King’s Quest VII - Eh, What's Up, Doc?

Written by Michael

More links in this post than you can swing a stick at.

Well, last time we landed in the middle of a desert with the Queen of Daventry, a character we’ve never played before.  In previous games, we’ve controlled King Graham (3 times), his son Alexander (twice), and his daughter Rosella (just once).  No expectations yet about how she will behave.  Will she be as stuffy as Alexander was in the previous game?  Or as easy-going as undercover peasant girl Rosella was in the fourth installment?  Let’s find out.

So, we’ve just been nearly run over by the Daventry equivalent of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, or whatever world we’re in right now.  We’re deposited on a desert screen, and as I walk to the east, my dress gets caught on a cactus, ripping off a swatch.  I’ll pick that up, and I already have a comb in my inventory.  If I try to use the comb on myself, I break down into tears, because it belongs to Rosella (“My daughter!”) who got separated from us during the trip to this world.  

I feel we’re at a junction in this game already.

I can look at items -- I select them from the inventory, and then click them on the picture of an eye next to the inventory in the interface.  It shows us a view of the item, and by clicking on it and moving the mouse, we can rotate the items to see 360° around it.  That will become important to do once during this chapter.

Turquoise brings out the red in your eyes.

To the west, we come upon a pool of sparkling water watched over by some kind of a stone god statue.  The statue is reminiscent of a Buddhist monk holding a begging bowl, a common theme in their statuary.

When this game came out, teenage me was probably begging the gods to let me see a girl undressed.  Money (alms) would have been a secondary goal.

At first glance, there’s a very obvious stick behind the pool that needs taking, and looking at the sparkling at the base of the pool reveals it to be a cluster of salt crystals, which I will also take.

This is likely also a subtle hint that the water is salty, but later on, when I find (spoiler) a vessel, I can drink some water and Valanice will spit it out for that reason, also cluing me onto that fact.

Clicking on the pool makes me look into it.

Guybrush, I need your help.  For no more than 10 minutes.

At the bottom of the water, with steps leading down, is another statue, which looks to me some combination of Incan slave and Malcolm the jester (that game will be coming to the blog early next year, I think).  He’s holding another bowl, with a couple of items visible inside of it.  However, we likely won’t be able to access this area unless the Queen learns how to breathe underwater or the water drains or something.

At the base of the statue is an inscription:

The character pictured multiple times in this pictogram will be featured in the upcoming 1995 game titled Discworld.

From the left, let’s see:

• I first thought this was a castle, but instead it’s a basin of “deadly” water

• Into the beggar’s bowl needs to go both tears and the deadly water

• And something that looks like an ear of corn

• And then eat or drink the contents of the bowl

At least, that’s what I think at this point.  I’ll end up being pretty close.  I have the tear, I think, and I know where the deadly water is, but no way to transport it to the bowl.  Also, corn?

If someone sells you a necklace with that many stones missing, I should expect a nice discount.

On the neck of the statue are three necklaces, which can be twisted (or at least, the vibrant blue beads can be shifted).  I’m sure this will be a puzzle somehow.

The head can also be adjusted, from a hairless creature to one with apparent bolts shooting from the head, but probably just an artistic rendition of hair.

Nothing else can be interacted with here, so I’ll continue west.

One of the Monochrome Boys without the suit of armor

Queen V comes across a rather drab-colored man, or, more accurately, a man drained of color.  If you don’t interact with him right away, he’ll leave the screen, but walking a few screens will help us find him again.

Talking to him, the Queen first reacts to his sight as one might to Medusa, but he doesn’t harm us that way.  Where are we?  “You are far away from life.  And love.  And hope.”

I feel better already.

He then basically says that we are surrounded by dust, which we shall soon become.  This isn’t news, because I learned that from a central-US state back in the 70s.  He lost his life in the desert here, and he tells us to get out of here through a portal in the mountain, for our own sakes.  “Legends say it can be opened, but I know not how.”  We press him for more, and he tells us about how thirsty he is.  “This thirst drives me mad, and I know not what it will make me do.”

Well, I know what this will make ME do.  I’ll need to turn some “death” water into fresh to give this traveler.

