Part 5: Let's go Shopping
Welcome back to King's Quest III. Let's do things the right way this time. No more falling off of high ledges... on this set of screens.
Random encounters in King's Quest games are something I'm glad died a much deserved death after this game. King's Quest IV has a lone, notorious, exception. However it's limited to like... six screens in the entire game? My point is, Sierra had started to realize literally nobody likes random unpreventable deaths.
They wouldn't internalize the lesson for two more games, and wouldn't take the lesson to heart for three more titles. This tangent also made me realize that King's Quest V is fast approaching and, not gonna lie, I'm not looking forward to that particular bundle of bullshit.
Anyway, reloading here because I don't want to deal with robbing these idiots again.
Good lord, this is some bad luck happening right here. Once you've stolen from the bandits, in a well designed game, they would disappear from the game world from shame or some such. Instead, these assholes are gonna be haunting us until we can escape from Llewdor.
Anyway, here's the small little port town we saw from the mountaintop. The store has a bunch of items we need to loot now that we have some money. Speaking of which...
: You eagerly peek inside the soft leather coin purse and discover it contains some shiny gold coins. You may want to count them.>count coins
: Gwydion has eight gold coins.So that's good to know. But before we go spending all our money in one place, there's some other items I want to grab from Llewdor first.
We're directly south of the town.
>look tree
: One of the trees has a light-green colored plant growing upon it. On closer inspection, Gwydion sees that it's mistletoe. He searches among the hanging mistletoe until he finds a sprig that has dried. Upon finding some, he breaks it off and carries it with him.
South of the mistletoe trees, we find this spooky spiderweb cave.
>look web
: It's the largest web Gwydion has ever seen! He can't help but wonder about the spider which could create such a web.
: As Gwydion touches the sticky web, a giant spider drops dowm from her lair in the tree above. Gwydion attempts to escape, but the spider's sticky web holds him fast!
So let's not investigate the giant spiderweb.
Instead, we need some of this riverbank mud.
>get mud
: With the wooden spoon, Gwydion kneels and scoops a spoonful of wet mud from the stream's bank.
And one screen to the east, we need some of this too.
>get ocean water
: Gwydion fills his cup with ocean water.My test run through the game, I forgot to get the spoon from the rack back in the kitchen in Manannan's house. It turns out you not only need the spoon to get that mud, but to
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm fine with copy protection as long as it's done well. I just think another Sierra title did this game's copy protection better in every way. I also played that other game first. Yes I will be covering it.
Alright, so we got a bunch of items the past several updates. So let's take some time to look at those.
: The dry, thin snake skin is extremely fragile.
: The dried sprig of mistletoe is a thick, greyish-green, with remnants of little berries still attached. It is not a pretty plant.
: The warm porridge is in a pretty blue ceramic bowl. Its aroma wafts up to, and tantalizes, your nose.
: The metal cup has ocean water in it.
: The little thimble is fashioned of bright gleaming silver.
: The dew sparkles within the little silver thimble.
: The spoonful of mud has already dried.
: The eagle's tail feather makes you wonder what it would be like to soar among the clouds.
: The greenish-gray cactus is small, plump, and fleshy.
We've now been pretty much everywhere and gotten everything. So with only 12 minutes left on our free time clock, let's go shopping.
: Good day to you, young man. What can I do for you?
: Just a moment. I need to pet your dog.: Feel free. He likes attention.Aww, look at the dog. Let's pet him.
>pet dog
: As Gwydion pets him, Kenny, licks his hand and thumps his tail in appreciation. A small wad of dog fur collects in Gwydion's hand, and he tucks it into his pocket for later use.: Sorry about that. I need to buy some necessities. I need some... salt, some fish oil, some lard, and a pouch.: That's one heck of a list, son.: The pantry is running low and we need to restock.: Well, you came to the right place.
: Your total comes to four gold coins, young man.: Gwydion pays his bill and exits the store with a smile.
: Looking inside the salt bag, you see the coarse grains of salt.
: There's nothing very interesting about this jar of whitish, thick lard.
: A strong, fishy smell emanates from the glass jar.
: This is a plain leather pouch, useful for storing liquid or dry ingredients. Right now, it is empty.
: The wad of dog hair is dirty-white and brown.
We've been to all the important screens. So time to show off just what the magic map can do.
It's a little more impressive when you're not teleporting a single screen to the north, to be fair. But we do have in our possession actual fast travel.
And that's every screen in Llewdor. In spite of the limited, MSPaint-like color palatte, the artists made some very pretty scenery.
Of course, it was still 1980s Sierra. So in spite of having actual fast travel, there was a contractual obligation to prevent things from being too convenient. So every time we want to travel back to Manannan's house, we need to walk back up the path.
What makes you think it annoys me?
Guess what I forgot to do? So I think that's a good point to call this update.
NEXT TIME: Spell casting bonanza.
List of Points
+1 - Mistletoe
+1 - Streamside mud
+1 - Salt water
+1 - Pet the dog!
+1 - Bought salt
+1 - Bought fish oil
+1 - Bought lard
+1 - Bought pouch
Total: 75/210
Register of Deaths
Fell off the mountain path. Again.