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I'm beginning to suspect that the hand, who is an expert on anchor stones deep within the earth, is up to no good.
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Nov 20, 2014 15:13
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Darth TNT posted:I'm beginning to suspect that the hand, who is an expert on anchor stones deep within the earth, is up to no good. I'm beginning to think that if we had changed that anchor from lead to stone instead, maybe we'd already be done with this quest. But no, Zanthia had to try to use it to bribe a ferry fairy who stopped existing as soon as we had what he wanted.
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Nov 20, 2014 15:56
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At least now you can try the "special function" of the magnet.
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Nov 20, 2014 21:06
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Must be a pretty shy ghost to hide inside when someone landed on him.
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Nov 21, 2014 02:15
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 ART ERROR I'm pretty sure the Hand is supposed to be a left Hand, although apparently not on this occasion.
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Nov 21, 2014 07:22
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This is why you don't post when you're just up and tired. 
SystemLogoff fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 15:23
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SystemLogoff posted:That looks left to me though-- if I turn my left hand so it faces me (like it faces the camera here) my thumb is on that side. That's definitely how my right hand looks if I hold it upside down with the palm away from me, I think you may want to see a doctor.
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Nov 21, 2014 15:31
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SystemLogoff posted:
You're actually doubly wrong, because the hand isn't facing the camera, it's facing away from it. You can see from earlier scenes from the Hand's orientation therein that it considers the palm to be its front, which of course makes perfect sense because naturally the back of the Hand would be at the rear, not the front. 
Tunahead fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 18:47
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Oooh, I'm thrilled!  Anyways, let's mustard up some of that courage (pun indented)! (And maybe that Hand has already visited the Altar of Doubt and now it's going through an identity crisis...)
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Nov 22, 2014 01:12
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Chapter 6: Wherein Law Enforcement is Thwarted Hi and welcome back to the magical land of Kyrandia. Last time we started exploring the fertile farmland surrounding Morningmist, encountered a farmer obsessed with strange radish-based condiments, fixed a waterwheel, and ran into a ghost that apparently haunts haystacks for some reason. Now that we've had some time to gather our courage, let's talk to this specter.  Zanthia gets straight to business. We're getting into that city. Nothing else matters.  Get me a big body and I'll beat them up. I'd love to help you, but how? That's... not quite what I expected, but awfully convenient. Why can't you get inside a body by yourself? Somebody has to do it for me. If I do help you, will you help me? Well, I know you'll feel better about yourself, and that's a start at least.I guess that's close enough. In the bottle you go!  I wonder where I can get this guy a body? How about this scarecrow? It's not exactly very beefy, but it might get the job done.   Hey, thanks! Hey, you were supposed to help us beat up those guards! Get back here!   Get back to work! You haven't fulfilled your contractual obligation. No way, Fatso! I'm not working that garden again! See ya! Instead, the ghost/animated straw man decides to antagonize Farmer Greenberry. You know, this works too - with the farmer out of the way, we can finally get into that basement of his and have a look around! Aha! Now to investigate. This cellar is bigger than the house! I know there's SOMETHING useful in here.All right, we've got a whole bunch of stuff here. Most of the floor is occupied by a strange-looking machine with a big lever. "ACME Cheese Maker".We're in the business for some cheese, so this might be helpful. However, we need some raw ingredients to put in that hopper before it will produce any cheese for us, and we're all out of dairy. Sitting on the back wall is an assortment of horseshoes and a pair of shears.   We'll grab the shears and some horseshoes. You never know when random junk will come in handy in an adventure game. Nothing else down here will help us right now, so let's get out of here and see if we can't find some milk for that cheese maker.  Well, it's a little more involved than that, usually. Sheep's milk should do the trick for cheese, though.  