My, what a big mouth you have.

I make my way out of the desert, and find the screen to the north of the pool.  There’s a door of some kind in the side of a mountain cave, looking very much like it belongs in Rubacava, so I’m reasonably sure this is the portal the traveller was alluding to.  There’s a cactus plant with a magenta item growing from it.  When I try to take it, I get stuck by the plant, but fortunately, I speak softly and carry a big stick, so the prickly pear is now mine.

Living it up as we fail to go down?

Looking at the indicator above the door, which reminds me of the indicator light on an elevator, it appears something is missing.  We’ll be needing to find an arrow somewhere.

Jack and his magic beans can’t have all the fun.

Continuing east, some more came entrances, one blocked by a plant, to the right of which is some dripping water, so the soil below is very moist.  There’s a small little mouse-hole sized cavern both in the middle and at the right of the screen.  Above the right hole is another pictogram, which we can read clearly without a close-up, but we’ll get one anyway.

That third picture reminds me of gambling in Hand of Fate.

This one, in hindsight, is extremely obvious also, although it took me a little while to figure out the third step.

1. Do you have a pool full of deadly water?

2. Arrange all your necklace beads in the third position from the left, in a row.

3. Then, turn your offering bowl upside-down.

4. Presto!  An empty pool!

When I examined the statue the first time, I had not noticed that his wrist could turn, but I’ll get there much later.

Two gaming years ago, we did this with black cats.

Inside the cave, I find a stump with four clay jars, and nearby, a box.  I try to pick up one of the pots, and it crumbles at my touch.  This repeats twice more, and finally the fourth one I take stays solid.

I suspect no matter which ones I clicked on, it would have been the same outcome.

The box, labeled a basket, is a box with a lid.  When looking at the inventory close-up of the box, I can click on the lid, opening it.  After doing that, I can still spin the inventory picture of the box around... and inside is a corn kernel.  (Truthfully, I didn’t notice this until a little later.)

Perhaps there’s a tonic that could help with his problem.

Outside the cave, to the east, are a couple of holes in the ground, and a small, half-size door for a shop labeled “Rare Curiosities”.  As I walk towards the door, out of one of the holes pops out the jackalope that nearly ran me over so long ago, at the start of the game.  He’s taunting me.

Inside the door is a near-sighted rat.  He speaks only in thymes, it seems.  “Who can that be?  I cannot see.”

He tells me that he cannot run the shop while the jackalope has his glasses, so it seems we have a mission.  Somehow, I’ll have to get those glasses from him.  For now, he just sticks out his tongue.

Seriously, I don’t even like tea, but suddenly I want a cup.

To the south is the entrance to something that looks like a pyramid or temple or something, with a couple of honey bears (or are they Bearistas?) flanking the entrance.  Shall we go in?

Unwanted advances from a predator.

On a pedestal is some sort of statue, but if I try to approach it, some giant scorpion comes out from a back room and corners me.  After some untimely impalings of my fresh corpse on its talons, I’m treated to a game over screen.  But remember, in this game, it’s not cause to restore the game.

But my label says I’m best by December!

I’m simply asked if I want to try again, and saying yes backtracks me to the last safe spot I was in.  In this case, it was outside the temple.  So, that means I’ll need to find a way to evade the scorpion.

Well, at this point is when I started to take a fresh look at all my inventory items, and this is when I noticed that corn kernel.  There’s moist, fertile soil waiting for a seed by the cave!  Let’s plant the corn there.

I’d make some kind of joke, but it would end up being too corny.

Magically, the plant grows taller than the Queen right before our eyes, so I pick an ear of corn.  

Now I have a plan for one of the puzzles.  I head over to the pool, dip the clay pot into the salt water, and pour it into the beggar’s bowl.  I use the comb on the bowl, because using the comb causes Valanice to cry.  I then place the ear of corn in the open hand of the statue.

Voilà!  The bowl is now filled with fresh water, which I fill my clay pot with.

In this world, nomad ghosts can drink water?  I thought they only played with baby rattles.

