Part 10: Wherein the Natives have Zanthia for Dinner

Last time, we'd managed to untrance the mustard clerk, scam an octopus, and secure a ticket for a ride on the mustard barge. The ship is in the harbor and we can depart at any time, but before that, I need to correct something I totally spaced on last time. You see, once you've been to the Drunk Dragon Inn and go back out of the city - like we did last time to crush the gold tooth - you get a little cutscene that I forgot to show you.



Faun... Faun... come in, Faun.



Faun is consorting with the swamp monster. I always suspected they were in cahoots.

"You'd better get your butt in gear or I'll..."
Faun. Faun, can you hear me?
Oops. Hi, Zanthia. Did you get the Anchor Stone?
Not yet, but I'm making progress. How's things in Kyrandia?

By the way, I think the game is implying Highmoon is not part of Kyrandia, which I guess explains why nothing seems to be vanishing into thin air here and no one seems to have much respect for the Royal Mystics. The game is (probably deliberately) vague on the geography of the place, and the third game takes us to several locations that are explicitly not Kyrandia.

You'd better hurry.



Oh no, not Darm! I mean, he was pretty useless in the last game, but at least he was occasionally funny.

... and Brynn's Temple just disappeared.
Yikes!
If you don't hurry, you'll be the only Mystic left! Then what will we do?



I'll call you later.

"Later" turns out to be "once you get the barge voucher", which is right now. The two cutscenes are much further apart than my screwup makes it seem. As soon as we set foot outside the mustard store, Zanthia decides it's time to give Faun another call.



Faun... Faun... come in, Faun.



Stay out of our stuff, you little furry pipsqueak!

Wait till you see what this does to my ears...



Neat, huh? ... Uh oh. Hello, Zanthia.



Who, me?

By the way, have you noticed something strange about these screenshots? During this scene, the fountain has what looks like a lever sticking out of it. My best guess is that that lever was there in an earlier version of the game, and when they removed it, they forgot to go back and edit this background.

Any news from Kyrandia?
Things are getting worse!



Yikes. We'd better get a move on.

What's taking you so long?
It's a rough trip Faun, and I'd better go. Thanks again for your support...



Okay. Call again when you've got some good news.

Phew. All right, where were we? We've got a ticket and could take a ride on the mustard barge right now if we wanted to.



As soon as we untrance the captain, that is.

-Yawn-



I need to get to Volcania.
Sorry, we don't go that way.

Oh, that's right. The mustard barge doesn't actually go to Volcania, it goes to Mustard Island. Volcania is quite some distance off course. Still, the barge is the best shot we've got.

It's a matter of national security!
Get a voucher. Otherwise, don't bother us.
I don't have time to go get a voucher.

Yeah, the conversation here is the same regardless of when you have it. Of course, we already have the voucher in our inventory.



You'll have to talk to the clerk if you want to arrange a group discount.

There isn't anything new to learn from the captain. He's really just there to point you to the mustard clerk. Now, we could just hand over the voucher here and get going, but there's one more suspicious place we haven't visited yet, and one more person we haven't talked to.



This guy! We'd already used up the two flasks of skeptic potion we had, so I skipped over going back to the altar and activating two more flasks of serum. With this, we can untrance the sheriff and see what he has to say.





Not much, as it turns out. But hey, he got out of the way, so we can go inside the... fish... mud... thing.



Oh, of course. Look who it is.

So, how do you like my help so far?



My Hand and I were coming to help you when something hit me on the head and knocked me out. When I woke up, here I was.

My, how dreadful. Whatever ghastly brute knocked Marko out must be very skilled to have also eluded the Hand.

Freeing Marko is, again, completely optional as far as I can tell. But we might as well bail him out... again.



The sheriff likes to throw keys into the water.

That... sounds like perfectly sane behavior.

He's a real crackpot.
What?



Some sort of frontier justice, I guess.

I'm not sure what kind of frontier justice involves throwing keys into the ocean. Besides which, the jail cell seems to be made out of a fish's ribcage, and the bones are so widely spaced I'm pretty sure you could just walk out of there.

At any rate, Marko has suggested we need to fish the key out of the water with a magnet of some kind. We haven't come across any magnets though... we're going to have to make one. Now, how do you make a magnet?



It's simple!



Horseshoe + electricity = horseshoe magnet. Makes perfect sense to me! Going down to the docks and using the magnet on the water gives us...



This lovely little key. Looks like Marko was right. The sheriff is a loon. With this, we should be able to unlock Marko's cell.



It's the cops! Cheese it!





Now what are we going to do?

Well, that's great. Now we're stuck in jail, too. At least the sheriff left the key in the room this time, and we've still got that magnet. Maybe we can just... magnet it back to us.



Nuts. Using the magnet on the key causes the sheriff to come back in, and...



Oh, good. Now not only is the fish in the water, it's also inside a fish. Fish aren't known for going for magnets, and at any rate the window is out of reach. I mean, I still think we could just walk out of here if we wanted to, but let's do it properly. The answer here is kind of obtuse, and stumped me for a long time as a kid. See that little... carpet, I guess, at the back of our cell?



At first, it just looks like a normal background object. You can click it again and get a different line, though.

The threads are coming out...

Clicking it a third time...



... and Zanthia unravels it. So now we've got some thread, all we need is a...



Yeah, one of those. Why do you have a hook, anyway, Marko?



It's kind of hard to tell, but we've made a fishing rig. We can use it on the window to try and catch that fish.

I'll try to catch that fish...





All right, we got the key back! The sheriff is busy doing who knows what now and won't interrupt us any further, letting us free ourselves and Marko.

Thanks.



As much as usual.
I'm going to go find my hand. We'll be back to help you.

Please don't.

We used the magnet to get out of jail this time - what if we didn't have it? It's possible to just leave it on the ground after you fish out the key. In that case, you can just pick up the makeshift fishing gear and use that on the key, and the same scene will play out. The only real difference is that doing it with a magnet makes a little "bzzt" sound. Let's get out of here.



Uh, yeah, uncanny that. All right, with all that out of the way, it's finally time to get on that boat. All we have to do is hand the voucher over to the ship's captain.



What are you waiting for?



Off we go!



Ah, smell that salty ocean brine. We're well on our way to... Mustard Island, unfortunately. We need to go to Volcania, though. Maybe we can convince the captain otherwise?



I guess you took the wrong tour then.

Sadly, the captain is implacable, and the deckhands won't talk to us.

We're all in big trouble!
I don't see the problem.
Rock by rock, and tree by tree, Kyrandia is disappearing!

You'll remember that line straight from the intro.

Sorry, you'll have to take that up with the Royal Mystics.
ARRGH!

Nothing you say can change the captain's mind, alas. After about a minute of sailing, the barge arrives at Mustard Island.



Mustard everywhere!

Somebody sure is serious about their condiments. So this is Mustard Island, and it's festooned with cannibals, or so the sign warns.



There's nothing much to do on this screen, but you can leave southwards.



Which gets you this politically sensitive little scene. Zanthia's in hot water - literally. You still have control here, but...





You don't really even get a neat death animation here. You just lose.

Let's reload the save we conveniently made back on the ship and see what we can do.



Fast-talking the captain is a no-go. You'll notice, though, that the captain isn't actually steering the boat. The ship's wheel turns by itself, and that big thing in the middle looks like it could be a compass. Perhaps we can... alter the ship's course ourselves.



Hidden safely away.



Thank goodness for the autopilot.

Hiding a magnet in the coils of rope next to the compass will trick it into thinking we're off course - note how it thinks we're heading east, rather than north. As a result, the autopilot overcompensates, steering is much farther towards the west than originally intended...

No problem. We're still miles from that cursed island.



That is a pretty spooky island. Are we sure we want to go there?







Wait a minute! Volcania! How could this have happened!?

Oh, uh, well, no reason. Definitely not tampering with the compass.



Good riddance!

RIP Za... actually, no, this is what we wanted! Zanthia briskly swims towards Volcania and drags herself ashore.





That's better.



This is not one of the beaches in the travel brochures.

We did it! We made it to Volcania, and boy howdy, is this a dreary-looking place.

Hey! All my stuff is gone again!



And once again, our inventory has been emptied out, save for the Alchemist's Magnet. Once again, a welcome improvement from the previous game. There's no way to accidentally leave a critical item behind in this one. Next time, we'll take a stroll around the sunny beaches of Volcania and see what we can find.

---

Next update is going to be a little bit late, folks, what with the holidays and all.