Now there's milk in there. Let's try it now. Is that Cheddar or Colby?Neither, given that neither Cheddar nor Colby are locations that exist within the Kyrandia universe.  Anyway, now that we have some cheese, we're 1/4 of the way towards making that delicious, juicy sandwich potion. Next up, we need some lettuce.  Did you notice this valve last time we were here? We neglected to turn it back then, but we'll do so now.  What does that do?  It fixes the elephark watering system! We could have done this at any time, of course. Now that the valve is open, we just click the hose-trunk, and...  Wow! That must be very fertile soil.Instant veggies! Didn't even need any fertilizer. What's Farmer Greenberry growing?  Halfway to a sandwich already!  Strange as it may sound, as you'll recall, radish is part of the recipe for mustard in Kyrandia. Oddly, Kyrandian mustard contains no actual mustard. We already have the other ingredient - vinegar - in our inventory, so we're just one item short of done with our shopping list.  Wheat rounds off the list nicely. Now, we can't just chuck all the ingredients in the pot and hope for the best. Radishes and vinegar by themselves do not equal mustard, and the wheat has to be ground into flour before it'll work. Remember that poundy fisty machine we repaired last time? It's a grinder. We could use that.  On the way there, we're going to steal this dragon's feed bowl. We're going to need it for something.  Taking it makes the dragon cry for a brief moment before going right back to sleep. You can collect the tears, and as far as I can tell it's the same reptile tear item we used to make a swampsnake potion earlier. We have no need for one of those right now though, and none of the other ingredients at any rate.  How can I scoop it out?Throwing the wheat at the hand predictably crushes it to flour. This is what we need the bowl for; to get the flour out. It's as simple as using the bowl on the hand, and voila: wheat flour.  We're going to need to re-use the bowl shortly, so it's time to start the sandwich-making process. The flour goes into the pot, and it flashes a little. While we're at it, we can just throw the cheese and lettuce in there too.   Now to make some mustard. We can crush the radish and scoop it out the same way we did the wheat.  A dash of vinegar from the bottle we nabbed earlier, and...  Into the pot it goes!  Let's find out, shall we?  Yup. Using the potion on Zanthia liberates the sandwich from the bottle. We can get two sandwiches from this batch; we don't really need that many, but there's no reason not to.  With sandwich in hand, we have a shot at getting past these two goofballs.  Zanthia sets a cunning trap. (Now to hide...)  Too busy arguing over the sandwich, the guards have left the gate wide open! Zanthia stealthily shuffles inside. Inside the gates at last! It was a lot harder than it needed to be, but we're one step closer to the center of the world. This is the port city of Highmoon, den of scum, villainy, and pirates. We'll explore Highmoon next time, and see about boarding a boat. Intermission: The Truth of Things It was pointed out earlier in the thread that the Alchemist's Magnet has an additional function and I promised to show it off, then promptly forgot about it. So now we're going to check that out! The Magnet, aside from turning lead into gold, can be used on people. What does it do?  It makes people admit things about themselves! I'm not entirely sure why it has this specific function, but it does. It makes the fishermen admit they've never caught anything. We can use this on almost everyone, and sometimes you can actually get hints this way.  Herb doesn't like flies, which is kind of too bad when you're a toad abomination.  I, uh... is there a joke here that I'm not getting? Either way, both frogs say the same line here.  I KNEW IT!   That's nice, Marko. I'm going to go over here now, and you can just... go play with your Hand.  I'm not surprised by this revelation at all. Strangely, using the Magnet on Brueth doesn't give you a special line. Onto Morningmist! There are actually not that many people there that we've encountered so far.  We figured!  Makes sense. Farmer Greenberry, much like Brueth, does not have a special line. That's it for the people we've encountered so far. Going forward, I'm just going to use it on people as we encounter them.
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Nov 28, 2014 23:20
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We spend two updates making a sandwich to fool two retarded guards who won't let us progress for Adventure games! (Seriously though, Kyrandia 1 featured a literal broken bridge, and still didn't have anything so arbitrarily time wasting)
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Nov 29, 2014 08:41
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Awwww, poor dragon. I wonder if our kleptomania in all of these cases will ever come back to haunt us?
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Nov 29, 2014 09:33
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Xander77 posted:(Seriously though, Kyrandia 1 featured a literal broken bridge, and still didn't have anything so arbitrarily time wasting) Oh, how quickly they forget the gem puzzle.
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Nov 29, 2014 09:37
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I'm pretty sure breuth does say something when you use the alchemists magnet on him. I seem to recall him saying something like "y'know I'm never going to give you a ride." or something like that.
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Nov 29, 2014 09:49
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Xander77 posted:We spend two updates making a sandwich to fool two retarded guards who won't let us progress for Nothing in this game is anywhere NEAR as stupid and time-wasing as the gemstone "puzzle" or the maze.
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Nov 29, 2014 10:19
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Zeniel posted:I'm pretty sure breuth does say something when you use the alchemists magnet on him. I seem to recall him saying something like "y'know I'm never going to give you a ride." or something like that.  Same line he uses whenever you try to give him something he's not interested in.
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Nov 29, 2014 11:57
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Well that's conclusive enough then (although I did try it myself just in case there was a bug or something.) I just realized somebody else says the line I'm thinking of.
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Nov 29, 2014 14:34
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:
I don't know if complimenting you for the  or protest for the horrible, horrible image......
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Nov 29, 2014 22:14
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Chapter 7: Wherein Poetry is Appreciated  Music: Highmoon (Tindeck)Last time in the magical land of Kyrandia, we finally got past the two idiot guardsmen blocking the gate to the port city of Highmoon. The game hasn't made it entirely clear yet, but we're here to secure passage on a boat to get us closer to the center of the world. Where exactly are we going? We'll find out soon. For now, let's check out our surroundings. There's a seahorse fountain to our left, a house embedded into the hill behind us, and a rickety little bridge. We'll go with the house first.  So, where's all the mustard for sale?We've stumbled onto the mustard distribution center, although it's currently kind of low on actual mustard. Farmer Greenberry needs to step things up. There's a big map on the wall showing what looks to be some kind of shipping route. The map also appears to be on fire.  Mustard man says nothing in response to this. In fact, he hasn't moved at all since we entered. Hey, this guy's a zombie. What a stiff.Huh. That's very strange. He just stands there, unmoving, and can't be interacted with. There's not much else in here that's of any use to us, but we can look around and read some of those notes if we like.  I didn't realize the mustard industry was this well developed.We're no closer to finding ourselves a boat, so let's go back and check out what's on the other side of that bridge.  What the heck is that? That part looks like a fish. I never saw a fish with feathers!Good question. This screen has a lot of stuff going on. First, there's that huge building made out of what looks like a giant fish skeleton and a pile of mud. There's a guy standing in front of the door, and...  ... just like the mustard clerk, this guy is completely unresponsive. He's also blocking the doorway to the fish house, so we can't go that way right now. Let's have a look at that stuff just sitting on the ground, because we're in an adventure game and rifling through other people's garbage is just kind of what you do. This stuff looks familiar. Artifical newt eyes. That was my last package! These look like used potion ingredients.Huh. This is our stuff. Whoever stole it from our hovel seems to have left it lying around. They also seem to have used it - the wrapper is empty, the orange slice is just a peel. If all this other stuff is ours, then the piece of paper must be...  Let's put it back in the spellbook and see what it is.  We've got that Teddy Bear potion Zanthia was wondering about earlier, and something called a Trance potion. From the list of ingredients, it looks like our thief was here, brewed up one of those and tranced the mustard man and the sheriff. Whoever it is, they really aren't hot on us making it to the center of the world. Well, nothing more to do here than check out one of the other exits from this room. We can either go to the top right, or the docks at the bottom right. We'll try the docks.   Are those fish working?Now that's a ship. It's got a narwhal on there, some big hooks with bait on them, couple gigantic fish... seems about right for Kyrandia. Let's talk to the captain. Maybe he can get us where we need to go.  Nope. He's been tranced too. Our mystery nemesis did a pretty thorough job. All right, let's go back and check out that other place we could go to.  A huge bunny and a path leading up to some kind of altar. I wonder how Faun is doing.The bunny does look a little bit like him, I guess. Continuing up the path takes us...  ... here. That looks only mildly dangerous. I'm sure we can make it across with a little effort. I don't think I can reach the rope...Nonsense! Just get a running start, and we'll be over there in no time.   Maybe not. But hey, look on the bright side. We had no problems reaching the rope. All right, we won't be going that way for a while. There is one location we haven't visited yet though.  You can go behind the mustard shop from this screen. Finding that path isn't as hard as it looks since the cursor changes when you mouse over it, and you can also get where we're going by using the back door of the mustard shop.  Must be the Drunk Dragon.A dank back alley, and a tavern, no doubt full of roustabouts and ne'er-do-wells. Let's barge straight in there!  The door is, for some unfathomable reason, locked. What's that big mechanism to the left of it?  Oh, god no. Clicking the bulbs makes them glow colors, and play little musical cues... same as the fireflies way back in the swamp. I hope you wrote the combination now rather than just forget all about it after solving the treasure cave puzzle! If not, you're going to have to reload a game and check what the current sequence was. Fortunately, I did write it down. It's exactly the same procedure as before; click the lights in the correct order, and the door unlocks. We can go straight in after that.  Music: Drunk Dragon Inn (Tindeck)Pirates! And a parrot! And that scarecrow ghost we helped out earlier. It seems these guys all avoided getting tranced, so we can actually interact with them. Surely one of them has to know where we can find ourselves a boat. There's quite a lot of dialogue here, with different characters, so I'm putting all of it in one 5-minute video.  Video: Drunk Dragon Inn (Youtube)Let's start with the parrot. He seems to know what he's doing. Do you know how I can get to Volcania? Isn't there an altar at the center of the world? *awk awk* It's just a bunch of hot air! Hot air! Hot air! I'm skeptical about this whole thing myself. Beware the Frauds of Volcania! *awk* Beware the Frauds of Volcania!I'm not sure if that's a reference to something. Either way, it seems the game has finally decided to let us, the player, know where we're going. Volcania, huh. It's got to be that smoldering island on the mustard clerk's map. Do you know which boat goes to Volcania? Excuse me. That was a transportation question, not a nautical quiz.Pirates are well known for being pedants. So, do you know which ship goes to Volcania? The Mustard Barge is the only one that even goes close. The Mustard Barge?Looks like we do need to un-trance mustard man, then. How do you think the natives get their mustard? The natives? Sure. Cannibals.This is feeling more and more like Monkey Island by the minute. They better not be wearing fruit on their heads. All right, how about the other pirate? Do you know how I can get out to Volcania? I must get to Volcania. It's a matter of national importance! Forget it. Volcania is just a bunch of baloney.Wait, is Volcania a real island that's too dangerous to visit, or is it just a made-up myth? Don't you pirates have a boat? We've reformed.Pirates in adventure games never seem to do any actual pirating, do they? All right, maybe the scarecrow knows something about Volcania.  I lost him out in the wheat fields. I didn't know you would desert your post! I don't need a morality lecture, thank you.He's got a point, given that Zanthia has been going around stealing everything she comes across that's not nailed down, breaking into people's houses, tampering with the post, making pet animals cry... Any idea how I can get a boat to Volcania? Sorry.All right, screw these guys. It sounds like the mustard man is our best bet for finding ourselves a ship. All we need to do is figure out how to un-trance him. It's Pirate Poetry Night! ... of course. Hey! Get out of my way, wench! Hush! He's about to begin! I don't even know what's happening anymore.  Thirsty Dick Richard went down to the water, His momma said "Dickey, don't wade, in over your knees." But alas, for her pleas went unheeded, and most unobeyed. For young Rick was quick, to dive in, and stick, in the mud, headlong and headfirst. And as much as he'd squirm, and gyrate like a worm, His problem was breathing, not thirst. Do wah, de water, Dickey, Dickey, don't wade. Do wah, de water, do what your mom said. Dip de dip, but don't slip, Won't you please try to keep your knees dry?  Wow. Uh. That sure was a thing. I have no idea if this mess of a poem is a reference to something. It sounds like it might be, but I honestly have no clue. I'm just glad it's over with. ... except we still can't leave, because we haven't recited a poem yet. Nothing to do but get up on that stage.  Excuse me... HEY! Thank you.Nobody barfs, much on the wharfs, But rub a dub dub, and most lose their grub. Heave, heave, ho, ho, Over the rail your biscuits go.   I... I don't even know what to say. Let's just get out of here. And now there's a giant octopus who looks to be running a literal shell game. Of course. I need to go have a lie down. Next time, we'll talk to this weirdo, figure out what his deal is, and start solving some actual puzzles.
