Part 8: Wherein Alchemy is Performed for Fun and Profit

Last time, we helped Zanthia procure magic water and blueberries for her potion, a task which involved playing another of Malcolm's annoying little games. Unfortunately, once we collected everything Zanthia needed, she went missing and now we're left to figure the rest out on our own. We start off by snagging the stray bottle that has appeared on her floor again. You can get an infinite supply of bottles here if you so wish, but there's not really much need for more than a few.

Now, we don't know the first thing about alchemy. All we know is that Zanthia needed blueberries to make a potion for us. So... let's toss some blueberries into that pot and see what happens.



The brew turned a sickly shade of blue. Interesting. Well, we have an abundance of bottles, so let's scoop some out...



Rats. Something has to be missing from the recipe. But what? Zanthia didn't leave any instructions. Maybe that tulip?



Well, the concoction is yellow now, but we still can't pick it up. Apple?



No luck. The apple didn't do anything to the potion at all. Iron key?



Wait... shit. We needed that. This is one of the few places in the game where you can permanently lose almost any item in the game. That key is gone now, and though we haven't found a lock that fits it yet, you can be sure we're going to need it sooner or later. We also have made no progress with our alchemical pursuits. For now let's just reload a game and try something else. Maybe we can find a recipe book somewhere.

Say, wasn't that carpet a little neater before?



Hey, it's a secret trapdoor!

What's this? A cellar?

Only one way to find out!





Hello, hello? Zanthia?

It turns out to be a secret path leading to the other half of Faeriewood.



There are a lot of empty forest areas here.



Like, a lot.



All in all this side of the forest contains almost 50 locations, arranged in two overlapping five-by-five squares. Most of those locations are near-identical patches of forest with absolutely nothing of any value in them. The sheer amount of pointless filler in this game is a pretty severe strike against it, actually. Fortunately, the series got better as it went along, and Hand of Fate has practically no filler at all.



Walking along the northern edge of the forest, we unexpectedly come across a tropical beach. There's some kind of podium with a magic circle on it, flanked by winged horses.

Solid gold! Somebody's rich.

There's an island off in the distance...

Is that where the castle is?

You know what? We've got this. We don't need no fancy potions. We can fly straight across with the will-o-wisp spell.





... was that... a whale?

It's like the game is taunting us now, acknowledging that just using the will-o-wisp spell to fly across makes perfect sense - it's just not the answer the game wants out of us, so it throws in a diabolus ex machina to keep us from getting anywhere that way. Alas, we can't do anything interesting in this room yet, so we're forced to look elsewhere. Before we leave, we'll pick some of the red flowers growing off to the side there.



A rare, exotic flower.

How exotic can it be when it literally grows like ten feet from the perfectly ordinary forest that looks identical to the one you live in?

The last interesting location in this part of the forest is in the southern half.



Hey! This must be one of Zanthia's toys.

I don't know, it looks pretty important to me. There are two flask-shaped depressions in the gigantic crystals, but right now, we can't do anything with them. We can try to put one our empty flasks in there, but...

I don't think an empty vial will work here.

We've seen everything there is to see on this side of the forest, and we're no closer to figuring out how to cook up any kind of potion, let alone a helpful one. All we got for our troubles is an orchid. As far as I can tell, there are no more clues to be had about alchemy nor about anything else. Yes, the game has once more landed us in the middle of a puzzle (several puzzles, actually) with no indication what we need to do to progress. We can try plunging everything we've got into Zanthia's cauldron, but none of the items we are currently carrying produce any interesting effects except the orchid, which turns the contents of the cauldron a pale red, much like the blueberries and tulip.



So far, we've identified three ingredients that can go into a potion. Combining blueberries and tulips or orchids in the same potion doesn't work; the color just gets overridden with the second thing you throw in there. Something is missing. The only other living person we know of who might know anything at all about this stuff is Darm, and he's all the way back in Timbermist. Oh well, it's worth a shot, right? Going north from the fountain takes us back to the cave we came out of, and we can just go backwards through the western part of the labyrinth to get back to Timbermist.





Oh, right. I forgot to put a fireberry down in the last room between the chasm and the exit. Fortunately, our wisp form lights up dark rooms, so we can just turn it on before we enter the cave and make it through safely. We trek all the way back through the cave, into Timbermist, and...

Welcome back, Branson.
Hello again, Darm.



Gee, thanks. Very helpful. Brandywine can't be interacted with, so it looks like we came all the way back here for nothing. Or did we?



Remember this pile of junk? There is something we need from it. Three things, in fact. The first two are the topaz and sapphire, which we can just pick up. The third is kind of locked up at the moment, though; we need a garnet, and we used the one we had on the birthstone puzzle.



Some random wandering in the forest takes care of that. I'm going to toss one of our flasks to make room for it. We can always get more flasks from Zanthia's hut, which also happens to be our next destination.



It's time to get cooking. We need to mix three kinds of potions and collect two batches of each. The order doesn't matter. Each potion consists of a vegetable and a gemstone. How exactly you'd figure this out, other than trial-and-error, is beyond me. At least the ingredients aren't randomized.



Tulip and topaz creates a yellow potion.



Orchid and garnet results in a red potion.



And finally, blueberry and sapphire gives you a blue potion. Exiting and entering Zanthia's hovel respawns the flask on the floor, and you can fill any number of flasks with potion once you've mixed it up, so we're up to the six we need in no time. All right, so Zanthia seemed to think the blue potion would be helpful to us, so let's give it a try.



*Hiccup*
*Hiccup*
*Hiccup*
... I think they're gone...
*Hiccup*

Okay, that one was a dud. Should we try the other potions?



Yum! It's warm and spicy!

That would be the salsa potion, then.



Yecch! Tastes like furniture polish!

Brandon being familiar with the taste of furniture polish does explain a thing or two about his mental capacities. All right, so none of the potions actually did anything. As it turns out, we're not done mixing.



Those conspicuous slots in the Crystals of Alchemy look like they might fit our new potion flasks.



That seemed to do something.

Cool. Putting the blue potion in one of the slots drained it and left the flask itself stuck in the slot. We put a red potion into the other slot, and...



... we've got ourselves a purple potion! The other potions can be mixed in the same manner, resulting in a green potion and an orange potion.



Let's give these ones a whirl. I've got a good feeling about the green potion.



Oh no! Not again! The poison... I can't breathe...





We don't even get a chance to use the healing spell to counteract it this time. The green potion just kills you.

We reload, and try the other potions.



That was fun!

Perhaps, but it's not very useful to us. All right, how about the orange one?



Tastes like alfalfa, but I like it!

Right, so these potions are useless too. The green one kills you, the purple one shrinks you, and the orange one doesn't seem to do anything at all. None of the new bottles fit in the Crystals of Alchemy either, so we can't mix them any further. But wait... alfalfa? That's a forage crop typically fed to horses. Where have we seen a horse?



They've got wings, but they're still practically horses. Worth a shot, right?

Let's try this. Here goes...



I feel kind of strange...





Oh! That was wild!

It certainly was! Whale is no match for pegasus, and so we've finally arrived at the island on which Castle Kyrandia is located. This place looks kind of grim, but hey, we made it! And we didn't even need to pick up that Chalice or anything! Next time, we'll discover we've made several crucial mistakes and that the game is now unwinnable. Doesn't that sound fun?