Ultima 6 Day 5 - Not-so-mortal Combat

We awoke in the woods near cove, I let Joshua take the controls and explore for a bit while I looked through our notes. Four poisoned party members and a restore later, we happened across a towns person we hadn't encountered before. Some one word questioning and we had the clues we were looking for. We need Mantras and Runes to free the shrine!

I did actually know this part, but I try not to spoil things for Josh. Armed with knowledge and new key words we set forth to continue questioning the rest of the village, turns out we may not be able to smash and grab the shrine, even with everything gathered. Combat is still a weak spot, we get hammered every time. I bet Lord British is getting tired of seeing us.

"Didn't I send you out to save the world?! Like THREE WEEKS AGO!?"

So another save, and then combat training. We took on the Gargoyles several times. Each time, I tried going about it a bit differently. I'm used to Ultima 7's Tasmanian devil style fighting. Basically, equip the party as best as you can and unleash them. Ultima 6 is just a bit different, adding a bit of turn based play. On default, you control the Avatar or, failing that, the next character on his/her feet. I can see the advantage, each turn allows me to think of a strategy to use,. Now if I can just find a winning one. 

I'm getting the hang of casting spells when needed, as much as I know Josh likes to swing swords, this might be the path we need to take. Ranged healing and damage(once I can afford a combat spell) are hard to beat, especially when the Ava-sorry- BROOK JOHNSON is the only capable spell caster at the moment.

I hope the practice comes in handy, even I'm starting to get impatient to get on with the story.

     - Dear Joshua,

I'm sorry we haven't been able to do the two gaming sessions a week like I hoped. Things have been a bit crazy, but we'll get there.

With Love,

Dad