Do you feel that?

I had a REALLY warped dream the other night that I'm amazed I still remember. Most of you won't have a clue what I'm talking about and fewer still will know what exactly what I'm talking about.

The other day I was playing Ultima IX: Ascension quite a lot, and I'd gotten to dungeon Hythloth. In Ascension, they've actually built it to be a sewer. To get to this sewer, you have go to the Shrine of Humilty, that teleports you to an underwater dome, and you teleport from the dome to a back wall in the sewer. The way Ascension works is like this: it's a *big* world, all 3D rendered, chase camera view. It's not really continuous though. When you walk inside a dungeon, you are actually changing maps even though you can barely notice it, since the walls of dungeons are usually pretty coarse, and you weave around rounded corners and stuff. It's the same deal with the dome, and Hythloth. Both are seperate maps to the world map.

There are some cheats in the game that let you fly around. It's kinda complicated, but basically, you're always facing in the direction you're flying. If you want to fly directly up, you're facing the roof. If you want to fly forwards, you're looking straight ahead. Also, when you're flying, you clip through the walls. Flying too fast can lead the game to crash.

I have to say I really hate the dungeons throughout the entire ultima series, with the exception of UO. They're all ridiculously tedious. The worst however, is probably found in Ascension, and goes by the name of Hythloth. A sewer. It's ugly, it's complicated. Luckily, I have maps. I flew throughout most of Hythloth getting the one item I needed to get in there for in the first place, then I flew over to the teleporter that leads to the exit. Apparently, the guys who made this game cut Hythloth in half because the whole dungeon was far too difficult (understandably) right before the game reached sign-off. I read this in my walkthrough book. I couldn't find the damn teleporter, no matter how hard I tried, and eventually I got lost. I walked around a bit, and realised I'd never seen any of these rooms before, so I assumed I was in the extra cut-off rooms that Origin never included. I thought the whole dungeon was there when I read the book, but it looked to me like there were whole walls missing. You'd just walk past where the wall was meant to be and you'd be swimming in an endless ocean. Kinda creepy.

Anyway, after a bit of looking around and saving and reloading, I realised there was a point I actually had to walk through to let the map change so I could reach that teleporter. Eventually I got to the teleporter, and this teleporter leads to a watery cavern where you actually have to swim underwater to reach Hythloth's exit. This is where things get interesting, because the map actually changes from the lower level Hythloth map to the world map, right next to the shrine (which you don't notice when you're first at the shrine, since it's underwater). My computer didn't seem to like this for some reason, and kept crashing. I tried it like ten times, and I couldn't do anything. This was the only exit out of the dungeon. I was trapped in Hythloth.

And this is where the dream kicks in.

I was flying around in Hythloth (btw, this dungeon actually looks very cool when it's all real) trying to get out, and I knew there was no way I was getting out. My only hope was for a different exit, and that wasn't happening. So really I was just flying around aimlessly. As I was flying around near where the real exit was supposed to be, I turned towards the roof and noticed a corridor - into the roof, where you weren't meant to be able to go anyway - that I'd never noticed before, like those stupid ledges in Zelda 64 that seem to serve no purpose. I flew up closer to it, and there was a door at the end, saying "Emergency Exit". I had been saved. Here was my exit.

There was a problem though. I knew the other exit led me underwater. If I got this door open, I'd cause the ocean to flood inside the sewer. I'd never be able to get past the water pressure, and my chances for getting out were nil anyway. FUCK! So after a bit more looking around and looking at the door, I finally decided to open it anyway since my only other alternative was to die of old age in this sewer. I pryed it open, and not a drop of water came through, but sunlight. The "emergency exit" had cleverly been disguised as a tile near the shrine, like a secret entrance.

Then I heard a phone ring, and Psycho Liz woke me up with another one of her prank calls.