Part 14: Wherein a Slight Feeling of Déjà Vu Sets In

Chapter 9: Wherein a Slight Feeling of Déjà Vu Sets In

Last time, Malcolm returned to the land of the living, got reacquainted with his good conscience Stewart, and was told to go back to the Isle of Cats to get some jewels. Again. To that end, we arranged for a pegasus potion and took right off.



That's a little tougher at night.

Exhilarating! Nothing like a pony ride to get the blood pumping!

Sure. Especially when YOU'RE the pony!

Music: Isle of Cats

Well, here we are again on the Isle of Cats, on the beach where we first hired those treacherous pirates. It's night time here, too, and the pirates as well as all the dogs are gone. Sitting right behind us on the sand is our old trusty friend the machete.



Unfortunately we seem to have lost the rest of our inventory in transit again, so the machete is all we've got. We're going to need it - the dog with the cart is long gone, so if we want to get anywhere on the isle we're going to have to go through the jungle again.



The jungle works the same way as it did last time, except now it's all blue and dark. We're not getting anywhere unless we clear the room of underbrush, and it grows back when we leave the room. None of the cardinal directions make any sense, so you're still going to get lost unless you memorized all the connections.



Naturally, I didn't, so I spend the next ten minutes getting lost.



Oh, and the snake piles are back, too.



For some reason, so are the random bones, but we have no use for those anymore so I'm just going to ignore them.



After a little while, we stumble on the old dog fort. The dogs are gone, and there's a new structure in their place.

Someone rebuilt the entrance to the ruins.



We can go inside if we want, but there's not much reason to. At least it's lit up now.

The Hieroglyphic Room is intact as well. Since we're done with the whole elements puzzle, we don't get any more hints by clicking on the cat idols, but Malcolm does comment on what he thinks they're called.



That must be the cat idol Tuna-breath. That must be the cat idol Flea-bag. That must be the cat idol Stinky. That must be the cat idol Fur-ball. That must be the cat idol Itchy.



I wonder how I can get touch with that Belloc [sic] fellow.

The game misspells his name, but René Belloq is of course the primary antagonist in Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's nothing else for us to do here, so back to the jungle we go.



The jungle is the same on this side, too.



After a few more minutes of hacking the jungle to shreds, we run across another old pal!

Fluffy! Is that you? You look like you're still rebelling. Why?



We must return to our natural ways.

The cycle of revolutions never ends, does it. We don't really care though, we're here for the altar of cats (which is actually nearby).



You help me, and I'll help you. We of the revolution are how buying our weapons from the Dogs.

How ironic, but I don't see what that has to do with me.



Ffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuucccckk yooooouuuu.

Oh great! Now we're collecting bones. My mother said I should go to work for one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but nooo, I had to be a conscience!

Complaining never solves a problem, Gunther. Let's just find those bones and be on our way.

So yeah, hey, remember how last time we were here the game made us grind for goddamn bones in the jungle forever and ever so we could get that dog to dig up jewels for us? The game designers, in their magnanimous genius, decided that a great puzzle for the final act of the game would be to make us do all that again! Doesn't that just sound like great fun?



Like before, we can spend our time bumbling around the jungle cutting down bushes and looking for bones that way.



There is another way, though, assuming we can first bumble our way back to the Dog Fort. We can use the machete on the ground here.



That is the dorkiest digging animation I've ever seen, but the good news is we managed to unearth one of the bones Duke buried way back several years ago when we were here last! The bad news is there are some 20-odd spots we can dig up on this screen, and not all of them have bones buried in them.



All in all I pick up five bones here and five from the jungle, for a full complement of ten. From there on, it's just a matter of rampaging randomly through the jungle until we find our way back to Fluffy again.



And then slowly, painfully picking up and dropping all those bones on him, watching the slow-ass inventory animation each time.



Here, I can't use this mouse-made device. Take it and destroy the evil Fat Cat magic.

At last, our hard work pays off. What wondrous artifact might we be getting for our trouble?



It's... what the heck is that? The inventory calls it a Cheese-Maker.

This is about as cheesy as it gets.

Fluffy refuses to give us any more information on this thing, so I guess all we can do is give it a go.

I hope no one's looking...





Ta-da! One chunk of mystery cheese. Why do we want cheese, again? We're here for jewels, man. I guess we'll have to trust the weird feline revolutionary and head over the colossus and give it a go.



The monument is not far from Fluffy's location. The game is kind of freaking out here for some reason and decided to layer the mouse statue behind the cat statues that are supposed to be in the back. At least this bug is only visual.



Nothing to do but to try smushing some cheese against that mouse statue that's totally there in the middle.

Let's see if this cheese does anything.



Empowerment of the mouse. I guess that will bring the Fat Cat society to an end.

How, exactly?

Good work! We might have some fun here after all!

Do you call destroying innocent statues fun?!

Strangely, that had exactly the desired effect. The cat idols turn back into weird mud balls, and all the jewels fall out, ready to be picked up. We're halfway done - all we need now is to find a way back to Kyrandia.



Here. Take this Magic Can. One whiff, and it will take you anywhere you want to go.

You're not making any sense, cat man. One... whiff?



What a lovely, trusting individual!

Now we've got an old can of cat food. Super!

What are we, garbage collectors? Actually, considering the amount of digging through trash heaps we've done in this game, that's not an entirely unfair description.

Well, here goes.





Yuck! I vote we don't do THAT anymore!

For once, we agree!

Okay, game, whatever you say. Somehow that worked - we have returned to Kyrandia, jewels in tow.



All we have to do is give the jewels to the pirates and they'll leave us alone, right? Let's have a quick chat with Brandon and Kallak first, though.



You spoiled brat! I'd like to see you get a job in the real world sometime.



You're not exactly the one who's being ransomed, pal. Kyrandia needs its King, but I'm not sure I can afford to pay for you too.



Maybe I've got them, and maybe I don't. Again I demand that you release all the entranced Kyrandians!

Uh, I don't know if "entranced" is the right word here. They've been turned into mice.

You haven't paid yet.

I'll pay when I'm ready. But betray my trust again and we'll hunt you down like dogs!

Yeah, yeah yeah. Bring us six large jewels or stop bothering us.

Let's just hand them over.





Thanks. You're not such a bad jester after all.

That's one. Repeat five more times, and...



... okay, I'm not surprised the pirates don't actually seem to have any intention of returning the country to us, but I did expect the game to at least, y'know, tell me something new here. I don't know if the scripts are just buggy or what's going on, but the conversation essentially stalls here and none of the pirates will say anything new. So what gives?

Well, there is a puzzle here, and the jewels have nothing to do with it. We need to go retrieve one of the items we lost going to the Isle of Cats first, though.



As is tradition, all our items ended up in the dump after we lost them. For some reason the fish collar isn't in with the rest of the garbage, though. At any rate, it's the item we need to proceed.



Again, the scripting here is really confusing. Clicking anywhere on the screen with the collar in your hand causes Jean-Claude to demand you be searched. I don't know what "rest of the stones" he's referring to, since we already gave him all six of them.



This looks like an interesting piece of jewelry!

Captain Barbecue seizes the collar from us, at any rate. I guess it is kind of valuable.



I ask you all: Who is the most handsome monarch in Kyrandia.

And promptly puts it on. Which, as it turns out...



... was a mistake.

(What good timing! I think the Queen is back on her throne.)





Ahh, how fun.

I hope he's okay down there!

Why don't you go find out?



How satisfying. Jean-Claude gets yanked all the way down to Limbo by the magic collar, and the remaining pirates promptly lose their nerve and skedaddle. Kyrandia has been saved once more!

We're not done, though. Kyrandia still kind of hates our guts, since they all think we killed King William and all that. Next time, we're going to see about putting and end to that, and the game, for good.