#Daventry is in so much trouble | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pointy-eared-muse · 8 years

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Graham... what have you done?

Quick poll, show of hands. How many of my fellow King’s Questers were emotional wrecks by the end of Chapter 5 of King’s Quest 2015, thinking about how sad and beautiful and right-in-the-feels it was? Most of you? OK, that’s totally fair and reasonable. You can put your hands down. Now, how many of you, at the end of Chapter 5, were staring at your screen in dawning abject horror because you realized that Graham’s final act may have destabilized the political futures of multiple countries? ...is it just me? Maybe one person there in the back? Anyone else? OK, let me explain. Spoilers ahead.

Now, I’m going to preface all this by saying I genuinely believe that Graham’s final decision was well-intentioned and motivated by love. I think he saw a great deal of himself in Gwendolyn and honestly thought that she would make an excellent queen. And, I do agree. I think Gwendolyn has the potential to be a great ruler one day.

Key phrase there: one day.

Because Graham literally just left his entire kingdom in the hands of a ten-year-old. (OK, I don’t actually know how old Gwendolyn is, but ten seems like a reasonable estimate.)

Now, I don’t doubt that Gwendolyn would be as well-supported as possible in her new role as queen. I don’t doubt that Valanice, Rosella, her parents, and pretty much everyone in the Daventry castle would be right there to help her. But still. She is a young girl. She has not yet developed the experience and maturity to be in that position. Both her father and grandfather were pretty young when they each became kings, and she is roughly half the age they were at the time. Look, I have a child about Gwendolyn’s age and I wouldn’t leave him in charge of breakfast, let alone a kingdom, and that’s under the best of circumstances. Well-intentioned as it may be, the chances of this ending well for Daventry aren’t very good, even with help. Somebody somewhere is bound to try and take advantage of her. But it’s more complicated than that.

See, the game strongly implies that both Gart and Gwendolyn are only children and don’t have any siblings. And if that is true, well, now, we have a problem. Because, with Gwendolyn becoming queen of Daventry... the Land of the Green Isles no longer has an heir-apparent. Whoops.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. Why not just have Gart and Gwendolyn swap places? She becomes queen of Daventry, and he becomes the future King of the Green Isles. Problem solved, right? Eh... maybe. Because that’s definitely going to make an uphill fight for the both of them. It’s unclear how much Gwendolyn has been coached at this point to lead a kingdom, but Gart has been being trained practically since birth to lead Daventry as the clear heir-apparent. He knows Daventry well, can easily identify addendums by number, understands the people, history, geography, dangers, and culture of Daventry. It’s his home. But chances are, he doesn’t know all that much about the Green Isles---it’s unfamiliar territory at best and bound to be a culture shock. And, to be honest, Gwendolyn will probably face similar struggles adapting to the Daventry way of life. But, here is a key difference between the two realms: on the whole, Daventry has been pretty chill about welcoming outsiders (goblins and evil wizards not withstanding). Land of the Green Isles, though? Land that is xenophobic enough that, by the request of its prior leaders, many maps either actively deny its existence or else deliberately misplace it so it is nearly impossible to find? Land where almost any ship that attempts to sail there and actually finds it ends up wrecked? Land of every island prepared to inventively kill any stranger who attempts to walk more than 5 feet inland from the shore? (If you’re wondering if I died a lot playing KQ6 as a kid, the answer is yes. Yes, I did.) Yeah... Even in the best possible circumstances, Gart’s going to need a lot of luck if he’s going have any hope of succeeding as the next heir to the Green Isles, assuming he even gets the position.

But wait, you say, during KQ6 wasn’t there a lot of instability and turmoil going on because of Alhazred’s meddling? And hasn’t he been gone for 30-ish years? You are correct, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the Green Isles is pretty inherently hostile to outsiders. Maybe some of that has changed under Alexander-Gwydion’s reign, but that kind of widespread cultural change is difficult to accomplish in one generation. Xenophobia and mistrust rarely ever truly go away---they’re more likely to just go underground for a while and then pop back up at the first favorable opportunity. And we actually don’t know how effective a ruler Alexander-Gwydion is. Yes, he earned the respect of the various island leaders during his adventuring there, but he wasn’t brought up being taught how to govern. It’s far more likely that Cassima is the true power on the throne of the Green Isles with Alexander-Gwydion being more of a figurehead. We like to assume that the two of them ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity for the Green Isles... but what if they didn’t? What if the situation there is still politically precarious?

Because, see, as previously noted, there are some conspicuous and unexplained absences in the newest King’s Quest game. One of them is Queen Cassima herself, and while we don’t actually know where she is or why, my guess is that she stayed behind in the Green Isles instead of following her family to Daventry because things may well fall apart without her maintaining a presence. And now, thanks to Graham, it’s just her there. With Gwendolyn being queen of Daventry, we don’t know when or if Alexander-Gwydion will return to the Green Isles (I’m thinking more likely “when,” but it could take a while, be it weeks, months or even years). And if the other islands perceive weakness or instability in the leadership of the Isle of the Crown, I’m pretty sure peaceful co-existence is not going to be the order of the day. Whether this means each island becomes more insular, or the bickering and in-fighting between them flares up and intensifies, or there are threats of an all-out coup, I don’t know, but all in all, more than likely, things aren’t going to be smooth and peaceful.

And then there’s Edgar, also conspicuously missing with no explanation as to where he is or why, or even a definitive canon answer as to whether or not he’s a part of the Cracker family tree. But for argument’s sake, let’s go with the generally-assumed belief that he is Gart’s father. That would mean Gart would have as much (and probably more, actually) claim to being part of the Etherian court as he would that of the Green Isles, since there he’s a direct descendant of the ruling family, rather than just the king’s nephew. And if you thought Green Isles politics and culture shock were hard... welcome to Faerie.

Now, the good news is that Oberon and Titania are effectively immortal, so the chances of Gart ever actually inheriting the throne and/or needing to lead are pretty small. If he did find his place in the Etherian court, it’d most likely be as a courtier, a liaison, an ambassador or something like that. At least, once he’s an adult. As a kid, especially, though, probably every fairy and their dragonet is going to want to get their grabby little hands on Gart, especially the dark ones. Because fairies are just weirdly obsessed with children in general, it’s far from the first time that wicked Etherians have tried to strike at Oberon and Titania through a child of their bloodline, and I still think it would be incredibly naive to assume that Lolotte and Malicia are the only threats to ever come out of Etherian society.

Again, we don’t actually know what happened to Edgar, but of the various theories I came up with, the one I like best is that Edgar has voluntarily (and heart-wrenchingly) separated from Rosella and Gart in an effort to keep them safe from the more dangerous factions of Etherian society. I firmly believe that Edgar is motivated by the desire to Do The Right Thing, but growing up under Lolotte and being brainwashed by Malicia have left their mark on him. He’s learned that the ends justify the means, he’s learned how to manipulate and deceive, how to plot and carry out plans in secret, how to literally get away with murder, and, most importantly, he’s learned how dark fairies generally think and behave. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, and he hates it, but he can’t think of a better solution to protect the people he loves most, so, while they stay in Daventry, he returns to Eldritch and Etheria, and at first, he tries lying. He denies he still has feelings for Rosella, denies that they have a child together. They can’t hurt his son if they don’t know he exists, after all. But Edgar’s more the type to deceive through misdirection and omission, and outright lies don’t spin easily off his tongue; he stammers and falters when he tries. Not to mention that any fairy with sufficient means, skill and determination can use Daventry’s cherished Magic Mirror as a window into the kingdom (if Genesta could, surely there are others, after all). Rumors spread quickly among fairies, and the idea of a precious half-human prince who doesn’t realize what he’s capable of and being poised to lead a kingdom one day is a terribly tempting target. Imagine what they could do with that impressionable mind, that untapped power... And if this sweet little prince could be taken... Etheria remembers the chaos that followed in the wake of losing their own Prince Edgar---how would Daventry handle the disappearance of its own heir? King Graham is growing older and fears dark magic... Goblins have been able to throw Daventry into disarray, and, overall, they’re downright primitive compared to the dark fairies of Etheria. If the forces of dark magic took their prince, there would be war, surely. And the humans would be no match against the fairies. Daventry would become theirs.

So, now Edgar has to switch tactics, because simple denial is pointless. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game, where the best defense is a good offense. It’s his fault that Daventry is at risk, so it’s his duty to prevent both personal tragedy and war between the realms. He’s on the proverbial front lines, rooting out the places where evil flourishes, doing all he can to quash the ambitions of those who would hurt Gart or Rosella and/or cause a war. Once in a while, maybe, he slips away to visit Daventry, to catch a glimpse of his son and his beloved Rosella. Quietly, he encourages sending Gart on adventures, to keep him away from the Magic Mirror where he might be spied upon, to hone the skills of survival, resourcefulness and handling adversity, because he will need them one day. Maybe out in the wilds, the magic in him will awaken, and he can practice it away from Graham’s potential worry and disapproval. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is Edgar who fervently pleads with Graham in hushed corners to not let Gart grow up too soon, to let him be a boy, to keep him sheltered from too much public attention. Don’t let him become king until he is too old to tempt those who would corrupt him. And Graham doesn’t---he ends up choosing his other grandchild to succeed him.

Meanwhile, Gart is being raised human. It’s a bittersweet prospect in Edgar’s eyes, having known what it’s like to grow up not knowing the truth of what you are, but, for now, it’s for the best. Gart doesn’t yet understand the sacrifices his father is making on his behalf, or the power that lies sleeping in his veins. He grows to believe that Daventry is his birthright, not realizing that someday his father’s battles may become his own. One day, he will understand, but that day may come sooner than expected with his younger cousin now the acting queen. There’s a chance the dark fairies may try to use her to get to Gart, appealing to her youth, her innocence, her own fascination with magic.

Daventry has never been more vulnerable in living human memory. And two other nations may be on the brink of open conflict because of it.

...long story short, if there’s a follow-up game to this, I really hope it’s about Gwendolyn and Gart trying to navigate the political hellscape they’ve just inherited.

#kings quest #kings quest 2015 #spoilers #theories #graham no #Daventry is in so much trouble

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thewatercolours · 3 years

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“What’s Past is Prologue” (1/2) - A King’s Quest Fanfiction

“Hang on, Grandpa; you said the mirror was shining like gold when you first saw it?”

“Yes. Who knows how long it had sat completely dark before I began crossing that rickety bridge of beds? Even though I must have been half-a-league above, it seemed to feel its rescue approaching, and it lit up, white-golden, over the entire -”

“Why was it gold? I’ve never seen it do anything but purple ripples when it’s not showing a story.”

“Well spotted. Yes, it did settle into purple after that first night.”

“And there’s a story why? Right?”

“Not a full-on rambling story. Only a smidgen. A snip. A scintilla.”

“So… tell me?”

“Hm… Well. Well, come to think of it, perhaps another day would be best.”

“If it’s only short, can’t we squeeze it in before bedtime?”

“All right, if you’re so keen to know, the fact is that I climbed out of the well and found the thornweeds had spread and locked in round each other, as they do by night, and completely enclosed the clearing. When they pulled back in the morning, I made my way to the castle and gave the mirror to King Edward, who told me that he was nearly… well, he promised me again Daventry would be mine and sent me on my way. That’s the upshot.”

“… And, uh, after that the mirror was purple?”

“Yes, after that the mirror was purple. Speaking of purple, have I ever told you about the day the snarlax’s mate came for revenge on the kingdom? I remember it was a new moon on New Year’s night, and everyone in the valley was…”

“I don’t think that was the whole story.”

“Not tonight, sweetheart.”

Many a king had ricocheted down the wishing well shaft. Or at any rate, the flattering profiles of kings, embossed and etched on brass, silver, and gold. In the two centuries it had stood, the well had seen nearly a dozen different rulers fall. Robbers tended to wander down the rope for a bit of royal graverobbing now and again.

Graham was not quite king yet. But he was the nearest thing the well had known to a king shinnying back out. Not riding jingling in a thief’s pouch, but climbing with his own rope burned fingers and knocking knees. He hadn’t come for vengeance. Only for a looking glass. But he’d got it into the bargain.

