Part 7: Interlude: Jailbird

Interlude: Jailbird

As mentioned, there are six ways to escape from Kyrandia. We've seen the pun escape and the portal escape. Today, we're going to take a look at the convict escape. This is the longest one in the game, but it provides some much needed backstory so we're doing it next.



The first step to getting onto this path is to get caught. This is really easy to do by just stumbling around without knowing what you're doing; sooner or later, you're likely to bump into someone who recognizes us.



For instance, the sandwich clerk.

So I am, fish face!

I'm notifying the authorities!

Great! That's all I need! Herman the half-wit on my back.



Any time someone recognizes Malcolm, two things happen: one, you get locked out of entering certain critical areas (e.g. the fish parlor and the public baths). Trying to enter any of them after getting caught will fail, and no amount of lockpicking will solve the situation. Getting locked out is not a permanent condition, however, so this doesn't actually prevent you from doing any of the other escapes.



Two, the authorities are now on your tail.



Say, that person in the back wasn't there before, was he?



Darn!

Whoops. "The authorities" these days consist entirely of this guy: Herman. You might remember him from the first game. He fixed a rickety bridge for Brandon, made off with his saw, and came back at the end under Malcolm's control to menace Brandon with said saw.



(Music: Under arrest)

Going to the Bluff in this state will cause Herman to arrest you, and drag you in front of the newly crowned King Brandon and his grandpa, Kallak.



Once you are paroled, you must leave Kyrandia.

Don't ever return, or we'll... or we'll...



You are warned, Malcolm.

I'm shaking, powerful leader of the Royal Mistakes, and I'll obey.

The two seem to be surprisingly chill to hear that Malcolm's free of his curse, and only offer vague threats instead of, I don't know, re-cursing or executing him. At this point you get a few moments to talk to Brandon and Kallak.



I hardly think YOU'RE innocent!

So this is where that weird plot thread appears again. Er, well, for the first time, actually, since you're more likely to see this first if you're not being led through the game by a dunce doing things out of order.

The worst thing I did was blow up a few trees!



I never even had a trial.

We have no reason to doubt the eyewitness.



Okay, this one is just super weird. Or maybe not, given that Brandon straight up talked to his mom's ghost in the first game. She didn't contradict the story that Malcolm killed her, though, so I don't know why Malcolm thinks the king would do any different. It's a moot point anyway.

Your guilt is not in doubt.

That's all Brandon has to say to us.



You must pay for your crimes!

Crimes? What crimes? So I blew up a couple of trees. So what?



Vaguely ominous.

I saw your bloody hands with my own eyes.



As you might recall, Malcolm really doesn't like or trust Kallak very much.

You must pay your debt to Kyrandia!

After talking to the pair a bit, the scene is forcefully moved forward.





What's that dance you're doing?



And don't try to keep anything hidden in your palm!

Herman is voiced by Gary W. Hyatt, by the way, same as in the first game. That guy also did Malcolm's voice in the first game, but was replaced for this one for unclear reasons. At any rate, Herman wants us to put our inventory in that box there. You might recognize it from the second game, where it contained a toy drum and a single jack.

Have you no loyalty to your former employer?

No talking.

He won't talk to us, though. Now, we can start dropping our items one by one into the box, but after a few seconds...



... Herman interrupts us, and confiscates whatever's left in our inventory anyway. Then he carts us off to receive punishment:



(Music: Jail)

Hard labor in prison.

How many times do I have to tell you? You're here to make doilies.



This young lady is Rowena, and she's the warden of this dank pit we've been thrown in.

Now, one more time... take the string and put it in the machine.

That's a pretty weird machine, by the way. Are those human hands? Gross.



Clicking the ball of yarn inserts a thread into the... hands.



The foot pedal processes the thread.

See? That wasn't so hard. Now take the scissors and cut the doily loose.

The scissors are sitting right behind us. It's as simple as using them on the doily.





Lot of starch in those things. Okay, we're done, right? We can go now?



Fuck.

But remember! That's the last time I'm going to tell you how.



Rowena finally leaves us alone. Not that it's going to help; the window is too far above ground to jump safely out of, and Rowena is guarding the only other way out.



Right now, we have no recourse but to make ten doilies by clicking the machine a bunch. Six clicks plus a few seconds of wait per doily. So let's time skip past all that.







Now get out of Kyrandia.

So after that little ordeal, we get tossed out the castle again and told to be on our way. Kind of a lax approach, given who they're dealing with, but we're not complaining. So how this little exercise going to help us get out of Kyrandia?

First, we need to get caught again.





Here we are again. The same sequence of events plays out again.



This time, we're going to grab a bent nail with our cursor and keep it there until Herman gets tired of waiting and confiscates our inventory.



The result: We've successfully smuggled the nail with us into the prison cell. It's kind of a clever puzzle, actually, playing with the concept of the mouse cursor as your "palm" like that.



With the nail in hand, we can pick the lock to the doily machine and find out what's inside.



And then we can instantly regret ever doing that, because that's terrifying.

I wonder what HE did?



I'm kinda creeped out by this whole thing, to be honest. This time, we're not going to serve out our sentence; we're going to escape.



We're going to do this by sabotaging the... machine... in a vaguely disturbing manner.

I can't help it.

By all means, keep up the good work.

When the machine is started...



... this happens.





And with that, Malcolm just walks out of prison. Now, we may be free, but two questions immediately pop to mind: One, where did our inventory go, and two, how does this help us get out of Kyrandia exactly?



Your inventory gets thrown in the dump when you escape. You can come back here to recover any lost items. That takes care of the first question. As for the second...





We need to get caught and thrown in prison again! By now you might be thinking I'm crazy, and wondering what purpose all this could possibly be serving.



Sabotaging the doily machine and escaping from jail makes the authorities step up your punishment, and the next time you get caught, you get thrown here: the rock quarry. Rowena is here, too.

Oh! It's you again!

What happened to your prison job?



Oops. Sorry. Nothing personal.

No problem. I just hated to see you leave.

So the rock quarry works much the same way as the doily machine: click rocks, click the wagon, dump the rocks... repeat ten times and they'll let you go.





You have nine more loads to go!

Isn't there some way you could fudge the figures?



Cutie?

Cutie?

This sounds like it sucks, so we're going to escape from this one, too. Like last time, we need to smuggle an item in our palm. A bent nail won't do it, though.



This time, we need some of those fertilized seeds we used earlier to break a wall.



Surreptitiously planting them in the rock pile and throwing some of Malcolm's sweat on them has an explosive effect.



Hey, wench! I'm done!

Wow! That was fast! I guess you're free to go.



All right, and we even got our inventory back this time! And we all know what the best way to celebrate our newfound freedom is!





It keeps happening



Screwing up the rock quarry gets us upgraded to a chain gang. And look who came with us this time!



I don't care as long as I get to see you more often.

This budding, but one-sided old person romance is simultaneously endearing and nauseating.

Whatever spins your top.

The normal way to get out of this one is to just pick up those shears behind us and click the grass a bunch of times.



This time, we don't need to bring anything with us to escape.





Heh, heh, heh. Most excellent! I'm getting out of here.

I don't know what that chain was made of, but the shears are all you need to cut it. Malcolm swiftly makes his escape with some fresh Rogue Jester points in his pocket.



Okay, okay. Enough of this. Let's escape for real this time.





Just kidding! What is this now, like the fourth or fifth time we've been arrested? Boy, I guess Kallak's really making good on his threat to keep doing the same thing again, huh.



The fourth time, you get sent to a slave galley, alongside Rowena.



I think you have perfect posture!

Sure, but they'll never understand this joke in Germany.





The punishment this time is to row. It's a pretty weird galley that only needs ten strokes to get where it needs to go, though--



Well, shit. Nuts to that. I brought one of those nails with me, and the manacles are lockpickable. We're getting out of here.

Every man for himself, I'm outta here.







Finally, at long last, after escaping from the slave galley, Malcolm ends up washing ashore on the Isle of Cats. And that's the convict escape: get arrested four times, and escape your punishment each time. Next time, we're... well, sailing back to Kyrandia with our newfound crew of pirates, hopefully.