Part 13: Wherein a Body Part is Captured

Last time, Zanthia finally made it to the center of the earth and recovered an anchor stone, only for Marko to appear out of a portal and inform her that it had all been a wild goose chase and that the real problem involved the Wheels of Fate. Launched by volcanic pressure, Zanthia gets tossed high in the air to an unknown location.



Ouch! I need a stunt mystic. ... This outfit is a little delicate for the rough terrain.





So, here we are. For some reason the name of the location disappears after this little cutscene, but this is the Petrified Forest, and over there are the petrified trees. Yep. It's part of the greater area we're now in, which is called the Enchanted Forest. We need to find our way to the Wheels of Fate, but we have no idea where to go. From this particular room, we can go west or east... or we could if those trees weren't in the way, which almost certainly means that's where we need to go to progress the game.



You and me both, Zanthia. Let's see if we can't get these trees to show us the way to the Wheels.

Excuse me, can you give me some directions?



Yikes! Are you the new lumberjack?

What?

Hey, don't ruin this. Maybe we can scare them off.

Do you know how I can get up to the Wheels of Fate?



Where's your axe?

I am NOT the new lumberjack!

Time to try some subterfuge.



Oh, so you're a SNEAKY lumberjack!

(Sheesh, and I thought the Highmoon guards were stupid.)

I can't lie, those guys were pretty stupid. However, these trees look significantly less likely to be tempted by cheese sandwiches. For now, let's go explore a bit and see what we can come up with, but first, there's an item just sitting in this room we'll want to pick up.



You can have it. We'll make more.

I'd just like to point out that none of those trees are pines, or even coniferous trees at all in the first place. Examining the pinecone gives us this little line:



You might remember Brandon having similar pitch-related complaints about pinecones in the first game. Anyway, onward to the west.



At last! A real road!

Calling this a "road" might be a bit generous, but at least it's some form of architecture? We've got ourselves a bridge, a bit of snow here and there, and what looks like a knight in shining armor.



Oh, they're famous. That's the Petrified Forest.
How do I get past them?
They weren't always petrified.

This guy... doesn't seem to be listening to us. Like, at all.

So, how do I get past?



Perhaps you've heard of them?

Okay, that was completely nonsensical and useless.

You'd think that knight would have an axe or something. Maybe I could scare those trees out of the way.

Well, he doesn't, so let's just do what we always do and loot the place of valuables before we move on.



We can harvest some moss from this rock over here. That's always useful. In fact, the rock still has some moss on it. We can grab that too.



When we do, this happens.



It just keeps going and going.

There's some weird reverse punnery going on here. If a rolling stone gathers no moss, then gathering moss would... I guess make a stone roll?



The knight's got a walnut stashed in his little leaning tower for some reason.

I hate walnuts.

Well, we're stealing it anyway. All right, let's rock and roll out of here.



Uhh. Thanks, but...

What a gentleman.



That's rough. We all have our jobs to do though.

I don't know if this guy's job is guarding the bridge or if he's just another idiot.

Really. I just want to walk across and keep going.
Boy, you're bitter, aren't you?

The constant stream of stubborn bullshit we've had to endure up to this point is beginning to wear us a bit thin, yeah.

Please?



Ugh. Okay, so we have a puzzle here. We need to get past this doofus somehow, because there's nowhere else the game will let us go. As always, the answer to our predicament is a potion. There're two more items here that we've overlooked.



Clicking the snow patch on the left of the bridge results in a snowball. Oddly, you can't get the snowball from any of the other snow patches - Zanthia complains that the snow is too wet if you try. Since the one patch of snow that works is the most precariously positioned one, this is another instance of Zanthia's mysterious telekinetic pickup powers at work.



There was a pile of twigs just sitting in the grass, too. Zanthia even offers a helpful tip. And since we can, we must! But how shall we burn the twigs?



This rock in the other location turns out to be made of flint.



Placing the dry tinder by the flint sets up the operation. Now we just need to make sparks. The answer turns out to be the rolling stone we conveniently picked up earlier.



All right, we've got some charcoal. Before we continue I'd like to point that this puzzle makes almost no sense - the part of the flint-and-steel device that makes the sparks is the steel, not the flint, so unless the rolling stone is unusually high in iron there's no reason bashing it against some flint would cause sparks. Okay, pedantry over with - let's see what we can make with the stuff in our inventory.



This looks like it might fit the bill. We've got moss, we've got snow, we've got some charcoal, so let's mix up ourselves a snowman potion. What are we using it for? No idea! But it looks like it's what the game wants us to do.