He threw a leg over the lip of the moss-mortared well. The calm storm that had powered him through the dragon’s lair stopped before the other leg could follow through. Loose stones tumbled free as he half-willingly collapsed. Gravity pulled him the last few feet to safety. For a moment, all he could see was red. But it wasn’t dragonfire. His scarlet cape had somersaulted over him. The earth’s jolt knocked the wind out of him, and the back of his skull thudded against the well wall.

Graham hardly felt a thing – he could have fallen backwards into the well and been dashed on merciless rock, and he’d hardly have minded. His strength was dregged. He wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

Nice. Sincerely nice. Not sarcastically nice. Exactly whom was he clarifying his internal monologue for? He never knew. But he was doing it again, which meant he was done tiptoeing and shooting and thinking about something he couldn’t afford to think about.

And that was nice.

The last pink streak of dusk wavered over his field of vision, like the Milky Way had gone rosy, or the border forests of Daventry had staked a claim in the sky. He had just won those forests for his own, hadn’t he? And the blue mountain fogs, and the river that carved tunnels through the rocky hills, and every cobble, gable, and poor man’s trouble in the Town.

King. Graham. He couldn’t seem to fuse the two words into a name.

He fidgeted with that thought as long as it could keep its shape before it melted with the warmth of too much handling, and he had to stand up. The dusk streak was gone, and the headache turned real. Time to return in victory. Watch everything change.

If he could get out of the well clearing, which was half the size it had been when he’d arrived.

The spiniferous thornweeds took him aback despite himself. They wove through each other closer than his fingers when he cracked his knuckles. Mist and fireflies wandered through the brambles, but that certainly wasn’t in the cards for him. A shiver found every one of his spine bones as the cold settled into the splashes on his clothes. Dummy. He’d told himself it made no sense to come at twilight. Adventures always took longer than foreseen.

(He knew perfectly well why he’d put it off all day but not now, not now.)

What did he have to hand?

He pawed through his voluminous pockets. Most were empty today. He preferred to start adventures fresh if he could. Here was a brackety crank from a butter churn he’d picked up by the first fork in the passage. A cask lid with a cork stopper. Not the bow –he’d thrown that down for reasons he’d make sense of another night. And, oh, yes - a woolen blanket. The only one he’d hid beneath that hadn’t been mouldy with cave-damp. He had no special reason for pocketing any of these. Muscle memory and blind chance of usefulness had picked them up while his mind was at the dragon-most end of the cavern.

A little bit of trial and error later (not limited to spooling and unspooling the well rope at least ten times, loping around touching everything in the area to see if anything useful met his fingertips, and trying to hack through the thornweeds with absolutely everything on his person, including the blanket,) Graham had to accept there was no way out, yet. That was fine. If something doesn’t work it now, it just means you don’t have the proper tool yet.

So, camping trip, then. Doable. He could just stretch the rope from the well, like this, and tie it taut round a thornweed branch, like that. Throw the blanket over it, secure the bottom, and voila! Triangle tent. The cloak had served him often enough as a bed. He’d just take everything out of the pockets for now, and -

Golden light dazzled him.

Ah yes. The mirror that could show the far and the future had been sitting in his cloak this last however long, and he hadn’t even sneaked a peep since that stolen moment before the dragon charged him.

Perhaps he should look again. His mind was brim full anyway, and yet - if he was going to be here for the night, a distraction might be useful.

Graham stared into the Magic Mirror.

(Part 1/2)

(Picture credit to The Odd Gentlemen, http://baking.theoddgentlemen.com/.)

#King's Quest #kings quest #King Graham #Gwendolyn (King's Quest)#Graham #Valanice and Gwendolyn get a scene together next time in the present day.

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gerbiloftriumph · 4 years

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The Silence Between Snowflakes

(also on ao3) ~ 2/8 - Footprints

~*~*~

Alexander had met the villagers and royal knights, but Graham wanted more than ballroom politeness and hastily muttered, “yes, I’m fine, lovely to meet you”s. He wanted them to be comfortable with each other. His son and his citizens. He was eager to show Alexander all that Daventry had to offer. Almost as soon as Alexander was able, Graham started hovering and gently steering him toward walking the paths with him, to explore what was theirs together. To actually get to know each other.

Even in winter, Daventry glittered. Perhaps even more so in winter, what with the ice in the tree branches and the crunchy snow glimmering in the sunlight. The little waterfalls that cascaded over the rocks in the spring froze into twisted natural sculptures, shards sharp as goblin spears. The air was crisp and clear enough that you could hear a twig snap halfway through the forest.

Alexander dutifully pulled his scarf up higher around his ears and trooped behind his father, silent but observant. Graham chattered to fill the empty air between them, pointing out this place or that.

“Starberries grow here in the late autumn—it's like constellations in the trees. And you won’t believe how loud the frogs in that pond in spring are. You'll hear them from the castle on clear nights. Most of the birds have migrated, but wait until they come back. The sounds they make in the early summer mornings before that golden sun properly comes up over the hills…. Oh, and this path, this one leads to a gorgeous lookout. It’s icy now, but maybe in a couple days we might be able to try it, and you can see the whole valley. It’ll look like it’s been dipped in sugar now, and in the summer the lavender fields make the whole valley purple.”

He desperately tried to paint his kingdom in all its colors for his son. Like he could wrap up the whole thing up as a gift. His son listened and nodded and made occasional noises to let Graham know he was listening, and that was about it.

The first couple walks were the same. Graham babbled endlessly, pressing down his unease that he was being annoying and overbearing. At night, he confessed his apprehension to Valanice, and they talked long into the night together. She insisted that what he was doing was helpful. “He comes back with such a rosy blush in his cheeks.”

“It’s windchill,” Graham fretted, crumpling his cloak in his hands.

“He’s happy,” she said. “Well. Happier. I think. Don’t stop. It’s important for him to see and to hear. But don’t forget to give him space. I know how much you can talk about Daventry when you get started. I know how much you love it. But...give him room.”

The walks continued, and Graham kept himself quiet as much as he talked. Alexander, when he noticed the lengthy pauses, seemed all the more nervous, as though he was expected to fill the silences. And that made him jumpy. But Graham didn’t expect things, just cautiously helped move the conversation forward. It was a bit like trying to help one of the nervous courtiers speak, he decided. He might not know how to talk to a son, but he knew how to talk to his citizens, and while that might not be a long-term solution, at least at first, at least for now, it might help.

And it did.

Alexander, gently coaxed by Graham, started to talk. Not about the past, not yet. But about their present. Started to ask about where they were going. Wanted to risk the icy overlook to see the valley spread below them like a frosted painting. Wanted to know where people lived, what they did. As he talked, Graham realized how starved the boy was for information. He had spent his life locked in Manannan’s grasp, watching the world go by from a distance, and while he was clever and sharp, he simply didn’t know. So Graham showed him everything.

~*~*~*

“What do you think that is?” Alexander pointed down the path.

Graham leaned around a bend in the trail to see what Alexander had found. “Looks like a scarf.”

Alexander fidgeted with his own scarf. “I bet whoever dropped it is cold.”

Graham knelt to pick it up. It was well crafted, a bright green that positively glittered against the slushy path. It had snowed earlier (it seemed to be snowing more often this winter, each day bringing another flurry of flakes), and there were all sorts of tangled footprints crisscrossing each other. Graham hadn’t been paying them much mind before—it was a road, there were footprints in the snow. Not exactly something to write a fantasy novel about.

But now he looked a little more carefully, looked at the size of the tracks. Most were blurred, but he had an uneasy prickling at the back of his neck. They almost looked like children’s footprints, but he remembered dark caves, ropes, salamanders, and a gut-punch sense of fear rippled down his spine for an instant. His head snapped up, searching the trees for any additional signs of the goblins he knew were out there.

In the distance, now that he was paying attention, he could hear something hammering, very faintly. The twenty-something, newly crowned king in the back of his head immediately decided the goblins were building cages to take the villagers again. The fifty-something established king told himself to stop exaggerating and assuming the worst. The twenty-something king muttered that inattentiveness was how they’d been captured in the first place. The fifty-something king didn’t actually have an answer to that.

Graham glanced at his son—but if there were goblins out there, and if they did mean harm, it wouldn’t be safe to send the prince back to the castle on his own. And Graham couldn’t leave the sound uninvestigated.

“Come with me, but quietly,” Graham said, motioning Alexander down the path, following the goblin tracks.

The hammering got louder. As they walked, though, Graham realized what it was. Not goblins, at least not in this exact instance. Someone was hammering signs into trees. Brightly colored sheets of paper lined the path. Wanted signs, for stolen socks. They rounded the corner and found the source of the hammering and the sheets.

“Aaah, Acorn,” Graham said, relief sparking through his tense shoulders. “Having trouble?”

“Someone raided my stock,” the knight growled, thumping his hammer against the nail in the tree, lodging the sign firmly. The tree had a ring of impact in it from the weight of the hammer. He had blue and green paint streaking his armor from painting the signs in an angry hurry. “Not so much as a single glove left behind.”

“I think I know who.”

“I knew it! That rival craft shop across the river, right? Knitwits or whatever they’re called? Buncha nitwits. I knew it. Mafia creeps. I’m gonna lodge a formal complaint with the royal guards. Trying to button in on my service area, how dare they?”

“No, not them,” Graham said, and offered the scarf. Acorn gently took it, brushing the dirt off it, looking all the more upset about its condition. “Goblins, I think,” Graham continued. “There’s a whole bunch of their tracks just up the lane.”

Acorn seemed taken aback. “No. Really? They haven’t caused trouble for decades. They’ve kept to themselves. Why would they be stirring up trouble again?”

“Good question,” Graham said. “I intend to find out. Something must have happened.”

Instinctively, both men turned and looked at Alexander. Alexander’s eyes widened and he shrank back, stepping into the shade of a tree and tripping over an upraised root hidden in the snow.

“Possibly,” Graham said, mostly to himself. “I wonder if an audience with the goblin king would be useful.” He realized what his mouth had gone off saying and froze, imagining himself down in the goblin tunnels again, those bleak roads he had once trekked as a prisoner, to keep that appointment. He shook his head, scaring the image away. “I’ll deal with that later. For now, we’ll notify the royal guards and let the rest of the villagers know. I’ll head back to town now.”

“Would you take this back to Amaya if you’re going that way?” Acorn asked, holding the hammer out. “I ran out of signs, but I’m gonna go look around, and I promised I’d get that back to her quick.”

Graham was about to protest, about to suggest it wasn’t safe, and then remembered who he was talking to. The strongest knight Daventry had to offer, and surprisingly deadly with a pair of knitting needles. “You be careful,” he said, grinning. “Don’t scare them too badly or anything if you find them. I’d hate to look bad in front of the goblin king.”

Acorn laughed, and then wandered further down the path into the forest, leaving Graham holding a surprisingly heavy hammer and Alexander shivering with wary uncertainty.

“Would you like to go into town with me?” Graham asked. “If you want to go back to the castle, we can do that too, and then I’ll go on to the town myself.”

“Do you...do you think I’m really...the cause of something?” Alexander asked, his voice hardly audible.

Graham was going to flippantly answer, but the look on his son’s face drew him up short. He put the hammer down—stars it was heavy, what did Amaya want it for—and stood beside Alexander. The cold wind had picked up again, and the threat of a storm was blowing in from the west (always from the west these days, so odd, when winter storms normally blew from the north over the mountains). They drew closer together as a screen from the chill.

“Truly, I don’t think it’s anything you did,” Graham said, after a pause. “I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable or unwanted. Daventry has a long and unsettling history with the goblin kingdom, and we were thinking of that more than anything else.”

“Unsettling history?” Alexander asked. He still looked nervy, a deer startled and ready to run, but that eternal curiosity about everything, so delightful in the Cracker family, was roused.

“It’s...you might not want to hear it,” Graham said, uneasy as he looked ahead to where this conversation might go. “It’s a story about goblins...kidnapping all the villagers. And me. They took me. I don’t...it might...” It might trigger your own memories, were the unspoken words. It might ruin everything, to hear this story.

But Alexander perked his head up, looked toward his father with surprise. And maybe some respect. “What happened? Did you...escape? By yourself?”

“Not completely by myself,” Graham said. “I had help from the villagers. But, yes, we rescued ourselves.”

“I had to rescue myself, alone,” Alexander whispered, so softly Graham wondered if he had been meant to hear it or not. It was the first time Alexander had voluntarily offered any detail regarding what had happened to him. “I...” his voice faded to nothing, and then, in almost a normal volume, like he was trying to force himself to speak, “Would you tell me what happened? If...if you’re okay with that.”

