Quest for Glory III: Journey to the Simbani

(This is part of my journey going checking out Quest for Glory III: Wages of War. You can follow the entire series on the Retro Gaming page.)

The next day is my appointment with Rakeesh and the Court ‘o Judgment. Here they recap what the game has already hinted at:

• There’s a war brewing between the human Simbani tribe and the Leopardmen
• Some of the Liontaurs want peace, while a bunch (including the king) want to fight alongside of the humans
• A peace envoy from the Liontaurs was met with violence and most were killed
• There may be demonic activity involved

Rakeesh swears on his honor to investigate this situation and attempt to bring peace, and I’m prompted to make the same oath. When I do, this happens:

Let’s just put it out there that I am WAY too irresponsible of a player to be entrusted with a fire sword. But I’m going to enjoy it!

After Rakeesh and the king get into it again — bicker bicker honor bicker — the two of us leave to travel to the Simbani. Along the way, Rakeesh tells me a bit about Tarna, being a paladin, and how to make campfires. Hey, I already know how to make campfires: I stick my sword in a heap of wood and activate its AWESOME MAGIC POWER.

After a day or so of travel and a non-stop Rakeesh monologue, we arrive at the village. At first, it seems promising: Everyone’s friendly and we have a joyful reunion with Uhura and her son Simba.

But then we meet with the chief and the situation sours. The chief downright loathes the Leopardmen, saying they use magic and that’s totally not fair (as I stuff my magic sword behind me). Also, they stole something called the “Spear of Death” and when the Spear of Death be stolen, there can be no peace in the world.

Naturally, Rakeesh takes in this situation, turns to me, and says, “BYE!” He heads off, leaving me to do the grunt work of investigating.

Oh, if you end up clicking on yourself:

Indeed they do! And your appearance is all pixelated! Wear some polygons, son.

The next day I wander around and try to make friends with the locals. One fellow invites me to play some sort of obscure stone-related board game. I’m quite bad at it, but I’m sure you could guess that.

Not much to do in this village, so I wander over to a spear throwing range and get some instruction from Uhura on the art of throwing pointy sticks. The actual technique is to judge the wind (from the waving flag) and adjust your target accordingly. I’m even worse at this than I was at the stone game.

Finally, there’s a good old-fashioned wrestling bridge. Uhura says this is another part of the initiation, and I’ve heard that enough that I have a sinking feeling that sooner or later, I’m going to have to pass all of these tests to advance in the game. Foreshadowing!