The potion mixed correctly, but... we need a flask to scoop it out with, and we lost all our inventory blasting our way up here.



Turns out some of it survived the crash after all. Why a glass bottle of all things? No clue, but we can get that potion now.



Well, it's... kind of impressive, I guess, but it's not helping us cross the bridge. We have three more tries though. Let's try using a snowman potion on the knight directly.



Well, that was funny, but will it be effective?

That does it!



The knight has cleared out, and we are now free to advance to the next screen! What miracles of nature might await us there?



Uh

Is that foot some sort of livestock? I don't believe I'll eat the milk products here, thank you.

There's all kinds of things wrong about this. Two guys are chasing a giant foot around in a circle - with little apparent success. I guess the thought of splitting up and approaching it from both sides at once never occurred to them.

First a hand, now a foot? I wonder if they're connected.

Surely not, Zanthia, what are you talking about.



We can't approach the footmen while they're busy chasing that thing around. There are a few other things of note here. For one thing, there's that statue. It looks to me like Michaelangelo's David about to take a shower.

My, what a dented statue.



We can get some snow here, too, but we really don't have any further use for snowman potions.



We can also get an acorn from this little tree over here.

Brandon used to carry pocketfulls of these.

You know, that's right. Between the acorn, walnut, and pinecone, we've completed the seed trifecta from the Pseudobushia Hugiflora puzzle back in the first game. I don't know if this is meant to be an explicit clue or not, but if you've played the first game, it might sort of point you in the right direction for what we need to do next.



Remember this weird page we picked up shortly before coming here? "Plant a tree" is on the list. However, a few minutes of awkward exploring will eventually force you to conclude that this, too, is a red herring. There is no suitable hole in which to plant the seeds - at least none the game will let you try. But we might be able to get started on some of the other things on the list. That dented old statue could use some polishing, for instance. How do we do that, though?



There's really no indication that this will work, but the statue is vaguely lead-colored...



Well, it worked, somehow! Zanthia is rewarded with a box that just sort of appears. Let's not question it and just check out what's inside.



A Frank Klepacki special!

Fourth wall: broken. As you might remember, Frank Klepacki wrote all the music for this series, plus several more Westwood games.



We also get a single jack, for some reason. So, this whole puzzle is pretty damn weird and I don't know how exactly they came up with this one, but my best guess is that by performing one third of the Play Room Spell, we received one third of the full effects, which explains the paltry selection of items. As the page says, the more you do, the more you'll receive. Sadly, there won't be any opportunities for us to complete the other parts of the spell, but we'll make do with what we have.

We could actually leave for the next area right now, but there's one more thing we should do here first. This jack is pretty big and pointy. Perhaps we can use it as a makeshift caltrop to help catch that foot?

Video: The Foot of Bal-Rom (Youtube)



Thanks for the help. He is rather slippery.

Foot: caught. Now perhaps we can get some sort of explanation for what that thing is.

What the heck is that? A wild foot or what?
This is the foot of Bal-Rom...



Space wizard. Got it. How'd his foot end up here, then?

He perpetrated one hideous crime after another, until finally the Forces of Justice banded together...



Uh-huh. Sounds like he must've been a pretty big guy.

After centuries of drifting in space, Bal-Rom's parts have begun to land. We have one of the feet here...



That doesn't sound very safe...

By themselves, these parts aren't actually too dangerous.



Okay, sounds reasonable. Wait, hold on.

That vile appendage will certainly head for the Wheels of Fate and try to erase some innocent realm...



Uh oh.

Guys. Do you know what this means?

There are two weird ambulatory hands finger-walking around in Kyrandia! That's... the only explanation. Right?

So, okay, yeah, it turns out the Hand was evil all along, and has been behind this entire incident from the very start, sending Zanthia on a wild goose chase to keep her from foiling its plans. We really need to get up to the Wheels as quickly as we can.



Sorry, they've been there as long as I can remember.
What are you going to do with that foot?



I've always wanted a pet that's secretly plotting my undoing. Kind of like a cat. Anyway, we actually do have what we need to get past those trees now. Remember that clue we got from the knight that they used to be in a band?



Maybe this will loosen them up.



Those faces are horrifying. Mission accomplished, though! With the trees shaken out of their petrified mood, we can proceed to the next area.



Excellent! This tram will work out nicely.

The Wheels of Fate are high above us, and this tram might just get us there. Next time we'll hitch a ride, and surely nothing will go wrong.