Game 3: Ultima: Exodus (NES) - Season of Grinding

A time for grinding... it's not clear where the last two marks are. While I've tried to quickly get through some of the caves--hoping to run across one of the other marks--I haven't made much progress and have no clues for where to look. I did find a couple more king and fire marks, but getting them again doesn't do much. However, while doing this I had an idea for grinding gold quickly.

I'm fairly sure healing and donating blood is the quickest way to get gold; however, it still feels extremely slow, so I tried to get AmyK a higher healing spell, and Chet to get his first one: still slow. My new plan... to use the fountains to completely heal everyone, then donate blood. This cuts the time for a full round of donating/healing down to 5 minutes instead of 15 on a good trip. Enemies are a problem when I'm very weak, but AmyK and CanaG both have spells now that can destroy all enemies. Even so, most fights still add minutes to each trip.

Most of last night was spent doing this and raising stats. I've raised strength quite a bit for Chet and Trick, and now they are doing more damage. I'm not sure how a higher strength increases damage for a blowgun, but I'll take it. AmyK and CanaG have their discipline stats (Wis and Int respectively) maxed out at 99. I'm sure there's a Dex shrine out there somewhere, which will hopefully give my guys a better hit rate.

Ambrosia, I'm not sure what all the glowing points are, but some are enemies I believe

Next time I'll save up enough gold to max strength, hopefully find the Dex shrine, and then continue my exploration of Ambrosia. I really need to double check the towns for the pick. I'm sure there are things I could dig up in the caves like the Mystic Sword and Armor, but possibly gold when it says "Gremlin Gold."

While I was in Ambrosia last, I decided to use a gem, and it worked. So, now I have an even smaller map, and some points of interest. My hope is maybe I'll find the pick on Ambrosia because I'm fairly sure I searched all the towns, and none of the guild stores had a pick for sale.

There isn't any variety between the higher level monsters. They all do similar attacks, and while the graphics are different, they might as well all be called dragon 1, 2, 3, and 4. I had actually forgotten about the fortune teller, so if I have enough gold left over, then I'll check her out; may as well get the best armor for Chet.

Balrons (aka Dragon #4)

I think a lot of the enthusiasm I had has suffered from the long grind to get enough gold to handle the high level monsters. Exploring feels like a chore without any hints, and having gone through most caves to the bottom. Without each cave providing rewards, the satisfaction of discovery suffers. The Cave of Fool is the only one left where I haven't reached the bottom.