King’s Quest VII - The Saga of Mimi and Drew

Written by Michael

I haven’t had lasagna since last Christmas.  It’s been too long.

Remember when we first started this game, and mother and daughter were separated?  Rosella was stolen away by a hand that looks like it belongs to a cartoon dog named Spike.

So we head off to chapter 2.  Something about trolls.

Troll!  Troll in the dungeon!

That looks like a dance move by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.

Keep your mind out of the gutter, I’ll have none of your royal prerogative!

It turns out that Rosella has somehow been transported to the land of the trolls, and she herself has become one as she passed through that portal.  But king, I saw a beautiful castle on the way here, is that where we are?  No, that’s a dull place, you’ll like it here better...

KQ6 theme music seems appropriate.

In preparation for our marriage to King Otar (um, what!?) we are deposited into our room.  Rosella becomes rather, ahem, witchy, or at least another word that rhymes with that, and her voice goes full New York City.  Not quite Fran Drescher, but certainly heading in that direction.

Actually, another female voice later this session made me think that also.  Surprising.

Around the room are some true footstools, a mirror, and a portrait of the king.  Looking in the mirror or at the bed brings on an “eww”, but there’s nothing to do in this room for now.

Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling.  Stalagmites MIGHT grow up taller.

Outside the room, I enter a great antechamber with passages in many directions, as well as the king’s throne.  I meet another New York native, a woman named Matilda, who was the king’s nursemaid back in the day and is still here because, well, I don’t think they ever give a reason. 

She tells us that King Otar hasn’t been himself lately, and a strange woman is about.  Once she realizes we are not here to steal away the kingdom, she agrees to help us.  She gives us a shopping list for recipe ingredients, with the promise that when we are free, we will visit the kingdom above the troll one, named Oooga-Booga, and find out why they’re coming at the trolls.

We agree, and are given the list:  some baked beetles, a crystal dragon scale, water of emerald, a silver spoon, and a gold bowl.

Just then, a spoiled brat kid comes out into the room, complaining about her toy rat (“It’s not what I wanted!  I wanted a battle axe!”)  Matilda tells her it’s time for lunch, so she drops the toy rat and heads off to a doorway I later find is the kitchen.

Rat not nailed down?  Good, mine now.  Also in the room is a battle shield on the wall.  I’ve gotten into examining all the inventory items immediately, using the rotating view, and as such I discovered that the spike detaches from the shield.

Not quite the mud baths from LSL6, not even close.

Heading to the northwest, I come upon a room with a mudbath of sorts, with a couple of old men.  They aren’t very helpful.  But as I talk out of the room, a strange, evil Queen-looking person walks past me, into that same room, so I decide to go back and check it out.

She’s got them so scared, one of them is even hiding under the mud.  She calls him a revolting beast, and then her little yip-yip god echoes something similar.  When she leaves, I talk to the men again, who tell me the woman is named Malicia, but no one really knows who she is otherwise.  The theory is that she’s an evil fairy who was kicked out of a better land, but all they know for sure is that she never really visited until lately, and now she doesn’t leave.

Just below the entrance to the mud baths is another opening, leading to a workshop of sorts.  There’s a metal worker and a jeweler here.  The left-most worker is uncharacteristically polite for a troll, even endearing.  He is Poppy Goldsworth, master jeweler.  He doesn’t care much for trolls, and would love to leave this land to be around nicer people.  To do that, he would need money, but all he has to his name is an old chipped hammer and chisel.

Seems like a puzzle to me.

The burly-looking gentleman to the right talks like a charming Italian mafioso from the movies, trying to make all the moves on Rosella.  She uses her engagement to get him to control himself.  There's items around him, but no way to take them yet.

Between both men is a doorway, which ends up leading down further into the cave.  There’s an unlit lantern here, which I take. 

In middle school, one of my classmates performed Les Poissons for the talent show.

From here, I continue onwards, heading into the kitchen, where the brat previously went. I witness the chef making what may be a delicacy for a troll king, but the dash of mouse noses, a sprinkling of spider legs, and other questionable ingredients makes me lose my appetite.  It might be the fly he catches and then deposits in as an extra spice that pushed me over the edge.

