September 23rd 1997 will always be remembered as an important day. Important as it was the final night of the open beta of Ultima Online, but also important for another, completely unexpected reason, namely I met its creator.
After a few moments of being struck dumb, finally I was able to open my screenshot program and begin recording the adventure.
Our first exchanges were full of confusion as we tried to work out WHAT ON EARTH LORD BRITISH WAS DOING HERE!?
Quite soon though the conversation began to flow and I cheekily asked Lord British about bugs that were making playing the game very difficult, mainly the lag! Lord British confidently replied that the creators had “Basically fixed it!” – something which later proved to be a joke on Lord British’s part as the lag would continue after the first few years of launch!
Our bantering continued for a short while before our famous companion offered to join us on our quest through the Dungeon of Deceit. We couldn’t quite believe it, but now we had a new and very worthy member of our adventuring team!
And so our merry band strode onwards – we realized the surreal situation we were in to be accompanied by the man that created the world we striding through.
We ran southwards towards the entrance of the dungeon of Deceit and as we prepared to enter, Lord British stopped us to give us a pep talk about what we might expect once we got inside.
We were still slightly incredulous at how it was all turning out, and so we burst into excitable song! “THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC” … well it was the first thing that came to mind! This really was amazing. Though I don’t know what Lord British would have made of it all!
All around was dark and imposing, but we were with the man that had created it all… what was the worst that could happen?!
Having entered we found ourselves in the dark, eerie, cavernous interior of the dungeon – completely dark except for the occasional flaming sconce at the wall – if it wasn’t for the fact that we were in the company of this world’s creator it would have felt pretty intimidating.
We had half expected this sort of terrain to be inundated with monsters to kill but because the spawn rates in this beta were much lower than would be the case in the launched game there were none to be found, annoyingly they’d probably all been killed by others who had trodden this path before.
Pressing forwards we were finally rewarded for our industry by encountering a Giant Scorpion and a Gazer which promptly went on the attack. Unsurprisingly it was our heroic leader that leapt into action first and sent them to hell through a combination of his trusty sword and the Por Ort Grav lightning spell which dispatched them quickly. After seeing off the threat Lord British, exerting his natural and obvious authority, ordered us all down an adjacent set of stairs to the next and lower level of the dungeon.
Down the stairs and with the light seemingly fading, though that might have been my imagination, we happened another adventurer, exploring the dungeon alone. Unsurprisingly he was equally astounded at the appearance of Lord British and stammered about how he could take a screenshot – you wouldn’t catch us doing that… oh wait!
As we explore this level of the dungeon room by room we encounter more players taken by complete surprise by the man in our midst. Shouts of “Wow” and suchlike were now pretty commonplace as we progressed our way through the outer rooms.
As each new player joined the group our number inevitably grew until we were quite the posse of intrepid explorers following one remarkable man’s lead.
More players joined us in our adventure. We couldn’t really blame them for wanting to follow Lord British. If it was the other way around, we would have tagged along without hesitation as well. It’s not every day that you get to team up with the creator of the game you’re playing.
We pressed on further exploring the ghostly crypt-like rooms on this level of the dungeon with their accompanying spooky piles of bones and eerie cobwebs. Now in the game if you step onto the same space as another player it drains your stamina but leaves the other player untouched – you can see here how I attempted just that, in order to get a screenshot of the ensuing screenshot of the information that I “shoved Lord Britain out of the way”!
I’m not sure if the others found this as funny as I did, but… who cares! I’d just pushed the creator out of the way in the middle of his own game! Not a lot of people could say they’d done that.
And Lord Britain didn’t seem to mind… Phew!
We explored everywhere, strange to think that Lord British had created this map, happily followed along, making suggestions and helped fending off everyone’s amazement. We often found ourselves wandering down wrong turns and dead ends but this only served to make the sense of achievement when we found our way all the greater.
As the night progressed and our team was getting weary - Lord British announced that he was needed elsewhere. He declared that he was needed in far off distant lands in order to fight monsters and protect his homeland Britannia – we couldn’t really argue with that!
We bid him our goodbyes before he ran away from us casting the Kal Ort Por Recall Spell, which in the blink of an eye, transported him away from our group.
We had mixed feelings about this, obviously saddened that Lord British would no longer be continuing this adventure with us, and also hugely jealous that he had this spell in his arsenal – none of us had attained that level of expertise yet – hence having the take the boat there in the first place!
With the actual time at about 3am it seemed like this would be as good as place as any to call it a night. Our team of adventurers disbanded and went to their respective beds… none of quite believing what had happened.
Rivan, Aries, and Zordax of the Sinners Among Saints were setting out on that evening on an adventure to the Dagger Island, inspired by a collective desire to see the game’s only land mass completely covered in ice and perhaps also to find the infamous Dungeon of Deceit before the game officially went gold. Tonight would be our last chance.
We began our adventure in Trinsic and seeing no alternative transport, we ‘borrowed’ a boat from a fisherman down by the docks. Unhelpfully the boat’s owner hadn’t left its key meaning that it was going to have to be unlocked – it also, somewhat frustratingly meant it would in all likelihood only serve us as transport for one leg of our journey as as soon as we left it unguarded it would probably be stolen by somebody else… but being in no position to take the moral high ground… we pushed onwards… we were adventurers and this mission needed to happen!
Not being natural seamen, getting control of the ship took some slight getting used to, but eventually we managed to get some basic mastery of the technique and we navigated the boat out of the ancient harbour of Trinsic and set a course for due North. Assuming the map we had acquired from Ba’alzamon of Trinsic was accurate, then we were sailing a course towards Bucaneer’s Den, an old, long ago abandoned township on a jungled island. After 30 minutes at sea, we struck dry land.
Identifying that this was indeed Bucaneer’s Den, meaning that our map was the real deal, I navigated the ship on a course around its edge of the island before continuing northwards. Another 30 minutes or so passed in agonizing silence, were we going the right way? What would we find? Would we even recognize what we were looking for? Only time would tell.
Ping.
Ping.
Something was registering on the ship’s radar in an easterly direction.
A quick consultation told us that this was the sandy island town of Nujel'm which meant we were headed in the right direction towards the infamous Dagger Isle! The adventure stayed on course… for now.
We moored the ship slightly to the north of the dungeon entrance in the vague hope it would make it more difficult to steal, we wanted to avoid being completely stranded here if at all possible. Before getting off the ship, we all stowed as many of our personal possessions down in the hold so as not to slow us down.
The Meeting
Luggage stowed and hoping we wouldn’t lose both our transport and all our possessions we prepared to disembark – what happened next couldn’t have been predicted by any of us!
We expected that as we neared Dagger Isle we’d meet other groups of adventurers going a similar way to join with, what we’d not expected however was that we’d bump into Lord British himself.
Lord British was the in-game character alter ego of Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Series and Ultima Online.
— Hail and well met!, — Lord British greeted us.
We were all obviously dumfounded, and had no idea what to say or how to react.
