A/N: This story crosses over "Star Wars" with the 1992 Sierra CD-Rom game, "King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow". I know there are actual crossover sections for both fandoms but figured I had a better chance of people actually reading it here. A lot of details will be verbatim from the game but there will also be a lot of new variations, as well as whole sections omitted entirely to keep things more interesting. I hope you all enjoy it, please read and review!
Han Today, Gone Tomorrow
Han Solo groaned lethargically as he slowly regained consciousness and found himself strapped in at his seat in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. He didn't right off hand remember what happened, but whatever it was he was practically seeing double.
"Chewie?" he tried to look around for his furry navigator but his neck didn't want to turn too much.
It didn't matter, the distinct howl of a wookiee blowing hot air in his ear let him know his best friend was still with him and close by.
"What happened?" Han asked as he blinked a few times, trying to regain his bearings.
Everything seemed to be at an odd angle and he couldn't figure it out, a few seconds later he felt Chewie's massive arms around him and felt himself being jerked up and realized he'd sprawled cockeyed across the seat when they landed, crash landed apparently.
"Thanks, Chewie," he said as he pulled himself to his feet. He shook his head and tried to remember, oh yeah, that asteroid shower. He'd tried to maneuver the ship around all of them but he hadn't quite been successful. That would account for them sustaining some damage, maybe getting a little knocked off course, but where were they now? He looked through the wind screen and all he saw was a body of water in front of them.
Han stumbled back to the controls and tried to pick up their coordinates to figure out where the hell they were, but nothing was coming up.
"Great," he pounded the control panel, "the whole system's down." With an aggravated huff, he turned to his furry friend and said, "Well, Chewie, we better take a look around and see what all the damage is, and then see if anyone around here can help us."
Chewbacca grunted in response. He grabbed his bowcaster and Han holstered his blaster and they left the ship and took a look around at their surroundings. They were on a sandy beach somewhere facing an ocean, as far as the eye could see there was nothing out there but water, overheard he heard gulls cawing, and at his feet the sound of the waves coming in. They looked behind them and saw a path leading up a hill somewhere, but didn't see anyone or any living things around. Then they went around and examined the Falcon and found it had taken quite a beating somewhere between the asteroid shower and here, wherever here was for that matter, and needed extensive work done on it.
"How about it, Chewie? This place look familiar to you?" Han inquired.
Chewbacca howled in answer.
"Didn't think so," Han replied. "Well, let's go check out the locals."
They trekked up the hill and watched as the golden sand turned into green grass and trees, and after climbing a few hundred meters up the hill, came to a fork in the road. To the right, far in the distance, appeared to be a castle, and to the left, Han could make out a road with archaic buildings standing alongside each other.
"There's the town, come on," Han told Chewbacca.
The sun was hot but nowhere near as bad as some desert planets he'd been on, but once they actually got into town, the scenery seemed to be all desert, the road was nothing more than sand and dirt, and the sun beat down on everything and everyone, most of the people they saw had a reddish complexion like they'd already been burned, maybe permanently. Han looked at the buildings and felt like they'd fallen through a time warp, they were one and two stories tall and were crudely made from wood and stone.
"Chewie," Han said half under his breath, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
The first building was a pawn shop, and Han decided that'd be their best bet to find anything they'd need for the Falcon. They headed inside and before Han got a good look at the place, Chewie's intimidating howl put him on the alert and he spun on his heel, blaster drawn, and stopped and realized Chewie was howling at a large stuffed bear standing on its hind legs, its front paws raised high on either side of its head in an almost fighter's stance, its mouth frozen open to show its large fangs.
"It's okay, Chewie," Han said, choking on a half laugh and the shocked yelp that never fully surfaced, "it's stuffed."
"Good day," the shopkeeper, a tall man with black skin and tiny spectacles he looked over addressed the two in a deep voice, "how can I help you?"
"Uh..." Han glanced around at the stuff in the shop, and it was obvious they weren't going to find any parts for the Falcon here, all the stuff looked centuries old: a suit of armor, a skeleton hanging from the ceiling, half burnt candles, barrels, a crystal ball, a drum, various pots and bottles. "Well, I guess there's nothing here we can use, except maybe an answer of just where we are. We crash landed on the beach."
"You must've gotten caught in last night's storm," the shopkeeper said mournfully, "she battered many ships, parts have been coming in on the tide all morning, you're lucky to be alive."
Han blinked as he tried to figure out what the man was saying. Somehow he had a feeling it wasn't an asteroid storm the older man was talking about, and he couldn't see any local storms being powerful enough to bring down a bunch of star ships.
"Yeah, okay," he said, "but where are we?"
"You're on the Isle of the Crown."
"Oh really?" Han liked the sound of that. Maybe he couldn't find any parts for his ship but it sounded like there would be something of value around here he could get his itchy hands on. Then he remembered the castle in the distance on the other side of the fork in the road.
"And the crown in question would have to do with that castle on the other side of this isle?" he asked.
"Indeed so," the shopkeeper told him. "Home of King Caliphim and Queen Allaria, and the princess, Cassima."
Han already lost interest. A scene like that sounded like it came with plenty of guards who'd be only too happy to fry him on sight. But he was met with a bigger problem that he'd never heard of any such place and he didn't know what they had to do to contact someone who could help them get sky-born again.
He looked down and something under the counter caught his eye and he asked the shopkeeper, "What's that?"
"This? It's a magic map to the Land of the Green Isles," the shopkeeper answered as he pulled it out, "it's been gathering dust so long I nearly forgot about it."
Han cocked his head to the side and blinked with mild interest. "Magic map?" It sounded hokey like that whole Jedi religion, but since they weren't going anywhere anyway...
"It was quite a few years ago you see," the shopkeeper explained, "the estate of a wealthy wizard fell into my hands when he died. It was useless magical junk mostly, the magic map was the one true treasure in the lot, the wizard was quite old and feeble and enchanted the map to aid in traveling. It is said that one only needed desire to be on an island depicted on the map to find one's self there. It is a very valuable map as you can imagine, unfortunately no one is interested in traveling these days, it is far too dangerous with the current state of the kingdom."
Sounded like Empire problems to Han, but he wasn't going to ask. Just to make conversation, he asked, "So what would you take for this thing?"
"I would normally want something magic in return, but since I am hardly overrun with perspective buyers, I would be willing to take anything of equal value in exchange."
"Hmmm..." Han glanced over at Chewie, and asked the shopkeeper, "would you excuse us for a minute?"
Han and the wookiee went over to the far corner of the store to discuss it.
"I know it's probably just a line," Han told Chewbacca, "but what if there's something actually to it? If this thing actually works, maybe someone on one of these other isles would be able to help us get the Falcon flying again."
Chewbacca grunted his skepticism, but ultimately it was Han's decision.
"Next question, do we actually have anything of value?" Han asked himself as he felt through his pockets. He stopped and his eyes widened as he felt something both smooth and jagged scraping the inside of his palm.
He pulled out a small gem stone that had been part of a payment for his last smuggling job, he'd gotten most of the gems converted into credits once they dropped off the cargo, but he'd kept a couple just in case, if for no other reason than he occasionally liked to look at shiny beautiful things that were worth a lot of money and know he actually possessed them.
Chewbacca snorted in disapproval.
"I know it's worth more than this ratty old map," Han said, "but we don't have anything else to trade, nothing that's expendable anyway."
He went back to the counter and held out the stone and asked the large man, "How about this? Will this do?"
The shopkeeper adjusted his spectacles and whistled in approval, "She is quite a beauty. You have a deal, but I must warn you about the map, it will only operate when you are out in the open and within sight of the sea. The limitation has something to do with the teleport spell ingredients. You might try the beach."
"I'll remember that," Han said as he took the old map, "thanks."
"Okay, Chewie, let's see if this thing actually works, or if we have to go back and blast that shopkeeper and get the stone back," Han said as they returned to the beach. Han unfolded the map, amazed the thing didn't crumple immediately. Maybe there was some old magic to it after all.