With a kind smile, Graham said, “Yes, I can tell you what happened. Would you like to walk back to town with me while I do? We’ll keep a bit warmer if we move. It was a summer evening, then, but the rain was endless. You’ll get a sense for how monsoon season is in July.” And he unraveled the story about what had happened to him just a few short months after he’d been crowned. How he’d been ambushed by goblins, hauled underground, locked away, and what had happened next.

They hadn’t gotten far into the story by the time they reached the town. Graham had told this tale many times, and it always seemed to get a bit longer with each telling. Real life details fuzzed into something with more defined story structure, tugging wrinkles into out into a proper narrative’s smoothness, with highs and lows that seemed effortless to tell. Privately, though, he knew the raw edge of fear occasionally jangled and caught him off guard at unexpected moments, especially on certain lightning-struck nights when he was feeling tired and edgy. Sort of like catching his arm on a jagged nail in the dark.

But now, in the weak sunlight and the sparkling snow and the crisp air, it was light and easy to tell. He was just explaining about the cure-all potion he would need to restore Bramble’s fading health when they walked through the town gates and found Bramble herself shoveling snow off her front step.

“Ahh, Majesties,” she chirped, sweeping low into a bow, shovel held at attention and dripping slush back onto her stoop. “Lovely day for the moment, though I think you should go inside if that storm keeps heading our way.” She thumbed meaningfully at the clouds racing toward them, chasing the last scraps of sunlight away. “Always a joy to see you in town. Anything in particular you’re up to?”

“Bramble, you haven’t noticed anything strange lately, have you?” Graham asked, ignoring pleasantries.

She hesitated, a little put off by his haste. She wrapped her gloved fingers in her snow-crusted apron strings, considering. “Noticed anything? Acorn went off in a huff this morning, but I’m afraid he’s often in a huff in the mornings. Rather a knight owl. But...no, I can’t say that I’ve noticed anything strange, no more particularly than usual. Is there something I ought to be watching for?”

Graham glanced at the roof—goblins had crowded it once, pounced him flat. It was empty now, except for the snow. It was building up pretty high. He wondered if he should order the royal guards down to help clear the rooftops. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for the shingles to crack under the strain, especially when winter was only getting started. With more snow on the way some of these older structures might warrant a little extra care this year.

He couldn’t dance around the issue. “Bramble, I’m afraid there might be an upsurge in goblin activity.”

She clapped her hand over her mouth, abandoned shovel falling into a snow-covered shrubbery. Of all the villagers, she had been most affected by what had happened, had been very pregnant and very sick for most of her captivity. “You can’t be serious, Majesty.”

“I’m not entirely sure yet, but I have some pretty solid suspicions. I don’t think they’ll do anything. The treaties are still being upheld as far as I know, and Manny is...apparently indisposed.” He glanced at Alexander, who gave an almost imperceptible nod, although he was playing with his scarf uneasily, too. “I don’t want to cause alarm. I only want everyone to be a little careful. Maybe don’t walk through the forests alone right now, not until we straighten this out.”

“Of course. Did you tell everyone else?”

“Acorn knows, but I haven’t seen anyone else yet. I’m being proactive. They hurt the town first, last time.” He looked at the worry cracking her normally sunny features and smiled warmly, reaching out and taking her hands. “It isn’t something to worry too much about, yet. They like causing mayhem, remember? Stealing scarves seems like just the sort of trouble they would love. I would recommend caution, of course, but don’t panic. We’ll take care of it before it gets dangerous.”

Relief softened her face. “Come inside, then, lad, let’s get you warmed up. King Graham, something hot to drink?”

“You know you don’t have to call me king,” he said, gently, for the thousandth time.

“I know, Majesty. Still. Cocoa?”

“Let me get this to Amaya first,” he said, hoisting the hammer in his hand to show it off, almost losing his balance as he misjudged its weight. “I’ll stop by after.”

Alexander made to follow Graham, but Graham gently shooed him toward the bakery with Bramble. Overhead, the garlands the villagers had used to decorate the town for the season swayed in the increasing wind.

Amaya’s shop always smelled of hot metal and oil, a tangy greasy feeling in the air that felt like sparks were going to crackle off his arms. Graham rapped his knuckles against the counter’s scraped and battered wood until Amaya shouted from her workroom, “In a minute, hold on to your crown!”

Bemused, he leaned back on his elbows, examining the array of weapons nailed to the walls. She eventually came out a side door, wiping her hands on a rag tucked into her skirt. “How’d you know it was me?” he asked.

“No one else knocks that pattern. Sounds like a song, the way you do it. Ridiculous, dreamy. Like a dopey lullaby. What’s up?”

“Got your hammer.” He dropped it onto the counter with a thump. He winced, having added yet another dent to the rest, but Amaya scooped it up as though it weighed nothing. “Acorn said you needed it back quick. What are you working on?”

“Something for Rosella,” Amaya said.

“Um. Something I should know about?” He still remembered the flaming poisoning raging sword of doom fiasco.

“New game board. Faster version of the home game Battle of Wits—the arrows hurt if they hit the players, ha! Adds some extra tension to rounds. Gotta hammer the board together, and the weight on this hammer in particular is perfect. Wanted to get it to her today if I could. I think she plans on teaching her brother how to play. Speaking of, he here?” She had pulled out said game while talking, hammering the top pieces with wild, ear-ringing abandon.

Graham flinched back from the clanging blows. “He’s with the Feys.”

“That hot chocolate’s gonna fatten him up. Good. Kid needs it.”

“There was something else, Amaya,” Graham said, trying to get a word in edgewise as she delivered a series of ringing whacks to the pieces.

“Has to do with Acorn, I bet. He was in a temper this morning. I mean, he’s always in a temper in the mornings. But he’s usually good at calming down. That bull training or whatever. Not this morning.” Amaya put down the hammer and looked expectant.

“I’m worried the goblins are stirring up trouble again,” he said.

“Ah.” She crossed her arms. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

“I have reason to believe they were in town,” he said, glancing at the shop windows—crusted with snow, hard to see through. Unless you were pressed right against it you wouldn’t see anyone outside. “They stole Acorn’s winter stock. All his scarves and gloves and socks.”

“That might explain why my order of icepicks and chisels has inexplicably gone walking.”

“They’re not arming themselves, do you think?” Graham asked. He could remember spearheads jabbed against his shoulders, could remember the wooden handles slamming against the back of his knees to bring him to their level before they yanked the ropes around his wrists.

“With a chisel? Unless they’re carving some lovely ice swans and bringing them to life with some black magic to attack us, I doubt it. The picks, maybe, but they’ve still got their spears as far as I know, so they don’t need my stuff. This might just be petty thievery. They like that. I never did get my bed back.”

“You didn’t want it back. I did offer to ask.”

“Not worth the effort.” Or the memories. “Still. I’ll keep an eye out. We started barring the gates again this year—this winter is colder, have you noticed? It's driving the wedzels into town, looking for warmer hearths to sleep against. If I catch one by my forge there will be hell to pay. But we’ll be more diligent. I’m not sure if the gates were closed last night or not. I assume I can expect a visit from Number One about patrol schedules?”

“As always. Number One likes to keep you involved.”

“Whisper thinks he’s flirting with me.”

“Whisper thinks everyone’s flirting with you.”

Amaya scowled. “Ridiculous. Still. We’ll be watchful. We’ve dealt with this before, and we’ll take care of it now. Don’t worry, Graham.”

“I’m supposed to be telling you not to worry, not the other way around,” Graham said.

Amaya laughed, handed Graham the completed board game (which weighed considerably more than the hammer had) and pushed him out the door. The light had a distinct gray quality to it, now, the clouds pushing into place. After the forge-warmed shop, the incoming storm’s biting chill nipped Graham’s cheeks, and he shrugged deeper into his cowl, shifting it up around his ears while trying not to lose his grip on Rosella’s order. It would be best to head back to the castle now, to get the royal guards involved, before the storm hit. The villagers would warn each other about the possible threat, and Number One and the other guards would soon have the place safely under patrol.

Wente and Bramble were crammed around a table with Alexander when Graham pushed through the door. A couple of early snowflakes also entered with him, though they melted the moment they hit the hot air. Everything tasted like cinnamon and sugar dust, and Wente had lit a large number of candles to keep the darkness at bay.

“It’s not at all like it was under Edward,” Wente was saying cheerfully, dunking a cookie in hot chocolate and getting crumbs all over the tabletop. “Your father is really doing some delightful expansion work. Used to be we’d lose half the lavender crop to rain. The irrigation system he implemented? That alone has done wonders for Daventry.”

“Oh, King Graham, let me get you a cup of something,” Bramble said, pushing to her feet. “Cider? Cocoa? Something a bit stronger? Your nose is five shades redder than usual.”

“The storm is on its way,” Graham said, shifting the board game but looking longingly at the sweet cider tap.

“Yes, but Daventry Castle is no more than ten minutes up the road. Come on, sit. We’ll get you warmed up before you head out. No goblins will want to move in weather like this, so don’t worry about raising alarm yet.”

“They’re armed with winter caps now, though,” Graham said, trying to spin it into a joke. “I’ve seen them in grass skirts—I'll bet they look ridiculous in scarves.”

“Wrapped around their helmets!” Wente accidentally dropped the last of his cookie in his cup and his mustache drooped as he looked forlornly at the soggy remnants.

“Mistletoe on their spears,” Bramble said.

“Wearing bright green gloves,” Alexander offered, quiet, with what might have been the trace of a smile.

They didn’t stay long—the storm truly was impending, and it made Graham anxious to get back home, but they stayed long enough to drain their mugs, to tell some awful jokes about snowmen, and to speculate about what the goblins might actually be up to. Nothing at all was decided, other than perhaps they’d sensed the oncoming worse winter and had decided to prepare in the only way they knew how: thievery.

By the end of their brief ten-minute chat, Bramble didn’t seem nearly as frightened as she had before, and Wente remembered he had a cupcake he wanted to send up with Graham for Royal Guard Number Two’s birthday (it smelled a little bit like syrup). Alexander had to carry the little paper box, as Graham was still struggling with the board game. He wouldn’t tell Alexander what it was, sure Rosella meant it to be a surprise, and mumbled something about it being for dull castle business.

Acorn stomped in right before the royalty left, shaking snowflakes from his cloak and demanding a frosted bear claw—Alexander looked horrified and confused before Wente handed over a specific type of pastry. He told Graham that the royal guards knew about the goblins now. Acorn had run into Numbers One and Two making a loose patrol loop through the forest, and No1 wanted to see him as soon as possible to confirm their strategy.

“Absolutely, on the way,” Graham said, and waved farewell to his friends and his citizens. Bramble and Wente both gave Alexander warm goodbyes, Wente offering a huge goodbye hug and Alexander gently refusing (although he openly smiled when he refused, definitely the first true smile Graham had seen). Acorn sprayed crumbs everywhere but still managed to cough out a dry “see ya,” and then the king and the prince walked back toward the castle, glowing with the contentment of companionship.

#we establishin' some plot points now before getting into more character study n all #were this in the actual game the trading game would last much longer but for sake of pacing we're cutting it to two items #King's Quest #kings quest #King Graham #alexander (king's quest)#Acorn (King's Quest)#amaya blackstone #wente fey #bramble fey #ch4 #fic'ing #what do you mean we can see a king solving people's actual problems like an actual king surely that's not allowed #I'm thiiiiinking we might post on Mondays from now on and do drawn Gerbils on Thursday from here out like usual but I'm low on pictures lol

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captmickey · 4 years

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✏ + During one of "Gwidion's" adventures outside Mananan's home, he gets approached by a woman who tells him he bares a striking resemblance to her little brother... who lost his son eighteen years ago.

Madeline had to stop dead in her tracks. It must have been her eyes playing tricks on her, surely. There was absolute zero chance that her baby brother would be back here in Llewdor considering the fact that one, he was the current sovereign of the far away land of Daventry, two, he was currently in the midst of trying to find his missing son, her missing nephew, but most importantly three, the last time she saw him, she was at least nearly positive that he was no longer a stringy looking teen (in fact, she seemed to have distinctly recall that he was a rather bulky forty-something year old).

And yet... she had to stop and look at the youth who stepped outside the local store. He was awfully pale and far too thin for her liking, and his tattered clothes just barely hung to him thanks to the mismatch patch work she saw littered about.

The more she stared, the more everything about him sparked some recollection of her siblings: The way he fidgeted with his hands... it looked so much like how Ginger would fidget when she was antsy, the way his eyes moved quickly was something Anisette would do when something was on her mind, and the way he just.... looked.

Undoubtedly, he looked strikingly close to that of Graham.

She shook her head. No, that’s just silly. It’s all just a play of the light, she tried convincing herself. Nothing more than a few coincidences and besides, there were plenty of people dark wavy hair in Llewdor who have looked nervous (especially so for quite some time), this isn’t (shouldn’t) be that big of a deal for her to stop in the middle of her shopping.

If there was something Madeline could say with pride, was that she had a rather photogenic memory when it came to the residents of Llewdor. She knew almost everyone and they her. But that boy... she was certain she never saw him in all her years living here (he could have just moved to town, she continued trying to convince herself), yet she still simply could not shake off the feeling that she has seen him before.

Before she could move or reason, she noticed the young teen looking her way. His eyes looking lost... scared (he looked so much like Graham when he was in trouble during their youths).

Zards, he caught her staring at him.

Quickly, she weighed the pros and cons of either leaving him alone or conversing (weighing on top of that if he’ll just book it and run) and slowly exhaled. “Hello.” She greeted.

“Hi...” he waved meekly, looking to be frozen in place.

“Are you alright?” Madeline continued, slowly walking over towards him (noticing to boot him taking a small step back).

“I-I’m fine,” he answered, “honest. I’m... just trying to um... figure where to go next, is all.”

Something was just nagging her in the back of her mind yet she couldn’t place her finger on it. “My apologies if I come off to strongly but... you looked to be lost. Are you from around here?”

He gave a nod. “Mm-hmm.”

“Oh, I just never saw you before.” She saw him somehow get more pale. “N-not that that’s a bad thing! I’m just... I was curious.”

“Curious?”

“Well, it’s... it’s going to sound bad but, you just... from the corner of my eye, you looked like my little brother.” Madeline attempted at explaining. “Which... wouldn’t be the case considering he doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Oh, w-where does he live?” He asked, sounding both curious and still on edge.

“Ah, Daventry.”

“That’s... that’s kinda far.”

“Unfortunately, it is.” She agreed.

“D-does he come visit?” The teen continued asking, sounding a little bit more relaxed. “Your brother, that is.”

She didn’t mean to, but she let out a scoff. “I wish. A bit difficult when he’s in charge of a kingdom, I’m afraid. That and... he’s a bit occupied looking for someone missing.” Madeline shook her head. “I’m... I’m sorry for taking too much of your time. I didn’t mean to intrude or anything by it.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s... it’s fine.” The teen fidgeted with his hands again, looking torn between wanting to talk more and running away. She really truly didn’t want to make him uncomfortable but she still couldn’t look away from him. He looked so much like him. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to go... I... I promised I would be home before the sun went down. B-but I hope he finds that missing person soon, so that way you two can meet again.”

Madeline smiled softly. “Thank you... that means a--” she froze and placed a hand over her mouth, mortified. “Oh zards, I never asked what was your name.”

“It’s Gwdyion.” He sheepishly smiled.

“I’m Madeline.” She chuckled. “Hopefully the next time we meet will be under less time-constraining circumstances. Perhaps... help you find more suitable clothes.”

He looked at his shirt, looking slightly ashamed, but nevertheless chuckled just a little. “Perhaps. And if I find someone who was taken, I’ll try to find you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to, but I greatly appreciate that.”

Gwdyion gave a slight nod before a wave, turning on his heels and rushing out of town quickly.

How odd, she thought, he even runs like Graham.

(x)

#kings quest #mickey writes #THIS WAS PROBABLY NOT WORTH THE WAIT I'M SO SORRY

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onionbass3 · 4 years

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pixelgrotto · 6 years

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The deductive point ‘n click escapades of a forgotten southern belle Adventure games of the point ‘n click variety are a genre that tend to feature female protagonists more often than others. Why this is the case, I’m not entirely sure - it might have something to do with the stereotype that women are more patient, more willing to read and perhaps better at solving puzzles than men. Or, perhaps legendary adventure game designer Roberta Williams’ influence still holds strong, at least on a subconscious level in the minds of designers, over the genre that she helped nourish in the 80s and 90s, and the heroines of today’s games are merely following in the footsteps of fine women that preceded them, like Rosella of Daventry in King’s Quest IV. Whatever the reason, despite there being quite a few point ‘n clickers popping up these days with engaging female protagonists (Kathy Rain is one that I played early this year and enjoyed), there’s a 1920s southern belle who probably deserved a long-lasting series but only got two games which are somewhat overlooked these days. Her name is Laura Bow, and she served as the protagonist of two Sierra titles that were released in 1989 and 1992 - The Colonel’s Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra.

Laura seems to have been specifically patterned after famous silent film actress Clara Bow, but at her heart she’s more like a slightly older version of Nancy Drew, and her two games embody Nancy’s fine tradition of mystery solving. The Colonel’s Bequest takes place on a private island in the bayous of New Orleans as Laura accompanies a friend and fellow Tulane University student for a weekend getaway at the manor of her uncle, Colonel Dijon. The old man is bequeathing his fortune to relatives and has invited a motley assortment of characters right out of an Agatha Christie paperback - the drunk aunt, the conceited Hollywood starlet, the perverted doctor who seems to have a thing for betting on the ponies - and a la Clue, bodies start piling up as the relatives presumably begin offing themselves in order to get Dijon’s fortune first.

I mentioned Roberta Williams previously, and The Colonel’s Bequest was actually designed by her as one of those rare side projects that didn’t feature the words “King’s” and “Quest” in the title. (Hm, I suppose it’s called The Colonel’s Bequest, so scratch that.) It’s always hard to tell how much Roberta was involved in non-King’s Quest projects - The Dagger of Amon Ra, for instance, was directed by Bruce Balfour despite featuring her name on the box - but I’d wager that she intended The Colonel’s Bequest to be a spiritual remake of her very first adventure game (and indeed, the first graphical adventure game ever), Mystery House. Mystery House featured a similar murder plot, and The Colonel’s Bequest takes this concept and evolves it, offering a unique structure where there aren’t really any puzzles to solve but instead “scenes” to witness. The entire game is structured like a play - there’s even a cast curtain call in the beginning - and Laura is encouraged to spend as much time as possible talking with the potential murder suspects and finding unique ways to eavesdrop on them.

The game’s manual makes a huge deal about this emphasis on observing the story and slowly figuring out the links between characters in an effort to deduce the killer, and we can look at Johnny L. Wilson’s 1990 review of the game in Computer Gaming World as an example of how this approach was seen as admirable, fresh and also a bit risky at the time. Don’t let the fact that there aren’t many puzzles fool you into thinking that The Colonel’s Bequest is easy, though - it’s just as tough as Sierra’s other adventures with just as many nonsensical ways to die, and the unique structure where certain events and conversations are “timed” (indicated on screen by a clock) means that sometimes you’ll be wandering around aimlessly searching for the next thing to do, or possibly miss out on vital bits of info because you weren’t at the right place at the right time. It’s a little like The Last Express, only less refined.

Luckily, the game’s great atmosphere makes up for any shortcomings that its boldly unorthodox but occasionally clunky design creates. This is one of the best 16 color titles that Sierra produced with their SC10 engine, and the soundtrack is packed with jazzy songs influenced by the Roaring Twenties with just enough sense to know when to be quiet as well. As you navigate Laura across the silent grounds of the mansion in the dead of night, wondering where the killer might be, it’s very possible to get shaken by the sound of lightning bursting in the background, and I can certainly imagine young players in 1989 jumping out of their skin when they encountered such moments.

Laura’s next outing, The Dagger of Amon Ra, trades the dark island setting for the Egyptology craze of the 20s, and loses a little bit in the process but makes up for it with 256 colors, rotoscoped animations (which are darn smooth but cause character sprites to be a bit muddy, unfortunately) and an even catchier selection of jazz tunes, including an amusing vocal track called “The Archaeologist Song.” Oh, and the CD version is a “talkie” game, with performances that range from kinda terrible (Sierra was still having their employees voice these games at the time instead of hiring actors) to excellent (Laura’s got a cute southern accent and the narrator’s voice is heavenly).

The plot revolves around the titular Dagger of Amon Ra, an Egyptian artifact that’s been stolen from a New York City museum. Laura, now a fresh grad from Tulane and in the middle of her first journalism assignment at an NYC paper, has to navigate the mean streets of Manhattan, infiltrate a speakeasy and chat with a mildly racist caricature of a Chinese laundromat owner before getting into the museum, where she once again encounters a wide cast of characters, from the stuck up British twat who removed the dagger from Egypt to the nutty countess, who is possibly engaged in some mild robbery efforts around the museum when nobody’s looking. People start dying pretty soon (and their death scenes are grand - check out this poor SOB who got decapitated and stuck with a Perodactyl beak) and while the beginning section of the game outside of the museum is more like a traditional point ‘n click affair, once you’re locked inside the building after the first murder, everything becomes reminiscent of The Colonel’s Bequest. You’ve got to meander about, hope you bumble upon the right conversations and try your best to piece together clues before the murderer suddenly starts chasing you during the game’s second-to-last chapter.

The Dagger of Amon Ra kind of stumbles in its execution of this form of gameplay more than its predecessor, because all the chapters of museum exploration feel terribly disjointed even more than walking around Colonel Dijon’s mansion did. Also, the character motivations are unclear, which is a problem in a mystery game - especially one where the entire final chapter actually involves Laura being quizzed by the coroner in an annoying game of 20 Questions as to the identity and motives of the killer! If you slip up once during this finale, you’ll get the bad ending, which involves the killer finding Laura’s apartment and GUNNING HER IN HER SLEEP, jinkies. And even if you succeed and get the good ending, which sees Laura writing her first award-winning expose on the theft and hooking up with putzy love interest Steve Dorian, it’s still quite impossible to discern the killer’s motives and why he went about his nefarious deeds, because The Dagger of Amon Ra just...doesn’t explain things. I’m not the only one who had trouble figuring it out - The Adventure Gamer blog wrote up a fantastic series of posts about this game and came to the same confused reaction as I did.

Both Laura Bow adventures come from an older time where it was common to take notes as you went through a game, so perhaps my puzzlement at The Dagger of Amon Ra’s ending is due to my lack of pencil and paper by my side as I played. I did use walkthroughs for both games, though, and if you do end up checking them out (they’re available on GOG), I’d recommend doing the same. You probably still won’t be able to figure out why whatshisname stole that dagger, but despite their flaws, the Laura Bow games really are worth experiencing. Laura’s a likeable lead (just look at this adorable expression on her face as she stumbles upon the museum’s French skank engaged in hanky panky with the janitor) and she does a fine job of showing off the spirit of the 20s, an underrepresented period in the pantheon of electronic gaming.

Laura never got a third game, and as far as mystery franchises go, Sierra soon passed the torch to the Gabriel Knight series, which apparently takes place in the same universe, since Gabriel visits Tulane in Sins of the Fathers and hears word of a lecture being given by “Laura Bow Dorian” - a hint that Laura married Steve Dorian and lived happily ever after! I’m glad that Ms. Bow got a nice ending even if we couldn’t see it in game form, and I’m sure that if she were a real person, she would be pleased to see spiritual successors of sorts like the aforementioned Kathy Rain following in her footsteps today.

This is perhaps a good place to mention The Crimson Diamond, an upcoming indie game in the works by Canadian illustrator Julia Minamata. I recently played through the demo and am eagerly awaiting the full release - it’s almost like a direct sequel of The Colonel’s Bequest with an alternate universe version of Laura. Rest assured, Ms. Bow - even if your adventures aren’t as remembered these days as they should be, the example you set of the enterprising female gumshoe is alive, well and in good hands!

All box art and screenshots from Mobygames.

#pixel grotto #video games #favorites #laura bow #colonels bequest #dagger of amon ra #sierra online #roberta williams

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onetouchinvestment-blog · 6 years

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Where are the Best Places to Invest in UK Property in 2019?