The readers and reviewers of TAG are a worldly mix, with many conflicting and complimentary cultural approaches to food.  But I think it’s safe to say that none of us have tried this recipe, at least not in the authentic troll preparation.

But the recipe isn’t done.  All it needs, says the cook as we hide behind the pillar, is either a juicy bat or a tender rat.

Well, gee, I expect we’ll be recreating a scene from Monkey Island 2, perhaps.

The second time we say eww (our favorite word so far this chapter), the cook chases us out while threateningly waving a wooden spoon.

Next time I try going in, I hide behind the pillar, and try to click the rat on him.  Instead, Rosella winds the gears and sends it running around the room, with the same zooming sound used to great effect in Day of the Tentacle.  He spots the juicy, tender rat and gives chase, landing with a crash in the storage room off to the side.  He ends up getting locked in the storage room, of course, but the door cracks open and the rat escapes back to me.  Guess we’ll be needing him again.

Now, we are free to explore the room.  On a shelf is a bowl, which I take and examine, and rotating it I see the marking “14K GOLD” on the underside, so this is definitely a recipe ingredient.  From the vending machine/Keurig-type thing  next to the dishes, I extract some baked beetles.

Leaving the kitchen, I head to a doorway just below.  There’s some kind of swing here, marked “DANGER”, and a broken cart.  I can’t use either, so try to continue east.  But, it’s apparently a troll bridge.

Not the first one in a King’s Quest game, mind you.

I don’t know how to pass him yet; no Billy goats at my disposal, so I will come back here later.

I revisit the spa, as I look around.  The ladies, gossiping to each other, talk about how they get better sleep by putting wet sulphur into the fireplace, it gives them the best night’s sleep that’s tough to be woken from.  Heck, her husband had to put a flower under her nose to wake her!  A nasty-smelling flower.  Probably a rose or tulip, from the sound of it.  I try to talk to them about Malicia, but they just want to talk about my upcoming wedding and how lucky I am, this cute bride-to-be.

But then I realize: I do have a golden bowl, and I remember seeing some green water in the room with the lantern... so does that make it emerald water?  I fill the bowl with water.  I then decide to bring the three ingredients I have to Matilda.

Also, in that lower cave where I get the water, I notice something yellow on the wall.  Rosella complained the room smells like rotten eggs, so could it be sulphur?

Nice.  They updated my profile picture.

But how to get it?  I tried to leapfrog the spots close to the wall, and the wind from the cavern sends me plummeting to my death.  So I try going through the middle of the chasm, and have luck.  I get the sulfur.

The ladies said something about a fireplace?  Well, just outside this door, there’s a fire roaring next to a metalworker who won’t let me touch his stuff.  Also, I forgot to mention before, one of his things is a box that has a cast for a silver spoon!

So I throw some sulphur into the fire (I do hope it was wet!) and it knocks the guy right out.  I can then try to take the box, but I cannot, because it’s hot from the molten silver put in it.  But I can grab tongs off the back wall, grab the box, and then dip it into the bucket of water to cool it.  For all my troubles, I get a spoon.  Also, I find I can light my lantern from the fire.  Other than the bellows I just played with, nothing else at his workstation seems worthwhile.

That just leaves one ingredient, but I haven’t a clue yet where it will come from.  A crystal dragon scale.

But re-examining the various rooms gives me an idea.  Looking at the closeup of the wagon, I wonder if I can use a shield as a wheel?  I can, and then insert the spike back into its place as a lug nut of sorts.  I’m not sure to what end this will do, but I repair the cart anyways.  A new option appears on the screen: RIDE.  This causes me to run down the troll on the bridge, knocking him off into the “river” below.

Much, much more effective than a billy goat.

This screen is just filler.

I walk through a twisty screen of crystals, but nothing can be interacted with.

Terry Pratchett: “I thought dwarves loved gold?”  “They just say that to get it into bed.”

At the end of the little maze is a crystal dragon wrapped around a pile of gems.  The dragon is depressed, and says she has lost her spark.

