if this happens. Whether you choose to fight or evade the kith, do not get cornered—often your hits won’t even land from this position. Run a little to the south as soon as you spawn to avoid this fate, then head west once you have killed or evaded the kith. Follow the passage all the way west, south and west to find the fifth necromancer. Run all the way to avoid the many hazards and enemies. You will get the recipe for Withstand Death, after which you will be teleported one last time.
Go ahead and cast Withstand Death (wood, dirt, blackmoor) upon yourself (you could have cast it as soon as you had enough spare reagents). As far as I can tell, there is no time limit. It will last until your next ‘death’ (zero hit points), whereupon you will immediately be granted full HP and mana. Also, although the necromancer claims that it can be cast only once, you can shield yourself from death repeatedly after every ‘resurrection’.
7.6.9. Sixth Necromancer
Go west all the way, north, west again when you are able (ignore the closed up building, it only contains a vial of blood and a skeleton) and north until you hit a wall (the passage splits into two). Left from here will take you to a chest on a platform with some wood and bone shards, but you don’t really need any more right now. To continue with the quest you need to go a bit east and north past a fire shooter. You can Rock Flesh your way past the fire shooter, tank through it, or even attempt to evade it. The last option is a little tricky—the Avatar has a tendency to get stuck in certain spots causing you to take at least a little damage—but possible.
Past the fire shooter go west-northwest all the way, then follow the passage north, east and north. The necromancer is enclosed in a building patrolled by two skeletons. You could Grant Peace to them but I just run into the building and close the door behind me. You can finally learn the recipe for Create Golem, as well as information on how to reach the Mountain King.
The stairs adjacent to this room allow you to exit this labyrinth, but a ghost will appear to block your way as soon as you approach them. You can Grant Peace or simply bypass it to run up the stairs and leave to be returned to the eastern end of the Upper Catacombs.
You now know all necromancy spells. Ideally you should always have Withstand Death active upon you (there is no way to identify that it is active; after casting it, all you can do is keep track of any ‘death’ and then recast it). A few Mask of Death, Rock Flesh, and Grant Peace are quite useful to always keep on hand. We will require one Create Golem in the near future but don’t worry if you are running short of certain reagents; there will be plenty when you need them. Call Quake can be fun but irrelevant since in most cases you can simply run past enemies.