2019 is finally upon us and with the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, many are apprehensive about investing in the UK property market. We believe that there is still opportunity to be had, if you know where to look. Read on to find out where we think the best places to invest in UK property in 2019 are

With Britain’s impending exit from the European Union, many investors both home and abroad have apprehensions about investing in property in the UK. Surveyors in September 2018 gave their lowest forecast for house prices in three- and twelve-months’ time, and Mark Carney warned that a “no-deal” Brexit could shave up to 35% off house prices.

The effect that Brexit has had so far on the UK housing market seems to be confined to London and high value properties over £2m. The fear of Brexit is heightened across these markets mainly because the financial commitment is so much higher. Across the country, average house prices have continued to rise – mainly propelled by regional markets. It is also worth noting that as the pound continues to fall relative to other currencies, it is then more attractive for overseas buyers to invest in property, thus buoying demand and helping to keep house prices afloat.

The threat of a “no deal” Brexit and measures put in place to stockpile goods

With the possibility of a no-deal Brexit on the table, companies are taking measures to avoid disruption to their supply chains and have started stockpiling goods. Several companies have already admitted to doing so, including Rolls Royce, Topps Tiles and the food group Nestle. Even without the possible impact Brexit would have, as consumers want goods almost instantaneously companies that sell online have been buying up shed space for storage.

Demand for UK industrial real estate remains strong. Distribution units and multi-let portfolios have continued to perform well as volumes hit £3.6bn which is roughly 13% of all commercial investment activity in the UK according to data from JLL. Strong demand has been underpinned by the positive market conditions and popularity of ecommerce.

These warehouses are mainly located in the midlands as it makes sense to be able to access all parts of the United Kingdom with ease. Amazon for example currently has 13 warehouses in the UK, including one in Coalville, one in Daventry and one in Milton Keynes. Another such example is Panattoni Park, where more than 1.6 million sq. ft of industrial and warehouse units available in Q4 of 2019 will be developed close to Northampton. Industrial units are also planned for the green belt around Coventry Airport, which will also include foot and cycle paths and a community park.

With the increase in warehouse activity, it makes sense that as they expand, they are looking for new recruits. This makes property in certain midlands towns such as Northampton and Leicester in the east and Coventry in the west more appealing.

Northampton

Currently Northampton is one of the best places to invest in UK property and this is proven by homes in the town selling on average in 33 days, making it one of the quickest in the country for house sales. This indicates a high demand – possibly from those who are moving to the area for work. This has led to house prices in Northampton rising by 5.3% in the year to October 2018 – a larger increase than the national average.

Leicester

Another place in the midlands which has seen and is expected to see more growth is Leicester. Leicester bucked the trend for house price fall reporting the best year-on-year growth for property prices in any large UK city and has also been named the best city in the UK to invest in property according to Hometracks Cities House price index.

Property prices in Leicester have increased by over 250% since 2000, and with its ideal midland location and promised future regeneration and investment of £3bn, Leicester will only become a more attractive option for property investment. We tip Leicester to be a property hotspot in 2019 as London can be reached in just over an hour, and Birmingham is just under an hour away by train making it convenient for those who commute into work.

Warrington

Situated between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, Warrington is another place that is worth considering with regards to property investment in the UK. An Amazon warehouse is in the town, and Omega have revealed plans to build 758,000sq ft of speculative warehousing. With the promise of new warehousing space, new jobs will be created, and employees will be looking for somewhere to live. This could be an ideal time to invest in property in Warrington, to accommodate those employees who might rent initially but settle and choose to buy – which could create a good level of capital uplift.

Many are considering Warrington for an investment property over nearby Liverpool and Manchester due to the more accessible housing market as well as house prices in the town being considerably lower than its big city neighbors. This makes Warrington a great location to buy a house in 2019, especially for young professionals working in the cities or those looking to start a family.

Coventry

Coventry is one of the best places in the UK in terms of house price growth. Since the turn of the century house prices in Coventry have risen by over 250%, and it was the only town or city in the west midlands to make the list according to HouseSimple.

Coventry also offers landlords excellent rental yields – some of the highest in the country thus making it one of the best buy-to-let areas in the UK. Average net rental yield excluding tax is around 5.40%, and only 5 other places in the UK come ahead of it according to Private Finance. The excellent yields are complimented by great occupancy rates especially by students as the City has a two extremely popular Universities which have a combined enrolment of over 50,000 students.

Halifax

Yorkshire is a well-located county and as a result, it is home to many distribution centres. Many corporations such as Aldi, Lidl, John Lewis, Morrisons and DPD have distribution centres set in Yorkshire.

Halifax was recently named by LendInvest as one of the best places to invest in property for buy to let. This is in part due to the number of businesses operating in the area, including McVities and Nestle, and its proximity to the distribution centres. This combined with affordable housing is why many people decide to lay down roots in the town, as the average house price in Halifax is £149,925. This is cheaper than nearby Northowram, Hipperholme and Shelf, making it an attractive alternative to workers who are priced out of the surrounding areas.

Halifax also has superb connections. It is situated just 30 minutes away from the Peak District and trains run to Leeds every 15 minutes and Manchester every 30 minutes. It is also just a 15-minute train ride away from Bradford and Hebden Bridge. This makes it a convenient choice for those who commute to work but want affordable accommodation.

One opportunity to invest in the Halifax buy to let market is in the H1 development. H1 is in the popular West Parade area and the town centre is just a short walk away. The development is a contemporary collection of one-bedroom apartments starting at £66,995. Features include anti-slip vinyl flooring and built in appliances. What makes this development particularly attractive is how affordable the apartments are. Priced under £70,000, there is a flexible payment plan in place which means that £1,814.45 can be paid monthly for 24 months and then there are three years to pay the balance after completion. A gross rental yield of 8% is predicted per annum.

Last-mile logistics and how that affects real estate in surrounding towns

The last mile is often referred to the last step in the delivery chain before goods arrive with the consumer. As people are wanting their goods delivered quickly and efficiently, companies are shifting their focus to the last mile and targeting sites close to urban areas. With good access to the M25, Essex is convenient for distributing goods to outlets along the perimeter of the capital. Next PLC has already announced plans to buy land near Waltham Abbey and Amazon has a warehouse in Tilbury – both in Essex.

The emergence of last mile warehouses close to urban areas will bring jobs. As living in cities can be expensive, some may choose to live closer to where they work, and as demand rises this will catapult the popularity of the surrounding area.

Colchester

One Essex town that has experienced phenomenal property growth is Colchester. The town is one of the best places to buy a house in the UK as it has great transport links, schools and amenities. In the last three years, prices have increased by on average £55,000 according to Housesimple.com. LendInvest also carried out research and ranked Colchester as the best place for a buy to let investment when it considered factors such as capital growth, rental yield and rental price growth.

The struggle of the high street and plans to stimulate growth

Other places that may be up for consideration for property investment include those which are due to experience town and city centre regeneration. It should be of no surprise to learn that the high street has been struggling for a while. Debenhams has announced branch closures, as have House of Fraser. Re-negotiating leases with landlords has become common and made retail investing unattractive since the folding of BHS.

Intu, a British Real Estate Investment Trust which focussed on shopping centre management and development has faced troubles with regards to profitability of the centres. A £2.8bn takeover bid was launched by the Peel Group and, even though it fell through, it highlights the struggle of the high street as consumers switch to making online purchases.

Plans have been put in place to stimulate growth in the high street and rejuvenate areas which are not doing so well. Philip Hammond proposed plans in the Budget to save the high street by cutting business rates of retailers with a rateable value of £51,000 or less by a third from April 2019. He also slapped a 2% digital services tax on large digital firms with a turnover of more than £500m to hopefully ease competition. The chancellor also committed to a new Future High Streets Fund, where councils can redevelop abandoned and underused retail and commercial space into residential units. A partner in Cushman & Wakefield, Ian Anderson said of the scheme “the government is right to use planning policy to bring more employment and residential uses to our high streets, which can no longer afford to be so dependent on retail.”

Milton Keynes

This will help revitalise towns such as Milton Keynes where the town centre is largely dominated by its shopping centre. Recently the go-ahead was given to start work on one of the most significant retail and leisure developments in central Milton Keynes in over a decade. The development will include a boutique cinema, a dining area, new shops and public spaces. Certain spots will be redeveloped to improve the ambience and make them more welcoming. New landscaped areas and public spaces will give families and employees in the area a nice spot to relax and spend their lunch breaks.

Milton Keynes has always performed well when it comes to house price growth and there are no signs of it slowing in 2019. According to Hometrack, Milton Keynes comes in the top ten of places where house prices are rising the fastest. Now could be a good time to invest for those looking for good levels of capital uplift, as house prices will only increase once the rejuvenation work has been completed.

Edinburgh

Although Edinburgh’s high street may not be ailing, it is also undergoing a certain level of city centre regeneration. One such example is an £850m new Edinburgh St James project, which will comprise 850,000 square feet of retail space centred around a luxury hotel.

Edinburgh’s economy was one of the fastest growing in the UK last year and these fundamentals have had a positive effect on its desirability. The picturesque Scottish capital ranked top in a new study commissioned by the Royal Mail into the best places to live and work in the UK, due to its vast green spaces and access to education and healthcare. Other factors include its cultural offerings such as libraries and theatres, job opportunities and business activity.

The appeal of living in Edinburgh has not gone unnoticed. Property prices in the Scottish capital have risen by 7.70% between January 17 and January 18 and research by Hometrack has predicted that they will continue to rise by 30% by 2022.

Property investment in London is still viable – if one knows where to look

Although London house prices are expected to be most affected by Britain’s exit from the EU, there are still pockets of London that could prove profitable for property investment – if one knows where to look.

Leytonstone (London Borough of Waltham Forest)

North east London has been touted by almost a third of landlords as being the best place to invest in London property. They especially look for property near underground lines, with the Central line proving the most popular.

Leytonstone is one of London’s up and coming areas and it is situated in the London Borough of Waltham Forest which sits on the Central line on the boundary of zone 3-4. Although Waltham Forest was an Olympic borough and received certain levels of regeneration, it never really hit Leytonstone; but that could all be due to change.

Younger people are increasingly moving to outer boroughs in London due to the fact they can get more space for their money. The increase in desirability has been reflected in house prices, which have increased by 83% over five years in the London borough of Waltham Forest.

Having said this, prices in the borough remain relatively affordable in London terms with an average property price of £462,000, which is below the overall London average of £629,012 for 2018 (according to figures from Rightmove).

For those looking at the best places to invest in property UK 2019, look to the midlands and areas with industrial investment

In conclusion, we are predicting that with the shift from the high street to online, towns and cities close to warehouse distribution centres will grow in popularity. As a result, property prices in these towns and cities will increase as they become more desirable. We recommend the best places to invest in UK property in 2019 to be key towns and cities in the east and west midlands, Colchester, Edinburgh and Milton Keynes. Edinburgh is one of the most desirable places to live in the UK, and its booming economy is attracting more workers to the city, which is reflected in its rising house prices. Places such as Milton Keynes should benefit from Philip Hammond’s new initiative to revitalise high streets, and key towns and cities in the east and west midlands will benefit from the development of new warehouse space.

We predict that these places would be the most lucrative for buy to let investments. Different measurements are used to predict the best places for student accommodation investments, so subscribe to our newsletter to find out if student property investments are still viable and where the top places to consider are.

#Hometracks Cities House Price Index #Halifax Buy to Let #Buy to Let Investments #Student Accommodation Investments

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bloglumfia · 4 years

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Ground Sanding Ideas - The Key Unravelled

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ukftm · 6 years

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Is there a place where I can get directions for the Daventry Clinic and see what it looks like? I’m worried I’ll get lost and be late for the appointment

This link should take you to the location of Danetre Hospital in Google Maps which you can use to plan your route and find directions for wherever you’re travelling from. You can also use Streetview to get quite close to the hospital and see how the buildings and carparks are laid out.

It’s a fairly small site so you shouldn’t have too much trouble making your way to your appointment once you get there. The main hospital entrance is between the two round cream parts in the below photograph:

~ Alex

#daventry gic #frostedstarss

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mellowcreatorcreation-blog · 7 years

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10 Remarkable Vintage Video Gamings You Could Play Online.