Well, it’s a good thing I look at all my inventory items. One of them is a “lantern with spark”.  I give that to the dragon, she extracts the spark, and has a new lease on life.  She promises me a scale when she gets back, but gives me a gem as a reward now.  Rosella remarks that it’s so valuable, she could buy an entire kingdom with it.

This is a Sierra game, so the first thing I try is leaving the screen and immediately returning.  Alas, the dragon is still gone.  But I have a gem.  Two thoughts: I have a valuable gem, I could use it to buy a cheap hammer and chisel from a jeweler.

Also, it’s a jewel.  Maybe the jeweler is going to help me with it some other way.

Either way, back to the workshop.  Turns out it was option 1: jeweler leaves town with the gem, but gives me his hammer and chisel.

I have no clue what else to do at this point, so I return the dragon’s lair.  She’s back, but she’s sleeping again.

I try to talk to the dragon, but while I wake her out of a sleep, she’s not very receptive.  So it turns out, what I need to do is use the chisel to steal a scale from the dragon while she sleeps.  I can leave the screen, and go an additional screen away, and that’s good enough for her to fall back asleep again.  I know when that happens because I can hear the snoring from the “maze” screen.

Not quite as iridescent as the snake scales in Gabriel Knight.  That said, a lot of reptile scales in these games lately, huh?

I bring the scale and the spoon back to Matilda, who prepares the spell.  It has an unusual outcome.

Don’t lose your head in the game.

Oops.  She forgot to add a troll hair. She plucks one from herself, corrects the potion, and dumps it on us.

We’re back!

Rosella is now human again, just in time for King Otar to return.  Also, the silver spoon apparently melted and became a lump in our pocket now.  

Back to the king, who is pleased to see his bride-to-be, but then walks in Malicia, who is tired of us bothering the king, and locks us in our room.  “You be patient, girl.  I’ll be in there to take care of you before you know it. Bwahahaha.”

This stinks.

In our room, something is different.  There’s some kind of odor or smoke emanating from the portrait of the king on the wall.  But the picture is too high for us to interact with.  So, among the only usable items in the room are the three foot stools of varying size.  Stacking them in reverse height order makes it so we can be eye to eye with the portrait.

This wouldn’t be an adventure game without uncommon home features, like paintings installed in place of heat registers.

Turns out, the painting is covering up the entrance to a heat duct.  So, like the star of an action movie, in we crawl.

From the sphincter of the air duct, we overhear Malicia and Otar talking.  But we learn that Otar is working as a puppet for Malicia, who wants the volcano activated yesterday and all the colonies to be rubbed out.  Also, Otar is probably being controlled by some mind-control spell, because he can’t remember about himself.

After they finish, we head towards the exit, which deposits us onto the throne.  And I say “we” not just as the royal we, but because a small little creature is deposited along with us.  Just as soon as we pick up the dragon toad, we overhear Matilda and Malicia arguing, so we hide and listen.  Seems Matilda is also realizing that Otar isn’t himself lately, and when she asks Malicia about it, she just gets threats for worse in return.

Now back in her seat, we ask Matilda why she baits Malicia the way she does, and also what the creature we just picked up is.  It seems the dragon toad was a pet of King Otar’s back when he was little, and it’s magical.  It used to watch over him as he played, and help keep him out of trouble.  If he got into a serious mess, it would come tell Matilda.

In other words, a medieval nanny cam.

She reactivates the magic spell, and asks the toad about Otar.  It seems he’s imprisoned in Oooga-Booga.  Which means the imposter here is, well, an imposter.  The real Otar is the only one who knows how to deactivate the volcano, so we need to find him, ASAP, before the land of Eldritch (of which this village is a part of) is eaten by the molten lava.  She gives us a magic rope to use with the elevator to Oooga-Booga to find the real king.

Just then, our friend Malicia shows up again.  She complains about vile bats, rats, and vermin.

Again, an obvious hint for what will come soon.

I head towards the basket elevator, and she stops me.  But I send the wind-up rat at her, and she freaks out and leaves.

I then apply the magic rope to what I thought was a basket swing, and it binds some of the unsafe-looking mechanisms.  We hop in, and start our ascent.

And with that, the chapter ends.  

Session Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours