Hi, everyone. I'm currently playing Ultima VII: Serpent Isle, and the last thing I did was reveal Simon, kill him and get his three keys. However, whenever I go to sleep even if it's just for two hours one of his keys disappears form my bag. No other item disappears. I went back to a previous save but whenever I rested the same key disappeared (Simon's brown key form the three I collected from his body). No other key I have disappears. I know that the keys are needed to access the Goblins' stronghold, which is required by the plot. But I did find a way to avoid the glitch by taking the keys out of my bag, placing them on the ground, sleeping, then getting them back again. I'm not using Exult, just the game from GOG (on DOSBox). My question is: has anyone encountered a similar glitch in Serpent Isle (an item disappearing)? Is there another way to avoid this rather than the cumbersome process of taking my keys out of the bag and getting them back again? Any insight would be very much appreciated.

If that's the only key that's disappearing, and it isn't due to an inventory shuffle when you wake up - this can also happen at other times, such as when training at the list field - then putting the key down in the meantime should work. The keys won't be needed for long.

(Also, at least one of those keys is to his things in town.)

Well, my inventory does shuffle around when I wake up and that's when the key is missing even though I search thoroughly. Does that have anything to do with it?

Has the key wound up in a different bag (which can happen when your inventory gets shuffled around in those cases), or hidden under another object as a result of the reshuffle? The inventory system isn't single-layer, so you can easily end up with objects (especially small objects) becoming hidden under other ones.

Taking every last item out of every bag (and every bag out of the backpack) might turn up a lost key (or other things).

I've never seen an item change containers from an inventory reshuffle. It's far more likely it just got moved underneath something else, maybe even a similar key. Until you get the keyring, the best thing to do is keep the keys somewhere uncluttered. Then as you use each one put it into a bag of "used" keys so you don't have to keep track of them all. You'll rarely use the same key twice.

I did various trials and slept, then upon waking up I took every single item form every bag and backpack. The key had indeed disappeared, it was not merely hidden. I can confirm that they key is the one that opens the doors of the closed rooms at the Inn in Monitor, not the one needed to enter the Goblin passages. But I took the previous advice and went to the Silver Seed and got the keyring and added the twelve keys I had, and everything worked just fine. The keyring accepted the key and now I don't have to carry it around or take it out whenever I want to sleep. Thanks everyone for your help!

Oh, if it's actually one of the room keys at the inn, I'm pretty sure those are supposed to disappear so you can't just use the room forever after paying for a single night like in Black Gate.