Part 1: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

PART 3: LE'CHUCK'S FORTRESS

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In the small crate of voodoo supplies that would be his home for the next four days and nights, Guybrush was forced to eat bat lungs and eel bladders to stay alive. Eventually, Guybrush and the rest of the slithery cargo were delivered to the very doorstep of the Caribbean's most fearsome villain, living or dead: The Ghost Pirate LeChuck!

There are many many rooms in the Fortress, as has previously been explained. And lots of them are quite large, as has also been expounded on. But none had quite the impression of depth, of awesome size, as the docking area.
It was built completely within the Fortress - no windows allowed outside light in. And yet, the ceiling stretched up as high as the highest towers. Sailing into the dock through the huge fifty feet metal doors, you could see the entire structure of the Fortress stretched out before you, all of its hanging ceilings, staircases suspended above deep chasms, mutilated skulls and craven images suspended at impossible heights.
Most of the satanic splendour of the place was lost on Fred and Rich, currently standing by a large crate of voodoo supplies and arguing with Largo. Those who had seen Largo in the presence of LeChuck (like you) would be astounded by the difference. Amongst the living, Largo had a violent presence that belied the rumour his position had come about only because he was in LeChuck's pocket.
The crate was not the subject of the argument, in particular: it was just the last thing they'd dropped off. And Largo had been pleased to see it, saying, "Ah... LeChuck's crate of voodoo supplies."
But Fred wasn't completely satisfied. "You know, we usually don't deliver out this far," he said suggestively.
"You guys buckin for a tip?" growled Largo.
Rich nodded. "Well, we figured since-"
"Well, you figured wrong," said Largo menacingly. "LeChuck don't tip nobody!" He walked away, with long efficient strides that made the best of his short legs. It also looked impressive, a good bonus.
"Gee," said Rich.
"What a butt," finished Fred. They decided to head back to the ship.
There was silence for about a minute. Then there was a slight creaking noise as the lid of the crate was opened a fraction. Two eyes peered through the crack, scanning left and right. Then the lid was flung open and out climbed Guybrush.
He was a changed Guybrush. Somewhat thinner, for a start, and covered in faint trails of slime. He'd also developed a physical tic which made his left arm shake uncontrollably, but that came and went. And hopefully, now he had his freedom, it had gone forever.
"Ick. I hate snakes," he said. Most of them had been crushed by the journey - LeChuck was not going to get his money's worth.
He was a wanted man in his enemy's fort, and thus not in any way secure, but Guybrush had to stop a moment and get his bearings. The sheer size of the room and the myriad of other rooms visible made this difficult, but eventually Guybrush managed to figure out that the high, winding staircase which led from the entrance floor here to a large gap in the wall about forty feet up and a hundred feet away, was the way in.
Guybrush started climbing.
He didn't want to start disparaging a place that had obviously taken heaps of time to build, but LeChuck really had poor architectural sense. The colour scheme, for one - all that dank orange and brown! It was boring. And a few lifts really wouldn't go astray.
Soon enough Guybrush was at the top of the stairs. A passage stretched away in front of him, with an opening in its left. Guybrush took a look into the opening - it was a short doorway to another passageway, running parallel to this one. Tacked to the wall here were a number of signs, pointing left and right randomly. There was a big sign, a wooden sign, a plain old sign, a broken sign, a splintered sign, a nailed up sign, a sign�, and yet another sign. None of them had writing he could read.
Guybrush decided he wasn't going to take a left. That way looked dangerously labyrinthine. Instead he walked on to the far side of the passage.
It narrowed to an open doorway, the doorframe carved into the shape of a giant, snarling rat. Guybrush passed through the mouth of the rat to the next section of passage. The left wall here was decorated with ugly bone things in the recesses, three of them, and all constructed from human skeletons. They were constructed in a parody of the flip-over books that were popular amongst the kiddies. One of the ugly bone things had a skull in the top third, ribs in the middle third and legs in the bottom third. In another the sequence ran hips-arms-head. The last was legs-head-hips.
Guybrush decided not to dwell on their significance, because as far as he could see they didn't have any. Instead he walked to the far doorway.
He'd been expecting another passageway, but he was pleasantly surprised. The space beyond this doorway widened considerably. It was taller, too - steps led to the stone floor. The downside of this space was that the light, coming as it did from candles wedged in the orifices of skulls, was thinner and less illuminating.
There was still enough, however, for Guybrush to work out what this area of the fortress was. As he came down the steps, he could see iron bar grilles set into stone. Coming down further his view opened up, and he could see into the jail cells themselves.
It was the prison. The various decorative skeletons were not absolute proof of this, as you seemed to find them all over the place here, but Guybrush felt he could work out what the iron bars were for. And as Guybrush reached the bottom of the steps, he saw a familiar figure in the nearest cell.
"It's Wally!!" cried Guybrush, rushing to the front of the cell. There was Wally, suspended in the air from two chains looped around his wrists, and swinging slightly. He looked to be asleep.
"Wally!!" shouted Guybrush joyfully.
Wally's eyes blinked open. "Mr Brush?" he asked, sleepily. "Is that you?"
"Have you lost weight?" asked Guybrush. "You look good." And he meant it. Wally looked quite saucy in his green workshirt rolled up to the elbows, royal blue apron, swaying from side to side suavely.
"Yes I have," said Wally with quiet dignity. "Thanks for noticing."
Guybrush couldn't resist a small joke. "How's it hangin'?"
"You think this is funny?" exclaimed Wally. "They abducted me in my office; brought me here in a duffel bag; interrogated me; then they-" He suddenly turned his head to one side as the memory returned, unable to face Guybrush. "They-" His voice wouldn't go on.
"What? What?" said Guybrush frantically.
"They took away my monocle for a while," sobbed Wally.
"I see," said Guybrush evenly. Residual guilt from the past week finally spilled into his conscious mind. "Wally, I have something to confess about your monocle..." For a moment he paused, then he remembered the map and expediency triumphed. "Dread stole it."
The news, which was perhaps technically true, roused Wally. "I knew it!" he said angrily. "He always envied my intellectual look."
"The map, Wally! What about the map?"
"Oh, LeChuck's got it," said Wally, offhandly, "but who cares?"
"Who cares?!?" screamed Guybrush.
"Yeah, I memorised the whole thing before I got here," said Wally. "It's on an island called Dinky, not too far from here. After you bust me out of here, we could steal a boat and go there!"
The plan sounded good to Guybrush. "OK, Swing back," he said in his no-nonsense, heroic voice. "I'm going to bust down the door."
"What, are you nuts? Go get the key. He probably keeps it in his office down the hall." Wally craned his head in the direction of the stairs.
"I'm going to go get that key!" shouted Guybrush. Full of energy and enthusiasm, he ran back up the stairs and along the passage until he reached the labyrinth entrance. He turned left, at random, and found the passage he was on ran on a smooth circular path. Here, like in the other passages, there were the ugly bone statues in alcoves along the wall. However, they were all arranged along the inner wall.
After a lot of travelling through doorways and past ugly bone things, Guybrush found himself at the signs, back where he started. He was forced to consider the possibility that there was more to these statues than met the eye.
Guybrush walked down the passage and looked hard at the first bone statue. There was something oddly familiar about it - Guybrush was sure he'd heard of hip, head and arm bones somewhere before. The memory danced fleetingly out of reach.
Guybrush brushed a hand over the statue. He pushed it, experimentally.
The statue revolved a little. The left side, where his hand had been pushing, went back. The right side came out a bit.
This was looking hopeful. Guybrush pushed harder, until the statue had fully revolved through ninety degrees. It was grafted onto a thin rectangular slab, and now there were small dark spaces either side through which Guybrush could slip.
Guybrush tried this, swing his foot into the unknown. It was tight, but he managed to get past the slab (squeezing past a protubing skull and hip) and into the space beyond.
It was dark here. Guybrush took a faltering step forward and... something happened. He didn't see it or hear it, but now Guybrush's whole body was vibrating like a taut string.
Moments later Guybrush materialised in front of the signs. He stood there, motionless. There weren't any residual ill-effects from the instantaneous matter transportation, but it was still pretty disorientating.
He supposed he should have expected something like that. Well, not exactly like that. But there were over twenty bone statue things in the passageway, and probably only one of them let you through.
Guybrush didn't feel like trying statues at random and being beamed back here all the time. He needed a more systematic way.
But the matter transference had done strange things to his brain. Guybrush sat against the wall and tried to think, but all that came to mind were ephemeral glimpses of memory.
Here was Guybrush, two months ago, drinking grog at the Scumm Bar. Here was Guybrush at ten, alone and climbing a huge spruce tree. Here was Guybrush standing on a plateau, watching a rock flying through the air toward his crew. A teenage Guybrush, walking along a road in the middle of nowhere.
The memories were lifeless, unemotional, mere acknowledgments of a life barely lived. More and more surfaced, piling up on Guybrush in a huge, lonely tidal wave.
But, just when he was about to crack, a new memory cut off the others. This was a little Guybrush, maybe only five years old. He was walking through a carnival park with fairy floss in his hand, and behind him came his parents.
Guybrush was mentally seized. In comparison to all the other memories, this one came to him in full colour and sound. He could smell the popcorn, hear the screams of people riding the Buccaneer Ride. Most of all, he could feel the smile of little Guybrush, and the smiles of his kindly parents.
"My parents," whispered Guybrush.
It was only a memory, but Guybrush could have sat there forever, reliving it in all its glory and security.
But the happiness couldn't last. To the left of little Guybrush, a small black shadow appeared. Little Guybrush stopped smiling, and gripped his fairy floss harder. The dark shadow walked toward little Guybrush, who was now starting to tremble.
Guybrush recognised its shape. Not even his memories were safe from LeChuck. He squeezed his eyes shut, reducing his inner sight to blackness, and when he opened them the memory had gone.
"My parents," he whispered again. "My parents, my - oh yes!"
It had suddenly come back to him. The dream by the Big Tree.
The skeleton dance.
Guybrush started searching his pockets feverishly. He still had that piece of paper, didn't he?
He found the spit encrusted paper in his trouser pocket. Guybrush took it out, unfolded it, and saw that the lyrics were entirely intact.

Verse 1:
The rib bone is connected to the leg bone.
The leg bone is connected to the hip bone.
The hip bone is connected to the head bone.

Verse 2:
The head bone is connected to the rib bone.
The rib bone is connected to the leg bone.
The leg bone is connected to the arm bone.

Verse 3:
The arm bone is connected to the head bone.
The head bone is connected to the rib bone.
The rib bone is connected to the leg bone.

Verse 4:
The leg bone is connected to the hip bone.
The hip bone is connected to the arm bone.
The arm bone is connected to the head bone.

Guybrush was already picking up clues. The verses grouped parts of the body by threes, just like the bone statues. The question was, did take the layout from the left side of the lines, or the right side? Guybrush tried left.
First, he was looking for a rib-leg-hip statue. Guybrush started pacing through the passageway, looking for one.
He found it after coming through two doorways. Quickly Guybrush pushed it open, and saw with delight that instead of blackness on the other side, there was what appeared to be another passageway.
Guybrush slipped through the narrow space to the other side.
It was indeed a passageway, and one almost exactly as the one he'd just left. It even had the same size of curvature, which was strange as usually concentric circles got smaller as you went inward. Dimensionality seemed to have taken an extended break around here.
Guybrush started looking for a head-rib-leg statue. He found it almost instantly, and when he pushed it open saw yet another orange/gold passage waiting beyond.
He slipped through. Here he was looking for a arm-head-rib statue, and he'd almost circled the passage before finally finding it.
Needless to say, the passage beyond the statue was identical. Along this passage Guybrush walked briskly, stopping at a leg-hip-arm statue. He pushed it open, and to his relief saw that the space beyond, while as orange/gold as the passages, had a refreshingly open feel to it.
Guybrush slipped through the space and into a much wider, much larger passage. He was stopped here for a moment by the sheer size of the door at the end of the passage.
Readers may remember this as the place where Largo was nearly mugged by LeChuck. To Guybrush it was utterly familiar, and the twelve foot high skeletons lounging menacingly on the walls were no great comfort.
Guybrush walked timidly to the massive door. It was bolted at one side with an enormous number of huge, thick locks, bars and padlocks. Guybrush knew there was no way, not even in an adventure game, that he'd be able to get all those locks open.
Fortunately for Guybrush, when he examined the massive door more closely, he saw the outline of a much smaller door, not much larger than his head. Guybrush gave this section of the door a push, and it swung open.
Guybrush realised, a little too late, that there might be people on the other side of the door. But there was no-one. It was odd, because the room looked very important. Even calling it a room was stretching it. Walking into it was like walking down the aisle of a cathedral, albeit one decorated in orange/gold and adorned with grinning skulls.
There were no pews, which allowed the huge throne at the far end of the hall to dominate the view. Guybrush walked toward it, looking around nervously.
Soon, he saw it. Hanging on a peg beside the throne, it was a massive two foot key that could be nothing else other than the voodoo key to the jail. Guybrush quickened his pace, and reached for the key.
As his fingers brushed the key, there was a nasty clanking sound from directly above. Guybrush heard a whoosh, and looked up to see a cage falling from the ceiling on a thick cable. It slammed into the floor, trapping him.
Before Guybrush could even rattle the bars pathetically, he heard a noise. A noxious slithering, shuffling sound, like a slug that had learned how to walk. It was coming from the other end of the hall, near the entrance.
Even as he turned, Guybrush could feel the hot, intense stare of LeChuck. He saw a rotten, spastic figure that was an exact copy of the LeChuck in his dream.
"Guybrush Threepwood," intoned LeChuck, spattering spittle across tiles for two feet in all directions. He shuffled a little further. "You have finally been caught."
Guybrush had to acknowledge this was so. And yet, caught face to face behind an iron cage with his arch-nemesis, he no longer felt afraid. The nagging, background fear of the past few days was that LeChuck would catch him. Now the worst had happened, and he felt oddly hopeful.
LeChuck, however, looked elated. "I have searched every island, sailed every sea, and now you are mine." His jerky, shuffling walk had brought him barely two feet from Guybrush. Guybrush had to fight to keep his face steady as it was bathed in saliva.
LeChuck seemed to have noticed that his enemy wasn't as cowed as he should be. His eyes dimmed a little. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
What Guybrush really wanted to say was Stop spitting in my face! "Gee, nice going," he eventually said, trying to be sarcastic, but his voice betrayed him and wobbled on the last syllable.
"Largo!" shouted LeChuck. From behind Guybrush the short figure of Largo appeared.
He leered evilly at Guybrush. "Yes sir, LeChuck sir?"
LeChuck leaned closer to Guybrush, so that every word he spoke would douse Guybrush in his throat juices. Guybrush tried not to pass out from the smell. "Take Guybrush down to the torture chamber and get the machine set up," he said, taking a sadistic care in stressing his 'p's.
"Yes, sir!" saluted Largo.

They were hanging in darkness. Wally and Guybrush were chained at the wrists, side by side, hanging above a pit of absolute black. And yet, it had a strange green tinge. Hot, tingly air issued from beneath their feet.
A match was struck, somewhere on Guybrush's right. Its flickering flame looked so fragile in the gloom that surrounded it. It lit a candle, which caught but failed to cast any light on their surroundings. But something was happening to the flame - it grew, feeding on unseen vapours. Slowly an orange/yellow light returned to their surroundings.
The match was in the hand of LeChuck, whose head was at about the level of Guybrush's knees. LeChuck dropped the match and ground it beneath his feet. The motion caused Guybrush to look down, and his eyes boggled as he saw they were suspended above a bottomless pit of green acid. Now there was light, it glowed with a foul luminescence.
Guybrush and Wally were surrounded by all sorts of paraphernalia - shields, bellows, wooden wheels and tin pans in an arrangement that suggested some sort of incredibly complicated automated mechanism. And, somewhat incongruously, a hot air balloon floated on Guybrush's left. What really looked menacing, however, was the thick rope that was drawn in a line above the candle.
"Aaaarrghh!" growled LeChuck in his patented pirate manner. Wally and Guybrush turned their heads to look at him. "You be in a heap of trouble, Guybrush Threepwood. Now that you are mine, you will pay for what you did to me." He clenched his fist, and his jaw.
"Hey - what's a little root beer between friends?" asked Guybrush in an amiable voice.
"Silence!" barked LeChuck. "There is only one thing more painful, than being resurrected from the dead and crammed into a rotting body." He craned forward. "Do you know what that is?"
Guybrush had an inkling. "Hmmm..."
"It is what is about to happen to you!"
"Can't we just talk this out?" pleaded Guybrush.
"Yeah!" chimed in Wally. "Can I go to the bathroom? I really need to."
"No," said LeChuck flatly, to both counts. He pointed to the candle. "You see that candle over there?"
The question was obviously rhetorical, as it was the only source of illumination in the room.
"When it burns through that rope," continued LeChuck, "the bag will fall on the bellows." The bag in question was a small speedball that hung from one end of the rope. "When it is compressed, it will shoot a single lead bullet, which will ricochet off that pan, then off the shield behind me, bounce off that shield, finally striking the green balloon."
Guybrush and Wally, who had been following the path of LeChuck's arm, stared at the balloon curiously.
"When it pops," said LeChuck with satisfaction, "it will cause that lever to fall, releasing that ratchet on the chain wheel, and sending you down into the pit of acid."
Guybrush had thought it would be something like that. Wally's monocle bulged as he stared at the pool of death between his short feet. "Gee... I..." said Guybrush.
"Do you know what happens next?"
Guybrush would have said I'll die, but there was obviously something further. "Ummm... well..."
"I will then take your bones," continued LeChuck relentlessly, "still alive and in great pain, and make them into a chair. I will call it my screaming chair. Every day I will sit in it and listen to you scream. Any questions?"
"What is the Secret of Monkey Island?" asked Guybrush. It was a sore point with him that he hadn't found out what the secret was while he'd been over there.
"All will be revealed in a few moments," said LeChuck gnomically.
"Isn't it dangerous to leave a pit of acid uncovered?" asked Guybrush.
"Safety is not my concern in this situation," said LeChuck.
"Where's the bathroom?" asked Wally, with something in his voice that suggested he hadn't given up hope yet.
"Up the stairs and to the left, but you won't be needing it in a few minutes," said LeChuck.
Guybrush had another question. "Where do babies come from?"
"I am growing tired of your stupid questions. Prepare to die." LeChuck shuffled into a dark archway, and disappeared.
"He didn't say what he was going to do to me!" said Wally frantically.
"An ottoman comes to mind," mused Guybrush. Wally nearly lost his monocle.
Guybrush stared at the candle. It was just starting to burn into the bottom threads of the rope.
If only he could put it out - Guybrush tried spitting the distance. He failed spectacularly. Not only had the tension dried up all his saliva, but he didn't have any of that spit thickening drink on him.
So, it was finally over. In a few minutes, he and Wally would be dead. Guybrush thought that maybe there was something he should say.
He looked at Wally. "Wally?"
"What?"
"I love you, man."
"Let's try to keep our heads, shall we?" said Wally firmly.
Guybrush didn't dare to sound hopeful. "Any bright ideas?"
Wally thought. "Well... actually I was kind of hoping you would think of something."
Guybrush was trying to think, but it was really hard to concentrate, and this itch on his nose was really maddening. "Could you please scratch my nose?" Guybrush asked Wally.
"Yeah, right after you kiss my butt," said Wally.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," said Guybrush, who had a vague idea you were supposed to say stuff like that at a time like this.
Wally, who hadn't been particularly happy to begin with, exploded with anger. "Bad feeling!?! LeChuck's got you hanging in chains over a pit of acid and all you've got is a bad feeling?!?"
"Gosh," said Guybrush. "I feel even worse when you yell at me."
"Just leave me alone," said Wally.
The next few minutes they spent in silence, Wally swinging morosely. Guybrush watched the candle like a hawk. It was already halfway through the rope. He tried blowing in the general direction - no luck.
The barest threads remained. Guybrush, helpless, felt pressure building in his chest.
The rope snapped.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" wailed Guybrush, a yell heard throughout the Fortress. LeChuck grinned, and headed back to watch the fun.
The bag, released, fell on the bellows. Out of the bellows shot a single lead bullet, which ricocheted off the pan, off two shields, and with perfect aim burst the balloon, the pop heard even above the last strangling exhalations of Guybrush's breath. The lever fell, releasing the ratchet on the chain wheel. It spun, sending Guybrush and Wally inch by inch toward the acid pit, which seemed to flash in anticipation.
Guybrush was thrashing about, screaming, as the fumes rose up around him. Wally kicked back and forth, moaning, now lost to sight in the gaseous confusion. They plunged into the acid, still screaming, screaming loud enough to rattle the foundations, and now boiling, thrashing about in a pit of pain and boiling, boiling...

"Horse hockey," said a voice, firmly and very audibly.
The words were like a cold slap of water to the head. Guybrush stopped flailing about. He shook his head, and suddenly everything came back to him. He was hanging from a rope in a huge concrete pit, holding the treasure of Big Whoop in one painful hand. Elaine looked at him, supremely sceptical.
Hours had passed - gee, he'd really gotten into the telling of this story. But Elaine looked unconvinced.
"You honestly expect me to believe you were disintegrated in a pit of acid," she said.
"Sure, well, I-" began Guybrush.
"And yet here you are telling me all about it, looking very integrated indeed," she continued, sarcastic.
"Yes, well, that is...ah..." Guybrush trailed off. "Okay, so I embellished it a little for dramatic effect. Sue me."
"You want to try telling me what really happened?"
"OK," said Guybrush. "As I was saying, we were hanging over the pit of acid. Death was so close I could smell his sweaty armpits..."

They were doomed.Out of nothing, however, Guybrush suddenly had a brainwave. That spit thickening drink - he had some of it after all! It, together with the crazy straw, were still nestled in his front coat pocket.
It was an astounding piece of luck. Nestled upright, with the crazy straw in position in the lid, he could just reach the tip of the straw with his lips. Guybrush did so, and while his neck felt like it was being pulled past breaking point, he felt the sour, gluggy taste of the green spit thickener.
Guybrush sucked in as much as he could, quickly, then swished his mouth experimentally. Sure enough, the spit had thickened. Acutely conscious of how much time was left, Guybrush jerked his head back and spat for the candle.
It fell short, by about three feet. Guybrush's hopes hadn't been dashed, however. He had another crazy idea, so crazy it just might work.
Guybrush turned his head the other way, away from the candle, and spat for the polished copper shield by his head.
The loogie bounced. Whatever strange properties that spit thickening liquid had, one was to make his saliva somewhat gelatinous. The shield was so angled that the loogie would ricochet downward. Unfortunately, Guybrush had misjudged the angle and instead the ball of spit hit the balloon.
Guybrush started to hold his breath, but the spit merely stuck there and dribbled down the side. Guybrush was already looking away, scanning LeChuck's elaborate dunking apparatus for angles and smooth surfaces.
He tried again, spitting slightly lower on the shield. This time his spit was sent rocketing down to a large pan on the floor, rebounding upward and striking Wally in the leg. "Hey!" shouted Wally. "Watch it with the spit!"
Guybrush made minute adjustments, and spat again.
His spit hit the shield, ricochet down to the pan, and from the pan was sent on a low parabolic trajectory toward the candle.
It hit the flame dead centre. With a poof, the light disappeared from the room.
For a few seconds, Guybrush and Wally hung there, swinging slightly. Then Wally said, "Now what?"
"I've got an idea," said Guybrush. While he'd been hanging here, he'd noticed that the clasps on the chains were somewhat loose. This wasn't a defect in LeChuck's plan, as it just meant that the occupant of the chain would be sent toward their acidic death somewhat sooner. But now that the immediate threat of the rope snapping was gone, Guybrush thought he had enough time to put a proper escape plan into operation.
Guybrush reached with his left hand, and grasped the chain suspending his right arm, slightly above the clasp. Then with his right hand, he grasped the chain suspending his left arm, again slightly above the clasp. This left him rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, his hands brought close together. Quickly, he told Wally to do the same. Then, Guybrush and Wally transferred the chains from hand to hand, so that the left hand held the left chain, and the right held the right chain.
They started climbing. The chains were large and chunky, and gave good handholds. Guybrush's arms were screaming bloody murder, but he kept on pulling himself up. It would have been worse on Wally, but he had a lot less body weight to lift.
The chains were, as Guybrush had suspected, suspended from an iron bar in the ceiling. Soon Guybrush and Wally were clinging to this metal bar, still bound by the chains. They weren't out of the woods yet, as one time constraint had merely been replaced with another - LeChuck was bound to be back soon.
Guybrush now had enough length of chain to reach into his pockets, and he was able to find a couple of voodoo doll pins he had left over. Soon he had managed to free Wally from his chains (not without a few pricks, but Wally understood the gravity of the situation and didn't complain). He was able to do the same to himself, this time much faster.
That left Guybrush and Wally, holding onto the iron bar for dear life. Whereas once they had been suspended ten feet above an acid pit by chains, now they were suspended fifteen feet above an acid pit, by an iron bar, and rotated one hundred degrees.
Wally wanted to inch along the iron bar until they were no longer above the acid pit, and drop down. But Guybrush advised against this. Not only were they unsure how wide the pit was, and liable to fall in if they missed their step, but all of LeChuck's machinery was down there. They didn't want to land on that.
Instead, Guybrush told Wally that, with their rotation, they were now directly facing the exit. If they started swinging on the bar like trapezists, and let go at the apex of the swing, they should fly straight over the pit and out the door.
Wally didn't like the idea much, but he agreed it was the best they had. They started to swing.
Guybrush had never been a school athletics champ - Wally probably hadn't even gotten to the stage of competing in school athletics. But now their very lives depended on their gymnastic ability...

LeChuck was in a good mood as he walked back to the torture chamber. The candle would have burned through the rope a few minutes ago now, and soon he'd be able to collect Guybrush's smoking carcass from the acid pit.
He didn't regret not having been there for the moment of death. That was the beauty of his torture chamber, and the specially treated acid he used. There was no discrete moment of death, in the sense of being one minute alive and the next minute dead. Instead, Guybrush would be forever trapped on the brink, not alive and not dead, and racked by the limitless pain of the abyss. Every moment he sat down in that chair, he could listen and enjoy.
LeChuck halted outside the torture chamber door. He'd shut it as he left, but now it stood slightly ajar.
LeChuck was a man of great self control. He wasn't often prone to doubt. And, when confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon, his first instinct was to get angry.
He kicked the door in. The room beyond was completely dark.
"Aarrrrggggg!" shouted LeChuck furiously. "What be going on in here? LARGO! Relight the candle!"
Soon Largo appeared, with matchsticks in one hand. He lit one, and brought it to the tip of the candle. There was something sticky here, and the flame wouldn't catch at first, but after a few more matchsticks light returned to the torture chamber.
"GUYBRUSH HAS ESCAPED!" roared LeChuck, as Largo stared in horror at the blank space above the acid pit. "Find them!"

They had taken left turns, right turns, run up stairs, down stairs, along alleys and under overpasses. Now, in a completely dark room in a little used section of the Fortress, Guybrush and Wally stopped to catch their breath.
"Ha!" said Guybrush eventually. "I bet LeChuck is really cheesed off now!"
"Yeah!" said Wally. "He should have let me go to the bathroom when I asked!"
"Hey, Wally?" asked Guybrush innocently.
"Yeah?"
"Where are we?"
"Good question," said Wally.
Guybrush had only the vaguest idea that they had come further down than up. He ran searching hands around his body, and found that they were surrounded by wooden crates.
Whereas only a few minutes ago they had very badly not needed light, right now they needed it again. Guybrush was all set for a massive bout of thinking the problem through, but remembered Wally's Juju bag. It had a book of matches in it.
Guybrush kept the matter of the love bomb silent. He was saving this for Elaine. Instead, he simply rummaged around in his pockets until he found the small book. He took a match, and struck it.
They were very good quality matches. Light sprang from his hand, casting the shadows from the room.
Guybrush and Wally gasped.
The boxes, all around them, stacked high from floor to ceiling, were crates of dynamite and TNT. There was enough firepower in here to level the Caribbean.
This alone would have accounted for their shock, but there was worse. There were figures standing on the far side of the room. Horribly familiar figures.
The match burned on in Guybrush's hand, forgotten.
Stan was here, from the coffin shop - so was a ruffled looking Jojo. The chef from Governor Marley's kitchen had hitched a ride, as had the guard from Governor Phatt's mansion and Frank, the pirate with the wooden leg. The chef from the Bloody Lip made up the group - he had a rolling pin in one hand and was smacking it into his palm with slow, menacing motions.
"Hello, Guybrush," said Stan, and his eyes were bloodshot. "Remember me?" He rolled up the sleeves of his overcoat, and beside him, Jojo snarled.
"Teenage hooligan, eh?" said Marley's chef, smiling. He brought a hand out from behind his back, and in it was a bloody knife.
"Cousin Guybrush, eh?" said the Phatt City guard, clenching his fists. "You're going to be completely unrecognisable to him when I'm through with you."
"Saw off people's legs, will you?" shouted Frank. "I think we might have to go eye for an eye here."
Bernar d, the chef, said nothing. His glinting, insane eyes said it for him.
Wally was backing away from Guybrush, his hands raised. "Oh, no..."
Guybrush suddenly felt hot, stinging pain in his right hand. He jerked it, and remembered the match.
It flew away from his hand, the flame guttering.
Most of, indeed close to all of the crates of dynamite were firmly shut. There was, however, one crate whose lid was open, exposing thin red sticks of doom.
Time slowed. Eight pairs of eyes followed the curved trajectory of the match as it sailed toward its preordained destination. It disappeared inside the open crate.
A second passed, in which nothing happened.

LeChuck's Fortress was shaken by a volcanic scale explosion. One whole side of the Fortress was blown outward into the sea, pushed by huge arms of boiling red gases which pushed all before them. Orange flames roared upward, to the very tip of the Fortress.
The sonic boom was heard throughout the Caribbean, shattering teacups and window panes. In an instant, the interior of the Fortress was hollowed, pithed, as the heat of the octopoidal explosion vaporised steel. On all sides of the Fortress, debris was blown out into the sea at above the speed of sound. Where it landed, great white plumes of water went up. Some of the debris went a long way - some even made it to neighbouring islands, and in one case a tribal hut was demolished.
With a black mushroom cloud of carbon monoxide expanding above, the outside, unsupported shell of the Fortress collapsed into its vacant interior. Tonnes and tonnes of stone and concrete slid into the sea, pushing out huge tidal waves twenty feet high.
Not a single brick was left standing.

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