"Okay, let's see...Land of the Green Isles..." he saw four odd shapes spaced out on the map like compass points, he pointed to the big blob on the bottom, "Isle of the Crown, that's where we are..." up above it was an even larger blob marked Isle of the Sacred Mountains, on the left side was a small comma shaped blob marked Isle of Wonder, and on the right, a blob of similar size but a different shape marked Isle of the Beast.
"What do you think, Chewie?" Han asked as he felt the hot breath of the wookiee reading over his shoulder. "Either this thing works or we're going to have to find a way across the sea to find some help. Where do you think we should head first?"
Chewbacca grunted in contemplation, then pointed a large finger towards the blob marked Isle of Wonder.
"What the?" Han nearly dropped the map as he saw the isle light up. Then he felt very strange, and the next thing he knew, they were facing the sea from another shore.
"What just happened?" he asked Chewbacca, who was as clueless as he was.
A sudden sound jolted both of them, Han half turned and got the answer in a row of oyster beds on the shore, literal oyster beds, little tiny beds, each filled with one oyster with eyes and a mouth, who were all asleep and snoring.
Han turned to Chewie, eyes wide in disbelief, but tried to sound his usual nonchalant self as he said, "Okay...so the map works..."
Chewbacca snorted in response.
Han looked around and concluded, "But it looks like we're worse off here than we were the other place."
At least on the Isle of the Crown there was a town, there were signs of human life. All he could see around here was beach, beach and more beach, sand and rocks, snoring oysters, behind them was one sandy trail leading somewhere, to their side was another that sandy path that led off to he didn't know where.
"So, which way should we try first?" Han asked his friend.
Chewbacca turned his head one way and the other and snorted in answer as he pointed to the path beside them.
"Okay," Han nodded, "let's check it out."
But before they moved a single step, they heard the sound of someone approaching from the other way. They turned and watched as five short life forms marched out onto the beach, all about half as tall as Han, all of them humanoid, all with a single set of exaggerated features: one with a large nose, one with a large mouth, one with a large set of hands, one with a large set of ears, and one with a large set of eyes.
Han almost laughed at their appearance but he was thrown by what was said when the five of them spoke in one single chant.
"Five fierce guards of the isle we be, 'Watch for a foreign man' said he. With ears and nose, hands, tongue and eyes, its nature cannot be disguised; if man it be, then man it dies."
Han blinked at that proclamation and subconsciously took a step back as they all came towards him, trying to figure out what the hell was going on here. On one hand he knew better than many what small life forms were capable of doing, at the same time he wasn't exactly sure what this group of people were capable of doing, none of them appeared to be armed.
Chewbacca apparently hadn't taken well to the warning either, he howled and stood in front of Han, ready to rip the guards apart if need be. The five of them came up single file, the one with the extremely large hands was in the front, and extended a huge hand and felt the wookiee's fur and concluded, "Tis but a dog."
He turned and walked to the back of the line, next came the one with the humongous nose, who sucked in a deep breath of air right by Chewbacca's fur and concluded, "Tis but a dirty dog."
That one turned and moved to the back, the third one stepped forward and an unusually long tongue, about three feet long, rolled out of its mouth as it licked a patch of Chewbacca's fur and concluded, "Tis but an unbathed dog."
Chewbacca growled in response, that guard didn't appear to hear it, but the next guard who moved to the front had a set of ears that were about five times the size of its tiny head. It listened intently to the wookiee's roar and concluded, "Tis a lion."
Finally the last guard, with a set of eyes so large they couldn't even fit in his head properly but seemed to hang on his face like a set of balls, opened them, looked up at Chewbacca and yelled, "BEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!"
The five guards took off running back the way they came. Han lost his balance and fell on the ground laughing so hard he clutched his stomach with both hands. Chewbacca had to reach down, grab the smuggler and pull him back to his feet.
"That was great, Chewie," Han laughed as he leaned against his furry friend for support, "that was, that was great...that ought to clear up any problems there." He composed himself and gestured the other way and said, "Come on, let's check out the place."
They followed the trail behind a large set of rocks and in a short amount of time found themselves in...an unusual setting.
A/N: Most of what's happened so far is largely in tune with how the game actually goes, but the encounter with the five guards is a very different experience from the game's canon.