Security Cameras for Health Clubs, Gyms and Pool see a lot of site visitors every day. When it initially came out as well as could not obtain with it, I played this method back. The art work as well as designing is so excellent that it makes me wish to return as well as try again. When I played it on COMPUTER), Shivah is extremely good as well yet shorter than the others (at least it was. After 2 years, has obtained main consent from Activision to hold the first episodes of Area Quest, Police Pursuit as well as King's Mission. For those that like the communities of MMOs but choose an activity RPG battle style you'll be well looked after with this tantalising cost-free to play journey. King's Mission V Hintbook - Created by Roberta Williams. King's Quest Bundle: King's Mission 1 +2 +3, 4 +5 +6, and 7 +8 collections (2010): Three collections released by Activision through The initial consists of the traditional AGI variations of King's Mission I-III (the KQI remake is not included) 12 launched 2010, and also the later games King's Pursuit 4-5-6 on View. Celebrate the golden age of experience video games throughout once more with the return of King's bravest knight in all of Daventry, Sir Graham, is assigned by the passing away king to embark on a Quest for the Crown. AlternativeTo is a cost-free service that aids you locate much better alternatives to the products you like as well as despise. If you have been playing quite time to King's Quest Collection you will discover a whole lot to like in Samorost 3, due to the fact that they have a lot of functions alike: stock, problem, narration, dream, adventure as well as point-and-click. As a King's Mission Collection fan, you'll certainly take pleasure in Old Man's Trip's gameplay top qualities usual to the problem storytelling genre. 2 of the best journey games ever before made, Broken Sword and its sequel both appearance and play perfectly on Android-- with enhanced visuals and a fine touch-screen adjustment of the old point-and-click interface. However, the paid variation has no in-app purchases. http://www.houseofamanda.com/ of the concepts were an MMO (substantial multiplayer online) journey game, with the capability for players to accumulate and exchange products in order to help each various other solve problems, 26 or deal with monsters together. I do not play games on an Ipad, yet has a checklist of advised experience video games ported to Ipad. Destiny is a single player hack as well as lower collection of games established by WildTangent which gamers will certainly discover similar to the Torchlight collection. . Acquiring and also using the software application makes up acceptance of the Software License Contract available at/ permit. Originally released by LucasArts in 1995, Full steam is a classic visuals experience game from sector legend Tim Schafer, informing the story of Ben Throttle; butt-kicking leader of bicycle rider gang the Polecats, who gets captured up in a tale of Motorcycles, Trouble as well as Murder. Tip right back right into the footwears of Van Helsing with The Extraordinary Journeys of Van Helsing II, a game that builds on the solid structures of the original to supply a great activity RPG experience. Getting and utilizing the software makes up acceptance of the software permit contract available at/ certificate. Back to the Future: The Game is a challenge journey game. AGD Interactive did remakes of King's Quest I, II and III along with Mission for Magnificence II, and also Infamous Adventures did remakes of Room Pursuit II as well as King's Quest III.

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pointy-eared-muse · 8 years

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I love the new King’s Quest game with all my heart, and I’m so thrilled it has become the vehicle leading my son to love this series as much as I do, but I am troubled by the absence of certain characters in it. Logically, I’m sure it’s because of things like budget and time constraints, but in terms of the internal canon... (Spoilers ahead)

I understand the lack of Connor, because the story is pretty hyperfocused on the Cracker family, and, let’s be real, Connor barely knows them and is, for the most part, an Average Daventry Citizen. I’d have loved to have seen him make a cameo around town (I like to think he and Amaya would have gotten along), but I can understand him not being included.

Cassima’s absence is much more puzzling, especially since her daughter is so central to the story. She gets mentioned a couple of times, but it’s odd that she never shows up. I mean, Gart tells Gwendolyn that he’s glad she and her family have made it to Daventry, and, uh, last I knew, that should have included Cassima. And there’s no obvious reason why she’s missing. To be honest, if I were Cassima, I’d be more than a little concerned about certain decisions being made for my daughter without me being able to be there and weigh in on them. My personal theory is that Cassima stayed behind in the Green Isles because she doesn’t trust leaving the kingdom on advisor-autopilot, considering what happened last time both the king and queen (i.e., her parents) weren’t around to keep things under control. Hopefully things have become considerably more politically stable in the 30-ish years since KQ6, but I wouldn’t blame her for being paranoid enough to insist on sticking around. Also, maybe she’s aware that Graham has come to the end of his life, and, considering what happened to her parents, she doesn’t feel like she can handle witnessing another parental-figure death. It’s definitely odd to me, but maybe she’s got a good reason for not being there.

And then there’s Edgar. What happened to Edgar? I am actually very concerned by Edgar’s absence. Seriously, where is he, and why is he not around? He gets mentioned exactly once, when Gwendolyn asks in Chapter 4 why Graham didn’t just make Rosella his heir (sexist addendums not withstanding), and he answers, “She was always off on her own adventures with Edgar. Then she had Gart, and she was much more interested in training him to be King.”

SAY WHAT NOW? WHAT. HAPPENED?? No, for real, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE. BECAUSE I AM VERY MUCH BOTHERED BY THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT STATEMENT.

For one thing, Gwendolyn does not follow that statement with “Edgar who?” which tells me that she must at the very least know about him, even if she may or may not know him personally. Edgar is also the most likely candidate to be Gart’s father (the KQ wiki even lists him as such), though it seems odd that this is never actually confirmed within the game. But the way Graham talks about Edgar there... It kinda sounds like he implied that at some point during all that adventuring (which was probably the courtship Edgar asked for at the end of KQ7), Edgar sired Gart on Rosella and for whatever reason was not around to help raise him. Which... does not sound like something the Edgar I have come to know and love would do, at least willingly or purposefully, or without a very good reason. And I also find it strange that during the dinner scene in Chapter 4, not only is there no chair for Edgar at the table (nor one for Cassima), but there is ZERO mention of him in all that succession talk, and, theoretically, he should have been in the running somewhere?? At least, more likely so than Kyle, as Alexander suggests. So, again, I ask: what the heck happened? I have a few possible theories.

Possible theory #1: Edgar’s already dead. There are three possibilities regarding Edgar’s life expectancy: 1) As an Etherian prince, Edgar is effectively immortal unless somebody kills him again (and, who knows, maybe someone did); 2) when Genesta transformed him into a more-or-less human form, she also ended up making him mortal and giving him a human lifespan; 3) since Rosella used the black cat’s extra life to restore Edgar, he has the life expectancy of your average cat, which, for most cats, is somewhere between 12 and 20 years, give or take. And since it’s probably been 25-30 years since then, it’s possible his cat life has run out, and also possible it may have run out while Gart was still very young. Morbid, sure, but a tidy explanation.

Possible theory #2: Fairy shenanigans. This feels to me like the most likely scenario, because, let’s face it, fairies are jerks. Even if they aren’t out-and-out evil, like Lolotte and Malicia, they operate on a whole different value system than humans. And one thing that they value very highly is children. Consider how Oberon and Titania left Etheria pretty much unattended for YEARS while they tried to track down Edgar, running off on every tiny rumor they thought might be a lead. Not to mention that both Lolotte and Malicia struck their blows at Oberon and Titania, and Etheria itself, through kidnapping and manipulating poor Edgar. It would be pretty naive to believe that Lolotte and Malicia are the only bad apples to have ever come out of Etherian society, so who knows what other threats may have emerged since the events of KQ7. Maybe Edgar got kidnapped again and is being held prisoner or brainwashed somewhere. Maybe Oberon and Titania THEMSELVES are more or less keeping their son under house arrest for fear of losing him again. Or maybe, just maybe, this is how “overprotective parenting” has manifested in Edgar. Because, now that Edgar’s all grown up, he’s probably not as interesting a target for the unsavory residents/exiles of Etherian society, but you know who would be? His son. His precious, beautiful, half-human, only son, poised to inherit another kingdom. That’s like dark fairy catnip right there. And the best way to protect Gart from them is if they do not know that he exists, forcing Edgar to do the hardest thing in his life: keeping his distance from his family and pretending he no longer loves Rosella, or has a child with her, in order to keep them both safe. Or, if they have learned about Gart’s birth, that Edgar is on the front lines in Etheria doing all he can to keep them from getting anywhere near his baby boy, because by the time dark fairies start invading Daventry to get to the young prince, it’s too late to do much about them. Not to mention the fact that if they succeeded, there would probably be war between the two realms, and nobody wants that (or maybe there’s someone who does and Edgar is trying to prevent it). Or maybe, in a likely parallel to Cassima, Edgar has to stay in Eldritch to help keep its various factions from causing the realm to go hell in a handbasket, which, let’s be real, would be something a disgruntled Etherian would start. Again. Thanks, Malicia.

Possible theory #3: Edgar and Rosella’s relationship just didn’t end up working out. I’m sure they tried really hard, but maybe they realized they were better off as friends. Maybe it fell apart because it’s unlikely that Edgar has any idea how healthy relationships actually work, and the dynamic they fell into just couldn’t be sustained. Maybe it’s one of those “faerie bride” (or, in this case, fairy groom) scenarios, that are passionate and romantic, but ultimately short-lived because humans and fairies just aren’t long-term compatible and their relationships are doomed from the start. And so, with a heavy heart, Edgar just bowed out or maybe he straight-up ghosted, I don’t know. It’s a sad possibility, but sometimes relationships, even those resulting in children, just don’t make it to happily ever after.

Possible theory #4: Edgar normally would be there, but is out adventuring *right now* in an effort to find a way to help Graham. Oh, man, this one is just heartbreaking, but I could see Edgar volunteering to go out and search the ends of the multiverse for a cure, trying to cut deals with the Fates, whatever he has to do, all the while telling Rosella and Gart to stay in Daventry so they can be there for Graham and Valanice. And just imagine how sad he would be to find out that, despite it all, it’s too late, even if he does make it back to Daventry with something helpful, blaming himself because he just wasn’t quick enough.

Possible theory #5: Edgar *is* around, we just don’t see him because he’s being shy/socially-avoidant. Shyness is one of Edgar’s defining traits in KQ4, and, all things considered, he probably never entirely grew out of it. He didn’t have the opportunity to learn how to socialize normally until adulthood, because Lolotte and Malicia kept him so isolated. And, bear in mind, during that time, he was never socialized to be around other males (unless you count the goons, who don’t really talk much and may or may not actually be masculine)--it was always women who primarily interacted with him. The first time we actually see him interact with another guy, he gets into an immediate brawl with him. Though he does later hug his dad, so that’s good. But still, I could totally understand Edgar having trouble with social interactions, be it from just a lack of skills, or even up to having severe social anxiety. Maybe, for some reason, Edgar just doesn’t get along very well with Graham and/or Alexander, and so is avoiding them. Maybe he gets along with them fine, but only if it’s one-on-one contact, and he just doesn’t handle group interactions well. This could be why he left his own party prior to the events of KQ7, and maybe why he’s not on the succession list, if he feels too overwhelmed by the prospect of having to do royal functions like meeting with advisors or the public, and so maybe deliberately asked to not be Graham’s heir. Or, maybe he can handle groups in small doses, but the added stress of Graham’s imminent death is just using up all of his spoons, and having already been through the traumas of both losing a parental figure and dying himself (and being brought back), he simply cannot cope with it AND be there for the rest of the family. Therefore, he’s spending this time in his own safe space by himself, trying desperately to hold it together.

So, yeah. I don’t know what happened to Edgar, or why he, Cassima and Connor aren’t part of this story, but I miss them and I’m sad they didn’t make it into the game.

#kings quest #kings quest 2015 #spoilers #theories #missing characters #no but really why aren't they there #I miss them

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thewatercolours · 3 years

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King's Quest Ficlet 4.5: "On the Other Hand" (a.k.a more Goblin Graham)

Part One here.

“Dad.”

“I am not talking about abdications with you again, Gwendolyn. Come to me again in two years and we might begin to have a conversation.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake! Stop jumping to conclusions. It’s got nothing to do with that. I just… You know what, if the timing’s off,, never mind. I don’t mean that in a storm out of the room way, but if we can’t make this work -”

“Sweetheart. I’m sorry. Have a seat – there’s enough room on this banister for two. Look, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth. It’s possible this has been on my mind even more than it’s been on yours.”

“Well, I don’t know about that…”

“Regardless, you wanted to talk about something else?”

“Yes. Grandpa’s old mirror – the one with the purple light. I found it while we were sorting through Grandma’s things after her funeral, wrapped up in a craft quilt. I’ve been keeping it under my pillow, and sometimes at night it lights up.”

“Well… it’s your right as Queen of Daventry to do what you like with it, but why hide it away? Isn’t it more use to the kingdom in a public place like the great hall?”

“Maybe. But… it shows me all about Grandpa’s past. And it doesn’t always match what he told me. Frankly, it gets a bit disturbing.”

“Well, my dad made no bones about it that he never let an accurate detail get in the way of a good story.”

“Yeah, I’ve always known that. It’s more the nature of the differences. Sometimes they play out exactly like I remember him telling me – usually when I ask it for a story, that’s what happens. But when it wakes me up in the middle of the night – it shows other things.”

“Some kind of dark magic infiltrating the mirror?”

“Possibly… but I don’t get that feeling. And the mirror supposedly has never steered anyone wrong. I’ve been running on the assumption that Grandpa left out the things that would have been too intense for a little girl, and the mirror is showing the true eversion, but that doesn’t quite add up either.”

“That… does sound troubling. Tell me more.”

-----

“You’re okay. Talking, talking, talking. Right this second. Definitely not going to forget what my voice sounds like. Nope. Gotta keep it limber. Up and down the scales, well-oiled. Yes, speaking out loud. Let me tell you a story about the time Whisper and I had to pass ourselves off as each other….”

Graham babbled to himself as most of his toes wrapped themselves in different directions round and through the ponderous chain, allowing him a foot-only grip while his fingers searched for the three-inch ledge at the top of the shaft. He’d given up wearing up boots or stockings because every other toe had grown too long to fit. There was a restlessness in them, and in his fingers too. They demanded to grab, to grasp, to scrabble and climb. If he didn’t indulge them frequently, they took their revenge over the next twenty-four hours, with mad, unstoppable fidgeting, or trembling when he tried to settle to sleep. At first scaling the rock outcroppings and dents in the shaft walls worked, but it grew too easy to be satisfy his digits—he could perch on anything and climb several stories within a minute. So he’d taken to climbing the lift chains attached to his cell roof. A kind of crumby grease coated the hulking chains and it had been impossible to get a hold on when they’d first locked him in here, but no more.

“The trouble was, Whisper categorically refused to take off his helmet. He said it would be pointless anyway, because his majestic mane would look completely different on me.”

Graham found the ledge. His toes loosened themselves of the chain’s ins and outs, and he leapt up two feet, landing neatly on the edge, hunching over on himself to fit beneath it and the shaft’s ceiling.

(He’d fit just fine without so much hunching. The shrinking wasn’t as evident as the other changes, but it was happening, to judge by the way his shirt hung down almost to his knees. He hunched anyhow.)

One time he’d grown dizzy in the dark, lost track of gravity, and unknowingly shimmied down the chain upside down without the least difficulty. He had no idea of his direction until his head came up into a puddle of water on the roof of his cell. Well, down into it.

“Now, I needed that helmet for the sake of the disguise, but I have to admit, my motives weren’t entirely pure. I had never got a glimpse of Whisper’s face, and curiosity gnawed at me…”

He didn’t dare touch his face. Not even to rub the crust out of his eyes. He used the nascent claws that began to grow beyond the quick as his excuse when he want to feel like less of a lily-liver. But on honest nights (or days), Graham knew it was simply because it was his face. The clammifying and monstering of elbows or ankles or collarbones – that was terrifying but confrontable. But to feel his own face gone, replaced by something it shouldn’t be – that wasn’t so much a skin-crawling horror as an all-systems-shut-down horror. Maybe if he had nerved himself to explore his face that very first day when he’d begun to suspect he was transforming, and followed its tiny evolutions every day, he could have come to queasy terms with it. But it was too late after all this time, for he honestly didn’t know how much of himself he’d find left.

That didn’t stop Graham from guessing. He could not tell whether his jaw and cheekbones were changing structure, or if the odd tingles and numbings were his imagination’s response to his fixation on them. Blinking felt different —but he didn’t have a proper point of comparison. He’d never bothered to commit the nuances of blinking like a human to memory. It didn’t occur to you that you might regret things like that. Were his canines sharper? Did goblins have mouths full of fangs? Never having seen a goblin’s naked face, he couldn’t even surmise.

“You stopped talking. We’ve been over this. You just end up hurting when you stop. That’s our rule, remember?” Something broke in his voice, but he made himself go on. “Focus. Find the parts that still sound like you, and use them.”

Swallowing, he blanked out on anything further to say. “I—but, it’s just that… hardly any of it still sounds like…”

His right ear itched worse than his mother’s homemade laundry starch. But he refused to scratch it. It itched farther away from his head than should have been possible.

This time, the silence stayed.

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gerbiloftriumph · 4 years

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The Size of Hope

(also on ao3)

Mordon isn’t certain what to make of the fairy tale king his goblin friends captured, and King Graham has no idea what to make of the huge and clumsy goblin who keeps running into his path. The two warily team up, but neither one belongs in the goblin kingdom, and some pain runs deeper than either expects.

(Gen canon-expansion fic putting scrapped fragments from the subtitle file back into the game. Full fic warnings: bruising, canon-typical violence, self-hatred, abuse, Goblins Do Not Make Good Friends)

~*~*~

5/5

(1: Seen)(2: Found)(3: Buried)(4: Lost)(5: Hands to Hold and Hope)

~*~*~

Much, much later:

Two old men stare blankly at each other. They stand in the tunnels beneath Daventry, in the old well where Graham’s journey to knighthood had begun; where his journey to kinghood had been completed; where Manny had hidden for years; where Mordon—Mordack, now—had grown out of his goblin armor. The waterfalls splash and echo oddly in the cold, empty caves. There used to be a dragon in here. Before Manny let it out to wreak havoc on the lands above. There used to be a lot in here. And now there’s just the king and the goblin and the memories.

“Look, before you do his test of strength or whatever,” Mordack says, looking down at his feet. “I need to know. Do you remember the goblin caves? When the villagers were taken? And we met? Did you…you really didn’t know? That I was…not a goblin?”

Graham blinks, startled. “Mordack, that was fifty years ago.”

“Yeah. I know.” As though he hasn’t thought about it every night since then. He tries to play it casual. “But. Did you know?”

A hesitation. Graham stares at the nearby waterfall, at the little cave with the stained alchemy tables and worn fragments of life. Then: “No. I didn’t know. Not at first. I suspected, I truly did, and for that I take the blame, but I had no proof. Not until it was too late. I wish….” He can’t seem to find the right words.

The two men look at each other across years, and it’s uneasy, this not knowing what might have happened if Mordack had become a Daventry citizen that night. If Manny (once considered Mordon’s favorite illustrator, a champion of stories) hadn’t stopped him from going to Graham’s castle after he’d calmed down. If he had grown up with Graham instead of Manny. If things had changed in just that one tiny moment.

The pause stretches on and on.

Mordack clears his throat. “You’d better go find that crystal. Follow the signs. Manny’s made it very clear.”

“Yes, he has.” Graham leaves slowly, quietly.

Mordack stands for a long time, waiting. And when Graham doesn’t return, not for minutes, not for hours, he sinks to his knees helplessly and stares into the water.

~*~*~

At the end of the story, all three men stand on the Floating Island. Around them, goblins crowd the audience stands, jeering and applauding and pushing each other and generally causing trouble. Graham and Manny (he prefers Manannan these days) are glaring daggers at each other. Or at least, Manannan is. Graham just looks…tired. He’s been playing all the games, performing as demanded, and drunk frankly silly amounts of wine in this final challenge. (So has Manannan, but Graham is showing his exhaustion more, doesn’t have magic to bolster him up like the wizard.) Somehow that hasn’t dulled the old king at the puzzles: he’s successfully avoided every dose of hypnotic powder hidden in some of the cups. (But so has Manannan.)

The New and Improved Duel of Wits is nearing its end. Mordack is off to one side, guarding the crystal Manannan is using as his power base, the crystal giving the wizard power and strength. Guarding it in case Graham tries something heroic and foolish.

Mordack knows what the final test is. Knows someone is going to die.

And he’s not sure who he wants it to be.

In truth, he knows he exchanged one set of chains for another when he teamed up with Manannan. Ordered to act against Daventry. To raise a kidnapped prince as a slave, to train a dragon to burn on command, to manipulate and twist an ice queen into a pawn—with nothing but abuse and threats as a reward. Cruelty and mockery. Never the soft words of a family, not from Manannan. Just bitter schemes in the night and anger in the morning. Hopeless and helpless.

But Graham hadn’t ever tried to reach out to him and rescue him, either. Not that Mordack had ever asked, ever indicated he was struggling.

And anyway, Mordack didn’t deserve rescuing. Not after what he had done to Graham in anger and hate. How he had tried so hard to rip the king’s happiness away, tried to make him feel that cold despair.

He touches the sharp slashes across his cheek. Four long and deep scars that Graham himself struck during one of Manannan’s schemes. The injury had been triggered in self-defense: Mordack would have killed Graham and his family if Graham hadn’t lashed out with magic in that one desperate, clawing moment. That strike across Mordack’s face had distracted him long enough to lose the fight. Had saved the royal family from a cruel fate, had protected the kingdom. But Mordack still wears the scars like a flag.

The pain of being slashed haunts his nightmares. The king, fending off a monster.

No more than Mordack deserves.

No monster deserves to be saved. The wolf, the fox, hated and hunted.

No, this is for the best. This is a fair contest. Whoever wins, wins, and that’ll be that.

And the last two cups are nasty. It’s a half and half chance. One will win, and one will be poisoned.

(I hope it’s Graham.)

One will die.

(I hope it’s Manannan.)

One will win the kingdom.

(I don’t know what I want.)

They can’t puzzle their way out of this. The cups are identical in every detail—other than the crucial poison lurking in one of them. Graham has the first choice. Like he did when he was young. Two cups, and a kingdom between them. Literally. A magical rendition, as real as the real country, is displayed on the table, another silent witness to this story’s end. Mordack watches the old king make a choice, watches him drink. They wait a moment, but Graham starts to smile—it tasted clear and clean. Poisonless. He’s won. The audience cheers, not caring who wins but just pleased that the game has been good.

But of course Manannan won’t play fair. He picks up the poisoned cup, waves it at Graham almost playfully—but instead of drinking it and accepting his fate like he was meant to, he tips it over.

The poison gloops out of the cup. It will drip into that magical image of Daventry, curse deeper than any other curse could. The once cheerful and bright kingdom will turn to ashes and hatred. He’d rather destroy everything than let Graham win.

Mordack can tell what happens next is an impulse. Graham lunges across the table, knocks the cup back, and all the poison absorbs into his hands in a crackle of green light. He stares at his hands, at the flashing, curling scars twirling across his worn fingers before fading to look like old scars, white and raised against his skin.

He will die. Slowly, perhaps, but that’s that. He lost. He won, but he lost.

Manannan is taken aback, but he rallies. “Huh. Nice move. I’ll accept that,” he says, and then he raises his hand, “but let’s see if I can help speed up the effects.”

His fingers snap.

Graham shrieks, weakened by poison, by stress, by wine, by everything, and helpless to defend himself. Cruel magic takes hold.

The old king is the puppet Manannan always wanted, now. The strings might not be visible to the naked eye, but Mordack has been around enough of Manannan’s magic to imagine it. He can picture the sticky green strands wrapped around the king’s arms, legs, torso, neck, tighter than any goblin rope, impossible to break. Manannan laughs as he throws the king across the stage with just a flick of his wrist, smashing him against the ground, against the tables—wine cups roll, spilling their hypnotic contents across the grass and fizzling. Mordack is sure he can hear the king’s arm break as he hurtles helplessly against the ground again and again, the snap echoing in his ears.

Graham smiled at you.

No one had ever smiled at you before. Just bared teeth and growls and insults and usually a kick or several.

Graham might be unconscious—his head has lolled forward on his chest. No smiles now.

His body is slack. The one arm is definitely broken, awkward and loose looking. There might be more broken pieces. It’s hard to be sure. Manannan is holding him high in the air now, pausing, considering what he wants to do next.

Graham waved at you.

A gentle hand, raised to greet you, to acknowledge you.

But the arm’s broken now.

“You’ve already won!” Mordack cries. “There’s no need to torture him.”

Manannan ignores him, flinging the king high and yanking him down again.

Bully. Hurting someone who can’t fight back. Thumping again and again and again.

Selfless. Graham lunged across the table to catch the cup, to lose everything and save everything. He reached out and touched your bruised arm, the lightest of affirmations. Fingers that now drip with poison, with the curse, with death—but in the goblin caves they had been full of life. They still were full of life. They protected, those hands. They had saved Daventry at such a cost.

He insulted the stories. Mordack had spent his life since that moment with that book hating how he’d been given hope and hating how that hope had been ripped from him so quickly. Hating the king.

He made a mistake. That shouldn’t be the end.

You’re not a mistake, either.

“Leave him be. I won’t ask you again.” Mordack’s voice is deep in his throat, a goblin grumble, and it seems to echo around the platform.

“I always guessed you’d side with him,” Manannan says, grinning darkly in his moment of triumph. “It was only a matter of time. You’re a useless monster, with no loyalty. I guess it’s time I held your tongue, too.” One hand still holds the king, but the other hand reaches out and snaps.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.

Pain erupts through Mordack’s body, hot and cold and agonizing. Crackles and snaps along his muscles, freezing him in place, blinding him, and he can’t even cry out, can’t move, can’t breathe. He scrambles to focus, fighting against an invisible enemy that has him utterly pinned down from within his soul.

Monster. Just a monster. Pitiful and weak, never better than an unwanted, abandoned human shrouded in goblin armor.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!

Manannan is enjoying watching Mordack writhe and twist. The smile grows wider, more pleased than he’s been in years. A bleak smile, barred and fanged and deadly. Graham is limp in the magic’s grip, eyes closed—can’t tell if he’s breathing or not anymore.

Mordack can feel himself losing consciousness too. It hurts to breathe. If he could just close his eyes and sleep, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. He wouldn’t feel anymore. This betrayal from his master—his brother, the goblin who swapped places with him all those years ago—wouldn’t mean anything anymore.

No loyalty.

But the king…

Maybe there were different types of monsters. Maybe there were different loyalties. Different truths. Maybe he wanted to know. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find out.

Mordack yanks against the magic that wraps around his wrists, forces his way past the pain (it couldn’t hurt worse than it already is; what’s another searing agony compared to all the rest), raises his hand high above his head, curls it into a fist, and slams down against the crystal. It shatters, shards flying in all directions, sharp edges cutting his hands. The sound is almost pleasant, a ringing chime, like music. He can feel the magic rushing through him, streaming beyond his fingers and curling into the sky.

Instantly, Manannan’s hands drop, and Graham and Mordack collapse like puppets with cut strings, and Manannan reaches out to Mordack and the crystal, screaming, but it’s too late, much, much too late, and the loosed magic is overwhelming, and it turns on him and rips through him and he loses control, loses everything, and then…the wizard is simply gone, consumed by his own magic. Gone in a puff of smoke.

Mordack pushes himself to his knees. Feels sick. But his head is quickly clearing without the magic tearing against him. He can’t rest. Not yet.

He runs to the king. To Graham. He kneels, reaches out, freezes, recoils, hesitates, reaches again, gently touches. Graham moans, barely conscious, and Mordack pushes closer, pulls the king toward him, mindful of the broken arm, of the blossoming bruises, of the pain.

The world is still. He can’t hear anything. Can’t feel anything but the weight of the king in his arms.

Graham opens his eyes. They’re blurred, dizzy, hazy.

“King? Ohh, fairy tale king?” Mordack whispers, cradling him, feeling like a child again, lost and alone in the caves. “Graham?”

“Who…?” Graham’s voice is breathless, his eyes still unfocused.

“I am…Mordon.”

Graham blinks, considers, and then the focus comes back into his eyes. Recognition blazes across his face as he remembers, as he realizes, and he smiles. “Not Mordack?”

“No, not Mordack, not anymore. Come on, easy now,” Mordon says, draping Graham’s good arm over his shoulder, helping him stand. They stumble against each other, and Graham winces, but Mordon steadies them, and he turns toward Daventry castle. “I’ve got you. You’re with me. Let’s get you home.”

#/slaps roof of fic - this bad boy can fit so many parallels in it #King's Quest #King Graham #kings quest #mordack #fic'ing #ch5

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captmickey · 4 years

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Hey uh.... if it’s not too much trouble, could you possibly write another short 3ADV ficlet that takes place in Puppet King AU where Guybrush and Link first meet Manny? When you have the time and inspiration of course! No pressure to churning this request out quickly or at all if you don’t want too. I just imagine that Manny would a little (a lot) condescending towards Link the “supposed” Hero of Hyrule and especially towards Guybrush the infamous pirate who “supposedly” defeated LeChuck who are also Graham’s “closest” friends. (I’m using quotations cuz I feel like Manny would say that towards them.)

(P.S. And I feel like Link would like to just pull out the Master Sword for Manny just to prove him wrong, and to possibly (definitely) use it on him, since he kinda reminds him of Ganondorf also)

I couldn’t exactly pass up that request since it involves the trio and an AU of @goddessoftechnology that I’ve been SUPER head over heels with.

---------

One of the few things the trio had agreed upon once the adventure came to an end was to always keep in touch, and that connection was kept in the form of writing letters to each other as often as they could. However, those three-way letters from Daventry that used to be in abundance came to a staggering crawl to eventually halting all-together. Neither Guybrush nor Link knew what could be the reasoning. Perhaps it was training? Graham did mention that he was under extensive training under one of the Royal Guards. Perhaps he was out on some local adventure, it wouldn’t be a first for him based on one of the last letters he wrote. Perhaps... perhaps something terrible happened. Maybe he was ill.

It worried them something fierce.

It was after the Hylian requested permission to speak with Graham that the letter arrived approving an audience with the newly crowned king of Daventry, Link and Guybrush decided to not waste any time and quickly made way to speak to King Graham.

The air in Castle Daventry felt still, perverse. Try as he might, Link just simply could not shake off the feeling that something was wrong. He knew that Daventry as a whole had a way of constantly keeping him on his toes, a feat that not even Hyrule did, but the deeper he went inside the castle, the more unnerved he felt. The guards that were leading the two adventurers down the hallway were uncharacteristically quiet, it was unnerving. He looked at Guybrush who looked to be tense, almost like he was holding his breath. Link didn’t need to assume if Guybrush was feeling that something about the atmosphere felt... wrong. He knew.

“This way.” Royal Guard Number One said in his monotonous tone (neither of them could ignore how even that sounded so lifeless), stepping to the side as the other guards opened the door, letting the two walk in, closing it once inside.

There was a routine whenever they came to visit Graham: The two would enter, Guybrush would crack some quip or another as a means of greeting Graham. Graham, in his endless hopeful, compassionate optimism, would leap from where he was and rushed towards them in a blur of brown and red, grabbing them into a tight embrace as he goes off on his never-ending burst of questions before offering them a seat or tea.

Now though, it was painfully different. That terrible nagging feeling... it wouldn’t let up. Something was wrong, but Link just simply couldn’t put a finger as to what as he and Guybrush looked ahead, spotting their friend sitting in his throne, not budging once as he stared ahead, eyes unflinching. A quick glance at the pirate was enough to confirm that something really truly was off with how that usual relaxed demeanor of his was no where to be found.

“Either you’re sleeping with your eyes wide open, or you’re really feeling under the weather today, Graham.” Guybrush greeted, breaking the silence in the room as he stepped closer. The Hylian followed close by, not wanting to stay behind. “You alright, Graham?”

“That is no way to speak to a king.” A voice curtly spoke.

Link and Guybrush stopped in their tracks as they saw the small knight step forward.

“How long was he standing there for?” Guybrush leaned to Link and whispered for only the Hylian to shrug as he wasn’t sure either. The pirate stood back up and cleared his throat. “Sorry about that, but you must be new, see, Graham--”

“His Majesty.” The knight cut off before muttering under his breath ‘brainless pirate’.

“Right.” The corner of Guybrush’s lip twitched slightly, choosing to ignore the remark he heard clearly. “His Majesty Graham, is a friend of ours and we came here to talk to, you know, our friend? So you can run along now, kid.”

“Ha! Like I can leave the King here with the likes of you.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?!”

“You don’t know the proper terminology or etiquette. One must kneel before His Majesty and wait until spoken to.” The knight continued. “Especially someone as lowly as a pirate would know that, perhaps all that grog has made you forget how to be a basic functioning and respectful professional which is improbable for, again, a pirate.”

Link caught Guybrush’s hand curl into a fist and quickly moved a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

“Our apologies.” Link spoke, taking a knee and pulling Guybrush to follow (hearing his low growl but nevertheless following suit). He eyed the knight who had his arms behind his back. “We were not aware of the change of... procedures, I wasn’t briefed and therefore unable to inform Guybrush.” He eyed Graham, noting that his expression remained unchanged. Something was wrong, that nagging feeling intensifying.

The short knight scoffed. “I’m surprised you’re taking accountability, I wouldn’t expect that from the supposed Hero of Hyrule. Here I thought you were just some muscle head with a sword.”

“It’s like he said.” Guybrush said through gritted teeth, noting Link flinch just slightly at the remark. “He wasn’t informed. That’s actually why we’re here.” He then stood up. “We haven’t heard from Gr-- His Majesty and we were worried. Besides, who the heck are you?”

“Took you long enough to ask for my name. Honestly, your parents must be truly ashamed of you by your lack of decorum.” The knight mocked. “As for who I am? I’m Manny, the king’s advisor.” Manny bowed. “And sorry to say, but you worried over nothing. Everything is perfectly fine.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but with all due respect, we requested an audience with the king.” Link said firmly. “Not the king’s advisor.”

“Unfortunately, you request has been denied, as it would be unwise to leave His Majesty unattended with a couple of strangers.” Manny said, stepping more and more between then. “Basic procedure, you understand.”

“We’re not strangers, we’re his friends.” Guybrush countered, taking a step forward. “Graham, c’mon, say something! Prove this little twerp wron--”

“That’s enough, pirate.” Manny interrupted quickly, reaching for the hilt of his bludgeon.

“I don’t believe this... do you really think I’m going after Graham to hurt him? Why would I do that? I’m his friend!”

“I can’t take just your words, Threepwood, after all, aren’t you the ‘supposed’ pirate to have inflicted a pox all over the Great Seas? Killing many in your path for some undead pirate? You think I’ll allow someone like you near the King of Daventry?”

“Why, you little...!”

Link stepped between the two of them, his fingers itching to grab the hilt of his sword but refraining. “Look, we only ask for a private meeting, I can promise you as a knight of Zelda, that we’re not here to harm him. All we want to do is have a conversation, that’s it. We have the letter from Graham-- His Majesty, to prove it.”

“Impossible, His Majesty has been far too busy to respond to something as trivial as letters. He has his own kingdom to deal with, unlike a certain monarch’s knight who abandons his own to frolic about.” Manny placed his arms behind his back.

“W...what? I-I don’t...”

“If you’re really his ‘closest’ friends, then you would understand that he simply doesn’t have time to speak with either of you. He has a far more important task ahead of him and as his advisor, it would behoove him to remain focus at the task as oppose to a supposed hero and a low-life pirate.”

Link looked at Manny and then to Graham who remained still and unmoving. “Graham...? Do you really think that?”

Graham remained quiet.

“Graham, please... say something.”

“Graham! Hey!” Guybrush shouted, frustration bubbling when the king didn’t even look his way... but noticed his fingers twitch, just slightly.

“I think we’re done here. Guards!” Manny summoned. The doors opened and in marched Royal Guards One and Two. “Escort these two out, His Majesty needs some rest now, isn’t that right, King Graham?”

“...Yes.” Graham slurred.

“Of course.” Royal Guard Number One nodded and stepped to the side. “Gentlemen, if you please follow me.”

The two looked at each other before looking at Graham. The first word they heard from him and it was barely audible. Link’s hands curled into a fist as he took one more look at Graham and turned around to follow the guard. Guybrush, however, stood and stared down Manny.

“I’ll be back.” The pirate threatened in a low tone before following everyone else.

“Doubtful.” Manny scoffed and watched as they left the room, unaware that the two blonds were already calculating and theorizing what to do next.

#mickey writes #The Three Adventurers #Special shoutout to Vee because this is an AU that is terribly delightful!

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