Note: the following novel was adapted from a fan game script I
wrote twelve months ago. The fan game never got produced, but at
least the script got finished. You can read it at
http://lucasfic.org/open.txt
The Spectre of Monkey Island has nothing to do with LucasArts
and was written strictly for entertainment. Do NOT contact
LucasArts about it. You'll only get us both in trouble.
===
PROLOGUE
===
"Om mani padre hum," chanted the monk.
He sat alone, crosslegged, on the wooden floor of one of the
many rooms in the Monastery of Small Footsteps. Morning sunlight
came in from windows set high up on the walls. Apart from the
monk, there was not a single thing in the room.
"Om mani padre hum," continued the chant.
It was the only sound in the Monastery. Everyone else, as far as
the Monk knew, was off on a morning hike to one of the holier
areas of Cutlass Island. This was well, because what the Monk
was doing required immense reserves of concentration.
He was having an out-of-body experience.
It was one of a number of things devotees of the Way of Small
Footsteps were able to do, after many years of training. The
Monk was very good at it.
The years of training were necessary because there was always a
slight risk associated with out-of-body experiences. At the one
moment, you were in two places at once - sitting down somewhere
in an empty room, and also flying around outside, a free spirit.
If something might upset your concentration at a time like this,
you could end up schizophrenic.
But the Monk was a master. Right now, while he was sitting on
the bare wooden floor, he was also a zephyr of spirit energy,
wafting across the sea on gentle, warm breezes. He looked down
at the sea. There didn't seem to be anything down there, but the
Monk remained confident. Sooner or later he would come across an
animal, and then he could go a step further - he could do a
mind-share.
A mind-share was, simply, occupying the mind of another animal.
For as long as you wished, you could be a gazelle, a parrot,
even a worm. Mind-shares were ostensibly illegal at the
Monastery of Small Footsteps. In practice everybody did it
sooner or later, usually somewhere private for politeness' sake.
And if out-of-body experiences required super concentration,
mind-shares required *ultra* concentration. Many a brother had
died insane, thinking they were goats or crows.
As focused as he was, the Monk couldn't help but hear some
noises nearby. Someone else was in the Monastery. Someone who,
whenever they moved, couldn't help but make as much noise as
possible.
The door opened, and in walked the acolyte.
There's one like him in every group. An eager, not so bright
student who always has about a hundred ideas, each of which is
guaranteed to fail. No doubt he'd been assigned some sort of
punishment, but had gotten bored and was wandering about looking
for company. Now he could see the Monk, and he *beamed*.
"Mr Monk!" he said happily. "I've been looking for you!"
The Monk didn't look around. He continued chanting.
"Oh... you're channelling again, are you?" said the acolyte,
after a while. "Gee, it's a good thing everybody's away today.
Channelling's really hard when you get distracted, isn't it?
What with people TALKING over the CHANTING, making you LOSE YOUR
PLACE... yeah, DISTRACTING."
This did not seem to be having any effect on the Monk. The
acolyte waited for a response, then walked out into the hallway.
The Monk, despite his best efforts at concentration, heard the
distant echo of doors slamming open, cupboards being examined,
and equipment dumped on the floor.
The Monk risked a quick swivel of one eyeball. He saw the open
hallway, and a huge mass of *stuff* was walking toward him.
The acolyte re-entered the room. Anywhere there was room on his
body, he was carrying an instrument. Steel drums and tambourines
and broken guitars and metal things that went 'bing' when you
hit them.
He started playing energetically. And while the acolyte didn't
have the slightest idea of melody or rhythm, he could still
raise enough noise to puncture eardrums at twenty paces. If
there were any birds on the roof, they would have flown away at
the first note.
The Monk didn't even blink.
The acolyte stopped playing. "Hello?" he said. "Mr. Monk?
HELLLOOOO??"
He tried a few more seconds of noise. In an amazing display of
self-control, not a muscle moved on the Monk's face.
The acolyte stopped. "You're no fun," he said sourly, and left
in a huff.
The Monk silently exhaled, in a thousandth-sigh. He'd nearly
lost himself out there over the sea, but now the acolyte was
gone he was back in control.
And there was something down there, bobbing up and down on the
water. The Monk zoomed in closer. It looked like a block of ice,
and what was a block of ice doing in the Caribbean?
As he came close, the Monk saw that it wasn't *just* a block of
ice. There was a body in there.
The Monk pulled up, his spirit less than twenty feet from the
iceberg. He edged forward, slowly. What an ugly thing! It looked
like the body of an old, fat pirate. Judging by the eternal
sneer on its frozen face, he must have died swearing revenge.
The Monk came closer. Mind-shares with corpses were seldom
interesting, but maybe he could find out how this pirate had
died...
Ten feet out, he sensed something. The corpse remained still,
but something inside had woken up. Something driven and
malevolent. Intelligent.
The Monk tried to back away, but suddenly he was seized and
pulled forward by a mighty, grasping force. He couldn't pull
out. Somewhere, far way, his body was sitting crosslegged on a
wooden floor, but he couldn't even open his eyes. The corpse was
growing larger, and the Monk was dragged through the ice, passed
through the skin, and into the rotting brain of the pirate.
Here was the presence, the malevolent intelligence. It turned on
him, and in a horrible, indescribable way, began to feed.
Ravenous as it was, it took less than a second to consume the
Monk's spirit. The meal finished, it rose into the air. The path
the Monk's spirit had taken was still there in front of him,
thin but visible.
He returned...
Inside the Monastery, the Monk's eyes burst open, revealing
green discoloured irises. A huge, dirty black beard sprouted on
his clean-shaven face. His skin went the mottled grey of the
living undead. His mouth opened.
"Arrrr!" roared LeChuck.
===
THE SPECTRE OF MONKEY ISLAND
===
Several days later...
It was another lazy summer day on Booty Island. Outside the
Governor's Mansion, Guybrush and Elaine were lying down on
deckchairs, in the early afternoon sunshine. Elaine was reading
a novel.
Guybrush opened the root beer in his hand and took a swig.
"Aaah," he said contentedly, as the blessed fluid swam down his
throat. "That really hit the spot." He turned to Elaine. "Do you
want some?"
"No," said Elaine, not looking up from her novel.
"You sure? This is great stuff."
Elaine didn't say anything. Guybrush could just make out the
cover of the book from this distance. Some huge muscular pirate
whose shirt buttons weren't working held close a simpering,
well-endowed woman with doting eyes. They were standing on the
deck of a pirate ship, and the wind seemed to be doing stuff to
their hair.
"Suit yourself," said Guybrush. He had another swill, and looked
around. In the distance they could hear Filbert toiling away,
working the back forty. Birds twittered in the jungle foliage.
Several seconds passed.
Elaine sighed, and shut the novel. "Guybrush..." she began.
Guybrush turned to her. "What?"
Elaine stared right at him. "When are you going to get off your
backside and do some work?"
The sudden attack startled Guybrush. "What?" he blurted. "What
are you talking about?"
"It's been months of laziness," continued Elaine, in a
you're-not-really-worth-getting-angry-over voice. "You're
slumming off my riches. I'm starting to wonder, Guybrush, if
you're really a pirate."
"I am!" protested Guybrush.
"In fact," continued Elaine relentlessly, "I don't think you
ever were a pirate."
"I was so! You just-"
Guybrush broke off, because Elaine wasn't looking at him
anymore. She was looking up into the sky. Guybrush followed her
gaze.
Pieces of paper were falling from the sky. Tiny scraps, the size
of a child's palm, fluttered onto the ground around them.
Guybrush stood up and picked up one of the pieces of paper.
There was writing on it. Guybrush read it.
He breathed in sharply. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "It says LeChuck
has become Governor of Cutlass Island! I've got to go and stop
him!"
"Good luck," said Elaine sceptically.
Guybrush looked at her. "You don't think I can do it?" he asked.
"Guybrush, you have trouble killing spiders. A pirate who tucks
his shirt into his underpants is not the kind of pirate I'd
trust with a task like this."
"That's not true!"
"Face it. You'll be crawling back here in twenty four hours
begging for help and a wad of cash."
Guybrush drew himself together. With injured dignity, he said,
"I don't think so. In fact, I think I'll just get rid of LeChuck
once and for all. And then I want an apology."
Without another word he stalked off, root beer in hand.
Elaine picked up the novel. "Touchy."
===
PART 1
===
Guybrush was fuming as he crossed the spit connecting the
Mansion to the mainland. He was steaming as he walked the jungle
paths to Ville de la Booty, and by the time he got to the
township he was merely simmering. And even that evaporated when
he realised he'd forgotten his wallet.
Guybrush ground his teeth. Of all the stupid damn things he
could have gone and done, forgetting his wallet was up near the
top of the list. With no money he couldn't charter a ship, and
without a ship he couldn't get to Cutlass Island. Guybrush
kicked a stone on the ground, annoyed.
Well, that settled that. He'd just have to turn back and-
Guybrush stopped in mid-turn. He couldn't go back now - it would
be an admission of defeat. Crawling back within twenty-four
hours, begging for help and a wad of cash.
Elaine's words still rankled with him. Guybrush's resolve
hardened. He wasn't going back until LeChuck was six feet under.
That'd show her, all right!
Satisfied now he'd made up his mind, Guybrush looked around.
Ville de la Booty was having that rarest of events - a quiet
day. All the shops were shut, except for the antique place.
There was just the one ship docked at the pier. And nobody in
sight, except for a small kid sitting on the ground near the
antique shop, listlessly playing with some fireworks.
Guybrush set out for the ship. Maybe the captain might be an
understanding, credit-giving kind of guy.
===
It was a nice ship, thought Guybrush as he boarded the deck.
Smallish, but clean, and sturdy-looking.
The ship captain stood on the deck, looking at him. Unlike most
pirates, there wasn't a cloud of tiny insects and revolting
smells revolving around him. He had a beard, but it was neatly
kept and presentable in polite company. The clothes were all
pressed and no stains were visible. In short, not your average
pirate captain.
"Ahoy there, young man," said the captain as Guybrush
approached. "What can I do for you?"
"I need someone to take me to Cutlass Island," said Guybrush.
"Cutlass Island, eh?" mused the ship captain. "Hmmm... that's a
long way away." He looked at Guybrush. "Cutlass is a pretty
dangerous island, lad. Are you sure you're up to it?"
Normally this sort of comment wouldn't have worried Guybrush,
but the argument with Elaine had put him on edge somewhat. "Yes,
I'm sure!" he said hotly.
"Okay..." said the ship captain, slowly. "Well, it's going to
cost you."
This was what Guybrush had been dreading. For the benefit of the
ship captain, he reached into his pocket, saying, "That's all
right. I've got money." The hand searching the pocket stopped,
and Guybrush looked stricken. "Oh, no! I've forgotten my wallet!"
"You better go get it then, hadn't you?" advised the ship
captain.
Guybrush looked twice as stricken. "I... can't. Not yet."
"Well then, you ain't got a ship," said the ship captain firmly.
"A thousand pieces of eight, or no journey."
"Don't you offer credit?" said Guybrush despairingly.
The ship captain shook his head. "A few years ago I used to.
Then I heard about a shopkeeper on Melee Island. Seems he gave
away five thousand gold pieces in credit and didn't see a cent
back. Some annoying wannabe pirate with a ponytail tricked him
out of the money. Nearly bankrupted the guy. I guess you could
say it sort of scared me off."
It was time to leave. "Well, thanks anyway," said Guybrush,
wasting no time in heading down the ramp to the pier.
===
On the ground, he thought about his options. Returning to the
Mansion was impossible. He needed money to get off Booty Island,
and the only place nearby that might be able to help was the
Antique store.
Guybrush wandered over and opened the door. As always, the
interior of Booty Island's Antique store was dim, smoky and
packed full of merchandise. Even before Guybrush had taken a
step inside he could see the pirate tools hanging from the
walls, the rare and probably useless merchandise perched on thin
shelves.
The antique guy was behind the counter, in perhaps the only
brightly lit spot in the whole store. He looked inscrutably at
Guybrush. "Hello there," he said. "How can I help you?"
Hesitantly, Guybrush said, "Er... I need some money."
"What do I look like, a bank?"
"Don't you buy old antiques?" asked Guybrush.
"Yeah, I do," said the antique guy. "What have you got?"
Even before he began rummaging through his pockets, Guybrush
knew the search was fruitless. He only had one thing - a
half-empty bottle of root beer. Still, this guy had been stupid
enough to buy a Spitmaster plaque from him last time. Maybe he
could pull a fast one again.
Guybrush pulled the bottle out of his pants, as if handling a
very cultured and fragile wine. "Would you be interested in this
rare root beer?" he said.
"No," said the antique guy. Seeing Guybrush's crestfallen face,
he added, "Actually there is something I might give you some
money for. There's an old treasure up in the northern corner of
the island that nobody has managed to dig up. It'd probably be
worth a lot these days."
"All right!" said Guybrush. A lost treasure - this was right up
his street. "Where is this treasure?"
"The treasure of Bony Legs Pedro," said the antique guy. "I
don't know exactly, but I have managed to make a rough map.
Here." He gave Guybrush a small scrap of paper.
Guybrush scanned the walls. Hanging there on his right was
something that looked just perfect for a treasure hunt. He
pointed at a shovel. "I'd like to buy that shovel," said
Guybrush.
"That'll be thirty pieces of eight," said the antique guy.
Guybrush suddenly remembered his predicament. "Ummm... the thing
is..." he stalled.
"You don't have any money," finished the antique guy.
"Well... yes."
"Then you can't have the shovel," said the antique guy, calmly
but implacably.
===
Guybrush wandered outside, frustrated but thinking hard.
No, he didn't have any money. But it felt like there was a
solution to his problem, and the pieces were all around him. He
only had to arrange them properly.
Guybrush looked down, and saw the kid playing with the
fireworks. This was an oddly shaped piece, all right. Guybrush
had no idea how it might fit into the puzzle, but he might as
well talk to the kid anyway.
For a kid with fireworks, he was having a remarkable lack of
fun. "What's happening?" said Guybrush.
The kid looked up at him, disgusted. "Nothing. Can you believe
it? I've got this great pile of fireworks here and no matches!"
"Why don't you just buy some matches?" said Guybrush.
"Because the guy in the antique store is a ripoff merchant,
that's why," said the kid evenly.
There was a pause. The kid shrugged his shoulders in an
admission of defeat. "Oh, this is useless," he said. "I'm going
home." He stood up and looked at Guybrush. "You can take the
fireworks, if you want." Then he left.
Guybrush looked down again. A large pile of fireworks was there
in front of him. Think, Guybrush, think...
He had it. This was going to be good...
===
The antique guy's eagle eyes saw some rather strange behaviour
in the next few minutes.
Standing behind the counter, watching the door, he saw it open
and a short silhouette was outlined in the doorway. It was that
Guybrush person. The antique guy watched as Guybrush
nonchalantly wandered into the store. This was the word that
immediately occurred to the antique guy - there was an air of
very consciously studied nonchalance about Guybrush's walk.
This nonchalant, meandering walk brought Guybrush, as if quite
by accident, to the counter. He brought his hands up to the
bench and said, looking at the antique guy, "Don't you take
credit?"
"Oh, no," said the antique guy immediately. "Well, I used to
about three years ago, but then I heard about another antique
dealer on Melee Island. Seems he gave some young pirate five
thousand gold pieces of credit, and the guy went and defaulted
on him. The antique dealer just about went broke. Had to pay it
to Stan, poor guy, which just about killed him. So no, sorry, no
credit."
He'd been looking at Guybrush the whole time, and he was
satisfied nothing untoward had happened. But he was wrong. There
was a large display case on the bench, and in front of it a
small box full of matches. The display case blocked the antique
guy's view, and so Guybrush had helped himself to a handful.
Nonchalantly, he walked away. The antique guy saw him wander
into the darkest area of the store, and stop, as if entranced by
some item.
Nothing much happened in the next five seconds. Then there was a
rustle and some motion. Then Guybrush bent down and coughed
noisily. Underneath the coughing, the antique guy heard
something else.
Guybrush stood up, and in that same nonchalant style, walked
away, his interest suddenly taken by a rack of pirate tools on
one wall.
The antique guy was following his progress when there was a
sudden loud 'bang!' on his right. Involuntarily his head whipped
around. "What the..." The formerly dark corner of his store was
filled with light, as a collection of streamers and roman
candles burst merrily on the ground. The noise, and light, in
this confined space was deafening. The antique guy ducked.
The last firework went off. As the dust settled, the antique guy
rose and looked suspiciously at Guybrush. He was standing by the
pirate tool rack, both hands behind his back, and smiling
inanely.
The antique guy's eyebrows narrowed.
Guybrush started to back away, still smiling furiously.
The antique guy stared straight at him.
It was like a Mexican standoff.
With a jolt, Guybrush backed into the door, and found he had a
problem. How could you open a door with your hands full and
while you were facing the other way? The antique guy was staring
at him harder than ever and Guybrush knew he was waiting for a
slipup.
Guybrush kept smiling, backed up against the door, and tried to
manoeuvre some spare fingers around the doorknob. A very tense
five seconds passed, in which the only sound was the faint
scratching sound of Guybrush failing to open the door, and the
antique guy's low breathing.
Finally he found a grip. The door opened behind him. Guybrush
gratefully backed into the space, smiling one final time at the
antique guy. "Be seeing you," he said, then he was gone.
===
Outside, Guybrush ran until he was a safe distance away. Then he
dropped the axe and shovel on the ground and took some very deep
breaths.
Finally his heart dropped back into its normal rhythm. Out of
sight of peering locals, he spread the map on the ground and
studied it.
The north of Booty Island was mostly untamed jungle and
swampland. There was only one main feature, a huge tree upon
which was built a multi-room house, formerly the home of the
island cartographer. It afforded magnificent views of the whole
island. However, the X on this map was a point somewhat west of
the tree. Still, it would be a useful starting point to his
quest.
Lugging the tools, Guybrush started north. That sun was right
above, and it was the hottest part of the day. The clouds of
flies and gnats grew around his head, as he passed swampland and
marshland and stinking green bogs.
He was following a thin path, the only way in and out of Booty
Island's most desolate corner. And soon, straight above like a
beacon for weary travellers, he saw the thick, gnarled branches
of the Big Tree.
Guybrush stopped at the base of the Tree, beside a trunk nearly
thirty feet in diameter. High above, he saw the grey planks
bolted together, the floor of the cartographer's hut. At one
stage a staircase had led up around the trunk of the Tree to the
hut, but now most of the logs were gone. There was just a
series of holes drilled into the trunk, and two small planks in
the bottom two holes.
Guybrush wasn't worried - he'd done this before. Coming forward,
he stood on the second plank. Kneeling down, he pulled the first
plank out of the trunk, and slotted it into the next hole. Then
he stood on this plank, knelt down and pulled out the second
plank. And so on. Proceeding laboriously one step at a time,
Guybrush finally reached the main hut.
It was built right on the trunk, at a point where it split into
several thick, almost horizontal branches. Steps were cut into
one gradually sloping branch, leading to a smaller, higher hut.
A thin ladder led up to a tiny observation hut, built right at
the top of the tree.
It was the observation hut Guybrush wanted. He climbed
carefully, coming through the gently swaying leaves of the tree,
and emerged out the top, standing on a circular floor barely
three feet wide.
The view was incredible. Rolling forests and croaking wetlands
surrounded him, and beyond them was the sea, tiny thin noiseless
white waves crashing into the yellow sand.
Guybrush got out the map, and found Ville de la Booty. He turned
until he was looking at Booty Island's principal township. Let's
see... this X was on his right, at about one hundred and thirty
degrees. Not too far distant, either.
He turned, and looked down. The map seemed to be indicating a
tiny clearing in the jungle, a clearing that looked a bit to
Guybrush like muddy swampland. Guybrush could see nothing that
might indicate the presence of treasure.
It was time to come down. Guybrush did so, and ten minutes later
was back at the foot of the Tree. Picking up the axe and shovel,
he set out for his quarry.
It was cooler in the shade of the forest. Here there were no
paths to follow, but Guybrush remembered his direction - almost
directly toward the sun - and followed it slavishly, pushing
aside ferns, low-lying vines and other native fauna.
Soon the trees pulled aside, and he was in a circular clearing.
The circular clearing, brilliantly lit from above, was nothing
more than a deep, muddy bog. Guybrush knew, looking at that wet,
bubbling surface, that to take one step into the bog was to
forever vanish from the face of the earth. Frogs croaked and
crickets whistled.
It wasn't *all* bog, however. Right in the centre of the bog was
an upraised mound of what looked like normal soil. It had to be,
because it supported a wooden sign. Guybrush strained his eyes
to read the writing.
"'Congratulations!'" he read. "'You've found the long lost
treasure of Booty Island. What do you want, a medal? Start
digging.'"
So he'd found it after all. Now he just had to get it.
Guybrush looked around, momentarily indecisive, then picked up
the axe. He chose a slender, weak-looking tree at the edge of
the bog and began pounding at the trunk.
The first blow shook every leaf in the tree, causing a massive
exodus of birds. Guybrush kept pounding. From the way the whole
tree shook at his blows, it wasn't very strong.
The seventh stroke caused the trunk to crack. The tree began to
keel over. With a gradual tearing sound, the crack deepened. The
keel became more pronounced. Finally, like an old man giving up
the ghost, the tree crashed to earth.
Guybrush dropped the axe. He picked up the trunk, and with a
loud series of heaves, began pulling it around onto the bog.
Pushing and pulling with all his might, Guybrush was able to
line up the trunk with the sign in the middle. The gap was
bridged.
Shovel in hand, a freely sweating Guybrush crossed the gap. The
tree trunk, though it was soft and weak, was also wide, and it
held under his weight. With relief he stepped onto the dry soil
in the middle.
The sign came out of the ground at the first pull - it was in
his way - and Guybrush began digging. It was absurdly easy work.
The dirt was so soft and damp it just about leapt out of the
ground as he dug.
Two feet down the shovel struck wood. Guybrush knelt down and
brushed away soil. He could feel the edges of a wooden chest,
reinforced with brass - a fairly small chest, at that. Guybrush
was able to grasp its edges and lever it out of the ground.
The antique guy might be interested in this.
===
The antique guy, standing behind the counter, glared
suspiciously at Guybrush as he entered. The glare melted away
instantly, however, when Guybrush dropped a small dirty chest on
the counter.
"Wow!" enthused the antique guy. "The treasure of Bony Legs
Pedro! You found it!" And beneath the enthusiasm, he was
thinking: I can shortchange this guy and make up for the stuff
he undoubtedly stole.
As if on cue, Guybrush asked, "How much is it worth?"
"How much?" The antique guy crossed his eyes, as if in deep
thought, as indeed he was - how much could he fleece off this
guy? "I'll give you a thousand pieces of eight," he said.
That was exactly enough to pay the ship captain. "Done," said
Guybrush with a smile.
The antique guy beamed back. He handed over the money - a
thousand gold pieces in a single hessian sack. "Nice working
with you," he said. "Come back anytime."
Guybrush left.
The antique guy restrained an urge to shout. What a killing!
===
In high spirits, Guybrush boarded the ship.
The ship captain was still about, standing on deck and looking
at him as if he didn't expect very much. Guybrush changed that
by handing over the money. He loved the way that made people's
expressions change.
Not only the captain's expression, but his whole personality
changed. "All right, mon!" he said, breaking into Jamaican.
"Consider my ship chartered!"
"That was Monkey Island II," said Guybrush impatiently.
The ship captain blinked. "Er... really? Sorry... don't know
what came over me then. Let's cast off!"
===
PART 2: ISLAND
===
It was late evening in the Cutlass Island monastery. Torchlight
illuminated the many passages and featureless wooden hallways,
which were all bereft of people. No monks or devout students
walked the passages. The rooms were silent. The whole place was
bathed in an eerie stillness.
It all depressed the young acolyte, who walked down the passages
seeing no-one, hearing no-one. The acolyte was something of a
changed man. He used to walk around in brown robes and shaven
head, a featureless young student. Now he wore horrible green
trousers, large black false eyebrows, and walked with a hunch
bringing at least half a foot off his height.
It was all that Monk's fault, reflected the acolyte glumly.
Everything had gone wrong since that day when everybody had gone
off and left him and the Monk. When the acolyte had gone to see
the Monk a second time, he had a huge black beard and eyes that
*glared* with a fierce green light. More strangely, he insisted
on being called LeChuck. And, strangest of all, he insisted on
calling the *acolyte*, him, Largo.
The acolyte didn't know who this Largo character was, but wished
he'd at least had better taste in trousers.
But that had only been the beginning. The Monk had immediately
assumed total control over the Monastery. And things had only
gotten worse since then...
The acolyte came to an intersection of passages, and here was
the one person he didn't want to meet. The Monk.
If you'd known the Monk before his metamorphosis, you would not
recognise the figure now in front of the acolyte, not with his
huge black beard, filthy pirate hat, and shabby brown clothes
that looked like they'd been stolen from a hobo. You would not
have recognised the mannerisms - the threatening lean forward as
he harangued a subordinate, the spray of spittle that flew from
his lips as he talked, the spasmodic wave of the hands. And you
certainly wouldn't have recognised the voice - a cracked, bitter
thing barely kept in control.
"Arr!" the Monk now said. "How goes it?"
The acolyte swallowed. "Um, Mr.- er, I mean, LeChuck Sir,
everything is as you wanted it. The last pirate came in several
hours ago."
The Monk looked satisfied. "Excellent. Now I command every
pirate on this island. My army of ghost pirates shall sweep the
Caribbean like a hurricane. You will be well rewarded for this,
Largo."
The acolyte protested, "My name's not-"
"Shut up!"
===
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, Guybrush's ship had
just come into dock and the captain wasn't happy. Guybrush was
down on the pier, but the captain was staying on deck.
"...so I'll probably be two hours, three at the most," finished
Guybrush. "Will you wait for me?"
The captain looked around forebodingly. He'd been to Cutlass
Island many times before, but this time it felt different. There
was a chill in the night air, and a strange silence over the
town.
"I don't know," said the captain slowly. "I'm not sure I like
the look of this place." Staying or not, there was no way he was
getting off this ship, that was for sure.
"It's only two hours!" said Guybrush. "What could happen?"
"Er..." The ship captain sighed, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I guess you're right. I'll just-"
The ship captain stopped talking in mid-sentence. Tiny pieces of
paper were fluttering down from the sky, making noiseless
landings on the deck. The ship captain's brow furrowed as he
bent down and picked up one of the pieces.
"Now what's this?" he said.
Guybrush winced. The size and shape and, indeed, method of
arrival of these scraps of paper were familiar. If they said
what he thought they said...
The ship captain read, and all the doubt seemed to clear from
his face. "I see," he said neutrally.
"Wait a second-" pleaded Guybrush.
But he was too late. With two knife slashes the captain severed
the rope holding the ship. Helped by an offshore breeze, the
ship rapidly sailed away, soon lost from sight over the dark sea.
"Darn. He could have waited two hours!" said Guybrush, not
unreasonably. "Now I've got to find LeChuck all by myself. And I
don't even know where he is!"
He looked around hopefully. No LeChuck. Nobody, in fact, could
be seen, heard, or smelt. And this worried Guybrush. If he knew
anything about pirate towns, they were seething pits of
activity, places that never slept, the kinds of town you could
smell fifty miles away with a good breeze.
Guybrush began walking along the pier, toward the centre of
town. Small, apathetic waves slapped into the wooden poles.
There were no ships docked here, just a tiny rowboat on a
pulley. Guybrush hoped he wouldn't have to use it to get back
home.
The pier ended, and Guybrush found himself standing on the
cobblestones of the main street. It ran left and right along the
beach, and another street intersected it in the middle, forming
a T-intersection.
"Where is everybody?" said Guybrush. "It's like a ghost town
here."
If you were looking for a pirate on Cutlass, this would be the
place to start. On his left Guybrush saw the Bloody Leech pub, a
two-storey shanty of rotting tinderwood that looked very
popular. Next to it was the flash Swingin' Stan's Sword Store,
and on his right was Pirates 'R' Us clothing. All three
buildings were quiet, and unlit.
This isn't looking good, thought an uneasy Guybrush. What had
LeChuck done as Mayor?
As he was thinking these worrying thoughts, he heard a faint
noise. Guybrush stopped, and listened.
Yes, there it was, in the distance. It sounded like machinery.
Guybrush followed the noise. It led him through the deserted
streets of the town, back toward the shore. The noise got louder
but Guybrush still had no idea what it might be.
Presently he saw the source of the noise. On a lonely, deserted
pier, someone was standing beside a huge machine, which was
hurling small pieces of paper into the air. These pieces of
paper didn't drift back down, but kept on going, wafted upward
by warm currents of air, until they were lost from sight.
This solved the mystery of those pieces of paper falling from
the sky, Guybrush realised. And as he stepped onto the pier, he
finally recognised who the someone was. The giggling, pantless
someone.
"Herman Toothrot!" Guybrush said, startled.
Herman turned. His face lit up. "Ah! The dignitaries have
arrived!"
"What?" said Guybrush, confused.
"You look a bit scruffy, but a good suit and a shave should take
care of that," said Herman. "Come on, we haven't got much time.
The function starts at twelve!"
"What *are* you talking about, Herman?"
Now Herman looked puzzled. "Aren't you here to welcome and pay
homage to LeChuck on behalf of your Governor?"
"What? No! I'm here to kick his reincarnated skull into
oblivion!" said Guybrush forcefully.
Herman looked thoughtful. "You are? You should have booked."
"What are you doing here, Herman?" asked Guybrush.
"Me?" said Herman rhetorically. "I *live* here. Well, not*
here*. In a tumbledown shack two thousand miles across the
ocean, actually. But I'm sure a high-minded civic individual
like myself should have no trouble getting a green card."
This steady stream of nonsense from Herman was starting to give
Guybrush a headache. "No, what are you *doing* here?"
"Eh?"
"Why are you distributing all these notices with 'LECHUCK IS
GOVERNOR' on them?"
Herman looked relieved. "Oh that! Thought you were talking about
my sinus problem. Well, for some reason there aren't any ships
left to sail the Caribbean and announce LeChuck's Governorship.
So, being the high-minded civic individual I am, I've taken that
duty on board. Heh heh heh," he added, under his breath.
Well, thought Guybrush, at least I've found somebody. Possibly
the worst person in the world to get information from, but at
least I can try. "Where is everybody?" he asked.
"You know, it's strange," said Herman. "Just over the last few
days everybody's been heading up to the Monastery on the far
side of the island. I never go there myself... had a few
disagreements with the Head Monk, know what I mean?" Herman
winked at Guybrush. "He actually believes a non-Cartesian
entropy field implies an eternal period of creation!"
Guybrush, not having a clue what Herman was saying, said
nothing. "But everyone else seems to like him fine," continued
Herman. "Nobody's come back from there, at all. Too busy with
the non-stop carousing, I expect."
"Hmmm..." said Guybrush thoughtfully. This was an important clue.
"You know," said Herman hopefully, "if you're not too busy, I
might ask a favour."
"What?" said Guybrush.
"I'm running out of paper," said Herman. "Could you get some for
me?"
"What'll you give me in return?"
Herman made a sour face. "Hah. That'd be right. Couldn't
possibly put yourself out for the betterment of a fellow human
being, could you? Altruism's not in *our* dictionary, is it?
Well, if *that's* how it is, if you bring me some paper I'll
give you
a wooden spoon."
Guybrush wasn't sure if this was a joke or not. "A wooden spoon?"
"Yes. Quite good quality! Previous owner was a little old lady
who only took it out of the cupboard once a week to make
bread-and-butter pudding. Heh."
"Okay..." said Guybrush slowly, backing away from Herman. Herman
turned his attention back to the machine, and made faint
giggling sounds under his breath.
Eventually, after a long tense backwards walk, Guybrush reached
the end of the pier. He wiped his brow and immediately proceeded
to get out of Herman's sight. Soon he was lost in the centre of
town.
Guybrush was also lost in thought. He had to find a monastery.
Apart from the information that it was 'on the other side of the
island', Guybrush didn't have a clue where to begin. He'd never
been on Cutlass before, never even seen a map of the place. As
he walked through the dark, silent streets, Guybrush pondered
the problem. Find a mountain and look around? It was dark. Ask
directions? Who?
He didn't see the small figure until he was nearly on top of him.
Guybrush's meanderings had brought him through the main part of
the town, to the outer perimeter. The street he was currently in
kept on going, past the houses, turning itself into a dirt road
leading into the island. Though most of the town was behind him,
there was a large shop on his right, called the _Bazaar of the
Bizarre_. Standing in front of it, staring intently at the front
door, was Wally.
The shock of recognition caused Guybrush to speak before he
could think. "I must be dreaming. It's Wally!"
Wally turned around and saw Guybrush. His eyes, one hidden
behind a monocle, betrayed no discernible emotion. "Hello, Mr
Brush," he said.
On paper it sounded perfectly neutral. But there was a lot of
history behind that greeting, and now Guybrush remembered it. A
long and very convoluted string of events had led to Wally being
imprisoned in LeChuck's Carnival of the Damned. Guybrush had
promised to free him, but what with one thing and another, he
never really got around to it...
This was an awkward situation. Guybrush tried his best. "Great
to see you, pal!" he said heartily. "Glad to see you escaped
from that evil carnival after I..." he quickly pulled up from
that chain of thought, "...heh heh, yeah."
Wally said quietly, "Someday everybody will pay."
There was a tiny pause. Wally blinked, and then he seemed to be
back to his normal self - the cheerful kid cartographer who
never knew when he was in out of his depth.
"Um, so what are you doing here, Wally?" asked Guybrush.
"I'm picking up my life of crime where I left off," said Wally.
"It's a bit strange really. Yesterday I was back on Scabb, when
I got this sudden urge to visit Cutlass. There are rumours that
the Bazaar of the Bizarre holds the last remaining set of
Blackbeard's treasure maps."
"Really?" asked an interested Guybrush.
"But they're said to be really well guarded," continued Wally.
"So I wasn't going to do anything, but then some fliers landed
on my doorstep which said LeChuck was governor and people were
being turned into slavering zombies. I wanted a piece of the
action, so I chartered Dread and sailed over."
"So what's happening now?"
"At the moment," said Wally, "I'm breaking the door down."
Four seconds passed. Guybrush and Wally looked at each other.
"Um, pardon me for intruding," said Guybrush eventually, "but
how exactly are you going to break down this door?"
"Well, 'break' is probably a bit strong," admitted Wally, still
looking at Guybrush. "I'm wearing this door down. Through sheer
eye power. I reckon it's close to cracking."
"That doesn't sound like a very effective way," said Guybrush
critically. "And shouldn't you be staring *at* the door?"
Wally stared at Guybrush. His eyebrows narrowed, as his face
took on a look of total concentration.
Nothing was happening.
"Wilt, damn you!" exclaimed Wally. "Wilt!"
Guybrush tried to keep a look of polite befuddlement on his
face. He wanted to break out laughing, but this was just too
*sad*...
After a few more seconds, Wally gave up. He blinked at Guybrush
in surprise. "Wow! You're good. If you can fight as good as you
can stare, I might let you tag along."
"What an honour!" said Guybrush.
"You said it," said Wally. "Now, back to work." He looked back
at the door, effectively ending the conversation.
Guybrush looked around. There, on the roadside, was a sign:
'Cutlass Island Interior.'
Well, he might not know where he was going, but a road was a
good start.
Guybrush set out.
===
Though he didn't know anything about the interior of Cutlass
Island, Guybrush was finding quite a lot out now.
At first the road he took led upward through sloping, grazed
hills, to a high crest above the town. Looking around from this
peak, Guybrush hadn't been able to see a single house light. The
terrain before him sloped down into a dark jungle valley, before
rising again on the far side to pine forested hills.
The road led downward, into the jungle. And this was where it
started to get difficult. On the open plains, the light of the
full moon had served fairly well to illuminate his surroundings.
Under the jungle canopy, it was nearly pitch dark. About the
only light came from fireflies and phospherent insects that
swooped overhead and chirped in the distance. Low-lying vines,
invisible in the dark, continually struck Guybrush. His feet
began sinking into jungle mud, which either meant the jungle was
turning into a swamp, or he'd lost the road.
Eventually, a dirty, stumbling Guybrush came to a slightly
thinner area of jungle. The barest of moonlight shone down, so
that Guybrush could see a tumbledown shack not far off in the
distance.
The ground was nearly liquid under his feet. Taking the time to
spy out tussocks of grass, Guybrush hopped toward his
destination.
Soon he stood in front of the porch. Four thick stilts supported
the hut several feet above the swamp, so that the bottom of the
door was about at Guybrush's eye level. A small rickety ladder
was bolted to one side of the porch. "Wonder who lives here..."
he thought aloud, "...wonder if *anybody* lives here." It didn't
look likely. The place was falling to bits in front of his eyes.
But there was something... through those grimy windows, behind
the faded red moth-eaten curtains, there seemed to be a faint
green glow.
Guybrush dismissed this. There was one out of place detail here,
a large vending machine on the swampy ground in front of the
porch. It too looked a little rusty. Guybrush had had some nasty
experiences with vending machines, so he didn't give it any
closer attention.
Guybrush quickly thought. Inhabited or not, he needed a break to
get his bearings back. He tried the ladder. The first rung was
so rotten it broke as soon as his foot touched it. So did the
second. In the end Guybrush ignored the ladder altogether and
just climbed straight up on the porch.
Some floorboards sagged, but they held. Guybrush walked to the
front door and pulled it open.
An old, eldritch smell drifted out. Guybrush's nose wrinkled.
About what he'd expected. He edged forward into the darkness.
But it wasn't completely dark. There were candles on the floor,
and several hanging from the ceiling... candles that glowed with
a green fiery light.
Then, like a picture coming into focus, Guybrush adjusted to the
light, and saw everything.
The floor was bare. The walls, however, were plastered with
illustrated parchments of strange, possibly illegal diagrams.
Several stuffed animals hung from the ceiling, swinging in the
warm air.
In the middle of the room, sitting on her green voodoo throne,
on a Mexican throw rug, was the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush screamed.
"What?" said the Voodoo Lady, surprised.
"Oh no, not you!" wailed Guybrush. "Not again! No!"
"Guybrush Threep-"
Guybrush ignored her. Could he never escape his past? Every time
he'd thought he'd succeeded, another bit character from the
Monkey Island series returned. Seeing Wally and Herman had
started it off, but now a whole wave of existential despair was
crashing home. "How'd you get here?" he babbled crazily. "What
are you *doing* here? God, it's like some evil curse! I can't
get away!"
"I have come, Guybrush," said the Voodoo Lady patiently, "to do
battle with our arch-nemesis, LeChuck."
"No," said Guybrush, flatly.
The Voodoo Lady was confused again. "What?"
Guybrush crossed his arms. "I said *no*. I'm not doing it.
Whatever it is you want me to do. Count me out." He waited for a
brief while, but the Voodoo Lady didn't say anything. "And
nothing you can say," continued Guybrush, "is going to change my
mind."
"Have you wondered where all the townspeople are, Guybrush?"
said the Voodoo Lady.
This was an unexpected response. "Um..." said Guybrush,
"...well, I had wondered about that, actually."
Five seconds passed. Guybrush was waiting for the Voodoo Lady to
speak, but she just looked at him. For some strange reason, this
felt like a contest of wills. To speak now might have dire
consequences.
"So, what happened to them?" Guybrush finally asked.
"There is an old monastery on the promontory," said the Voodoo
Lady. She looked satisfied. "Nobody paid it any attention, until
two weeks ago. Some pirates left the town and went to the
monastery. They were followed by others. And none returned."
"You mean everybody's gone?" Guybrush said.
"Well, there's a family of Survivalists in the forest," said the
Voodoo Lady, "but apart from them, this island has been scoured
clean."
"What happened to everybody?"
"LeChuck has killed them all," said the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush grimaced. "Ick."
"Now he's assembled the largest ghost crew the world has ever
seen, up in the monastery. With it he'll be unstoppable."
A few details were nagging away at Guybrush. "I thought LeChuck
was Governor."
"Oh, that's just some idea of Herman's," said the Voodoo Lady
dismissively. "Ignore him."
"But how did he escape the ice?" asked Guybrush.
"I don't know," admitted the Voodoo Lady. "He may have access to
some new form of Voodoo magic: something I won't be able to
counter." She looked almost embarrassed by this.
Guybrush could see where this conversation was heading, but he
first wanted to straighten a few things out. "So why aren't you
out there fighting LeChuck?" he asked.
The Voodoo Lady looked sharply at him. "It's not that easy. I
arrived here yesterday, and he's sealed the monastery and the
peninsula off from the outside world with a huge force field. I
can't get near. Unless," and here her voice grew deep and
stentorian, "I can cast the Spell of Synchromesh."
"The Spell of Synchromesh?" said Guybrush dubiously. "Sounds
like something from a bad RPG."
"It's a very esoteric spell, and I forgot to bring all my voodoo
essentials. I shall require you to find some special
ingredients."
"I think I saw this coming," muttered Guybrush. He sighed. "All
right, what are they?"
The Voodoo Lady smiled with satisfaction. "First, you must find
me a monkey skull."
"Easy," said Guybrush.
"The second ingredient is harder," cautioned the Voodoo Lady. "A
very rare herb called Talbad."
"Sounds like an Arabian pirate," said Guybrush.
"I'm all out," continued the Voodoo Lady, "and there's only one
place on this island that stocks it. The Bazaar of the Bizarre.
Before you came I tried to summon a mighty pirate to ransack the
place, but it didn't quite work out. Now it is up to you.
"Here's the key," said the Voodoo Lady. She held a small metal
object out to Guybrush, who took it. "And take this map. You may
need it." She gave him a rolled up parchment.
"Gee, thanks," said Guybrush.
"Thank me later," said the Voodoo Lady. "Now, go!"
===
Standing outside the hut, Guybrush thought about what to do next.
He knew where to get some Talbad, and he had the key, but
Guybrush didn't feel like seeing Wally just yet. So that left
the monkey skull. Guybrush wasn't worried about this item.
Off the shoreline of the main Cutlass township was a small
offshore island, mostly rock. Up until a year ago, it had housed
the Cutlass Monkey Enclosure.
Pirates have never been very fond of monkeys. Parrots maybe,
although the price of a parrot eternally perched on your
shoulder was a hefty laundry bill. No, pirates have never liked
monkeys. In the opinion of the pirates, monkeys are good for
nothing, a nuisance, and they tend to pinch your hat while
you're digging up buried treasure.
So when the Monkey Enclosure opened on this small offshore
islands, the pirates didn't come to look. Oh no. They came to
gawk. To throw small pebbles and peanuts at the caged monkeys.
To prod them with pointy sticks. To dangle large bunches of
bananas outside the cage and then pointedly throw them away. To
suspend the monkeys above dunk tanks and then throw balls at the
trigger. To shoot revolvers at their feet and shout 'Dance!'.
To... etc, etc.
Sometimes pirates can be really downright mean.
Guybrush heard all this from the ship captain, as they passed
the small island on their way to the main pier. He could see the
cages from the deck - they were rusted out and empty. When the
captain had finished speaking, Guybrush asked: so why did it
close down?
The captain told him. Apparently, Elaine Marley had gotten wind
of the Monkey Enclosure and was horrified. In no uncertain
terms, she told the Cutlass authorities that if the enclosure
wasn't shut down immediately, she'd move to a distant island and
become a hermit, forever removing herself from public affairs.
Within two hours, every caged monkey was free and roaming
Cutlass.
Ironically, in their place the pirates left large bunches of
bananas.
From the captain's tale, Guybrush had gathered there were a lot
of monkey corpses still lying around. Now, standing in the
marshy land around the Voodoo Lady's hut, all he had to think of
was a way to get to the island. This wasn't a problem either, as
Guybrush could clearly remember seeing a rowboat tied to the
pier where the captain had docked.
So Guybrush wasn't feeling too bad as he stood in front of the
Voodoo Lady's hut. Now he gave the vending machine a closer
look, and saw that it was a Voodoo Vending Machine, built to
dispense all sorts of voodoo goodies. Guybrush saw bats wings
and monkey droppings on the list. It was all moot though, as a
large 'OUT OF ORDER' sign was draped over the top of the
machine. Not really expecting anything, Guybrush pressed the
coin return button.
A large gold coin spilled out the coin return shute and
disappeared into the swamp with a 'glop'.
Guybrush shrugged his shoulders, and started the journey back to
town.
===
About an hour later Guybrush was back in town, standing on the
pier in front of a small rowboat.
It had seemed simple, but then nothing was simple for Guybrush.
He'd found the rowboat all right - it was at the pier where the
ship captain had docked, and was strung up above the sea by a
complicated pulley system. The pulleys, Guybrush soon found,
were completely rusted, and refused to budge.
He needed some lubricant. Guybrush thought about this a bit,
then went to find Herman. When he got there, Guybrush saw an oil
can in front of Herman's machine.
Herman was absorbed in his work, and didn't notice a silent,
creeping Guybrush steal up behind and take the oil can.
The oil can, nearly full, freed up the pulley system. With a
little effort, Guybrush was able to lower the rowboat into the
sea.
Phew. After that effort, he was half-expecting a search for a
pair of oars, but there were two lying in the bottom of the
boat. Guybrush climbed down, picked up the oars, and pulled the
boat out to sea.
The sea was strangely calm. Barely any waves at all, no wind,
and no perceptible current. It was almost spooky, except it made
Guybrush's task a lot easier. He could see the offshore island
in front of him, not far off, now partly overgrown with trees
and vegetation.
Getting there took about twenty minutes of rowing. Coming to the
island, Guybrush found a small jetty, just large enough for a
couple of boats. He anchored the boat and climbed out. A set of
wooden steps led up through a thin patch of jungle, then came
out at a metal gate.
At the metal gate, Guybrush had to stop.
There was a lot of stuff to take in. On his left, hanging from a
tree branch, was the sign.
CUTLASS ISLAND MONKEY ENCLOSURE
ADULTS 4 pieces of eight, KIDS 2 pieces of eight.
Animal liberationists and RSPCA representatives please piss off.
Near the sign was a metal box, attached to the gate. The box
held a coin slot.
Guybrush looked through the gate. A straight concrete path
stretched out in front of him. On either side were the cages.
Small, grim and bare. Some had small dead branches. Others had
bunches of bananas swinging from the wire ceiling. These were
really starting to stink.
Above all, he could see the skeletons. Two small, tiny skeletons
hanging in the air. Many more huddled broken on the ground. And
in one cage, sitting there on its own, was a shiny intact monkey
skull. Guybrush knew, as soon as he saw it, that this was his
goal.
But how was he to get it? The monkey skull was inside one of the
cages, and almost ten feet from the concrete path. There was a
feeding slot near the base of the cage, large enough for the
skull to pass through, but too small for Guybrush to reach in
and take it.
This was assuming he could even get inside the enclosure. No
matter how hard he rattled the gate, it stayed closed. And after
paying for the ride out here, Guybrush was again penniless.
For a while Guybrush stood there, not willing to admit defeat.
But finally he turned and started trudging down those wooden
steps. It was time to rustle up some money.
===
About half an hour later...
Guybrush was deep in the interior of Cutlass Island, on his way
to the Voodoo Lady, when he had a thought.
He stopped and took out the map the Voodoo Lady had given him.
He'd been intending to return to the Voodoo Lady's hut so he
could, well, break into the vending machine and steal some
change.
Now he looked at the map. The Survivalists' hut the Voodoo Lady
had mentioned wasn't far from here. A detour wouldn't be much
work, and Guybrush was curious. How come these people hadn't
fallen prey to LeChuck?
So he took a sharp veering right, into the mountains. The jungle
and swamp were soon left behind, as he came into conifer
territory. He walked over dead pine needles and tripped over
pinecones.
Then, he came to the hut.
It was tucked away near a high rockface, in a slight clearing.
From his first glimpse, Guybrush could see it was well built.
Thick pine trunks were lashed together to form the walls, with
the roof a shallow inverted 'V' above.
But there was no light, and no smoke from the chimney.
Guybrush came forward, noting various details. The front of the
hut had no windows, just a thick barred door and a bare porch.
On one side of the hut, which Guybrush was approaching, a large
store of firewood was stacked up. Very large. Enough to last
months. At the rear of the hut was a squat watertank. Also very
large.
He heard no noise as he approached, even though both windows on
this side of the hut were open. Coming near, Guybrush saw a pole
near one window, and he got an idea.
It was a *long* pole. He didn't have anything else to get the
monkey skull with. Why not take it?
Guybrush was standing at the side of the house now. He could see
no motion in those perfectly dark windows. Maybe the Voodoo Lady
had been wrong.
Guybrush reached for the pole.
A light inside the hut flicked on. A shotgun was poked out of
the window at Guybrush's head, and Guybrush found himself
staring down twin metal barrels. He lifted his head a little and
saw, holding the shotgun, a short middle-aged man.
"Ulp!" said Guybrush.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" yelled the man.
"Leave that alone!"
The gun barrel pointed at his head froze Guybrush up. "Ummm...
I..." he stammered.
As he did so, the angry look vanished from the man's face,
replaced by an almost ecstatic joy. "Hey..." he said, as if just
realising something. "You're a looter! We've got a looter!" He
turned his head to shout to someone else in the room, "See, I
was right, Midge! A looter! There must be looters everywhere!
Cutlass Island is overrun with looters!" He sounded like he'd
just won the lottery.
The man looked back at Guybrush, and now his face was full of
swaggering confidence. "So, looter, come to ransack our
carefully prepared post-apocalypse shelter?"
"I'm not a looter-"
The man cut him off with a laugh. "Ha! That's what they all say.
You just want to borrow our food stocks and have a lend of some
gasoline and take turns with the generator, right? Well I didn't
come down in the last shower, pal. You're a looter!"
Guybrush said, "But I'm not-"
"Save it, mate. I know your type. Wouldn't listen to me six
months ago, would you? Laughed and went about your business,
didn't you? Ha! The boot's on the other foot now, isn't it?
Sucked in!"
"I don't even live on Cutlass Island," said Guybrush. "I came
here-"
The man's grin grew wider. "So you're a foreign looter, are you!
I knew it! Have the foresight to put away a bit of gas and food
and next thing the whole Caribbean's breaking down your door!
There must be scores of ships converging on Cutlass Island,
ready to loot! Hear that, Midge?" he yelled to the unseen Midge.
"Scores of 'em! And they're all crawling back here!" The man
cackled with glee. Proven right at last!
Guybrush took a deep breath.
"I'M NOT A LOOTER!" he yelled.
There was a pause. "...are you sure?" asked the man in a small
voice.
"YES!"
The man looked at him doubtfully. "Actually, you don't look much
like a looter. Shouldn't you have a flaming torch in one hand,
or a rusty crowbar or something?"
"I'M NOT A LOOTER!" yelled Guybrush again.
"Okay, okay, no need to take that tone of voice," said the man.
He pulled the shotgun back from the window. He looked at
Guybrush again. "So, you're not a looter?"
"NO!"
"*Are* there any looters about?" asked the man hopefully.
"I haven't seen any," said Guybrush.
"Rats," said the man, looking down.
He turned to the unseen occupant of the room - Midge, Guybrush
guessed. "Sorry, Midge," said the man. "False alarm."
Midge spoke up. The voice was low, and Guybrush couldn't hear
the words, but he didn't need to. There was something about the
tone - patient, long-suffering and quietly powerful - which got
the message across very well.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" said the man. "He comes
barging in, stealing wooden poles..."
Murmur, murmur, murmur, said Midge.
"Yes, there *are* looters around," said the man.
More murmuring from Midge.
"I don't know, somewhere..." said the man vaguely. He was
starting to cringe. This was obviously an old argument.
"Yes, I *am* sure... " said the man.
Guybrush realised the man was no longer looking at him. If he
was quiet, he could steal the pole.
"What do you mean I've been wrong before?"
Guybrush knelt down and reached forward.
"Don't start on that."
His fingers touched the pole.
"You're not still going on about *that*, are you?"
They grasped it firmly.
"That was ten years ago!"
Guybrush concentrated.
"You still can't get the stains out?"
Slowly, carefully, Guybrush lifted the pole away from the wall.
"No, we can't make a trip to the drycleaners. It's not safe! ...
No, it isn't! ... Look, it bloody well isn't!"
The man turned and glared at Guybrush, who hastily hid the pole
behind his back. "What are you still doing here?" he yelled. No
more good humour from him.
"Er..."
"Yes, you! Get out!"
Guybrush nodded, and backed away. The man watched him, holding
the shotgun meaningfully, until Guybrush was about fifty feet
away, and lost in the darkness. Guybrush sighed with relief,
turned around, and started the walk to the Voodoo Lady's.
Well, at least that answered the question about the Survivalists.
===
Forty minutes later, Guybrush was back outside the Monkey
Enclosure.
He hadn't needed to break into the vending machine at all. When
he tried the coin return button, it dispensed another gold coin.
This happened the third time he used the button. Then,
frustratingly, it packed up.
Still, two gold coins would do, even if he meant he entered the
Monkey Enclosure as a kid. Guybrush paid the two coins into the
coin slot.
The rusty latches on the gate flipped open. Guybrush picked up
the pole and pushed his way into the Enclosure.
The smell was worse in here. Guybrush didn't want to waste any
time, so he went straight for the cage with the monkey skull. It
took no time at all for him to knock the skull back with the
pole, then bring it through the tiny latched opening.
The skull was heavy in Guybrush's hands. Even as he picked it
up, tiny scraps of shrivelled brain matter dropped to the
ground. Guybrush wrinkled his nose.
Well, disgusting or not, he had the first ingredient. Now to go
after the second...
===
When Guybrush came to the Bazaar of the Bizarre, he found Wally
still standing there on the street, still staring at the closed
door. Wally's door-breaking technique was obviously not going
well.
Guybrush came up in front of Wally and reached for the door.
Wally protested, "Hang on, I'm working on that door-"
With a loud click, Guybrush unlocked the door.
"Or we could do it your way," said Wally smoothly. Guybrush
pushed the door open, and Wally followed him inside.
It was dark in here. At first, Guybrush felt rather than saw his
surroundings. He was standing on a long roll of thick carpet,
and the air around them seemed very cramped. Then Wally moved
inside, letting more light in, and gradually they began to make
out details.
The walls were lined with shelves, and every shelf was piled up
to the rafters with junk. Pure junk. Mounds of it. When there
wasn't room on the shelves, stuff was simply dumped on the
floor, in huge compost piles. The only clear space in the whole
room was an off-green roll of carpet, which led to a small door.
Wally scampered across the carpet, and rattled the doorknob.
"Locked," he said, disappointed.
"What are you trying to do?" asked Guybrush.
"This store is split up into three sections," said Wally. "Only
the first two are accessible by the public, and this must be the
first one. The maps will be in the last room - if they're here
at all."
*And the jar of Talbad*, thought Guybrush. For no particular
reason, he was worried. Sure, LeChuck seemed to have gotten rid
of every single person on the island, but what if the
proprietors of the Bazaar were still here? Waiting for them?
Even with a key, this felt too much like breaking in. Plus,
there was Wally's talk of booby traps to consider...
He joined Wally by the closed door. No luck - the key didn't fit
the lock. Guybrush sighed, then kicked the door. It rattled, but
the lock held.
Wally stepped forward. "I'll take care of this," he said
confidently. He stood in front of the door, and stared.
Guybrush groaned, and turned away.
Something caught his eye.
Guybrush slowly looked around. Yes, there it was, on the edge of
the largest pile of junk. A cannon.
The idea arrived almost simultaneously in Guybrush's mind. A
cannon. Was there a cannonball? He felt around in the barrel,
but there was nothing in there. A quick search of the pile of
junk, however, soon turned up a small battered cannonball.
A cannonball. Was there gunpowder? Guybrush searched the shelves
until he found a box of low-grade gunpowder. Wally, oblivious to
all this, was still staring determinedly at the door.
Now Guybrush arranged things. He dragged the cannon onto the
carpet and lined it up with the door. In went the gunpowder, and
cannonball. Using a small length of string, Guybrush fashioned a
fuse. He still had matches from Booty Island, so without further
ado Guybrush lit the fuse.
He'd altogether forgotten about Wally. Hearing the faint hiss of
the fuse (or possibly seeing a slight glimmer of yellow on the
door) Wally turned around. He said, "Hey, did you-"
The cannon exploded.
===
"Okay, okay. I *said* I'm sorry. Now can we please just drop the
subject?"
Wally coughed. "You're just lucky I move fast, Mister Brush."
Gradually the smoke cleared. The door was a splintered wreck,
and standing beside it was a very dusty Wally. Some of his hair
was singed, and his face looked very red.
Hesitantly, Guybrush knocked the last of the broken door panels
away. It was definitely breaking and entering now. They climbed
through the gap and into the second room.
This room was clearer, with shelves stocked adequately instead
of overflowing, and the floor kept relatively clean. Unlike the
last room, the stock seemed to be at least nominally useful, but
unfortunately it was all Voodoo material. Guybrush knew Voodoo
magic to be immensely powerful. He also knew, after some very
horrific Voodoo experiences over the past few years, that he
didn't want to have anything to do with it. Even the tiny Voodoo
dolls that looked somewhat like LeChuck didn't interest him.
There didn't seem to be any Talbad in here, either.
"So, is this it?" asked Guybrush.
"No, we have to go through one more door," said Wally.
"Let me guess: it's locked too."
Wally was already examining the door on the far side. "It is.
How did you know?"
"Lucky guess," said Guybrush resignedly. He came forward and
bent down by the door. "Hey, Wally! You missed something. The
key's still in the lock."
Wally rushed forward excitedly. "It is?"
"Yeah," agreed Guybrush. "On the other side."
Wally looked disgusted, and turned away. Guybrush, however, was
thinking. With something thin and long, he could poke that key
out of there.
Guybrush stood up and looked over the shelves. Before too long
he came to a small cardboard box, full of voodoo pins ("Extra
long for extra pain!" announced the writing on the side). He
took one, and returned to the door.
Now... he couldn't just poke the key out, as then it would fall
to the floor on the far side of the door and be lost forever. If
he could get something to catch it...
Guybrush stood up again. On a shelf to his right, he saw what he
wanted - a stack of paper. Guybrush picked up a sheet. He loved
clean white paper. This stuff looked like it had gone mouldy.
He slid the piece of paper three-quarters of the way under the
door. With a tiny jiggle, the pin dislodged the key. It fell
onto the paper. Guybrush dragged the paper back, and there was
the key. Textbook really.
"Got it!" he said to Wally. Wally came rushing back. He seemed
to be fully over his cannoning near miss, and the flush in his
cheeks was one of excitement.
Guybrush stood up, and unlocked the door.
===
The third and final room in the Bazaar of the Bizarre was a
light, airy storeroom.
There wasn't much here. A few notices tacked to the walls, a
rickety spice rack hanging from a nail, two skylights in the
ceiling letting thin beams of moonlight in, and a flat wooden
table right in the middle of the room.
On the table was a coffin. It was placed so that most of the
moonlight fell on it, as if a spotlight was trained on the spot.
Guybrush stayed by the door. He wanted to examine that table
closer... one half seemed to disappear completely into darkness,
and the table itself was so thin as to be little more than an
elongated bench.
But Wally, as he always did, rushed ahead. "It's here!" he
gushed. "I've found it!" Wally came to the table and flung the
coffin lid off. It clattered noisily on the wooden floor. He
started rummaging around inside, but his short body and stumpy
arms weren't up to the task, so he simply climbed up and fell
into the coffin.
There was a tiny pause. "Wally?" said Guybrush.
Wally's head reappeared. One hand was held aloft triumphantly,
and in it Guybrush could see a set of fiercely clenched maps.
"Sorry, Mr. Brush," said the grinning Wally, "but this is where
we part ways. I'm not letting anybody in on my moment of glory.
Now get out of my way, so I can-"
His speech was cut short as the coffin was simply hurled up into
the air. It crashed straight through the roof without stopping,
leaving a vague dark hole. Guybrush heard a thin scream, very
quickly growing faint, and at the end a tiny 'splash'.
Guybrush stepped forward. Now that the hole in the roof was
letting in more moonlight, he could see the dim end of the
table. There was a complicated array of tightly wound pulleys,
ropes and spoked wheels. It dawned on Guybrush what this was.
Not a table at all, but a cleverly disguised catapult!
"Whoops. Guess he forgot about those traps," said Guybrush,
shaking his head.
He took another look around the room. That spice rack on the
wall looked hopeful, and on closer inspection Guybrush saw a
small jar of Talbad. What was Talbad? As far as he could see, it
was a thick, mustard-coloured herb.
Well, this made it two ingredients. Time to go visit the Voodoo
Lady.
===
About half an hour later, he was back inside the Voodoo Lady's
makeshift hut.
The Voodoo Lady looked sternly at him as he entered. "Have you
found any of the ingredients?" she said.
"I have this monkey skull," said Guybrush. He gave the heavy,
dirt-encrusted thing to the Voodoo Lady, who looked satisfied.
"Good work," she said. "Do you have the final ingredient?"
"I've also got this jar of Talbad," said Guybrush, handing over
the jar.
The Voodoo Lady set both ingredients down on the floor.
"Perfect." She drew herself up impressively. "Now, I can-"
She stopped.
"Oh dear," she said.
"What?" said Guybrush.
"I forgot my voodoo stirring spoon," said the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush sighed. "That would be typical."
"Hey, I told you I forgot to bring everything. Without some kind
of spoon, I just can't create the spell."
"All right, I get the message," said Guybrush. "One spoon coming
up."
===
He was getting mighty sick of this half-hour,
stumble-through-muddy-bogs-and-steep-rises walk from the Voodoo
Lady's hut to the main town, but at least it gave him time to
think. Where to get a spoon from? He didn't remember seeing one
at the Bazaar.
Then he remembered Herman's mad witterings, and his promise to
give him a spoon if - Guybrush searched his memory - if he could
find some paper.
Guybrush quite specifically remembered there being paper at the
Bazaar. So he went there first, and found a large stack in the
second room. Carrying it in both hands, he went to see Herman.
Herman was still standing by his machine, which was still
pumping the 'LECHUCK IS GOVERNOR' flyers into the air - there
was going to be a large cleanup bill when all this was over.
He looked pleased to see Guybrush. "Paper!" he exclaimed. "Just
in time."
Guybrush dropped the paper down next to the machine.
True to his word, Herman reached into a coat pocket and pulled
out a spoon. "Here you go, sir, one barely-dented wooden spoon."
Guybrush took it.
Herman was already forgetting him. "Now I can get on with..."
The sentence trailed off into random giggling.
Guybrush didn't hear any of this - he was already on his way
back.
===
What was this - the sixth or seventh time he'd been trudging
through this swamp? Standing on the porch of the Voodoo Lady's
hut, Guybrush was muddy up to the knees, sweat running down his
back, flies and gnats buzzing around his head.
Hopefully this would be the last time. If the Voodoo Lady wanted
any more errands run... Guybrush ground his teeth thinking about
it.
He entered.
The Voodoo Lady spoke up almost immediately. "Have you found a
spoon?"
"Here it is, check it out."
The Voodoo Lady took the spoon and examined it closely.
"Excellent." She dropped the spoon beside the ingredients. "At
last, I can cast the spell of Synchromesh! I've been waiting to
do this for ages. Stand back, Guybrush, and give me room!"
Guybrush didn't need to be told twice. He backed up against the
wall, as far from the Voodoo Lady as possible.
She muttered some incomprehensible words, and the whole room
went pitch black. A millisecond later, it flashed brilliantly
with light. Then, the air around them began to throb and pulse
with darkness and light - two separate entities - and dimly
glimpsed at the centre of it all was the silhouette of the
Voodoo Lady, her body jerking about spasmodically.
"Aargh!" screamed the Voodoo Lady. "Ack! Yeeooow! Erk! Oooh!"
The screams didn't sound like screams of pain, but like... the
words of the spell.
The screaming stopped. And slowly, as if someone was gradually
turning up the current, the normal lighting returned. Guybrush
took a couple of steps forward. The Voodoo Lady sat in her
chair, perfectly composed. The ingredients, and the wooden
spoon, were all gone.
"Did it work?" asked Guybrush.
"It worked. Even now I sense the gaping hole where the force
field once was."
"All right!" said Guybrush. He turned to leave.
"Wait!"
Guybrush turned back. "You should not rush in there blindly,"
said the Voodoo Lady. "I sense great danger."
"I'm not worried."
"LeChuck has turned the whole population of this island into
ghosts."
"Who cares about ghosts?" asked Guybrush. "I've got root beer."
He tapped his pocket. Inside was a half-full bottle of root
beer, by now uncomfortably warm, but still potent.
"Don't put too much faith in your magical fluid," said the
Voodoo Lady. "You may not have enough... for the whole
population. Here - take this root beer recipe."
She was holding a small scrap of paper out to Guybrush, who took
it.
"Makes large quantities," said the Voodoo Lady. "And take this
too."
She gave him a small unlabelled bottle.
"Corn syrup," she explained. "You'll have to find the other
ingredients yourself."
"Gee, thanks."
"Now, go!" urged the Voodoo Lady. "The fates of the Caribbean
rest on your shoulders!"
Guybrush bucked up. "Yeah, I guess they do! Look out LeChuck!"
===
PART 3: MONASTERY
===
In one of the myriad wooden passages of the Monastery of Small
Footsteps, the Monk stood in his shabby pirate clothes and
stained tricorner hat and brooded.
Something was wrong. Something he couldn't quite put his finger
on...
It was in this state of undecided worry that the acolyte,
wandering fearfully through the passages, found the Monk. He
swallowed involuntarily - Ulp! - and the Monk turned around.
"Largo!" he said sternly. "Have you strung up the ginger as I
told ye to?"
"Ummm," stammered the acolyte.
In a patient voice that might quickly turn to anger, the Monk
said, "I'm not going over this again, Largo. What is normally
used to ward off the undead?"
"Garlic?" said the acolyte.
"And what's the total opposite of garlic?" continued the Monk.
The acolyte, for the life of him, could not work out this step.
"...ginger?" he ventured cautiously.
"Yes! SO HAVE YOU STRUNG THE BLOODY STUFF UP YET?"
"Oh yes, LeChuck sir," said the acolyte. "There's a large clump
where all the pirates are waiting."
The Monk relaxed slightly - but that wasn't it. Something else
was wrong... the acolytehe dismissed the thought. "Good," said
the Monk.. Now what was it you were going to say?"
"Well," began the acolyte reluctantly, "there is one small
thing."
"Yes?"
"Do I really have to wear this green trousers?" complained the
acolyte. "And these false eyebrows are giving me a rash."
"You will do exactly what I tell you to, Largo. Unless you'd
like to be a ghost pirate yerself...?"
The acolyte nodded hopelessly. "Green trousers it is, sir."
"Good."
"Er... actually there's something else too." The acolyte
stopped. LeChuck was not going to like this.
"...Yes?" prompted the Monk, after two seconds of waiting.
The acolyte took a deep breath. "Ten of your ghost pirates have
escaped and taken the ship and we haven't got anything to get
after them with."
There was a short pause.
"WHAT?!?!" roared the Monk.
"Ten of your-"
"I HEARD! GET AFTER THEM! I DON'T CARE IF YOU HAVE TO SWIM THERE
YERSELF! GET OUT THERE!"
===
In the shadow forest outside the Monastery, Guybrush stood and
watched.
After leaving the Voodoo Lady's presence, he'd gone north, via
the route on her map. Traversing dim glades and wormy forests,
he'd at last come up to a high rocky bluff overlooking the sea.
And down below, on a small peninsula, was the Monastery.
Even from this height, it loomed against the sky - which, owing
to a thick cloud cover which had gathered together in the last
few hours, was completely black. Numerous torches hung from the
outer walls, burning with a bright orange flame. Their light
allowed Guybrush to see the many carven wood statues and holy
relics adorning the walls of the Monastery.
Guybrush wondered why he hadn't been here before. Sure, the
Voodoo Lady had told him there was a force field, but he'd never
confirmed this. Did he trust the Voodoo Lady that much? Guybrush
hoped not.
He climbed down the steep incline to the beach and entered the
peninsula.
And, as he did so, found he was slowing down from his usual
pace. The light from the Monastery made him cautious, as if he
might be seen at any moment. He picked his route carefully,
ducking from one shadowy patch to another.
Finally, he stood at the very edge of the forest.
The entrance to the Monastery was barely twenty feet away, a
yawning black hole large enough to let someone three times his
size enter.
Guybrush hesitated. Inside, there were over a hundred ghost
pirates, their very touch fatal. Even with root beer, it was a
tall ask.
Even as he hesitated, he remembered the argument. With Elaine.
It seemed like four centuries ago, but actually only fourteen
hours had passed. *Not a pirate*, she'd said. Well, he'd show
her! New-found determination began to flow back into Guybrush.
He stepped out of the forest, into the light, and crossed the
clearing to the Monastery entrance.
===
Despite all the lit torches outside, Guybrush soon found himself
in a dark, dank passage. A couple of candles dripped wax from
the ceiling, but they just gave the air a grimy sheen. It almost
felt like he was underground, in a mine.
A set of wooden stairs was leading him down, to a concrete
landing. Here Guybrush paused. There was something in front of
him, a thin metal structure. Twin pipes, on either side of the
passage, led up from the ground to a metal bar overhead. He had
to pass through this metal arch, and its possible meaning
baffled Guybrush.
He shrugged, and walked through it.
An alarm shrieked, and two red lights set in the ceiling above
Guybrush flashed on and off. Guybrush looked around, panicked.
And at this moment, Murray the demonic skull flew out of the
passage in front of him, grinning inanely.
"Aargh!" screamed Guybrush involuntarily.
"Ha ha!" laughed Murray, elated at this response. "Yes! Boo!
Gotcha now!"
But Guybrush had recovered. He knew Murray, and he was not to be
feared. "Oh, it's only Murray," he said after a short pause.
"Whadda mean it's only Murray?!" yelled Murray indignantly.
"I'll tear you limb from limb, you croquet-playing mint-muncher!"
"No offence, Murray, but I think I'll just be walking through
that door."
"You *what!?* You'll be licking snowflakes in hell before you
get through here!"
A patient smile on his face, Guybrush walked forward. Or tried
to. Guybrush frowned. It felt like there was something in his
way, a thin strip of gauze in the air that he couldn't walk
through.
He looked up at Murray. The leering skull was enjoying
Guybrush's futile struggles. "Ha ha ha! Weren't expecting that,
were ya? This whole Monastery is protected by a force field
which won't let a single drop of root beer through! We're
impregnable!"
"Oh dear," said Guybrush. Guess he'd been right not to trust the
Voodoo Lady.
"And even if you were to break through," continued Murray
gleefully. "I've got a switch back here which will instantly
summon two hundred plus ghost pirates to stitch you up proper!"
"Oh dear again."
Murray leaned forward, staring avidly at him. "Does that
*frighten* you, Guybrush? Does it fill your pants with hot
excrement? Yeah! Yeah! It does! All right!"
Mostly to himself, Guybrush said, "This isn't going to be as
easy as I thought."
===
He gathered his thoughts together outside. The Voodoo Lady
hadn't been wrong, had she? Had be been traipsing all over
Cutlass Island when he could just have come straight here?
Well... the Voodoo Lady had said there was a force field
protecting the whole peninsula. And he was on the peninsula. So
maybe the spell *had* worked.
And... Murray had said the force field only worked on root beer.
What if he was to get rid of his root beer?
Impossible. How could you take on two hundred ghost pirates with
your bare hands?
Guybrush remembered the root beer recipe.
Instantly he took out the root beer bottle, opened it, and
poured its contents onto the ground. There. No turning back now.
But he couldn't go back in the front way, root beer or no root
beer. Murray was watching.
Perhaps there was a back entrance.
Certainly there was a path. It led from the front entrance,
tracing a winding route around the side of the Monastery.
Following it, Guybrush came to a dark corner. Peering closely,
he saw a small door set into the wall.
Bingo.
Before he tried the door, Guybrush took a look at the root beer
recipe. In the flickering light of the torches, he read:
===
ROOT BEER
1 qty. corn syrup
1 qty. sassafras bark
1 qty. orange peel
1 qty. ground ginger.
Combine all ingredients together with desired
quantity of water. Churn.
This could be problematic. He had the corn syrup, but...
sassafras bark? Guybrush looked around.
A spindly bush growing by the wall caught his eye. Its trunk had
thin, stringy bark. Guybrush wouldn't know a sassafras tree from
a lump of wood, but this looked about right. Beside, maybe you
didn't have to get the flavour *exactly* right.
He took a fistful of bark, then opened the door.
===
When he shut the door behind him, he was standing in a small
study. There was a wooden desk in one corner, and a cupboard in
another. An open door led out into a hallway. When he turned to
look behind him, he saw a metal door with the words FIRE ESCAPE
printed on them. Two torches illuminated the room. Guybrush
stood and listened, but he could hear no noise.
There was nothing on the desk. He opened the drawers, but the
only thing he found was a pencil sharpener. Guybrush tried the
cupboards, but these too were bare.
He stuck his head out the door, peered both ways, and stepped
out into the hallway.
It ran both ways past the small study. To his right, the passage
seemed to end at a small, dark room. On his right, it seemed to
widen out into a large hall.
Guybrush went right, keeping his footsteps quiet. He could hear
his muscles moving against each other, and his heart beating
worriedly, but otherwise there wasn't a sound in the place.
So it was a shock when, coming to the hall, Guybrush saw
stretched out below him a massed crowd of ghost pirates.
"Yi-" he began, then jammed his fist into his mouth to stop the
noise. The ghost pirates weren't looking at him. They were lined
up together, rank and file, facing the other end of the hall.
There were at least two hundred - more than two hundred! Murray
hadn't exaggerated. Guybrush watched them, horrified. The ghost
pirates stood perfectly still. Not still as you or I might stand
- even when trying to be immobile, the muscles of humans
minutely contract and relax. These ghost pirates stood
*completely still*. Like transparent, lifeless statues.
The front of the hall, where the ghost pirates were looking,
held a small stage and lectern. Formerly where the head Monk had
said his prayers before his assembled disciples, Guybrush
guessed LeChuck had been using it to make pronouncements to his
ghost crew. At the rear of the hall, Guybrush was standing on a
small raised platform, about eight feet above the hall. What
this got used for, he had no idea.
Slowly getting over the shock, Guybrush started to notice other
things about the hall. He looked up at the ceiling, and saw four
rows of metal piping, dotted every few feet or so with thin
nozzles. This must be the fire sprinkler system. Gazing up at
it, Guybrush was distracted by something in the foreground.
He did a double take. A thick green root of ginger was suspended
from the ceiling, right next to this platform. Guybrush could
reach out and take it.
He did. What was a root of ginger doing here? Well, it was
certainly a help. Now he just needed an orange...
Guybrush stepped back from the platform and walked down the
hallway, the way he'd come. He passed the study, heading for the
small dark room.
It was a dank, oily, little-used room, filled with a mass of
complicated machinery. Before him Guybrush saw a baffling
network of metal pipes, valves, wheels and buttons.
Fortunately, the sign above said 'Monastery Sprinkler System'.
The idea hit Guybrush right then, an idea so good he had to stop
himself from jumping in the air and shouting.
He *did* jump in the air when he saw an orange sitting there on
the piping. Luck, serendipity, call it what you will, everything
seemed to be falling his way. Guybrush picked up the orange and
turned it over in his hands. Working quickly, he pulled the peel
from the orange, which he tossed in a corner.
Guybrush looked at the machinery. There it was... a large
bulbous tank near the floor. Guybrush opened the hatch and
looked inside. Water.
He ripped up the peel and dropped it into the water. In went the
bark. The corn syrup was emptied in after it. Then the ginger
root... Guybrush paused. The recipe had said *ground* ginger. Oh
well, the hell with it. The machinery would probably grind it up
pretty good. Guybrush threw it in and shut the lid. He looked
around.
A large red switch on the wall was labelled 'Emergency
Override'. Guybrush reached for it, tensed, then pressed it
firmly. Instantly the sprinkler system kicked into gear. The
water began churning around in the tank, and Guybrush could hear
it flowing at high speed through the pipes.
A thin pipe was set in the ceiling, and ran straight down the
hallway toward the main hall. In the hallway, it began to rain...
===
In the great hall, pandemonium ensued. Ghost pirates ran around,
bellowing with pain, looking for shelter from the burning rain.
There was none. Every inch of the hall was slowly being coated
in the slightly sticky water. As the ghost pirates were
vaporised, a massive cloud of steam coalesced in the air,
obscuring the carnage from view. But not from ear. The screams
were earsplitting.
And then it all died down. The screams died away. The steam
cloud gradually dispersed. The hall was completely empty, save
for a greasy substance on the floor, which might have been root
beer, or... something else.
===
"I think it worked!" said Guybrush happily. "Now to find
LeChuck..."
He walked out into the hallway. A few feet out from the door, he
stopped. A large, shabby figure stood in front of him, looking
toward the great hall. It was wearing a filthy pirate coat and a
tricorner hat. Black hair sprouted underneath it. From the back,
this looked a lot like LeChuck.
Shock sometimes makes people do strange things. "It's LeChuck!"
Guybrush blurted out.
The Monk spun around. His eyes lit up with the red flame of
anger. "He's here! At last!"
Guybrush was completely at a loss.
Because this wasn't LeChuck. You could tell that instantly. He'd
obviously tried hard - the clothes were spot on, the beard was
exactly the right length, and even LeChuck's vocal and physical
tics were expertly copied. But this just wasn't LeChuck. The
body was too tall, the face too thin, the hands too manicured.
"Err..." said Guybrush, confused.
"My mortal enemy has returned," intoned the Monk dramatically.
"Err... you're not LeChuck..."
"Of course I am!" said the Monk. "I swore never to rest until I
spilled your blood, Guybrush, and now the time has come!"
"But you're not... what the hell's going on here?"
Before the Monk could answer, Guybrush heard a gun shot.
A look of surprise crossed the Monk's face, followed by some
kind of realisation. Then his body fell to the ground at
Guybrush's feet. There was a bullet hole in his back, and
standing behind him stood LeChuck.
The *real* LeChuck. Not that Guybrush had ever seen him this way
- his face a mottled blue, his arms and legs shivering with
cold. But the recognition was immediate.
And so was the panic.
"I believe I can explain," said LeChuck.
"LeChuck!?!" gasped Guybrush.
"You were expecting Donnie Osmond? Of course it's LeChuck! And
now, Guybrush, your goose is well and truly cooked."
"I... I don't understand."
LeChuck mused, more to himself, "Of course I could just kill you
now and take over the Caribbean. But I think you deserve a
special explanation. Brother to brother."
Guybrush tried to pull himself together. "Okay, let's hear it."
"It was very simple," said LeChuck. "You froze me in a block of
ice. My body was dead and gone, but my mind remained free and
alive. It waited, burning for revenge. Several days ago, I felt
another mind draw close. It was this monk, out channelling the
Caribbean. I seized the channel, dragged myself across, and in
seconds this guy thought he was me."
"No wonder he went insane."
"Ha ha. That's an extra two days in the torture chamber for you.
Anyway, using knowledge I taught him, the Monk turned this whole
island into an army of ghost pirates. I entered the minds of ten
ghosts, and ordered them to steal a ship and come unfreeze me.
And now I'm here. The Monk is dead but his army remains. And
with that army, Guybrush, I will conquer the Caribbean! No
island can possibly stand before me! You see what I mean,
Guybrush? It's already too late!"
Guybrush felt a surge of hope. "Too late for you, you mean," he
crowed. "I already killed your ghost army. Let's see you take
over the Caribbean now!"
The smile faded from LeChuck's face. "What?"
"They're all gone. Run in there and smell the root beer."
LeChuck growled. "You will pay for this, Guybrush. In fact-"
He stopped. An idea had just occurred to him. It brought the
smile back to his face.
"-you'll pay in ways you can't imagine."
Suddenly, two ghost pirates appeared behind Guybrush. With their
lethal touch, they instantly cut off any hope of retreat.
Guybrush looked at them, very worried. "Hey, what's going on? I
killed you guys!"
LeChuck scowled at him. "Arr, yer didn't think the loss of my
ghost army would set me back, did you Guybrush? There are other
islands out there waiting to be ghostified. With my loyal
ten-strong ghost pirate crew, we can be at any in a matter of
hours. Actually..." he paused, milking out the suspense,
"...there's one not far away. I think I'd quite like to meet the
Governor. Mrs-"
"No!" yelled Guybrush. "Not Elaine!"
"Yes Elaine, Guybrush," said LeChuck. "Marrying her was the
worst thing you ever did. She belongs to nobody but me!"
"But-"
"No more! I'm taking you with me. You ought to be present at the
Governor's... final humiliation." He looked at the ghost
pirates. "Take him away!"
===
PART 4: ASSAULT
===
A new day had dawned.
Out on the high seas, LeChuck and his ghost crew were making
good time. The monastery ship was a bit small and creaky, but
the wind was behind them, and the ghost crew were working like
there would be no tomorrow. LeChuck stood above on the poop
deck, occasionally barking out orders: "Man the mizzenmast!
Tack! Furl! Fasten! Elbow grease ya scurvy slackers!"
Guybrush watched it all, helpless.
He was hanging upside down, lashed to the main mast by coils and
coils of rope. It had been uncomfortable enough as they were
starting out, but now after hours of sailing the blood was
really beginning to settle in his brain. It made him dizzy.
Guybrush strained, for the tenth or twentieth time, but the
ropes wouldn't budge. There was no slack in them at all. He
could just move his hands enough to reach inside his pocket, but
that was all. And what would that achieve?
Guybrush thought about what he'd collected. Then he realised -
the can of oil he'd used to get the rowboat into the ocean. He
still had it! Guybrush rummaged around in his right pocket -
nothing. In his left pocket, he eventually managed to grasp a
metal bottle. This was it.
Concentrating, making every movement as inconspicuous as
possible, Guybrush tipped the oil can over the ropes. His aim
wasn't very good, and some splatted on the deck below him. He
instantly froze, and waited to see if he'd been discovered.
No shouts. No one was even looking in his direction.
Guybrush wormed around in the ropes. Slick with oil, they now
felt a lot looser. He kept wriggling around. This would attract
attention, but there was no other way.
Suddenly, he slipped free. Guybrush fell through his bonds, hit
the deck headfirst, and crashed straight through. "Arr!" yelled
LeChuck.
The ghost pirates stopped, and looked at LeChuck. "Get back to
work!" he yelled. "He can't escape!"
In the room below, Guybrush picked himself up, rubbing his sore
head. "Ow. Rough landing." He looked around.
Normally, this room would have been in darkness. But there was a
lit candle standing on a box, and the hole in the deck above
gave good illumination. He was surrounded by boxes, standing in
some kind of supply room. Most of the boxes and crates were
utterly nondescript, save for a bright metal box near the door.
Red lettering on the box said 'EMERGENCY SUPPLIES'.
Curious, Guybrush opened the box. Inside was a single flare gun.
Guybrush picked it up. Not really a weapon, but it might be
useful.
He opened the door and peered out.
Outside the supply room was a small, moody hallway, lit by
lamplight. It ran in a straight line to a ladder leading up, and
there were two doors on his left. The first door, when Guybrush
reached it, opened on a small room containing a cannon. It
pointed out a square hole in the hull. Cannon balls, matches and
gunpowder were stacked along the floor beside it.
The second room, by contrast, was completely unexpected.
Gone were the greasy wooden walls and the round, 'quaint',
portholes. The floor, walls and ceiling were coated with glossy
white paint, and the room was empty except for a bafflingly
complex piece of metal equipment. It looked like a very
expensive piece of gym equipment, or so Guybrush would have
thought if he'd ever been to a gym. It had a padded seat, and a
single metal arm with rubber handhold. Looking at it, Guybrush
got the impression there were supposed to be two arms.
A couple of pieces of paper were tacked to a bare bulletin board
behind the machine. Guybrush read the first. It was a press
release:
"Introducing the latest in Spiritual Transportation-
THE TRANSLOCATOR
The Translocator is a revolutionary new product that at
one stroke makes getting from A to B as simple as thinking
about it. Literally. The patented AuraReader technology
embedded in each Translocator reads the actual thoughts
of the operator, instantly executing every command. Moreover,
it can shift vessels up to and including the size of a pirate
ship. No more mutinous crew!
For more information on the Translocator and other
SpiritPower products visit your local SpiritPower
store. Thanks for believing!"
Very strange. Guybrush looked at the machine - the Translocator? -
and scratched his head. He looked back, and read the second note:
"To whom it may concern:
The Translocator is out of order. This is to fully comply with
Hard Work Month, during which time no manual labour may be
avoided. One of the metal roto arms from the Translocator has
been removed and placed on the upper deck, to guard against
temptation.
P.S. This means you!"
Well, that explained the missing arm. And now, a great idea struck
Guybrush. If he could get this Translocator working, then he could stop
the ship from reaching Booty Island! All he had to do was get the metal
roto arm from the top deck.
Guybrush paused. LeChuck was up there.
Well, he'd have to deal with him sometime. He hefted the flare gun, and
strode out the door.
Midway up the ladder, Guybrush slowly looked out the trapdoor.
At first, he could only see sea and sky. Then he slowly turned round, and
saw LeChuck. LeChuck was standing with his back to Guybrush, looking
down at his toiling ghost crew. A glint of light struck Guybrush's eyes, and
he saw the metal roto arm. It was lying on the deck, just in front of LeChuck.
Guybrush sighed. There was no danger of being spotted by the ghost pirates,
who were hard at their tasks. But there was no way he could take that metal
roto arm without LeChuck spotting him.
Guybrush climbed up the ladder and stood behind LeChuck. He raised the
flare gun. Maybe he could distract them with this...
Holding the gun high over his head, like an official about to start a race,
Guybrush fired.
There was a loud pop, and a huge trail of colour whooshed over LeChuck
and the ghost pirates. They all stopped and looked up, following the path
of the flare. It curved away into the sky, climbing higher and higher.
LeChuck hadn't moved. Neither had the ghost crew. Guybrush had been
counting on them rushing to the far end of the ship.
The flare, growing ever fainter, finally vanished. The ghost crew came back
to life. "Come on, ya slackers!" yelled LeChuck. "Doubletime!"
Well, that was a pretty spectacular failure, thought Guybrush. He tossed the
useless flare gun over the side of the ship. What now?
Guybrush paused a few seconds, thinking. Finally, he said "What the hell,"
stepped forward, and firmly shoved LeChuck in the back. Caught by
surprise, LeChuck went sailing over the side of the poop deck, and fell
through the hole in the lower deck. The ghost pirates looked around in
confusion.
Guybrush picked up the metal roto arm. Got it.
He ran down the ladder, and pelted down the passage to the supply
room door. Guybrush found the lock and turned it. That should keep
LeChuck busy for a bit. He turned back and entered the
Translocator room.
It didn't take much work to fix the arm back on the machine. Now it
looked better. Guybrush sat on the padded seat and gripped the
roto arms.
Now how did you work this thing?
Guybrush concentrated, then pulled the left roto arm.
On the deck, the ghost pirates had helped LeChuck back up
through the hole. He was standing on the lower deck, looking
around for any sign of Guybrush, when the whole ship suddenly
jerked to port. It spun around in a full circle, creating a huge
spray of water that flew over the ghost pirate crew. They ran
around in total confusion. "Aargh!" yelled LeChuck. "What be
happenin?"
"Wow!" said Guybrush. "This feels incredible!" He jerked his
right arm.
This time the ship actually lifted out of the ocean and span
round in the air before falling back into the sea. The wash
of water nearly engulfed the deck. Two ghost pirates had
already fallen off, and nobody knew what to do. "Main the
sails!" LeChuck roared. "Pull the yardarm! 'Tis some devil
wind!" Guybrush, he growled under his breath. When I find
you...
Guybrush was thinking. "I wonder," he said, "what would
happen if I sent the ship downward?" He rocked forward.
The ship's prow suddenly dipped, and was engulfed by water.
The ship sank further, tilting even higher until it was nearly vertical.
Then, like a dagger dropped from a great height, it slipped below
the waves. The sea above sloshed around for a bit, bubbles of
air floating up from the ship, and then was smooth.
===
Meanwhile...
Not all that far away, Wally was alone and sitting in a barely
seaworthy coffin. He had a pencil and a few sheets of paper,
and if he wasn't going to make it back to land alive - as looked
increasingly likely - then he wanted the world to know why.
He wrote:
"Captain's log. Wally B. Feed. Lost at sea for... oh, hours now.
I have no crew or navigational instruments (can't believe I forgot
my sextant! Stupid!). No provisions except a nest of woodlice.
Unless I find water soon, I'm surely done for. Only the hope of
finding some solid ground keeps me going. Oh, but my quest for
Blackbeard's treasure has left me in a sorry state. I thought it
would bring me fame and glory... instead I got catapulted through
the ceiling and here I am, sailing the seas in a coffin. I still suspect
Guybrush had something to do with this-"
Here Wally stopped writing, because a wet bedraggled head
had just appeared at the side of his coffin. Two hands grasped
the coffin and clung firmly.
It was Guybrush - coughing, spluttering and wheezing.
"Guybrush? Is that you?"
Guybrush looked up at Wally. "Wally!"
"That's right," said Wally.
Guybrush didn't know what to say. "Wow, this is some
coincidence!" he finally said.
"What are you doing here?" said Wally
Guybrush looked just a little smug. "Oh, LeChuck was just
sailing his ghost crew over to Booty Island to rape and pillage,
but I put a stop to that. The whole lot of 'em are down there in
Davy Jones' Locker. Let's see them find his body now!" Now
he'd gotten his breath back, Guybrush was feeling really good.
He'd actually done it! This would show Elaine, all right!
"They're all dead?" asked Wally.
"Every last ghost. Say, are you thinking-"
Guybrush didn't get a chance to finish, because another head had
appeared beside him. Two hands grasped the side of the coffin
next to Guybrush.
The acolyte spat out a mouthful of water. "Say," he said, "have
either of you guys seen a huge rundown pirate ship around here?
Splintery, ragged sails, large ghost crew?"
"It's gone," said Guybrush. "Sunk to the ocean floor."
The acolyte looked downcast. "Oh no. And I was supposed to
recover it, too. The Head Mo- er, LeChuck is going to be pissed."
"LeChuck?" said Wally. Something Guybrush had said finally kicked
through. "Hang on, Guybrush, did you say you killed LeChuck?!"
"Yeah. LeChuck's dead. Again."
"You mean..." said the acolyte.
"Actually, both LeChucks are dead," explained Guybrush. "The real one
and the fake one."
"Oh dear."
They sat there and floated for a bit.
"So, where are we?" the acolyte asked.
"We're floating in the middle of a sea on a barely seaworthy coffin,"
said Guybrush.
"It's not that bad," said Wally. "I was just about giving up hope
before you guys showed up, but with three people to propel this
thing, I reckon we could get a fair speed up."
"But where should we go?" asked the acolyte.
"Hmmm... Blackbeard's maps were no good. They didn't
correspond to any land mass I know. So we should-"
"I know where," Guybrush interrupted. "Cutlass Island! The
whole place must be utterly deserted by now. Imagine all the
treasure!"
"Yeah!" said the acolyte.
"We could even set up our own colony! I can be Governor, Wally
can be, um, Head Navigator, and you can be the Head Religious Guy!"
"Sounds good to me," said Wally. "And if that doesn't work out, the
whole Caribbean is our oyster!"
"Let's go!" said the acolyte. They climbed into the coffin. Three pairs
of hands sprouted down into the sea. They started thrashing away like
oars.
Already moving at a fair clip, the coffin scudded away.
===
Ten days later...
It was a fine sunny afternoon on Booty Island. Elaine Marley was
out in the sun, lying down on a deckchair and reading a novel.
Occasionally she turned a page.
A noise made her look up. Striding triumphantly toward her across
the lawn was Guybrush. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a hat
with corks dangling from it, and was holding two suitcases.
Guybrush reached Elaine and dropped the suitcases. "I'm back!"
he announced.
"Oh, hello Guybrush," said Elaine.
A cool introduction, but Guybrush was too full of pride to worry.
"Not a pirate, eh?" he said. "It all went super! I killed LeChuck,
got myself appointed Governor of an island with nobody on it,
and there's a whole crate of root beer in the trunk!"
Elaine didn't seem impressed. She looked Guybrush square in the
eye. "Guybrush, do you recall why we had the argument in the
first place?" she said.
"Ummm..." Guybrush stalled.
"I was angry with you because you didn't do any work around
here," said Elaine.
"Oh yeah," said Guybrush.
"Now, in the eleven days you've been away..." Elaine reached into
a pocket and pulled out an ominously long list. She started reading
from it. "Cobwebs have built up along the outer walls of the
mansion, the dogs have nearly starved to death, fruit trees need
to be picked, the corn fields haven't been tilled, there are weeds
growing around the foundation, a two foot pile of paperwork
has to be done, we've got dust in the pantry, the oven hasn't
been cleaned, Philbert wants to get paid, there's a whole stack
of garbage out the back, and two dead pigeons in the watertank."
"B-But-" stammered Guybrush.
Elaine fixed him with a smile. "Better get cracking, matey."
"But..."
THE END
wrote twelve months ago. The fan game never got produced, but at
least the script got finished. You can read it at
http://lucasfic.org/open.txt
The Spectre of Monkey Island has nothing to do with LucasArts
and was written strictly for entertainment. Do NOT contact
LucasArts about it. You'll only get us both in trouble.
===
PROLOGUE
===
"Om mani padre hum," chanted the monk.
He sat alone, crosslegged, on the wooden floor of one of the
many rooms in the Monastery of Small Footsteps. Morning sunlight
came in from windows set high up on the walls. Apart from the
monk, there was not a single thing in the room.
"Om mani padre hum," continued the chant.
It was the only sound in the Monastery. Everyone else, as far as
the Monk knew, was off on a morning hike to one of the holier
areas of Cutlass Island. This was well, because what the Monk
was doing required immense reserves of concentration.
He was having an out-of-body experience.
It was one of a number of things devotees of the Way of Small
Footsteps were able to do, after many years of training. The
Monk was very good at it.
The years of training were necessary because there was always a
slight risk associated with out-of-body experiences. At the one
moment, you were in two places at once - sitting down somewhere
in an empty room, and also flying around outside, a free spirit.
If something might upset your concentration at a time like this,
you could end up schizophrenic.
But the Monk was a master. Right now, while he was sitting on
the bare wooden floor, he was also a zephyr of spirit energy,
wafting across the sea on gentle, warm breezes. He looked down
at the sea. There didn't seem to be anything down there, but the
Monk remained confident. Sooner or later he would come across an
animal, and then he could go a step further - he could do a
mind-share.
A mind-share was, simply, occupying the mind of another animal.
For as long as you wished, you could be a gazelle, a parrot,
even a worm. Mind-shares were ostensibly illegal at the
Monastery of Small Footsteps. In practice everybody did it
sooner or later, usually somewhere private for politeness' sake.
And if out-of-body experiences required super concentration,
mind-shares required *ultra* concentration. Many a brother had
died insane, thinking they were goats or crows.
As focused as he was, the Monk couldn't help but hear some
noises nearby. Someone else was in the Monastery. Someone who,
whenever they moved, couldn't help but make as much noise as
possible.
The door opened, and in walked the acolyte.
There's one like him in every group. An eager, not so bright
student who always has about a hundred ideas, each of which is
guaranteed to fail. No doubt he'd been assigned some sort of
punishment, but had gotten bored and was wandering about looking
for company. Now he could see the Monk, and he *beamed*.
"Mr Monk!" he said happily. "I've been looking for you!"
The Monk didn't look around. He continued chanting.
"Oh... you're channelling again, are you?" said the acolyte,
after a while. "Gee, it's a good thing everybody's away today.
Channelling's really hard when you get distracted, isn't it?
What with people TALKING over the CHANTING, making you LOSE YOUR
PLACE... yeah, DISTRACTING."
This did not seem to be having any effect on the Monk. The
acolyte waited for a response, then walked out into the hallway.
The Monk, despite his best efforts at concentration, heard the
distant echo of doors slamming open, cupboards being examined,
and equipment dumped on the floor.
The Monk risked a quick swivel of one eyeball. He saw the open
hallway, and a huge mass of *stuff* was walking toward him.
The acolyte re-entered the room. Anywhere there was room on his
body, he was carrying an instrument. Steel drums and tambourines
and broken guitars and metal things that went 'bing' when you
hit them.
He started playing energetically. And while the acolyte didn't
have the slightest idea of melody or rhythm, he could still
raise enough noise to puncture eardrums at twenty paces. If
there were any birds on the roof, they would have flown away at
the first note.
The Monk didn't even blink.
The acolyte stopped playing. "Hello?" he said. "Mr. Monk?
HELLLOOOO??"
He tried a few more seconds of noise. In an amazing display of
self-control, not a muscle moved on the Monk's face.
The acolyte stopped. "You're no fun," he said sourly, and left
in a huff.
The Monk silently exhaled, in a thousandth-sigh. He'd nearly
lost himself out there over the sea, but now the acolyte was
gone he was back in control.
And there was something down there, bobbing up and down on the
water. The Monk zoomed in closer. It looked like a block of ice,
and what was a block of ice doing in the Caribbean?
As he came close, the Monk saw that it wasn't *just* a block of
ice. There was a body in there.
The Monk pulled up, his spirit less than twenty feet from the
iceberg. He edged forward, slowly. What an ugly thing! It looked
like the body of an old, fat pirate. Judging by the eternal
sneer on its frozen face, he must have died swearing revenge.
The Monk came closer. Mind-shares with corpses were seldom
interesting, but maybe he could find out how this pirate had
died...
Ten feet out, he sensed something. The corpse remained still,
but something inside had woken up. Something driven and
malevolent. Intelligent.
The Monk tried to back away, but suddenly he was seized and
pulled forward by a mighty, grasping force. He couldn't pull
out. Somewhere, far way, his body was sitting crosslegged on a
wooden floor, but he couldn't even open his eyes. The corpse was
growing larger, and the Monk was dragged through the ice, passed
through the skin, and into the rotting brain of the pirate.
Here was the presence, the malevolent intelligence. It turned on
him, and in a horrible, indescribable way, began to feed.
Ravenous as it was, it took less than a second to consume the
Monk's spirit. The meal finished, it rose into the air. The path
the Monk's spirit had taken was still there in front of him,
thin but visible.
He returned...
Inside the Monastery, the Monk's eyes burst open, revealing
green discoloured irises. A huge, dirty black beard sprouted on
his clean-shaven face. His skin went the mottled grey of the
living undead. His mouth opened.
"Arrrr!" roared LeChuck.
===
THE SPECTRE OF MONKEY ISLAND
===
Several days later...
It was another lazy summer day on Booty Island. Outside the
Governor's Mansion, Guybrush and Elaine were lying down on
deckchairs, in the early afternoon sunshine. Elaine was reading
a novel.
Guybrush opened the root beer in his hand and took a swig.
"Aaah," he said contentedly, as the blessed fluid swam down his
throat. "That really hit the spot." He turned to Elaine. "Do you
want some?"
"No," said Elaine, not looking up from her novel.
"You sure? This is great stuff."
Elaine didn't say anything. Guybrush could just make out the
cover of the book from this distance. Some huge muscular pirate
whose shirt buttons weren't working held close a simpering,
well-endowed woman with doting eyes. They were standing on the
deck of a pirate ship, and the wind seemed to be doing stuff to
their hair.
"Suit yourself," said Guybrush. He had another swill, and looked
around. In the distance they could hear Filbert toiling away,
working the back forty. Birds twittered in the jungle foliage.
Several seconds passed.
Elaine sighed, and shut the novel. "Guybrush..." she began.
Guybrush turned to her. "What?"
Elaine stared right at him. "When are you going to get off your
backside and do some work?"
The sudden attack startled Guybrush. "What?" he blurted. "What
are you talking about?"
"It's been months of laziness," continued Elaine, in a
you're-not-really-worth-getting-angry-over voice. "You're
slumming off my riches. I'm starting to wonder, Guybrush, if
you're really a pirate."
"I am!" protested Guybrush.
"In fact," continued Elaine relentlessly, "I don't think you
ever were a pirate."
"I was so! You just-"
Guybrush broke off, because Elaine wasn't looking at him
anymore. She was looking up into the sky. Guybrush followed her
gaze.
Pieces of paper were falling from the sky. Tiny scraps, the size
of a child's palm, fluttered onto the ground around them.
Guybrush stood up and picked up one of the pieces of paper.
There was writing on it. Guybrush read it.
He breathed in sharply. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "It says LeChuck
has become Governor of Cutlass Island! I've got to go and stop
him!"
"Good luck," said Elaine sceptically.
Guybrush looked at her. "You don't think I can do it?" he asked.
"Guybrush, you have trouble killing spiders. A pirate who tucks
his shirt into his underpants is not the kind of pirate I'd
trust with a task like this."
"That's not true!"
"Face it. You'll be crawling back here in twenty four hours
begging for help and a wad of cash."
Guybrush drew himself together. With injured dignity, he said,
"I don't think so. In fact, I think I'll just get rid of LeChuck
once and for all. And then I want an apology."
Without another word he stalked off, root beer in hand.
Elaine picked up the novel. "Touchy."
===
PART 1
===
Guybrush was fuming as he crossed the spit connecting the
Mansion to the mainland. He was steaming as he walked the jungle
paths to Ville de la Booty, and by the time he got to the
township he was merely simmering. And even that evaporated when
he realised he'd forgotten his wallet.
Guybrush ground his teeth. Of all the stupid damn things he
could have gone and done, forgetting his wallet was up near the
top of the list. With no money he couldn't charter a ship, and
without a ship he couldn't get to Cutlass Island. Guybrush
kicked a stone on the ground, annoyed.
Well, that settled that. He'd just have to turn back and-
Guybrush stopped in mid-turn. He couldn't go back now - it would
be an admission of defeat. Crawling back within twenty-four
hours, begging for help and a wad of cash.
Elaine's words still rankled with him. Guybrush's resolve
hardened. He wasn't going back until LeChuck was six feet under.
That'd show her, all right!
Satisfied now he'd made up his mind, Guybrush looked around.
Ville de la Booty was having that rarest of events - a quiet
day. All the shops were shut, except for the antique place.
There was just the one ship docked at the pier. And nobody in
sight, except for a small kid sitting on the ground near the
antique shop, listlessly playing with some fireworks.
Guybrush set out for the ship. Maybe the captain might be an
understanding, credit-giving kind of guy.
===
It was a nice ship, thought Guybrush as he boarded the deck.
Smallish, but clean, and sturdy-looking.
The ship captain stood on the deck, looking at him. Unlike most
pirates, there wasn't a cloud of tiny insects and revolting
smells revolving around him. He had a beard, but it was neatly
kept and presentable in polite company. The clothes were all
pressed and no stains were visible. In short, not your average
pirate captain.
"Ahoy there, young man," said the captain as Guybrush
approached. "What can I do for you?"
"I need someone to take me to Cutlass Island," said Guybrush.
"Cutlass Island, eh?" mused the ship captain. "Hmmm... that's a
long way away." He looked at Guybrush. "Cutlass is a pretty
dangerous island, lad. Are you sure you're up to it?"
Normally this sort of comment wouldn't have worried Guybrush,
but the argument with Elaine had put him on edge somewhat. "Yes,
I'm sure!" he said hotly.
"Okay..." said the ship captain, slowly. "Well, it's going to
cost you."
This was what Guybrush had been dreading. For the benefit of the
ship captain, he reached into his pocket, saying, "That's all
right. I've got money." The hand searching the pocket stopped,
and Guybrush looked stricken. "Oh, no! I've forgotten my wallet!"
"You better go get it then, hadn't you?" advised the ship
captain.
Guybrush looked twice as stricken. "I... can't. Not yet."
"Well then, you ain't got a ship," said the ship captain firmly.
"A thousand pieces of eight, or no journey."
"Don't you offer credit?" said Guybrush despairingly.
The ship captain shook his head. "A few years ago I used to.
Then I heard about a shopkeeper on Melee Island. Seems he gave
away five thousand gold pieces in credit and didn't see a cent
back. Some annoying wannabe pirate with a ponytail tricked him
out of the money. Nearly bankrupted the guy. I guess you could
say it sort of scared me off."
It was time to leave. "Well, thanks anyway," said Guybrush,
wasting no time in heading down the ramp to the pier.
===
On the ground, he thought about his options. Returning to the
Mansion was impossible. He needed money to get off Booty Island,
and the only place nearby that might be able to help was the
Antique store.
Guybrush wandered over and opened the door. As always, the
interior of Booty Island's Antique store was dim, smoky and
packed full of merchandise. Even before Guybrush had taken a
step inside he could see the pirate tools hanging from the
walls, the rare and probably useless merchandise perched on thin
shelves.
The antique guy was behind the counter, in perhaps the only
brightly lit spot in the whole store. He looked inscrutably at
Guybrush. "Hello there," he said. "How can I help you?"
Hesitantly, Guybrush said, "Er... I need some money."
"What do I look like, a bank?"
"Don't you buy old antiques?" asked Guybrush.
"Yeah, I do," said the antique guy. "What have you got?"
Even before he began rummaging through his pockets, Guybrush
knew the search was fruitless. He only had one thing - a
half-empty bottle of root beer. Still, this guy had been stupid
enough to buy a Spitmaster plaque from him last time. Maybe he
could pull a fast one again.
Guybrush pulled the bottle out of his pants, as if handling a
very cultured and fragile wine. "Would you be interested in this
rare root beer?" he said.
"No," said the antique guy. Seeing Guybrush's crestfallen face,
he added, "Actually there is something I might give you some
money for. There's an old treasure up in the northern corner of
the island that nobody has managed to dig up. It'd probably be
worth a lot these days."
"All right!" said Guybrush. A lost treasure - this was right up
his street. "Where is this treasure?"
"The treasure of Bony Legs Pedro," said the antique guy. "I
don't know exactly, but I have managed to make a rough map.
Here." He gave Guybrush a small scrap of paper.
Guybrush scanned the walls. Hanging there on his right was
something that looked just perfect for a treasure hunt. He
pointed at a shovel. "I'd like to buy that shovel," said
Guybrush.
"That'll be thirty pieces of eight," said the antique guy.
Guybrush suddenly remembered his predicament. "Ummm... the thing
is..." he stalled.
"You don't have any money," finished the antique guy.
"Well... yes."
"Then you can't have the shovel," said the antique guy, calmly
but implacably.
===
Guybrush wandered outside, frustrated but thinking hard.
No, he didn't have any money. But it felt like there was a
solution to his problem, and the pieces were all around him. He
only had to arrange them properly.
Guybrush looked down, and saw the kid playing with the
fireworks. This was an oddly shaped piece, all right. Guybrush
had no idea how it might fit into the puzzle, but he might as
well talk to the kid anyway.
For a kid with fireworks, he was having a remarkable lack of
fun. "What's happening?" said Guybrush.
The kid looked up at him, disgusted. "Nothing. Can you believe
it? I've got this great pile of fireworks here and no matches!"
"Why don't you just buy some matches?" said Guybrush.
"Because the guy in the antique store is a ripoff merchant,
that's why," said the kid evenly.
There was a pause. The kid shrugged his shoulders in an
admission of defeat. "Oh, this is useless," he said. "I'm going
home." He stood up and looked at Guybrush. "You can take the
fireworks, if you want." Then he left.
Guybrush looked down again. A large pile of fireworks was there
in front of him. Think, Guybrush, think...
He had it. This was going to be good...
===
The antique guy's eagle eyes saw some rather strange behaviour
in the next few minutes.
Standing behind the counter, watching the door, he saw it open
and a short silhouette was outlined in the doorway. It was that
Guybrush person. The antique guy watched as Guybrush
nonchalantly wandered into the store. This was the word that
immediately occurred to the antique guy - there was an air of
very consciously studied nonchalance about Guybrush's walk.
This nonchalant, meandering walk brought Guybrush, as if quite
by accident, to the counter. He brought his hands up to the
bench and said, looking at the antique guy, "Don't you take
credit?"
"Oh, no," said the antique guy immediately. "Well, I used to
about three years ago, but then I heard about another antique
dealer on Melee Island. Seems he gave some young pirate five
thousand gold pieces of credit, and the guy went and defaulted
on him. The antique dealer just about went broke. Had to pay it
to Stan, poor guy, which just about killed him. So no, sorry, no
credit."
He'd been looking at Guybrush the whole time, and he was
satisfied nothing untoward had happened. But he was wrong. There
was a large display case on the bench, and in front of it a
small box full of matches. The display case blocked the antique
guy's view, and so Guybrush had helped himself to a handful.
Nonchalantly, he walked away. The antique guy saw him wander
into the darkest area of the store, and stop, as if entranced by
some item.
Nothing much happened in the next five seconds. Then there was a
rustle and some motion. Then Guybrush bent down and coughed
noisily. Underneath the coughing, the antique guy heard
something else.
Guybrush stood up, and in that same nonchalant style, walked
away, his interest suddenly taken by a rack of pirate tools on
one wall.
The antique guy was following his progress when there was a
sudden loud 'bang!' on his right. Involuntarily his head whipped
around. "What the..." The formerly dark corner of his store was
filled with light, as a collection of streamers and roman
candles burst merrily on the ground. The noise, and light, in
this confined space was deafening. The antique guy ducked.
The last firework went off. As the dust settled, the antique guy
rose and looked suspiciously at Guybrush. He was standing by the
pirate tool rack, both hands behind his back, and smiling
inanely.
The antique guy's eyebrows narrowed.
Guybrush started to back away, still smiling furiously.
The antique guy stared straight at him.
It was like a Mexican standoff.
With a jolt, Guybrush backed into the door, and found he had a
problem. How could you open a door with your hands full and
while you were facing the other way? The antique guy was staring
at him harder than ever and Guybrush knew he was waiting for a
slipup.
Guybrush kept smiling, backed up against the door, and tried to
manoeuvre some spare fingers around the doorknob. A very tense
five seconds passed, in which the only sound was the faint
scratching sound of Guybrush failing to open the door, and the
antique guy's low breathing.
Finally he found a grip. The door opened behind him. Guybrush
gratefully backed into the space, smiling one final time at the
antique guy. "Be seeing you," he said, then he was gone.
===
Outside, Guybrush ran until he was a safe distance away. Then he
dropped the axe and shovel on the ground and took some very deep
breaths.
Finally his heart dropped back into its normal rhythm. Out of
sight of peering locals, he spread the map on the ground and
studied it.
The north of Booty Island was mostly untamed jungle and
swampland. There was only one main feature, a huge tree upon
which was built a multi-room house, formerly the home of the
island cartographer. It afforded magnificent views of the whole
island. However, the X on this map was a point somewhat west of
the tree. Still, it would be a useful starting point to his
quest.
Lugging the tools, Guybrush started north. That sun was right
above, and it was the hottest part of the day. The clouds of
flies and gnats grew around his head, as he passed swampland and
marshland and stinking green bogs.
He was following a thin path, the only way in and out of Booty
Island's most desolate corner. And soon, straight above like a
beacon for weary travellers, he saw the thick, gnarled branches
of the Big Tree.
Guybrush stopped at the base of the Tree, beside a trunk nearly
thirty feet in diameter. High above, he saw the grey planks
bolted together, the floor of the cartographer's hut. At one
stage a staircase had led up around the trunk of the Tree to the
hut, but now most of the logs were gone. There was just a
series of holes drilled into the trunk, and two small planks in
the bottom two holes.
Guybrush wasn't worried - he'd done this before. Coming forward,
he stood on the second plank. Kneeling down, he pulled the first
plank out of the trunk, and slotted it into the next hole. Then
he stood on this plank, knelt down and pulled out the second
plank. And so on. Proceeding laboriously one step at a time,
Guybrush finally reached the main hut.
It was built right on the trunk, at a point where it split into
several thick, almost horizontal branches. Steps were cut into
one gradually sloping branch, leading to a smaller, higher hut.
A thin ladder led up to a tiny observation hut, built right at
the top of the tree.
It was the observation hut Guybrush wanted. He climbed
carefully, coming through the gently swaying leaves of the tree,
and emerged out the top, standing on a circular floor barely
three feet wide.
The view was incredible. Rolling forests and croaking wetlands
surrounded him, and beyond them was the sea, tiny thin noiseless
white waves crashing into the yellow sand.
Guybrush got out the map, and found Ville de la Booty. He turned
until he was looking at Booty Island's principal township. Let's
see... this X was on his right, at about one hundred and thirty
degrees. Not too far distant, either.
He turned, and looked down. The map seemed to be indicating a
tiny clearing in the jungle, a clearing that looked a bit to
Guybrush like muddy swampland. Guybrush could see nothing that
might indicate the presence of treasure.
It was time to come down. Guybrush did so, and ten minutes later
was back at the foot of the Tree. Picking up the axe and shovel,
he set out for his quarry.
It was cooler in the shade of the forest. Here there were no
paths to follow, but Guybrush remembered his direction - almost
directly toward the sun - and followed it slavishly, pushing
aside ferns, low-lying vines and other native fauna.
Soon the trees pulled aside, and he was in a circular clearing.
The circular clearing, brilliantly lit from above, was nothing
more than a deep, muddy bog. Guybrush knew, looking at that wet,
bubbling surface, that to take one step into the bog was to
forever vanish from the face of the earth. Frogs croaked and
crickets whistled.
It wasn't *all* bog, however. Right in the centre of the bog was
an upraised mound of what looked like normal soil. It had to be,
because it supported a wooden sign. Guybrush strained his eyes
to read the writing.
"'Congratulations!'" he read. "'You've found the long lost
treasure of Booty Island. What do you want, a medal? Start
digging.'"
So he'd found it after all. Now he just had to get it.
Guybrush looked around, momentarily indecisive, then picked up
the axe. He chose a slender, weak-looking tree at the edge of
the bog and began pounding at the trunk.
The first blow shook every leaf in the tree, causing a massive
exodus of birds. Guybrush kept pounding. From the way the whole
tree shook at his blows, it wasn't very strong.
The seventh stroke caused the trunk to crack. The tree began to
keel over. With a gradual tearing sound, the crack deepened. The
keel became more pronounced. Finally, like an old man giving up
the ghost, the tree crashed to earth.
Guybrush dropped the axe. He picked up the trunk, and with a
loud series of heaves, began pulling it around onto the bog.
Pushing and pulling with all his might, Guybrush was able to
line up the trunk with the sign in the middle. The gap was
bridged.
Shovel in hand, a freely sweating Guybrush crossed the gap. The
tree trunk, though it was soft and weak, was also wide, and it
held under his weight. With relief he stepped onto the dry soil
in the middle.
The sign came out of the ground at the first pull - it was in
his way - and Guybrush began digging. It was absurdly easy work.
The dirt was so soft and damp it just about leapt out of the
ground as he dug.
Two feet down the shovel struck wood. Guybrush knelt down and
brushed away soil. He could feel the edges of a wooden chest,
reinforced with brass - a fairly small chest, at that. Guybrush
was able to grasp its edges and lever it out of the ground.
The antique guy might be interested in this.
===
The antique guy, standing behind the counter, glared
suspiciously at Guybrush as he entered. The glare melted away
instantly, however, when Guybrush dropped a small dirty chest on
the counter.
"Wow!" enthused the antique guy. "The treasure of Bony Legs
Pedro! You found it!" And beneath the enthusiasm, he was
thinking: I can shortchange this guy and make up for the stuff
he undoubtedly stole.
As if on cue, Guybrush asked, "How much is it worth?"
"How much?" The antique guy crossed his eyes, as if in deep
thought, as indeed he was - how much could he fleece off this
guy? "I'll give you a thousand pieces of eight," he said.
That was exactly enough to pay the ship captain. "Done," said
Guybrush with a smile.
The antique guy beamed back. He handed over the money - a
thousand gold pieces in a single hessian sack. "Nice working
with you," he said. "Come back anytime."
Guybrush left.
The antique guy restrained an urge to shout. What a killing!
===
In high spirits, Guybrush boarded the ship.
The ship captain was still about, standing on deck and looking
at him as if he didn't expect very much. Guybrush changed that
by handing over the money. He loved the way that made people's
expressions change.
Not only the captain's expression, but his whole personality
changed. "All right, mon!" he said, breaking into Jamaican.
"Consider my ship chartered!"
"That was Monkey Island II," said Guybrush impatiently.
The ship captain blinked. "Er... really? Sorry... don't know
what came over me then. Let's cast off!"
===
PART 2: ISLAND
===
It was late evening in the Cutlass Island monastery. Torchlight
illuminated the many passages and featureless wooden hallways,
which were all bereft of people. No monks or devout students
walked the passages. The rooms were silent. The whole place was
bathed in an eerie stillness.
It all depressed the young acolyte, who walked down the passages
seeing no-one, hearing no-one. The acolyte was something of a
changed man. He used to walk around in brown robes and shaven
head, a featureless young student. Now he wore horrible green
trousers, large black false eyebrows, and walked with a hunch
bringing at least half a foot off his height.
It was all that Monk's fault, reflected the acolyte glumly.
Everything had gone wrong since that day when everybody had gone
off and left him and the Monk. When the acolyte had gone to see
the Monk a second time, he had a huge black beard and eyes that
*glared* with a fierce green light. More strangely, he insisted
on being called LeChuck. And, strangest of all, he insisted on
calling the *acolyte*, him, Largo.
The acolyte didn't know who this Largo character was, but wished
he'd at least had better taste in trousers.
But that had only been the beginning. The Monk had immediately
assumed total control over the Monastery. And things had only
gotten worse since then...
The acolyte came to an intersection of passages, and here was
the one person he didn't want to meet. The Monk.
If you'd known the Monk before his metamorphosis, you would not
recognise the figure now in front of the acolyte, not with his
huge black beard, filthy pirate hat, and shabby brown clothes
that looked like they'd been stolen from a hobo. You would not
have recognised the mannerisms - the threatening lean forward as
he harangued a subordinate, the spray of spittle that flew from
his lips as he talked, the spasmodic wave of the hands. And you
certainly wouldn't have recognised the voice - a cracked, bitter
thing barely kept in control.
"Arr!" the Monk now said. "How goes it?"
The acolyte swallowed. "Um, Mr.- er, I mean, LeChuck Sir,
everything is as you wanted it. The last pirate came in several
hours ago."
The Monk looked satisfied. "Excellent. Now I command every
pirate on this island. My army of ghost pirates shall sweep the
Caribbean like a hurricane. You will be well rewarded for this,
Largo."
The acolyte protested, "My name's not-"
"Shut up!"
===
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, Guybrush's ship had
just come into dock and the captain wasn't happy. Guybrush was
down on the pier, but the captain was staying on deck.
"...so I'll probably be two hours, three at the most," finished
Guybrush. "Will you wait for me?"
The captain looked around forebodingly. He'd been to Cutlass
Island many times before, but this time it felt different. There
was a chill in the night air, and a strange silence over the
town.
"I don't know," said the captain slowly. "I'm not sure I like
the look of this place." Staying or not, there was no way he was
getting off this ship, that was for sure.
"It's only two hours!" said Guybrush. "What could happen?"
"Er..." The ship captain sighed, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I guess you're right. I'll just-"
The ship captain stopped talking in mid-sentence. Tiny pieces of
paper were fluttering down from the sky, making noiseless
landings on the deck. The ship captain's brow furrowed as he
bent down and picked up one of the pieces.
"Now what's this?" he said.
Guybrush winced. The size and shape and, indeed, method of
arrival of these scraps of paper were familiar. If they said
what he thought they said...
The ship captain read, and all the doubt seemed to clear from
his face. "I see," he said neutrally.
"Wait a second-" pleaded Guybrush.
But he was too late. With two knife slashes the captain severed
the rope holding the ship. Helped by an offshore breeze, the
ship rapidly sailed away, soon lost from sight over the dark sea.
"Darn. He could have waited two hours!" said Guybrush, not
unreasonably. "Now I've got to find LeChuck all by myself. And I
don't even know where he is!"
He looked around hopefully. No LeChuck. Nobody, in fact, could
be seen, heard, or smelt. And this worried Guybrush. If he knew
anything about pirate towns, they were seething pits of
activity, places that never slept, the kinds of town you could
smell fifty miles away with a good breeze.
Guybrush began walking along the pier, toward the centre of
town. Small, apathetic waves slapped into the wooden poles.
There were no ships docked here, just a tiny rowboat on a
pulley. Guybrush hoped he wouldn't have to use it to get back
home.
The pier ended, and Guybrush found himself standing on the
cobblestones of the main street. It ran left and right along the
beach, and another street intersected it in the middle, forming
a T-intersection.
"Where is everybody?" said Guybrush. "It's like a ghost town
here."
If you were looking for a pirate on Cutlass, this would be the
place to start. On his left Guybrush saw the Bloody Leech pub, a
two-storey shanty of rotting tinderwood that looked very
popular. Next to it was the flash Swingin' Stan's Sword Store,
and on his right was Pirates 'R' Us clothing. All three
buildings were quiet, and unlit.
This isn't looking good, thought an uneasy Guybrush. What had
LeChuck done as Mayor?
As he was thinking these worrying thoughts, he heard a faint
noise. Guybrush stopped, and listened.
Yes, there it was, in the distance. It sounded like machinery.
Guybrush followed the noise. It led him through the deserted
streets of the town, back toward the shore. The noise got louder
but Guybrush still had no idea what it might be.
Presently he saw the source of the noise. On a lonely, deserted
pier, someone was standing beside a huge machine, which was
hurling small pieces of paper into the air. These pieces of
paper didn't drift back down, but kept on going, wafted upward
by warm currents of air, until they were lost from sight.
This solved the mystery of those pieces of paper falling from
the sky, Guybrush realised. And as he stepped onto the pier, he
finally recognised who the someone was. The giggling, pantless
someone.
"Herman Toothrot!" Guybrush said, startled.
Herman turned. His face lit up. "Ah! The dignitaries have
arrived!"
"What?" said Guybrush, confused.
"You look a bit scruffy, but a good suit and a shave should take
care of that," said Herman. "Come on, we haven't got much time.
The function starts at twelve!"
"What *are* you talking about, Herman?"
Now Herman looked puzzled. "Aren't you here to welcome and pay
homage to LeChuck on behalf of your Governor?"
"What? No! I'm here to kick his reincarnated skull into
oblivion!" said Guybrush forcefully.
Herman looked thoughtful. "You are? You should have booked."
"What are you doing here, Herman?" asked Guybrush.
"Me?" said Herman rhetorically. "I *live* here. Well, not*
here*. In a tumbledown shack two thousand miles across the
ocean, actually. But I'm sure a high-minded civic individual
like myself should have no trouble getting a green card."
This steady stream of nonsense from Herman was starting to give
Guybrush a headache. "No, what are you *doing* here?"
"Eh?"
"Why are you distributing all these notices with 'LECHUCK IS
GOVERNOR' on them?"
Herman looked relieved. "Oh that! Thought you were talking about
my sinus problem. Well, for some reason there aren't any ships
left to sail the Caribbean and announce LeChuck's Governorship.
So, being the high-minded civic individual I am, I've taken that
duty on board. Heh heh heh," he added, under his breath.
Well, thought Guybrush, at least I've found somebody. Possibly
the worst person in the world to get information from, but at
least I can try. "Where is everybody?" he asked.
"You know, it's strange," said Herman. "Just over the last few
days everybody's been heading up to the Monastery on the far
side of the island. I never go there myself... had a few
disagreements with the Head Monk, know what I mean?" Herman
winked at Guybrush. "He actually believes a non-Cartesian
entropy field implies an eternal period of creation!"
Guybrush, not having a clue what Herman was saying, said
nothing. "But everyone else seems to like him fine," continued
Herman. "Nobody's come back from there, at all. Too busy with
the non-stop carousing, I expect."
"Hmmm..." said Guybrush thoughtfully. This was an important clue.
"You know," said Herman hopefully, "if you're not too busy, I
might ask a favour."
"What?" said Guybrush.
"I'm running out of paper," said Herman. "Could you get some for
me?"
"What'll you give me in return?"
Herman made a sour face. "Hah. That'd be right. Couldn't
possibly put yourself out for the betterment of a fellow human
being, could you? Altruism's not in *our* dictionary, is it?
Well, if *that's* how it is, if you bring me some paper I'll
give you
a wooden spoon."
Guybrush wasn't sure if this was a joke or not. "A wooden spoon?"
"Yes. Quite good quality! Previous owner was a little old lady
who only took it out of the cupboard once a week to make
bread-and-butter pudding. Heh."
"Okay..." said Guybrush slowly, backing away from Herman. Herman
turned his attention back to the machine, and made faint
giggling sounds under his breath.
Eventually, after a long tense backwards walk, Guybrush reached
the end of the pier. He wiped his brow and immediately proceeded
to get out of Herman's sight. Soon he was lost in the centre of
town.
Guybrush was also lost in thought. He had to find a monastery.
Apart from the information that it was 'on the other side of the
island', Guybrush didn't have a clue where to begin. He'd never
been on Cutlass before, never even seen a map of the place. As
he walked through the dark, silent streets, Guybrush pondered
the problem. Find a mountain and look around? It was dark. Ask
directions? Who?
He didn't see the small figure until he was nearly on top of him.
Guybrush's meanderings had brought him through the main part of
the town, to the outer perimeter. The street he was currently in
kept on going, past the houses, turning itself into a dirt road
leading into the island. Though most of the town was behind him,
there was a large shop on his right, called the _Bazaar of the
Bizarre_. Standing in front of it, staring intently at the front
door, was Wally.
The shock of recognition caused Guybrush to speak before he
could think. "I must be dreaming. It's Wally!"
Wally turned around and saw Guybrush. His eyes, one hidden
behind a monocle, betrayed no discernible emotion. "Hello, Mr
Brush," he said.
On paper it sounded perfectly neutral. But there was a lot of
history behind that greeting, and now Guybrush remembered it. A
long and very convoluted string of events had led to Wally being
imprisoned in LeChuck's Carnival of the Damned. Guybrush had
promised to free him, but what with one thing and another, he
never really got around to it...
This was an awkward situation. Guybrush tried his best. "Great
to see you, pal!" he said heartily. "Glad to see you escaped
from that evil carnival after I..." he quickly pulled up from
that chain of thought, "...heh heh, yeah."
Wally said quietly, "Someday everybody will pay."
There was a tiny pause. Wally blinked, and then he seemed to be
back to his normal self - the cheerful kid cartographer who
never knew when he was in out of his depth.
"Um, so what are you doing here, Wally?" asked Guybrush.
"I'm picking up my life of crime where I left off," said Wally.
"It's a bit strange really. Yesterday I was back on Scabb, when
I got this sudden urge to visit Cutlass. There are rumours that
the Bazaar of the Bizarre holds the last remaining set of
Blackbeard's treasure maps."
"Really?" asked an interested Guybrush.
"But they're said to be really well guarded," continued Wally.
"So I wasn't going to do anything, but then some fliers landed
on my doorstep which said LeChuck was governor and people were
being turned into slavering zombies. I wanted a piece of the
action, so I chartered Dread and sailed over."
"So what's happening now?"
"At the moment," said Wally, "I'm breaking the door down."
Four seconds passed. Guybrush and Wally looked at each other.
"Um, pardon me for intruding," said Guybrush eventually, "but
how exactly are you going to break down this door?"
"Well, 'break' is probably a bit strong," admitted Wally, still
looking at Guybrush. "I'm wearing this door down. Through sheer
eye power. I reckon it's close to cracking."
"That doesn't sound like a very effective way," said Guybrush
critically. "And shouldn't you be staring *at* the door?"
Wally stared at Guybrush. His eyebrows narrowed, as his face
took on a look of total concentration.
Nothing was happening.
"Wilt, damn you!" exclaimed Wally. "Wilt!"
Guybrush tried to keep a look of polite befuddlement on his
face. He wanted to break out laughing, but this was just too
*sad*...
After a few more seconds, Wally gave up. He blinked at Guybrush
in surprise. "Wow! You're good. If you can fight as good as you
can stare, I might let you tag along."
"What an honour!" said Guybrush.
"You said it," said Wally. "Now, back to work." He looked back
at the door, effectively ending the conversation.
Guybrush looked around. There, on the roadside, was a sign:
'Cutlass Island Interior.'
Well, he might not know where he was going, but a road was a
good start.
Guybrush set out.
===
Though he didn't know anything about the interior of Cutlass
Island, Guybrush was finding quite a lot out now.
At first the road he took led upward through sloping, grazed
hills, to a high crest above the town. Looking around from this
peak, Guybrush hadn't been able to see a single house light. The
terrain before him sloped down into a dark jungle valley, before
rising again on the far side to pine forested hills.
The road led downward, into the jungle. And this was where it
started to get difficult. On the open plains, the light of the
full moon had served fairly well to illuminate his surroundings.
Under the jungle canopy, it was nearly pitch dark. About the
only light came from fireflies and phospherent insects that
swooped overhead and chirped in the distance. Low-lying vines,
invisible in the dark, continually struck Guybrush. His feet
began sinking into jungle mud, which either meant the jungle was
turning into a swamp, or he'd lost the road.
Eventually, a dirty, stumbling Guybrush came to a slightly
thinner area of jungle. The barest of moonlight shone down, so
that Guybrush could see a tumbledown shack not far off in the
distance.
The ground was nearly liquid under his feet. Taking the time to
spy out tussocks of grass, Guybrush hopped toward his
destination.
Soon he stood in front of the porch. Four thick stilts supported
the hut several feet above the swamp, so that the bottom of the
door was about at Guybrush's eye level. A small rickety ladder
was bolted to one side of the porch. "Wonder who lives here..."
he thought aloud, "...wonder if *anybody* lives here." It didn't
look likely. The place was falling to bits in front of his eyes.
But there was something... through those grimy windows, behind
the faded red moth-eaten curtains, there seemed to be a faint
green glow.
Guybrush dismissed this. There was one out of place detail here,
a large vending machine on the swampy ground in front of the
porch. It too looked a little rusty. Guybrush had had some nasty
experiences with vending machines, so he didn't give it any
closer attention.
Guybrush quickly thought. Inhabited or not, he needed a break to
get his bearings back. He tried the ladder. The first rung was
so rotten it broke as soon as his foot touched it. So did the
second. In the end Guybrush ignored the ladder altogether and
just climbed straight up on the porch.
Some floorboards sagged, but they held. Guybrush walked to the
front door and pulled it open.
An old, eldritch smell drifted out. Guybrush's nose wrinkled.
About what he'd expected. He edged forward into the darkness.
But it wasn't completely dark. There were candles on the floor,
and several hanging from the ceiling... candles that glowed with
a green fiery light.
Then, like a picture coming into focus, Guybrush adjusted to the
light, and saw everything.
The floor was bare. The walls, however, were plastered with
illustrated parchments of strange, possibly illegal diagrams.
Several stuffed animals hung from the ceiling, swinging in the
warm air.
In the middle of the room, sitting on her green voodoo throne,
on a Mexican throw rug, was the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush screamed.
"What?" said the Voodoo Lady, surprised.
"Oh no, not you!" wailed Guybrush. "Not again! No!"
"Guybrush Threep-"
Guybrush ignored her. Could he never escape his past? Every time
he'd thought he'd succeeded, another bit character from the
Monkey Island series returned. Seeing Wally and Herman had
started it off, but now a whole wave of existential despair was
crashing home. "How'd you get here?" he babbled crazily. "What
are you *doing* here? God, it's like some evil curse! I can't
get away!"
"I have come, Guybrush," said the Voodoo Lady patiently, "to do
battle with our arch-nemesis, LeChuck."
"No," said Guybrush, flatly.
The Voodoo Lady was confused again. "What?"
Guybrush crossed his arms. "I said *no*. I'm not doing it.
Whatever it is you want me to do. Count me out." He waited for a
brief while, but the Voodoo Lady didn't say anything. "And
nothing you can say," continued Guybrush, "is going to change my
mind."
"Have you wondered where all the townspeople are, Guybrush?"
said the Voodoo Lady.
This was an unexpected response. "Um..." said Guybrush,
"...well, I had wondered about that, actually."
Five seconds passed. Guybrush was waiting for the Voodoo Lady to
speak, but she just looked at him. For some strange reason, this
felt like a contest of wills. To speak now might have dire
consequences.
"So, what happened to them?" Guybrush finally asked.
"There is an old monastery on the promontory," said the Voodoo
Lady. She looked satisfied. "Nobody paid it any attention, until
two weeks ago. Some pirates left the town and went to the
monastery. They were followed by others. And none returned."
"You mean everybody's gone?" Guybrush said.
"Well, there's a family of Survivalists in the forest," said the
Voodoo Lady, "but apart from them, this island has been scoured
clean."
"What happened to everybody?"
"LeChuck has killed them all," said the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush grimaced. "Ick."
"Now he's assembled the largest ghost crew the world has ever
seen, up in the monastery. With it he'll be unstoppable."
A few details were nagging away at Guybrush. "I thought LeChuck
was Governor."
"Oh, that's just some idea of Herman's," said the Voodoo Lady
dismissively. "Ignore him."
"But how did he escape the ice?" asked Guybrush.
"I don't know," admitted the Voodoo Lady. "He may have access to
some new form of Voodoo magic: something I won't be able to
counter." She looked almost embarrassed by this.
Guybrush could see where this conversation was heading, but he
first wanted to straighten a few things out. "So why aren't you
out there fighting LeChuck?" he asked.
The Voodoo Lady looked sharply at him. "It's not that easy. I
arrived here yesterday, and he's sealed the monastery and the
peninsula off from the outside world with a huge force field. I
can't get near. Unless," and here her voice grew deep and
stentorian, "I can cast the Spell of Synchromesh."
"The Spell of Synchromesh?" said Guybrush dubiously. "Sounds
like something from a bad RPG."
"It's a very esoteric spell, and I forgot to bring all my voodoo
essentials. I shall require you to find some special
ingredients."
"I think I saw this coming," muttered Guybrush. He sighed. "All
right, what are they?"
The Voodoo Lady smiled with satisfaction. "First, you must find
me a monkey skull."
"Easy," said Guybrush.
"The second ingredient is harder," cautioned the Voodoo Lady. "A
very rare herb called Talbad."
"Sounds like an Arabian pirate," said Guybrush.
"I'm all out," continued the Voodoo Lady, "and there's only one
place on this island that stocks it. The Bazaar of the Bizarre.
Before you came I tried to summon a mighty pirate to ransack the
place, but it didn't quite work out. Now it is up to you.
"Here's the key," said the Voodoo Lady. She held a small metal
object out to Guybrush, who took it. "And take this map. You may
need it." She gave him a rolled up parchment.
"Gee, thanks," said Guybrush.
"Thank me later," said the Voodoo Lady. "Now, go!"
===
Standing outside the hut, Guybrush thought about what to do next.
He knew where to get some Talbad, and he had the key, but
Guybrush didn't feel like seeing Wally just yet. So that left
the monkey skull. Guybrush wasn't worried about this item.
Off the shoreline of the main Cutlass township was a small
offshore island, mostly rock. Up until a year ago, it had housed
the Cutlass Monkey Enclosure.
Pirates have never been very fond of monkeys. Parrots maybe,
although the price of a parrot eternally perched on your
shoulder was a hefty laundry bill. No, pirates have never liked
monkeys. In the opinion of the pirates, monkeys are good for
nothing, a nuisance, and they tend to pinch your hat while
you're digging up buried treasure.
So when the Monkey Enclosure opened on this small offshore
islands, the pirates didn't come to look. Oh no. They came to
gawk. To throw small pebbles and peanuts at the caged monkeys.
To prod them with pointy sticks. To dangle large bunches of
bananas outside the cage and then pointedly throw them away. To
suspend the monkeys above dunk tanks and then throw balls at the
trigger. To shoot revolvers at their feet and shout 'Dance!'.
To... etc, etc.
Sometimes pirates can be really downright mean.
Guybrush heard all this from the ship captain, as they passed
the small island on their way to the main pier. He could see the
cages from the deck - they were rusted out and empty. When the
captain had finished speaking, Guybrush asked: so why did it
close down?
The captain told him. Apparently, Elaine Marley had gotten wind
of the Monkey Enclosure and was horrified. In no uncertain
terms, she told the Cutlass authorities that if the enclosure
wasn't shut down immediately, she'd move to a distant island and
become a hermit, forever removing herself from public affairs.
Within two hours, every caged monkey was free and roaming
Cutlass.
Ironically, in their place the pirates left large bunches of
bananas.
From the captain's tale, Guybrush had gathered there were a lot
of monkey corpses still lying around. Now, standing in the
marshy land around the Voodoo Lady's hut, all he had to think of
was a way to get to the island. This wasn't a problem either, as
Guybrush could clearly remember seeing a rowboat tied to the
pier where the captain had docked.
So Guybrush wasn't feeling too bad as he stood in front of the
Voodoo Lady's hut. Now he gave the vending machine a closer
look, and saw that it was a Voodoo Vending Machine, built to
dispense all sorts of voodoo goodies. Guybrush saw bats wings
and monkey droppings on the list. It was all moot though, as a
large 'OUT OF ORDER' sign was draped over the top of the
machine. Not really expecting anything, Guybrush pressed the
coin return button.
A large gold coin spilled out the coin return shute and
disappeared into the swamp with a 'glop'.
Guybrush shrugged his shoulders, and started the journey back to
town.
===
About an hour later Guybrush was back in town, standing on the
pier in front of a small rowboat.
It had seemed simple, but then nothing was simple for Guybrush.
He'd found the rowboat all right - it was at the pier where the
ship captain had docked, and was strung up above the sea by a
complicated pulley system. The pulleys, Guybrush soon found,
were completely rusted, and refused to budge.
He needed some lubricant. Guybrush thought about this a bit,
then went to find Herman. When he got there, Guybrush saw an oil
can in front of Herman's machine.
Herman was absorbed in his work, and didn't notice a silent,
creeping Guybrush steal up behind and take the oil can.
The oil can, nearly full, freed up the pulley system. With a
little effort, Guybrush was able to lower the rowboat into the
sea.
Phew. After that effort, he was half-expecting a search for a
pair of oars, but there were two lying in the bottom of the
boat. Guybrush climbed down, picked up the oars, and pulled the
boat out to sea.
The sea was strangely calm. Barely any waves at all, no wind,
and no perceptible current. It was almost spooky, except it made
Guybrush's task a lot easier. He could see the offshore island
in front of him, not far off, now partly overgrown with trees
and vegetation.
Getting there took about twenty minutes of rowing. Coming to the
island, Guybrush found a small jetty, just large enough for a
couple of boats. He anchored the boat and climbed out. A set of
wooden steps led up through a thin patch of jungle, then came
out at a metal gate.
At the metal gate, Guybrush had to stop.
There was a lot of stuff to take in. On his left, hanging from a
tree branch, was the sign.
CUTLASS ISLAND MONKEY ENCLOSURE
ADULTS 4 pieces of eight, KIDS 2 pieces of eight.
Animal liberationists and RSPCA representatives please piss off.
Near the sign was a metal box, attached to the gate. The box
held a coin slot.
Guybrush looked through the gate. A straight concrete path
stretched out in front of him. On either side were the cages.
Small, grim and bare. Some had small dead branches. Others had
bunches of bananas swinging from the wire ceiling. These were
really starting to stink.
Above all, he could see the skeletons. Two small, tiny skeletons
hanging in the air. Many more huddled broken on the ground. And
in one cage, sitting there on its own, was a shiny intact monkey
skull. Guybrush knew, as soon as he saw it, that this was his
goal.
But how was he to get it? The monkey skull was inside one of the
cages, and almost ten feet from the concrete path. There was a
feeding slot near the base of the cage, large enough for the
skull to pass through, but too small for Guybrush to reach in
and take it.
This was assuming he could even get inside the enclosure. No
matter how hard he rattled the gate, it stayed closed. And after
paying for the ride out here, Guybrush was again penniless.
For a while Guybrush stood there, not willing to admit defeat.
But finally he turned and started trudging down those wooden
steps. It was time to rustle up some money.
===
About half an hour later...
Guybrush was deep in the interior of Cutlass Island, on his way
to the Voodoo Lady, when he had a thought.
He stopped and took out the map the Voodoo Lady had given him.
He'd been intending to return to the Voodoo Lady's hut so he
could, well, break into the vending machine and steal some
change.
Now he looked at the map. The Survivalists' hut the Voodoo Lady
had mentioned wasn't far from here. A detour wouldn't be much
work, and Guybrush was curious. How come these people hadn't
fallen prey to LeChuck?
So he took a sharp veering right, into the mountains. The jungle
and swamp were soon left behind, as he came into conifer
territory. He walked over dead pine needles and tripped over
pinecones.
Then, he came to the hut.
It was tucked away near a high rockface, in a slight clearing.
From his first glimpse, Guybrush could see it was well built.
Thick pine trunks were lashed together to form the walls, with
the roof a shallow inverted 'V' above.
But there was no light, and no smoke from the chimney.
Guybrush came forward, noting various details. The front of the
hut had no windows, just a thick barred door and a bare porch.
On one side of the hut, which Guybrush was approaching, a large
store of firewood was stacked up. Very large. Enough to last
months. At the rear of the hut was a squat watertank. Also very
large.
He heard no noise as he approached, even though both windows on
this side of the hut were open. Coming near, Guybrush saw a pole
near one window, and he got an idea.
It was a *long* pole. He didn't have anything else to get the
monkey skull with. Why not take it?
Guybrush was standing at the side of the house now. He could see
no motion in those perfectly dark windows. Maybe the Voodoo Lady
had been wrong.
Guybrush reached for the pole.
A light inside the hut flicked on. A shotgun was poked out of
the window at Guybrush's head, and Guybrush found himself
staring down twin metal barrels. He lifted his head a little and
saw, holding the shotgun, a short middle-aged man.
"Ulp!" said Guybrush.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" yelled the man.
"Leave that alone!"
The gun barrel pointed at his head froze Guybrush up. "Ummm...
I..." he stammered.
As he did so, the angry look vanished from the man's face,
replaced by an almost ecstatic joy. "Hey..." he said, as if just
realising something. "You're a looter! We've got a looter!" He
turned his head to shout to someone else in the room, "See, I
was right, Midge! A looter! There must be looters everywhere!
Cutlass Island is overrun with looters!" He sounded like he'd
just won the lottery.
The man looked back at Guybrush, and now his face was full of
swaggering confidence. "So, looter, come to ransack our
carefully prepared post-apocalypse shelter?"
"I'm not a looter-"
The man cut him off with a laugh. "Ha! That's what they all say.
You just want to borrow our food stocks and have a lend of some
gasoline and take turns with the generator, right? Well I didn't
come down in the last shower, pal. You're a looter!"
Guybrush said, "But I'm not-"
"Save it, mate. I know your type. Wouldn't listen to me six
months ago, would you? Laughed and went about your business,
didn't you? Ha! The boot's on the other foot now, isn't it?
Sucked in!"
"I don't even live on Cutlass Island," said Guybrush. "I came
here-"
The man's grin grew wider. "So you're a foreign looter, are you!
I knew it! Have the foresight to put away a bit of gas and food
and next thing the whole Caribbean's breaking down your door!
There must be scores of ships converging on Cutlass Island,
ready to loot! Hear that, Midge?" he yelled to the unseen Midge.
"Scores of 'em! And they're all crawling back here!" The man
cackled with glee. Proven right at last!
Guybrush took a deep breath.
"I'M NOT A LOOTER!" he yelled.
There was a pause. "...are you sure?" asked the man in a small
voice.
"YES!"
The man looked at him doubtfully. "Actually, you don't look much
like a looter. Shouldn't you have a flaming torch in one hand,
or a rusty crowbar or something?"
"I'M NOT A LOOTER!" yelled Guybrush again.
"Okay, okay, no need to take that tone of voice," said the man.
He pulled the shotgun back from the window. He looked at
Guybrush again. "So, you're not a looter?"
"NO!"
"*Are* there any looters about?" asked the man hopefully.
"I haven't seen any," said Guybrush.
"Rats," said the man, looking down.
He turned to the unseen occupant of the room - Midge, Guybrush
guessed. "Sorry, Midge," said the man. "False alarm."
Midge spoke up. The voice was low, and Guybrush couldn't hear
the words, but he didn't need to. There was something about the
tone - patient, long-suffering and quietly powerful - which got
the message across very well.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" said the man. "He comes
barging in, stealing wooden poles..."
Murmur, murmur, murmur, said Midge.
"Yes, there *are* looters around," said the man.
More murmuring from Midge.
"I don't know, somewhere..." said the man vaguely. He was
starting to cringe. This was obviously an old argument.
"Yes, I *am* sure... " said the man.
Guybrush realised the man was no longer looking at him. If he
was quiet, he could steal the pole.
"What do you mean I've been wrong before?"
Guybrush knelt down and reached forward.
"Don't start on that."
His fingers touched the pole.
"You're not still going on about *that*, are you?"
They grasped it firmly.
"That was ten years ago!"
Guybrush concentrated.
"You still can't get the stains out?"
Slowly, carefully, Guybrush lifted the pole away from the wall.
"No, we can't make a trip to the drycleaners. It's not safe! ...
No, it isn't! ... Look, it bloody well isn't!"
The man turned and glared at Guybrush, who hastily hid the pole
behind his back. "What are you still doing here?" he yelled. No
more good humour from him.
"Er..."
"Yes, you! Get out!"
Guybrush nodded, and backed away. The man watched him, holding
the shotgun meaningfully, until Guybrush was about fifty feet
away, and lost in the darkness. Guybrush sighed with relief,
turned around, and started the walk to the Voodoo Lady's.
Well, at least that answered the question about the Survivalists.
===
Forty minutes later, Guybrush was back outside the Monkey
Enclosure.
He hadn't needed to break into the vending machine at all. When
he tried the coin return button, it dispensed another gold coin.
This happened the third time he used the button. Then,
frustratingly, it packed up.
Still, two gold coins would do, even if he meant he entered the
Monkey Enclosure as a kid. Guybrush paid the two coins into the
coin slot.
The rusty latches on the gate flipped open. Guybrush picked up
the pole and pushed his way into the Enclosure.
The smell was worse in here. Guybrush didn't want to waste any
time, so he went straight for the cage with the monkey skull. It
took no time at all for him to knock the skull back with the
pole, then bring it through the tiny latched opening.
The skull was heavy in Guybrush's hands. Even as he picked it
up, tiny scraps of shrivelled brain matter dropped to the
ground. Guybrush wrinkled his nose.
Well, disgusting or not, he had the first ingredient. Now to go
after the second...
===
When Guybrush came to the Bazaar of the Bizarre, he found Wally
still standing there on the street, still staring at the closed
door. Wally's door-breaking technique was obviously not going
well.
Guybrush came up in front of Wally and reached for the door.
Wally protested, "Hang on, I'm working on that door-"
With a loud click, Guybrush unlocked the door.
"Or we could do it your way," said Wally smoothly. Guybrush
pushed the door open, and Wally followed him inside.
It was dark in here. At first, Guybrush felt rather than saw his
surroundings. He was standing on a long roll of thick carpet,
and the air around them seemed very cramped. Then Wally moved
inside, letting more light in, and gradually they began to make
out details.
The walls were lined with shelves, and every shelf was piled up
to the rafters with junk. Pure junk. Mounds of it. When there
wasn't room on the shelves, stuff was simply dumped on the
floor, in huge compost piles. The only clear space in the whole
room was an off-green roll of carpet, which led to a small door.
Wally scampered across the carpet, and rattled the doorknob.
"Locked," he said, disappointed.
"What are you trying to do?" asked Guybrush.
"This store is split up into three sections," said Wally. "Only
the first two are accessible by the public, and this must be the
first one. The maps will be in the last room - if they're here
at all."
*And the jar of Talbad*, thought Guybrush. For no particular
reason, he was worried. Sure, LeChuck seemed to have gotten rid
of every single person on the island, but what if the
proprietors of the Bazaar were still here? Waiting for them?
Even with a key, this felt too much like breaking in. Plus,
there was Wally's talk of booby traps to consider...
He joined Wally by the closed door. No luck - the key didn't fit
the lock. Guybrush sighed, then kicked the door. It rattled, but
the lock held.
Wally stepped forward. "I'll take care of this," he said
confidently. He stood in front of the door, and stared.
Guybrush groaned, and turned away.
Something caught his eye.
Guybrush slowly looked around. Yes, there it was, on the edge of
the largest pile of junk. A cannon.
The idea arrived almost simultaneously in Guybrush's mind. A
cannon. Was there a cannonball? He felt around in the barrel,
but there was nothing in there. A quick search of the pile of
junk, however, soon turned up a small battered cannonball.
A cannonball. Was there gunpowder? Guybrush searched the shelves
until he found a box of low-grade gunpowder. Wally, oblivious to
all this, was still staring determinedly at the door.
Now Guybrush arranged things. He dragged the cannon onto the
carpet and lined it up with the door. In went the gunpowder, and
cannonball. Using a small length of string, Guybrush fashioned a
fuse. He still had matches from Booty Island, so without further
ado Guybrush lit the fuse.
He'd altogether forgotten about Wally. Hearing the faint hiss of
the fuse (or possibly seeing a slight glimmer of yellow on the
door) Wally turned around. He said, "Hey, did you-"
The cannon exploded.
===
"Okay, okay. I *said* I'm sorry. Now can we please just drop the
subject?"
Wally coughed. "You're just lucky I move fast, Mister Brush."
Gradually the smoke cleared. The door was a splintered wreck,
and standing beside it was a very dusty Wally. Some of his hair
was singed, and his face looked very red.
Hesitantly, Guybrush knocked the last of the broken door panels
away. It was definitely breaking and entering now. They climbed
through the gap and into the second room.
This room was clearer, with shelves stocked adequately instead
of overflowing, and the floor kept relatively clean. Unlike the
last room, the stock seemed to be at least nominally useful, but
unfortunately it was all Voodoo material. Guybrush knew Voodoo
magic to be immensely powerful. He also knew, after some very
horrific Voodoo experiences over the past few years, that he
didn't want to have anything to do with it. Even the tiny Voodoo
dolls that looked somewhat like LeChuck didn't interest him.
There didn't seem to be any Talbad in here, either.
"So, is this it?" asked Guybrush.
"No, we have to go through one more door," said Wally.
"Let me guess: it's locked too."
Wally was already examining the door on the far side. "It is.
How did you know?"
"Lucky guess," said Guybrush resignedly. He came forward and
bent down by the door. "Hey, Wally! You missed something. The
key's still in the lock."
Wally rushed forward excitedly. "It is?"
"Yeah," agreed Guybrush. "On the other side."
Wally looked disgusted, and turned away. Guybrush, however, was
thinking. With something thin and long, he could poke that key
out of there.
Guybrush stood up and looked over the shelves. Before too long
he came to a small cardboard box, full of voodoo pins ("Extra
long for extra pain!" announced the writing on the side). He
took one, and returned to the door.
Now... he couldn't just poke the key out, as then it would fall
to the floor on the far side of the door and be lost forever. If
he could get something to catch it...
Guybrush stood up again. On a shelf to his right, he saw what he
wanted - a stack of paper. Guybrush picked up a sheet. He loved
clean white paper. This stuff looked like it had gone mouldy.
He slid the piece of paper three-quarters of the way under the
door. With a tiny jiggle, the pin dislodged the key. It fell
onto the paper. Guybrush dragged the paper back, and there was
the key. Textbook really.
"Got it!" he said to Wally. Wally came rushing back. He seemed
to be fully over his cannoning near miss, and the flush in his
cheeks was one of excitement.
Guybrush stood up, and unlocked the door.
===
The third and final room in the Bazaar of the Bizarre was a
light, airy storeroom.
There wasn't much here. A few notices tacked to the walls, a
rickety spice rack hanging from a nail, two skylights in the
ceiling letting thin beams of moonlight in, and a flat wooden
table right in the middle of the room.
On the table was a coffin. It was placed so that most of the
moonlight fell on it, as if a spotlight was trained on the spot.
Guybrush stayed by the door. He wanted to examine that table
closer... one half seemed to disappear completely into darkness,
and the table itself was so thin as to be little more than an
elongated bench.
But Wally, as he always did, rushed ahead. "It's here!" he
gushed. "I've found it!" Wally came to the table and flung the
coffin lid off. It clattered noisily on the wooden floor. He
started rummaging around inside, but his short body and stumpy
arms weren't up to the task, so he simply climbed up and fell
into the coffin.
There was a tiny pause. "Wally?" said Guybrush.
Wally's head reappeared. One hand was held aloft triumphantly,
and in it Guybrush could see a set of fiercely clenched maps.
"Sorry, Mr. Brush," said the grinning Wally, "but this is where
we part ways. I'm not letting anybody in on my moment of glory.
Now get out of my way, so I can-"
His speech was cut short as the coffin was simply hurled up into
the air. It crashed straight through the roof without stopping,
leaving a vague dark hole. Guybrush heard a thin scream, very
quickly growing faint, and at the end a tiny 'splash'.
Guybrush stepped forward. Now that the hole in the roof was
letting in more moonlight, he could see the dim end of the
table. There was a complicated array of tightly wound pulleys,
ropes and spoked wheels. It dawned on Guybrush what this was.
Not a table at all, but a cleverly disguised catapult!
"Whoops. Guess he forgot about those traps," said Guybrush,
shaking his head.
He took another look around the room. That spice rack on the
wall looked hopeful, and on closer inspection Guybrush saw a
small jar of Talbad. What was Talbad? As far as he could see, it
was a thick, mustard-coloured herb.
Well, this made it two ingredients. Time to go visit the Voodoo
Lady.
===
About half an hour later, he was back inside the Voodoo Lady's
makeshift hut.
The Voodoo Lady looked sternly at him as he entered. "Have you
found any of the ingredients?" she said.
"I have this monkey skull," said Guybrush. He gave the heavy,
dirt-encrusted thing to the Voodoo Lady, who looked satisfied.
"Good work," she said. "Do you have the final ingredient?"
"I've also got this jar of Talbad," said Guybrush, handing over
the jar.
The Voodoo Lady set both ingredients down on the floor.
"Perfect." She drew herself up impressively. "Now, I can-"
She stopped.
"Oh dear," she said.
"What?" said Guybrush.
"I forgot my voodoo stirring spoon," said the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush sighed. "That would be typical."
"Hey, I told you I forgot to bring everything. Without some kind
of spoon, I just can't create the spell."
"All right, I get the message," said Guybrush. "One spoon coming
up."
===
He was getting mighty sick of this half-hour,
stumble-through-muddy-bogs-and-steep-rises walk from the Voodoo
Lady's hut to the main town, but at least it gave him time to
think. Where to get a spoon from? He didn't remember seeing one
at the Bazaar.
Then he remembered Herman's mad witterings, and his promise to
give him a spoon if - Guybrush searched his memory - if he could
find some paper.
Guybrush quite specifically remembered there being paper at the
Bazaar. So he went there first, and found a large stack in the
second room. Carrying it in both hands, he went to see Herman.
Herman was still standing by his machine, which was still
pumping the 'LECHUCK IS GOVERNOR' flyers into the air - there
was going to be a large cleanup bill when all this was over.
He looked pleased to see Guybrush. "Paper!" he exclaimed. "Just
in time."
Guybrush dropped the paper down next to the machine.
True to his word, Herman reached into a coat pocket and pulled
out a spoon. "Here you go, sir, one barely-dented wooden spoon."
Guybrush took it.
Herman was already forgetting him. "Now I can get on with..."
The sentence trailed off into random giggling.
Guybrush didn't hear any of this - he was already on his way
back.
===
What was this - the sixth or seventh time he'd been trudging
through this swamp? Standing on the porch of the Voodoo Lady's
hut, Guybrush was muddy up to the knees, sweat running down his
back, flies and gnats buzzing around his head.
Hopefully this would be the last time. If the Voodoo Lady wanted
any more errands run... Guybrush ground his teeth thinking about
it.
He entered.
The Voodoo Lady spoke up almost immediately. "Have you found a
spoon?"
"Here it is, check it out."
The Voodoo Lady took the spoon and examined it closely.
"Excellent." She dropped the spoon beside the ingredients. "At
last, I can cast the spell of Synchromesh! I've been waiting to
do this for ages. Stand back, Guybrush, and give me room!"
Guybrush didn't need to be told twice. He backed up against the
wall, as far from the Voodoo Lady as possible.
She muttered some incomprehensible words, and the whole room
went pitch black. A millisecond later, it flashed brilliantly
with light. Then, the air around them began to throb and pulse
with darkness and light - two separate entities - and dimly
glimpsed at the centre of it all was the silhouette of the
Voodoo Lady, her body jerking about spasmodically.
"Aargh!" screamed the Voodoo Lady. "Ack! Yeeooow! Erk! Oooh!"
The screams didn't sound like screams of pain, but like... the
words of the spell.
The screaming stopped. And slowly, as if someone was gradually
turning up the current, the normal lighting returned. Guybrush
took a couple of steps forward. The Voodoo Lady sat in her
chair, perfectly composed. The ingredients, and the wooden
spoon, were all gone.
"Did it work?" asked Guybrush.
"It worked. Even now I sense the gaping hole where the force
field once was."
"All right!" said Guybrush. He turned to leave.
"Wait!"
Guybrush turned back. "You should not rush in there blindly,"
said the Voodoo Lady. "I sense great danger."
"I'm not worried."
"LeChuck has turned the whole population of this island into
ghosts."
"Who cares about ghosts?" asked Guybrush. "I've got root beer."
He tapped his pocket. Inside was a half-full bottle of root
beer, by now uncomfortably warm, but still potent.
"Don't put too much faith in your magical fluid," said the
Voodoo Lady. "You may not have enough... for the whole
population. Here - take this root beer recipe."
She was holding a small scrap of paper out to Guybrush, who took
it.
"Makes large quantities," said the Voodoo Lady. "And take this
too."
She gave him a small unlabelled bottle.
"Corn syrup," she explained. "You'll have to find the other
ingredients yourself."
"Gee, thanks."
"Now, go!" urged the Voodoo Lady. "The fates of the Caribbean
rest on your shoulders!"
Guybrush bucked up. "Yeah, I guess they do! Look out LeChuck!"
===
PART 3: MONASTERY
===
In one of the myriad wooden passages of the Monastery of Small
Footsteps, the Monk stood in his shabby pirate clothes and
stained tricorner hat and brooded.
Something was wrong. Something he couldn't quite put his finger
on...
It was in this state of undecided worry that the acolyte,
wandering fearfully through the passages, found the Monk. He
swallowed involuntarily - Ulp! - and the Monk turned around.
"Largo!" he said sternly. "Have you strung up the ginger as I
told ye to?"
"Ummm," stammered the acolyte.
In a patient voice that might quickly turn to anger, the Monk
said, "I'm not going over this again, Largo. What is normally
used to ward off the undead?"
"Garlic?" said the acolyte.
"And what's the total opposite of garlic?" continued the Monk.
The acolyte, for the life of him, could not work out this step.
"...ginger?" he ventured cautiously.
"Yes! SO HAVE YOU STRUNG THE BLOODY STUFF UP YET?"
"Oh yes, LeChuck sir," said the acolyte. "There's a large clump
where all the pirates are waiting."
The Monk relaxed slightly - but that wasn't it. Something else
was wrong... the acolytehe dismissed the thought. "Good," said
the Monk.. Now what was it you were going to say?"
"Well," began the acolyte reluctantly, "there is one small
thing."
"Yes?"
"Do I really have to wear this green trousers?" complained the
acolyte. "And these false eyebrows are giving me a rash."
"You will do exactly what I tell you to, Largo. Unless you'd
like to be a ghost pirate yerself...?"
The acolyte nodded hopelessly. "Green trousers it is, sir."
"Good."
"Er... actually there's something else too." The acolyte
stopped. LeChuck was not going to like this.
"...Yes?" prompted the Monk, after two seconds of waiting.
The acolyte took a deep breath. "Ten of your ghost pirates have
escaped and taken the ship and we haven't got anything to get
after them with."
There was a short pause.
"WHAT?!?!" roared the Monk.
"Ten of your-"
"I HEARD! GET AFTER THEM! I DON'T CARE IF YOU HAVE TO SWIM THERE
YERSELF! GET OUT THERE!"
===
In the shadow forest outside the Monastery, Guybrush stood and
watched.
After leaving the Voodoo Lady's presence, he'd gone north, via
the route on her map. Traversing dim glades and wormy forests,
he'd at last come up to a high rocky bluff overlooking the sea.
And down below, on a small peninsula, was the Monastery.
Even from this height, it loomed against the sky - which, owing
to a thick cloud cover which had gathered together in the last
few hours, was completely black. Numerous torches hung from the
outer walls, burning with a bright orange flame. Their light
allowed Guybrush to see the many carven wood statues and holy
relics adorning the walls of the Monastery.
Guybrush wondered why he hadn't been here before. Sure, the
Voodoo Lady had told him there was a force field, but he'd never
confirmed this. Did he trust the Voodoo Lady that much? Guybrush
hoped not.
He climbed down the steep incline to the beach and entered the
peninsula.
And, as he did so, found he was slowing down from his usual
pace. The light from the Monastery made him cautious, as if he
might be seen at any moment. He picked his route carefully,
ducking from one shadowy patch to another.
Finally, he stood at the very edge of the forest.
The entrance to the Monastery was barely twenty feet away, a
yawning black hole large enough to let someone three times his
size enter.
Guybrush hesitated. Inside, there were over a hundred ghost
pirates, their very touch fatal. Even with root beer, it was a
tall ask.
Even as he hesitated, he remembered the argument. With Elaine.
It seemed like four centuries ago, but actually only fourteen
hours had passed. *Not a pirate*, she'd said. Well, he'd show
her! New-found determination began to flow back into Guybrush.
He stepped out of the forest, into the light, and crossed the
clearing to the Monastery entrance.
===
Despite all the lit torches outside, Guybrush soon found himself
in a dark, dank passage. A couple of candles dripped wax from
the ceiling, but they just gave the air a grimy sheen. It almost
felt like he was underground, in a mine.
A set of wooden stairs was leading him down, to a concrete
landing. Here Guybrush paused. There was something in front of
him, a thin metal structure. Twin pipes, on either side of the
passage, led up from the ground to a metal bar overhead. He had
to pass through this metal arch, and its possible meaning
baffled Guybrush.
He shrugged, and walked through it.
An alarm shrieked, and two red lights set in the ceiling above
Guybrush flashed on and off. Guybrush looked around, panicked.
And at this moment, Murray the demonic skull flew out of the
passage in front of him, grinning inanely.
"Aargh!" screamed Guybrush involuntarily.
"Ha ha!" laughed Murray, elated at this response. "Yes! Boo!
Gotcha now!"
But Guybrush had recovered. He knew Murray, and he was not to be
feared. "Oh, it's only Murray," he said after a short pause.
"Whadda mean it's only Murray?!" yelled Murray indignantly.