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Dec 6, 2014 16:28
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I never knew you could try a running jump for that rope. I believe you can pick the lock on the tavern door with the shears, if you've forgotten the color sequence. I always wrote it down myself, though.
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Dec 6, 2014 16:43
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I love Zanthia's little thumbs up before trying a ridiculously dangerous stunt. It's like she's the Youtube Schadenfreude of Kyrandia. "Hold my beer and watch this!"
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Dec 6, 2014 17:03
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Nidoking posted:I never knew you could try a running jump for that rope. Wait really? I always wondered if there was a purpose behind the shears, I swear this game should have had a harder difficulty, kind of like mega monkey mode for Curse of Monkey island, to make up for all the ridiculous red herrings. I mean you can shear the sheep of course but that doesn't seem to lead to anything. If I had any real criticism of this game it would be that drat door. That and they never really explicitly tell you how to cure the Hypnosis at least as far as I'm aware. It's not too hard to stumble into the solution based on the items you pick up however.
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Dec 6, 2014 20:05
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Zeniel posted:If I had any real criticism of this game it would be that drat door. That and they never really explicitly tell you how to cure the Hypnosis at least as far as I'm aware. It's not too hard to stumble into the solution based on the items you pick up however. Like I've said before, this is the easiest game in the series due to how many of the puzzles are "open book, find a page that matches some of the items you've collected, make that potion". It's like having a hint book right there in the game.
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Dec 6, 2014 21:12
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Zeniel posted:Wait really? A neat fact that I never realized until seeing a youtube LP of this is that some puzzles have multiple possible ways to arrive at the same potion (using different ingredients).
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Dec 6, 2014 23:33
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I actually enjoy the goofy writing for this game, it helps that Zanthia's a put-upon straight man for a lot of the insanity of Kyrandia.
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Dec 6, 2014 23:49
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PurpleXVI posted:I actually enjoy the goofy writing for this game, it helps that Zanthia's a put-upon straight man for a lot of the insanity of Kyrandia. You can tell that if it weren't absolutely necessary she would be having none of any of this nonsense.
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Dec 7, 2014 00:37
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I was just about to comment on the whols Shears=>Door thing before Zeniel did. If I may ask, where did you get the music uploaded to Tindeck from? Are they included in the Talkie version?
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Dec 7, 2014 01:09
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benjoyce posted:If I may ask, where did you get the music uploaded to Tindeck from? Are they included in the Talkie version? Same way I got everything else: recorded in-game.
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Dec 7, 2014 01:17
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:A neat fact that I never realized until seeing a youtube LP of this is that some puzzles have multiple possible ways to arrive at the same potion (using different ingredients). I'm kinda curious as to what kinds of different combinations there are. The only two I can think of off the top of my head is making the sweet and sour sauce using taffy or the orange peel and also getting the rabbits foot by using mud or taffy Its not consistent though, surely why does the actual toadstool not work but the stool for ...oh wait. Gnarly Bark. Woof. Bark. I just got that. I'm an idiot. 
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Dec 7, 2014 05:16
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Zeniel posted:I'm guessing Windy is meant to be like twisting something rather than the blowing of air Also, are the death messages version-dependent? I distinctly remember different ones depending on how you died, e.g. that rope fall was something like "Zanthia's diet wasn't as good as she thought".
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Dec 7, 2014 06:11
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Pierzak posted:Also, are the death messages version-dependent? I distinctly remember different ones depending on how you died, e.g. that rope fall was something like "Zanthia's diet wasn't as good as she thought". I can definitely confirm that the DOS versions only had "Rest in peace, <character name>" for all three Kyrandia games, not any sassy King's Quest snark.
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Dec 7, 2014 07:00
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Pierzak posted:Also, are the death messages version-dependent? I distinctly remember different ones depending on how you died, e.g. that rope fall was something like "Zanthia's diet wasn't as good as she thought". I have no idea what version I had, but I can confirm it had different death messages, including something unflattering about Zanthia's weight in the rope fall instance.
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Dec 7, 2014 15:35
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Fortunately, nobody ever got kicked off a pirate ship for being bad at poetry.
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Dec 9, 2014 04:31
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Thirsty Dick Richard went down to the water, I think the reference is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iTwlfDuG2s The music and a lot of the phonetic sounds match up.
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Dec 9, 2014 06:43
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I think it's very good to see that Hand is following Zanthia to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid...like jump to a rope dangling over a cliff.
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Dec 9, 2014 08:47
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azsedcf posted:I think the reference is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iTwlfDuG2s I thought of that song, actually (it always makes me think of the film L.A. Story with Steve Martin). But... I'm not sure. All it really has in common with it is the "do wah" part. Darth TNT posted:I think it's very good to see that Hand is following Zanthia to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid...like jump to a rope dangling over a cliff. She's clearly in need of it. I don't know why anyone would think there's anything sinister about the Hand. Other than, y'know.
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Dec 9, 2014 08:54
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That actually sounds like a proper pirate shanty - that is, pretty goddamn obscene.Hyper Crab Tank posted:I don't know why anyone would think there's anything sinister about the Hand. Other than, y'know.
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Dec 9, 2014 09:24
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Thirsty Dick Richard went down to the water, Reading those lyrics, my first thought was to this. But maybe that was because of the plot.
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Dec 9, 2014 13:27
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Chapter 8: Wherein Skepticism is Encouraged Welcome back, dear reader. Last time on Kyrandia: The Hand of Fate, Zanthia spent a lot of time putzing about Highmoon trying to secure passage on a boat. Our situation can be summed up thusly:
We don't really have any leads on what to do to address the trance situation, so we might as well have a chat with that red many-armed monstrosity in front of us. Video: Shell Game Octopus (Youtube)  Just find the pea. What could be easier?  See? Double your money! Care to play?Even if we wanted to gamble with a giant red octopus thing, we can't right now. We need something valuable to bet first. Besides, we don't really have any reason to, so let's just grill him for information instead.  My favorite kind of customer. What? Gamblers who disregard actual statistics. Huh? Hey, it's free advice.I... really don't know what's going on with this little bit of dialogue. Zanthia is as confused as I am. I don't think "trance" is slang for anything within the context of gambling, so this guy is really just saying whatever. There's really nothing for us here right now, I just wanted to show the guy off because, well, he's kind of hard to ignore. Before we try to plan out a course of action for untrancing the townsfolk, we need to get back into that bar, because there's a bunch of items in there we neglected to pick up. Fortunately, the door remains unlocked after doing the Simon puzzle, so we can just go back inside.  Oh dear. You wouldn't recognize iambic pentameter if it bit you on the butt! Oh? And I suppose you're a haiku expert?Minor oddity: The first pirate actually says "arse", but the text says "butt" for some reason. I guess you couldn't say that in videogames back in 1993. Either way, the pirates have gotten themselves into a little kerfuffle. Clicking either of them at this point will mostly just annoy them.  Interfere and I'll slit yer gizzard!Humans don't have gizzards, silly. If you keep clicking on the pirates, eventually one of them will break free and...  ... punch the other guy in the mouth, liberating one of his gold teeth. I'm sure he won't mind if we take that, right?  No dice. He'll spot you and take the tooth back if you try to click on it. It sure would be neat to have a gold tooth though... It's time to explore another feature of the alchemist's magnet: just like you can turn lead into gold, you can also turn gold back into lead. Clicking the pirates some more causes history to repeat itself, and the pirate to lose his tooth once more. Once it's on the floor, we can use the alchemist's magnet on it, and...  With the gold tooth now being a lead tooth, the pirate doesn't mind or doesn't realize we're swiping it.  We could turn it back into gold, but we're in no hurry. While we're here, let's pick up that tankard sitting all on its own on the table.  Don't they ever wash these things?There's a conspicuous barrel and tap in the top right corner. Let's have ourselves some grog!  ... or root beer, I guess. Man, pirates just aren't what they used to be. We can get an infinite supply of root beer from the barrel if we want it, so let's try chugging some of it.  Excuse me. I couldn't possibly drink any more.Nonsense! Keep drinking.  Too much sweet stuff!Strangely, the root beer does not kill us. One more item in here we need before we move on.  The barrel on the left has some suspicious-looking taffy. Eating it has much the same effect as the root beer.  Yvmmmph phnnd. I'd better not eat any more!There is one more location we have yet to visit: whatever lies on the other side of that chasm. Last time, trying to swing across didn't go so well. We'll need some way to grab hold of that rope without just leaping out into the void and grabbing it in mid-air.  Remember this? Looks like the seahorse has something stuck in its mouth.  Hey, that stick again. Are you following me, Mr. Stick?I suppose it's meant to be the same stick that we dislodged from the waterwheel earlier. With this, we can have another shot at that rope.  I'm not sure how that worked, exactly, but the good news is we made it across! What's over here, anyway?  I'm not sure if this is the altar I'm looking for. Is this the Arc d'Gullibilitie?Interesting. Okay, we've been everywhere we can go right now, and it's time to start thinking about how we're getting out of here. It's pretty clear we need to break the trance spell on the townspeople, but the game hasn't really given us any clues on how to do that. Figuring this one out more or less requires you to pay attention to all the stuff you've collected and make an educated guess about which among the many things you have is relevant. In this case, note the name of the location we are in: it's the Altar of Doubt. Where have we seen that phrase before?  Right here. The recipe for a Skeptic Spell includes visiting an Altar of Doubt. Now, personally, I think this part of the game is kind of weak. It's kind of meta-gamey in that it relies on you assuming that the Altar is there for a reason, and that reason is that you need to make a Skeptic Spell. This assumption turns out to be correct... but it really would've been nice if there was some other clue to the connection between a Trance Potion and a Skeptic Spell. For this one, we need a lucky horseshoe, a rabbit footprint, some sweet-and-sour sauce, and lizard tears. Well, we already have a horseshoe, so that's 1/4 of the recipe already.  You might recall Zanthia terrorizing this poor animal earlier. Well, we need its tears, so we need to do it again. To wit, we start by giving the dragon its bowl back...  ... only to steal it again.  Way to be a total dick, Zanthia. At least one good thing comes out of this little episode of wanton animal cruelty:  Two out of four. Next, we need a rabbit.  I guess this sort of qualifies. To take its footprint, we have two options: we can either use the taffy we collected from the bar...  ... or we can grab a handful of mud from the puddle next to the rabbit statue.   As far as I can tell, the items are interchangeable. Either one will do. The last item we need is sweet-and-sour sauce. Well, that's pretty simple; all we need to do is mix some sour vinegar...  ... with something sweet, like root beer. If we hadn't used the taffy for the footprint, that would've worked too.  Time to mix. Chuck the sauce, footprint, tears and a horseshoe into the cauldron.  Now, horseshoes are associated with luck, as you might know. But did you know only an upwards-facing horseshoe is actually considered lucky? Supposedly it acts as a bowl to contain all the, I don't know, horse luck juice. We have two varieties of horseshoe in our inventory, but only the one that faces upwards will work.  There we go: Skeptic Serum! Serum? Yep. As specified in the recipe, we're actually only halfway done. The serum needs activating at the Altar.  It's pretty simple. Fill a bottle with serum from the cauldron, place it on the altar, and presto: Finished skeptic potion. We only have two bottles, but that should be enough to wake up the mustard clerk and the ship captain. Let's go try it out, shall we?    Hey! Where'd everybody go? Somehow, the Skeptic Potion undid the Trance Potion. I don't know if there's some logic to why this is exactly, but at least it worked. How much for a ticket on your boat? We charge three gold coins for a ticket to ride on our ship. Three gold coins! That seems awfully expensive!Does it? Our only standard for comparison is Brueth, and we were about to pay him an entire anchor made of gold. Couldn't you put this on the Royal Mystics account? Oh, are you one of the Mystics? Yes sir. I'm Zanthia, the Alchemist. Sorry.Why did you even ask, then? Please? Nope. Our mustard cruise does not include Volcania.As you can see from the map there, Volcania is actually not on the route between Highmoon and whatever that other little island is. But it's the best shot we've got, so we better do our best to find some gold. By the way, the mustard guy is kinda snarky.   The closest thing we have to gold is that lead tooth. We could turn it back into gold... but it still wouldn't exactly be a coin, and I don't think the mustard company accepts dentures in place of legal tender. Is there any way we could make it more... coin-like?  Remember this?  Smash. We now have a vaguely coin-shaped lead slug. One slap with the magnet, and voila: one golden, vaguely coin-like object.  However, we need three. There are two ways to go about this: one slow, boring way and one faster, funnier way. The former, which we won't be doing, involves giving the clerk the not-coin, then going back into the pub and having the pirates brawl it out some more until the poor guy loses yet another tooth. Repeating the entire procedure twice more will satisfy the clerk's demands. We have a better way, though:  Remember, kids: gambling always pays off! I knew you'd want to try your luck... keep your eye on the pea. Pick a shell, any shell.I've got a good feeling about the rightmost one!  Aww, too bad.Nuts! Okay, nothing a little save scumming can't solve. Let's reload and go for the left one instead.  Double nuts! This isn't working. No matter which shell you pick, you'll lose. There's no way to win this one honestly. So let's cheat!  First, let's get another one of these. It's important to get one of the upwards-facing ones; remember, those are the only lucky ones.  After surreptitiously dropping one of them next to the octopus, we'll give this one another go.  This time it doesn't matter which shell we pick - with the lucky horseshoe, we're guaranteed to win! You lucky scumbag! Two coins, one to go. Actually, that other one looks identical to the one we had. Are they both teeth? Let's pocket one of them, and put the other one straight back into the shell game.  Doop!I just really like how the octopus can't believe our luck.  Now that we have our three coins, we can go buy a ticket! Further gambling doesn't work, by the way. Any more attempts to give money to the octopus will result in the same line. Forget it lady, I'll go broke with you around! With some money in hand, we can finally go back and buy that ticket. With this, we should be able to secure a ride... however, the barge doesn't actually go to Volcania. We'll need to figure out some way to redirect the boat. Furthermore, we aren't quite done with Highmoon yet. We'll finish all that up next time.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:27
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I always just figured a trance was some kind of mystical quasi-spiritual state rather than regular boring old hypnosis, so force-feeding those dudes skepticism potions would make their minds reject the concept of being in a trance and wake up. 
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Dec 14, 2014 21:38
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