Howdy, everyone!
So, I'm trying to play Ultima IV via xu4. So far, it is being a really satisfacting experience!
I already found the Rune and Keyword thing of Compassion and Sacrifice, the interaction with NPCs is kinda great!
However.
*Sometimes when i walk around the map-cities my character begins to make a "Krr" sound and loses HP every turn. I though that (H)oling up would have solved the problem..
...the party gets healed, yes, but then begins again to lose HP. I'm careful to bring food, but I can't find a command to Eat.. halp! I've arrived in the city of Sacrifice only to pass out in there D:
*I'm mightly confused about the Shrine of Compassion. Iolo said that it was two bridges west, however.. there are only a forest and undead/orcs in there!
And regarding Iolo.. he said he wanted to join me, fine. But I've tried all the variations of "join" and none worked! I've to level up?
*The manual talks about various "professions". Nice.
How can i know wich one is mine? D:
*Is the Keywords option of xu4 bugged? Nothing changes for me (Playing with "new" mode)
*Where can I use the Mantras? How does the (Y)ell command work? If i try to yell, for istance, "MU", the game takes it as a personal offence and tries to (M)ix reagents.
Aaaand, for a personal curiosity
*Seriously, is Shepard the "hard-mode profession"? It sounds like a good-for-nothin' in the manual..

Thanks everyone, the manual wasn't very clear D:

Okay, I did read about the poison/ (C)ure right now.
Behold, for I'm a Level 3 Bard! (Wich is my actual favourite class in RPGs, woohoo!)
So, I should definitively able to make Iolo join me. What should I tell him?

And please, can you write two lines about the (M)ix and (C)ast system? It's really annoying.
And where the hell do I buy reagents? D:
Mightly kind, sorry for all the trouble. Thou truly art versed in the ways of Compassion!

P.S.: Do you happen to know any good Ultima IV remix/orchestra, per chance? :D

Oh, you're a bard? You can't get Iolo then because he's a bard himself. You see, there are eight NPCs in the game, one for each class. You can get all the NPCs to join you apart from the NPC that is the same class as you are. In other words, if you're a bard you cannot get Iolo to join you. If you are a paladin you can't get Dupre to join you etc. Press M to mix up a spell, followed by the letter representing the spell to mix up. For example, the letter 'A' is for the Awaken spell, 'B' is for the Blink spell, 'C' is for the Cure spell etc. After that, press the letters representing the reagents to include in the mixture. At this point the reagents you have are displayed at the top right of the screen, with their corresponding letter to their left. For example, you should be able to see that 'B' is Ginseng and 'C' is Garlic. After you've selected all the reagents, press enter/return to mix them up into the spell.

You can buy reagents from reagent stores. There's one in the town of Moonglow, for example.

For a list of the Spells & componets you either need to read the spell book( downloaded as an eaxra) or read the ReadMe file that downloaded with the game. There is a lot of extra spoiler information in the ReadMe so you may want to be selective of what you read in it.

In case it wasn't completely obvious to you, you don't want to be mixing spells during combat. It is best to buy your reagents and stand right there, in town, and mix them all right away. Unfortunately, there is no way to mix multiples of the same spell. You have to do them one at a time. My most used spells get mixed 99 at a time.

For a Bard from Britain, the village of Paws has a herbalist who is far closer. There is another who specializes in the rare black pearl, selling them at a mere gold piece per pearl; this other is in Buccaneer's Den, where pearls are far more common. Of course, the other reagents are far more expensive there, as they're all imports over difficult seas.
And there remain two reagents that have not entered into general circulation for sale. These have to be found in specific locations in the overworld. (don't worry, the herbalism industry will catch up by the next game, and Mandrake Root and Deadly Nightshade will both be purchaseable in Ultima V)