"I'll tear you limb from limb, you croquet-playing mint-muncher!"
"No offence, Murray, but I think I'll just be walking through
that door."
"You *what!?* You'll be licking snowflakes in hell before you
get through here!"
A patient smile on his face, Guybrush walked forward. Or tried
to. Guybrush frowned. It felt like there was something in his
way, a thin strip of gauze in the air that he couldn't walk
through.
He looked up at Murray. The leering skull was enjoying
Guybrush's futile struggles. "Ha ha ha! Weren't expecting that,
were ya? This whole Monastery is protected by a force field
which won't let a single drop of root beer through! We're
impregnable!"
"Oh dear," said Guybrush. Guess he'd been right not to trust the
Voodoo Lady.
"And even if you were to break through," continued Murray
gleefully. "I've got a switch back here which will instantly
summon two hundred plus ghost pirates to stitch you up proper!"
"Oh dear again."
Murray leaned forward, staring avidly at him. "Does that
*frighten* you, Guybrush? Does it fill your pants with hot
excrement? Yeah! Yeah! It does! All right!"
Mostly to himself, Guybrush said, "This isn't going to be as
easy as I thought."
===
He gathered his thoughts together outside. The Voodoo Lady
hadn't been wrong, had she? Had be been traipsing all over
Cutlass Island when he could just have come straight here?
Well... the Voodoo Lady had said there was a force field
protecting the whole peninsula. And he was on the peninsula. So
maybe the spell *had* worked.
And... Murray had said the force field only worked on root beer.
What if he was to get rid of his root beer?
Impossible. How could you take on two hundred ghost pirates with
your bare hands?
Guybrush remembered the root beer recipe.
Instantly he took out the root beer bottle, opened it, and
poured its contents onto the ground. There. No turning back now.
But he couldn't go back in the front way, root beer or no root
beer. Murray was watching.
Perhaps there was a back entrance.
Certainly there was a path. It led from the front entrance,
tracing a winding route around the side of the Monastery.
Following it, Guybrush came to a dark corner. Peering closely,
he saw a small door set into the wall.
Bingo.
Before he tried the door, Guybrush took a look at the root beer
recipe. In the flickering light of the torches, he read:
===
ROOT BEER
1 qty. corn syrup
1 qty. sassafras bark
1 qty. orange peel
1 qty. ground ginger.
Combine all ingredients together with desired
quantity of water. Churn.
This could be problematic. He had the corn syrup, but...
sassafras bark? Guybrush looked around.
A spindly bush growing by the wall caught his eye. Its trunk had
thin, stringy bark. Guybrush wouldn't know a sassafras tree from
a lump of wood, but this looked about right. Beside, maybe you
didn't have to get the flavour *exactly* right.
He took a fistful of bark, then opened the door.
===
When he shut the door behind him, he was standing in a small
study. There was a wooden desk in one corner, and a cupboard in
another. An open door led out into a hallway. When he turned to
look behind him, he saw a metal door with the words FIRE ESCAPE
printed on them. Two torches illuminated the room. Guybrush
stood and listened, but he could hear no noise.
There was nothing on the desk. He opened the drawers, but the
only thing he found was a pencil sharpener. Guybrush tried the
cupboards, but these too were bare.
He stuck his head out the door, peered both ways, and stepped
out into the hallway.
It ran both ways past the small study. To his right, the passage
seemed to end at a small, dark room. On his right, it seemed to
widen out into a large hall.
Guybrush went right, keeping his footsteps quiet. He could hear
his muscles moving against each other, and his heart beating
worriedly, but otherwise there wasn't a sound in the place.
So it was a shock when, coming to the hall, Guybrush saw
stretched out below him a massed crowd of ghost pirates.
"Yi-" he began, then jammed his fist into his mouth to stop the
noise. The ghost pirates weren't looking at him. They were lined
up together, rank and file, facing the other end of the hall.
There were at least two hundred - more than two hundred! Murray
hadn't exaggerated. Guybrush watched them, horrified. The ghost
pirates stood perfectly still. Not still as you or I might stand
- even when trying to be immobile, the muscles of humans
minutely contract and relax. These ghost pirates stood
*completely still*. Like transparent, lifeless statues.
The front of the hall, where the ghost pirates were looking,
held a small stage and lectern. Formerly where the head Monk had
said his prayers before his assembled disciples, Guybrush
guessed LeChuck had been using it to make pronouncements to his
ghost crew. At the rear of the hall, Guybrush was standing on a
small raised platform, about eight feet above the hall. What
this got used for, he had no idea.
Slowly getting over the shock, Guybrush started to notice other
things about the hall. He looked up at the ceiling, and saw four
rows of metal piping, dotted every few feet or so with thin
nozzles. This must be the fire sprinkler system. Gazing up at
it, Guybrush was distracted by something in the foreground.
He did a double take. A thick green root of ginger was suspended
from the ceiling, right next to this platform. Guybrush could
reach out and take it.
He did. What was a root of ginger doing here? Well, it was
certainly a help. Now he just needed an orange...
Guybrush stepped back from the platform and walked down the
hallway, the way he'd come. He passed the study, heading for the
small dark room.
It was a dank, oily, little-used room, filled with a mass of
complicated machinery. Before him Guybrush saw a baffling
network of metal pipes, valves, wheels and buttons.
Fortunately, the sign above said 'Monastery Sprinkler System'.
The idea hit Guybrush right then, an idea so good he had to stop
himself from jumping in the air and shouting.
He *did* jump in the air when he saw an orange sitting there on
the piping. Luck, serendipity, call it what you will, everything
seemed to be falling his way. Guybrush picked up the orange and
turned it over in his hands. Working quickly, he pulled the peel
from the orange, which he tossed in a corner.
Guybrush looked at the machinery. There it was... a large
bulbous tank near the floor. Guybrush opened the hatch and
looked inside. Water.
He ripped up the peel and dropped it into the water. In went the
bark. The corn syrup was emptied in after it. Then the ginger
root... Guybrush paused. The recipe had said *ground* ginger. Oh
well, the hell with it. The machinery would probably grind it up
pretty good. Guybrush threw it in and shut the lid. He looked
around.
A large red switch on the wall was labelled 'Emergency
Override'. Guybrush reached for it, tensed, then pressed it
firmly. Instantly the sprinkler system kicked into gear. The
water began churning around in the tank, and Guybrush could hear
it flowing at high speed through the pipes.
A thin pipe was set in the ceiling, and ran straight down the
hallway toward the main hall. In the hallway, it began to rain...
===
In the great hall, pandemonium ensued. Ghost pirates ran around,
bellowing with pain, looking for shelter from the burning rain.
There was none. Every inch of the hall was slowly being coated
in the slightly sticky water. As the ghost pirates were
vaporised, a massive cloud of steam coalesced in the air,
obscuring the carnage from view. But not from ear. The screams
were earsplitting.
And then it all died down. The screams died away. The steam
cloud gradually dispersed. The hall was completely empty, save
for a greasy substance on the floor, which might have been root
beer, or... something else.
===
"I think it worked!" said Guybrush happily. "Now to find
LeChuck..."
He walked out into the hallway. A few feet out from the door, he
stopped. A large, shabby figure stood in front of him, looking
toward the great hall. It was wearing a filthy pirate coat and a
tricorner hat. Black hair sprouted underneath it. From the back,
this looked a lot like LeChuck.
Shock sometimes makes people do strange things. "It's LeChuck!"
Guybrush blurted out.
The Monk spun around. His eyes lit up with the red flame of
anger. "He's here! At last!"
Guybrush was completely at a loss.
Because this wasn't LeChuck. You could tell that instantly. He'd
obviously tried hard - the clothes were spot on, the beard was
exactly the right length, and even LeChuck's vocal and physical
tics were expertly copied. But this just wasn't LeChuck. The
body was too tall, the face too thin, the hands too manicured.
"Err..." said Guybrush, confused.
"My mortal enemy has returned," intoned the Monk dramatically.
"Err... you're not LeChuck..."
"Of course I am!" said the Monk. "I swore never to rest until I
spilled your blood, Guybrush, and now the time has come!"
"But you're not... what the hell's going on here?"
Before the Monk could answer, Guybrush heard a gun shot.
A look of surprise crossed the Monk's face, followed by some
kind of realisation. Then his body fell to the ground at
Guybrush's feet. There was a bullet hole in his back, and
standing behind him stood LeChuck.
The *real* LeChuck. Not that Guybrush had ever seen him this way
- his face a mottled blue, his arms and legs shivering with
cold. But the recognition was immediate.
And so was the panic.
"I believe I can explain," said LeChuck.
"LeChuck!?!" gasped Guybrush.
"You were expecting Donnie Osmond? Of course it's LeChuck! And
now, Guybrush, your goose is well and truly cooked."
"I... I don't understand."
LeChuck mused, more to himself, "Of course I could just kill you
now and take over the Caribbean. But I think you deserve a
special explanation. Brother to brother."
Guybrush tried to pull himself together. "Okay, let's hear it."
"It was very simple," said LeChuck. "You froze me in a block of
ice. My body was dead and gone, but my mind remained free and
alive. It waited, burning for revenge. Several days ago, I felt
another mind draw close. It was this monk, out channelling the
Caribbean. I seized the channel, dragged myself across, and in
seconds this guy thought he was me."
"No wonder he went insane."
"Ha ha. That's an extra two days in the torture chamber for you.
Anyway, using knowledge I taught him, the Monk turned this whole
island into an army of ghost pirates. I entered the minds of ten
ghosts, and ordered them to steal a ship and come unfreeze me.
And now I'm here. The Monk is dead but his army remains. And
with that army, Guybrush, I will conquer the Caribbean! No
island can possibly stand before me! You see what I mean,
Guybrush? It's already too late!"
Guybrush felt a surge of hope. "Too late for you, you mean," he
crowed. "I already killed your ghost army. Let's see you take
over the Caribbean now!"
The smile faded from LeChuck's face. "What?"
"They're all gone. Run in there and smell the root beer."
LeChuck growled. "You will pay for this, Guybrush. In fact-"
He stopped. An idea had just occurred to him. It brought the
smile back to his face.
"-you'll pay in ways you can't imagine."
Suddenly, two ghost pirates appeared behind Guybrush. With their
lethal touch, they instantly cut off any hope of retreat.
Guybrush looked at them, very worried. "Hey, what's going on? I
killed you guys!"
LeChuck scowled at him. "Arr, yer didn't think the loss of my
ghost army would set me back, did you Guybrush? There are other
islands out there waiting to be ghostified. With my loyal
ten-strong ghost pirate crew, we can be at any in a matter of
hours. Actually..." he paused, milking out the suspense,
"...there's one not far away. I think I'd quite like to meet the
Governor. Mrs-"
"No!" yelled Guybrush. "Not Elaine!"
"Yes Elaine, Guybrush," said LeChuck. "Marrying her was the
worst thing you ever did. She belongs to nobody but me!"
"But-"
"No more! I'm taking you with me. You ought to be present at the
Governor's... final humiliation." He looked at the ghost
pirates. "Take him away!"
===
PART 4: ASSAULT
===
A new day had dawned.
Out on the high seas, LeChuck and his ghost crew were making
good time. The monastery ship was a bit small and creaky, but
the wind was behind them, and the ghost crew were working like
there would be no tomorrow. LeChuck stood above on the poop
deck, occasionally barking out orders: "Man the mizzenmast!
Tack! Furl! Fasten! Elbow grease ya scurvy slackers!"
Guybrush watched it all, helpless.
He was hanging upside down, lashed to the main mast by coils and
coils of rope. It had been uncomfortable enough as they were
starting out, but now after hours of sailing the blood was
really beginning to settle in his brain. It made him dizzy.
Guybrush strained, for the tenth or twentieth time, but the
ropes wouldn't budge. There was no slack in them at all. He
could just move his hands enough to reach inside his pocket, but
that was all. And what would that achieve?
Guybrush thought about what he'd collected. Then he realised -
the can of oil he'd used to get the rowboat into the ocean. He
still had it! Guybrush rummaged around in his right pocket -
nothing. In his left pocket, he eventually managed to grasp a
metal bottle. This was it.
Concentrating, making every movement as inconspicuous as
possible, Guybrush tipped the oil can over the ropes. His aim
wasn't very good, and some splatted on the deck below him. He
instantly froze, and waited to see if he'd been discovered.
No shouts. No one was even looking in his direction.
Guybrush wormed around in the ropes. Slick with oil, they now
felt a lot looser. He kept wriggling around. This would attract
attention, but there was no other way.
Suddenly, he slipped free. Guybrush fell through his bonds, hit
the deck headfirst, and crashed straight through. "Arr!" yelled
LeChuck.
The ghost pirates stopped, and looked at LeChuck. "Get back to
work!" he yelled. "He can't escape!"
In the room below, Guybrush picked himself up, rubbing his sore
head. "Ow. Rough landing." He looked around.
Normally, this room would have been in darkness. But there was a
lit candle standing on a box, and the hole in the deck above
gave good illumination. He was surrounded by boxes, standing in
some kind of supply room. Most of the boxes and crates were
utterly nondescript, save for a bright metal box near the door.
Red lettering on the box said 'EMERGENCY SUPPLIES'.
Curious, Guybrush opened the box. Inside was a single flare gun.
Guybrush picked it up. Not really a weapon, but it might be
useful.
He opened the door and peered out.
Outside the supply room was a small, moody hallway, lit by
lamplight. It ran in a straight line to a ladder leading up, and
there were two doors on his left. The first door, when Guybrush
reached it, opened on a small room containing a cannon. It
pointed out a square hole in the hull. Cannon balls, matches and
gunpowder were stacked along the floor beside it.
The second room, by contrast, was completely unexpected.
Gone were the greasy wooden walls and the round, 'quaint',
portholes. The floor, walls and ceiling were coated with glossy
white paint, and the room was empty except for a bafflingly
complex piece of metal equipment. It looked like a very
expensive piece of gym equipment, or so Guybrush would have
thought if he'd ever been to a gym. It had a padded seat, and a
single metal arm with rubber handhold. Looking at it, Guybrush
got the impression there were supposed to be two arms.
A couple of pieces of paper were tacked to a bare bulletin board
behind the machine. Guybrush read the first. It was a press
release:
"Introducing the latest in Spiritual Transportation-
THE TRANSLOCATOR
The Translocator is a revolutionary new product that at
one stroke makes getting from A to B as simple as thinking
about it. Literally. The patented AuraReader technology
embedded in each Translocator reads the actual thoughts
of the operator, instantly executing every command. Moreover,
it can shift vessels up to and including the size of a pirate
ship. No more mutinous crew!
For more information on the Translocator and other
SpiritPower products visit your local SpiritPower
store. Thanks for believing!"
Very strange. Guybrush looked at the machine - the Translocator? -
and scratched his head. He looked back, and read the second note:
"To whom it may concern:
The Translocator is out of order. This is to fully comply with
Hard Work Month, during which time no manual labour may be
avoided. One of the metal roto arms from the Translocator has
been removed and placed on the upper deck, to guard against
temptation.
P.S. This means you!"
Well, that explained the missing arm. And now, a great idea struck
Guybrush. If he could get this Translocator working, then he could stop
the ship from reaching Booty Island! All he had to do was get the metal
roto arm from the top deck.
Guybrush paused. LeChuck was up there.
Well, he'd have to deal with him sometime. He hefted the flare gun, and
strode out the door.
Midway up the ladder, Guybrush slowly looked out the trapdoor.
At first, he could only see sea and sky. Then he slowly turned round, and
saw LeChuck. LeChuck was standing with his back to Guybrush, looking
down at his toiling ghost crew. A glint of light struck Guybrush's eyes, and
he saw the metal roto arm. It was lying on the deck, just in front of LeChuck.
Guybrush sighed. There was no danger of being spotted by the ghost pirates,
who were hard at their tasks. But there was no way he could take that metal
roto arm without LeChuck spotting him.
Guybrush climbed up the ladder and stood behind LeChuck. He raised the
flare gun. Maybe he could distract them with this...
Holding the gun high over his head, like an official about to start a race,
Guybrush fired.
There was a loud pop, and a huge trail of colour whooshed over LeChuck
and the ghost pirates. They all stopped and looked up, following the path
of the flare. It curved away into the sky, climbing higher and higher.
LeChuck hadn't moved. Neither had the ghost crew. Guybrush had been
counting on them rushing to the far end of the ship.
The flare, growing ever fainter, finally vanished. The ghost crew came back
to life. "Come on, ya slackers!" yelled LeChuck. "Doubletime!"
Well, that was a pretty spectacular failure, thought Guybrush. He tossed the
useless flare gun over the side of the ship. What now?
Guybrush paused a few seconds, thinking. Finally, he said "What the hell,"
stepped forward, and firmly shoved LeChuck in the back. Caught by
surprise, LeChuck went sailing over the side of the poop deck, and fell
through the hole in the lower deck. The ghost pirates looked around in
confusion.
Guybrush picked up the metal roto arm. Got it.
He ran down the ladder, and pelted down the passage to the supply
room door. Guybrush found the lock and turned it. That should keep
LeChuck busy for a bit. He turned back and entered the
Translocator room.
It didn't take much work to fix the arm back on the machine. Now it
looked better. Guybrush sat on the padded seat and gripped the
roto arms.
Now how did you work this thing?
Guybrush concentrated, then pulled the left roto arm.
On the deck, the ghost pirates had helped LeChuck back up
through the hole. He was standing on the lower deck, looking
around for any sign of Guybrush, when the whole ship suddenly
jerked to port. It spun around in a full circle, creating a huge
spray of water that flew over the ghost pirate crew. They ran
around in total confusion. "Aargh!" yelled LeChuck. "What be
happenin?"
"Wow!" said Guybrush. "This feels incredible!" He jerked his
right arm.
This time the ship actually lifted out of the ocean and span
round in the air before falling back into the sea. The wash
of water nearly engulfed the deck. Two ghost pirates had
already fallen off, and nobody knew what to do. "Main the
sails!" LeChuck roared. "Pull the yardarm! 'Tis some devil
wind!" Guybrush, he growled under his breath. When I find
you...
Guybrush was thinking. "I wonder," he said, "what would
happen if I sent the ship downward?" He rocked forward.
The ship's prow suddenly dipped, and was engulfed by water.
The ship sank further, tilting even higher until it was nearly vertical.
Then, like a dagger dropped from a great height, it slipped below
the waves. The sea above sloshed around for a bit, bubbles of
air floating up from the ship, and then was smooth.
===
Meanwhile...
Not all that far away, Wally was alone and sitting in a barely
seaworthy coffin. He had a pencil and a few sheets of paper,
and if he wasn't going to make it back to land alive - as looked
increasingly likely - then he wanted the world to know why.
He wrote:
"Captain's log. Wally B. Feed. Lost at sea for... oh, hours now.
I have no crew or navigational instruments (can't believe I forgot
my sextant! Stupid!). No provisions except a nest of woodlice.
Unless I find water soon, I'm surely done for. Only the hope of
finding some solid ground keeps me going. Oh, but my quest for
Blackbeard's treasure has left me in a sorry state. I thought it
would bring me fame and glory... instead I got catapulted through
the ceiling and here I am, sailing the seas in a coffin. I still suspect
Guybrush had something to do with this-"
Here Wally stopped writing, because a wet bedraggled head
had just appeared at the side of his coffin. Two hands grasped
the coffin and clung firmly.
It was Guybrush - coughing, spluttering and wheezing.
"Guybrush? Is that you?"
Guybrush looked up at Wally. "Wally!"
"That's right," said Wally.
Guybrush didn't know what to say. "Wow, this is some
coincidence!" he finally said.
"What are you doing here?" said Wally
Guybrush looked just a little smug. "Oh, LeChuck was just
sailing his ghost crew over to Booty Island to rape and pillage,
but I put a stop to that. The whole lot of 'em are down there in
Davy Jones' Locker. Let's see them find his body now!" Now
he'd gotten his breath back, Guybrush was feeling really good.
He'd actually done it! This would show Elaine, all right!
"They're all dead?" asked Wally.
"Every last ghost. Say, are you thinking-"
Guybrush didn't get a chance to finish, because another head had
appeared beside him. Two hands grasped the side of the coffin
next to Guybrush.
The acolyte spat out a mouthful of water. "Say," he said, "have
either of you guys seen a huge rundown pirate ship around here?
Splintery, ragged sails, large ghost crew?"
"It's gone," said Guybrush. "Sunk to the ocean floor."
The acolyte looked downcast. "Oh no. And I was supposed to
recover it, too. The Head Mo- er, LeChuck is going to be pissed."
"LeChuck?" said Wally. Something Guybrush had said finally kicked
through. "Hang on, Guybrush, did you say you killed LeChuck?!"
"Yeah. LeChuck's dead. Again."
"You mean..." said the acolyte.
"Actually, both LeChucks are dead," explained Guybrush. "The real one
and the fake one."
"Oh dear."
They sat there and floated for a bit.
"So, where are we?" the acolyte asked.
"We're floating in the middle of a sea on a barely seaworthy coffin,"
said Guybrush.
"It's not that bad," said Wally. "I was just about giving up hope
before you guys showed up, but with three people to propel this
thing, I reckon we could get a fair speed up."
"But where should we go?" asked the acolyte.
"Hmmm... Blackbeard's maps were no good. They didn't
correspond to any land mass I know. So we should-"
"I know where," Guybrush interrupted. "Cutlass Island! The
whole place must be utterly deserted by now. Imagine all the
treasure!"
"Yeah!" said the acolyte.
"We could even set up our own colony! I can be Governor, Wally
can be, um, Head Navigator, and you can be the Head Religious Guy!"
"Sounds good to me," said Wally. "And if that doesn't work out, the
whole Caribbean is our oyster!"
"Let's go!" said the acolyte. They climbed into the coffin. Three pairs
of hands sprouted down into the sea. They started thrashing away like
oars.
Already moving at a fair clip, the coffin scudded away.
===
Ten days later...
It was a fine sunny afternoon on Booty Island. Elaine Marley was
out in the sun, lying down on a deckchair and reading a novel.
Occasionally she turned a page.
A noise made her look up. Striding triumphantly toward her across
the lawn was Guybrush. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a hat
with corks dangling from it, and was holding two suitcases.
Guybrush reached Elaine and dropped the suitcases. "I'm back!"
he announced.
"Oh, hello Guybrush," said Elaine.
A cool introduction, but Guybrush was too full of pride to worry.
"Not a pirate, eh?" he said. "It all went super! I killed LeChuck,
got myself appointed Governor of an island with nobody on it,
and there's a whole crate of root beer in the trunk!"
Elaine didn't seem impressed. She looked Guybrush square in the
eye. "Guybrush, do you recall why we had the argument in the
first place?" she said.
"Ummm..." Guybrush stalled.
"I was angry with you because you didn't do any work around
here," said Elaine.
"Oh yeah," said Guybrush.
"Now, in the eleven days you've been away..." Elaine reached into
a pocket and pulled out an ominously long list. She started reading
from it. "Cobwebs have built up along the outer walls of the
mansion, the dogs have nearly starved to death, fruit trees need
to be picked, the corn fields haven't been tilled, there are weeds
growing around the foundation, a two foot pile of paperwork
has to be done, we've got dust in the pantry, the oven hasn't
been cleaned, Philbert wants to get paid, there's a whole stack
of garbage out the back, and two dead pigeons in the watertank."
"B-But-" stammered Guybrush.
Elaine fixed him with a smile. "Better get cracking, matey."
"But..."
THE END