I give the parched ghost some fresh water, which he greatly appreciates.  In thanks, he brings me to his remains, now just some sun-parched bones.  

I can only picture this with a chef’s apron.  Ron Gilbert has spoiled me for life.

To help my quest, he offers me what is there.  There were two items there, but I didn’t realize at the time the first item I click was the only one I would get. I obtained a rope from the gentleman, not having clicked on the bottle of bug killer.  I’ve since learned that alternate solutions exist, but I did not replay to find them.

And the winner is...

The rope is clickable on the two cacti on the starting screen, and after I tie it, the jackalope races through and does a spin around the rope, eventually falling to the ground and losing the stolen glasses.  I reclaim them.  There’s also a large tuft of jackalope fur stuck to the cactus, which I also take.

I head north, intending to return the glasses to the rat, and notice something awry as I pass the existing plant near the corn husk.  A vine growing some sort of gourd has a fruit that has sprouted, and a seed exposed.  I take that.

For the rat of brown, I’ll kneel down.

The bespectacled rat is now willing to do business, and his business is in trade.  Well, trades.  If I offer him an item, he offers me something rather useless that rhymes with it.  For the basket, for example, he offers a casket.  For my stick?  A fat, juicy deer tick.  For the prickly pear fruit?  A chewed-on boot.

But I can get something useful.  “What a lovely, wrinkled seed.  For that, I’ll offer this blue bead.”

I make the trade, confident that either the game won’t let me do something stupid, or I can trade it back.  The bead is a rich turquoise, which will be important soon.

I look through my inventory items, trying to solve one of my other puzzles, when I decide to try something that would definitely work in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  I tie the torn sheet of petticoat to the stick, making it into a flag.  I think I’ll need to treat the scorpion like a rodeo bull!

His feet go click-click-click on the stone floor.

Off to the temple I go, and inside I use the flag on the bug, who tries to corner me and as I wave the flag, he tries to attack it.  His tail impales the flag, which was in front of a column, so his tail is stuck in that as well.  He’s at least temporarily stuck, so I run over to the display to check it out.

Those look like tasty candies, truth be told.

First off, there’s a water drop panel on the front that is clickable.  Turns out it was upside down, and correcting it reveals some hidden gems.  There’s a red, amber, and blue one.  If you place them in the hands of the man, they reflect light, bending its path and changing the hue.  There’s only two hands, but three gems.  Where to put the last one, and which one goes where?

If one of the pictograms told me, I didn’t notice.  But I find I can place one in the thing that looks like either a volcano or a sun  just past the man, so the correct solution appears to place the sun-colored one there and the other two in the hands, creating a green light.  It causes the panel below the light beam to open, and reveal a treasure, a turquoise-colored arrow.  I know what to do with that!

I haven’t pressed a down arrow in a Sierra game since the parser disappeared.

Alas, it’s too small.  Is there a slice broken off somewhere?  I decide to deal with the pool, hoping one of the items at the bottom will be tradable to the rat or something.

No diving into the deep end of this pool.

Back to the instructions, I arrange the statue’s necklace, twist his arm... and nothing.  I also need to rearrange his head, too, it seems.

These are NOT KQ1-4 stairs, don’t despair.

When the water drains, I can climb the steps down to the base of the pool.  In the dish of the statue, are two items in what Valnice describes as an offering bowl.  

I was hoping for some tasty morsels, but still...

One of them seems an obvious choice.  It will compliment my arrow quite nicely.

When I take it, however, water rushes into the chamber, drowning me in an instant.  As the game over screen shows, the Queen comments, “Oh, dear.  I suppose you can’t just take things out of an offering bowl.”

That means I need to make a trade, I suppose.  I’m brought back to just before I stole the item, and looking at my inventory, I’m thinking a turquoise bead would be perfect to trade when the bowl only has like-colored items in it.  Success!

Sierra does Art Deco well.

Back to the Aztec elevator, I try to put the pieces in separately, but the game tells me I need to combine them first.  Doing that does the charm, and the door opens.

Am I about to become an entree for this creature?

Inside the cave, a rodent of an unusual size, and a cliffhanger.

Session Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes