Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

PART 2: ISLAND

It was late evening in the Cutlass Island monastery. Torchlight illuminated the many passages and featureless wooden hallways, which were all eerily bereft of people. No monks or devout students walked the passages. The rooms were silent. The whole place was bathed in an ghostly stillness.
It all depressed the young acolyte, who walked down the passages seeing no-one, hearing no-one. The acolyte was something of a changed man. He used to walk around in brown robes and shaven head, a featureless young student. Now he wore horrible green trousers, large black false eyebrows, and walked with a hunch bringing at least half a foot off his height.
It was all that Monk's fault, reflected the acolyte glumly. Everything had gone wrong since that day when everybody had gone off and left him and the Monk. When the acolyte had gone to see the Monk a second time, he had a huge black beard and eyes that glared with a fierce green light. More strangely, he insisted on being called LeChuck. And, strangest of all, he insisted on calling the acolyte, him, Largo.
The acolyte didn't know who this Largo character was, but wished he'd at least had better taste in trousers.
But that had only been the beginning. The Monk had immediately assumed total control over the Monastery. And things had only gotten worse since then...
The acolyte came to an intersection of passages, and here was the one person he didn't want to meet. The Monk.
If you'd known the Monk before his metamorphosis, you would not recognise the figure now in front of the acolyte, not with his huge black beard, filthy pirate hat, and shabby brown clothes that looked like they'd been stolen from a hobo. You would not have recognised the mannerisms - the threatening lean forward as he harangued a subordinate, the spray of spittle that flew from his lips as he talked, the spasmodic wave of the hands. And you certainly wouldn't have recognised the voice - a cracked, bitter thing barely kept in control.
"Arr!" the Monk now said. "How goes it?"
The acolyte swallowed. "Um, Mr.- er, I mean, LeChuck Sir, everything is as you wanted it. The last pirate came in several hours ago."
The Monk looked satisfied. "Excellent. Now I command every pirate on this island. My army of ghost pirates shall sweep the Caribbean like a hurricane. You will be well rewarded for this, Largo."
The acolyte protested, "My name's not-"
"Shut up!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, Guybrush's ship had just come into dock and the captain wasn't happy. Guybrush was down on the pier, but the captain was staying on deck.
"...so I'll probably be two hours, three at the most," finished Guybrush. "Will you wait for me?"
The captain looked around forebodingly. He'd been to Cutlass Island many times before, but this time it felt different. There was a chill in the night air, and a strange silence over the town.
"I don't know," said the captain slowly. "I'm not sure I like the look of this place." Staying or not, there was no way he was getting off this ship, that was for sure.
"It's only two hours!" said Guybrush. "What could happen?"
"Er..." The ship captain sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I guess you're right. I'll just-"
The ship captain stopped talking in mid-sentence. Tiny pieces of paper were fluttering down from the sky, making noiseless landings on the deck. The ship captain's brow furrowed as he bent down and picked up one of the pieces.
"Now what's this?" he said.
Guybrush winced. The size and shape and, indeed, method of arrival of these scraps of paper were familiar. If they said what he thought he said...
The ship captain read, and all the doubt seemed to clear from his face. "I see," he said neutrally.
"Wait a second-" pleaded Guybrush.
But he was too late. With two knife slashes the captain severed the rope holding the ship. Helped by an offshore breeze, the ship rapidly sailed away, soon lost from sight over the dark sea.
"Darn. He could have waited two hours!" said Guybrush, not unreasonably. "Now I've got to find LeChuck all by myself. And I don't even know where he is!"
He looked around hopefully. No LeChuck. Nobody, in fact, could be seen, heard, or smelt. And this worried Guybrush. If he knew anything about pirate towns, they were seething pits of activity, places that never slept, the kinds of town you could smell fifty miles away with a good breeze.
Guybrush began walking along the pier, toward the centre of town. Small, apathetic waves slapped into the wooden poles. There were no ships docked here, just a tiny rowboat on a pulley. Guybrush hoped he wouldn't have to use it to get back home.
The pier ended, and Guybrush found himself standing on the cobblestones of the main street. It ran left and right along the beach, and another street intersected it in the middle, forming a T-intersection.
"Where is everybody?" said Guybrush. "It's like a ghost town here."
If you were looking for a pirate on Cutlass, this would be the place to start. On his left Guybrush saw the Bloody Leech pub, a two-storey shanty of rotting tinderwood that looked very popular. Next to it was the flash Swingin' Stan's Sword Store, and on his right was Pirates 'R' Us clothing. All three buildings were quiet, and unlit.
This isn't looking good, thought an uneasy Guybrush. What had LeChuck done as Mayor?
As he was thinking these worrying thoughts, he heard a faint noise. Guybrush stopped, and listened.
Yes, there it was, in the distance. It sounded like machinery.
Guybrush followed the noise. It led him through the deserted streets of the town, back toward the shore. The noise got louder but Guybrush still had no idea what it might be.
Presently he saw the source of the noise. On a lonely, deserted pier, someone was standing beside a huge machine, which was hurling small pieces of paper into the air. These pieces of paper didn't drift back down, but kept on going, wafted upward by warm currents of air, until they were lost from sight.
This solved the mystery of those pieces of paper falling from the sky, Guybrush realised. And as he stepped onto the pier, he finally recognised who the someone was. The giggling, pantless someone.
"Herman Toothrot!" Guybrush said, startled.
Herman turned. His face lit up. "Ah! The dignitaries have arrived!"
"What?" said Guybrush, confused.
"You look a bit scruffy, but a good suit and a shave should take care of that," said Herman. "Come on, we haven't got much time. The function starts at twelve!"
"What are you talking about, Herman?"
Now Herman looked puzzled. "Aren't you here to welcome and pay homage to LeChuck on behalf of your Governor?"
"What? No! I'm here to kick his reincarnated skull into oblivion!" said Guybrush forcefully.
Herman looked thoughtful. "You are? You should have booked."
"What are you doing here, Herman?" asked Guybrush.
"Me?" said Herman rhetorically. "I live here. Well, not here. In a tumbledown shack two thousand miles across the ocean, actually. But I'm sure a high-minded civic individual like myself should have no trouble getting a green card."
This steady stream of nonsense from Herman was starting to give Guybrush a headache. "No, what are you doing here?"
"Eh?"
"Why are you distributing all these notices with 'LECHUCK IS GOVERNOR' on them?"
Herman looked relieved. "Oh that! Thought you were talking about my sinus problem. Well, for some reason there aren't any ships left to sail the Caribbean and announce LeChuck's Governorship. So, being the high-minded civic individual I am, I've taken that duty on board. Heh heh heh," he added, under his breath.
Well, thought Guybrush, at least I've found somebody. Possibly the worst person in the world to get information from, but at least I can try. "Where is everybody?" he asked.
"You know, it's strange," said Herman. "Just over the last few days everybody's been heading up to the Monastery on the far side of the island. I never go there myself... had a few disagreements with the Head Monk, know what I mean?" Herman winked at Guybrush. "He actually believes a non-Cartesian entropy field implies an eternal period of creation!"
Guybrush, not having a clue what Herman was saying, said nothing. "But everyone else seems to like him fine," continued Herman. "Nobody's come back from there, at all. Too busy with the non-stop carousing, I expect."
"Hmmm..." said Guybrush thoughtfully. This was an important clue.
"You know," said Herman hopefully, "if you're not too busy, I might ask a favour."
"What?" said Guybrush.
"I'm running out of paper," said Herman. "Could you get some for me?"
"What'll you give me in return?"
Herman made a sour face. "Hah. That'd be right. Couldn't possibly put yourself out for the betterment of a fellow human being, could you? Altruism's not in our dictionary, is it? Well, if that's how it is, if you bring me some paper I'll give you a wooden spoon."
Guybrush wasn't sure if this was a joke or not. "A wooden spoon?"
"Yes. Quite good quality! Previous owner was a little old lady who only took it out of the cupboard once a week to make bread-and-butter pudding. Heh."
"Okay..." said Guybrush slowly, backing away from Herman. Herman turned his attention back to the machine, and made faint giggling sounds under his breath.
Eventually, after a long tense backwards walk, Guybrush reached the end of the pier. He wiped his brow and immediately proceeded to get out of Herman's sight. Soon he was lost in the centre of town.
Guybrush was also lost in thought. He had to find a monastery. Apart from the information that it was 'on the other side of the island', Guybrush didn't have a clue where to begin. He'd never been on Cutlass before, never even seen a map of the place. As he walked through the dark, silent streets, Guybrush pondered the problem. Find a mountain and look around? It was dark. Ask directions? Who?
He didn't see the small figure until he was nearly on top of him.
Guybrush's meanderings had brought him through the main part of the town, to the outer perimeter. The street he was currently in kept on going, past the houses, turning itself into a dirt road leading into the island. Though most of the town was behind him, there was a large shop on his right, called the Bazaar of the Bizarre. Standing in front of it, staring intently at the front door, was Wally.
The shock of recognition caused Guybrush to speak before he could think. "I must be dreaming. It's Wally!"
Wally turned around and saw Guybrush. His eyes, one hidden behind a monocle, betrayed no discernible emotion. "Hello, Mr Brush," he said.
On paper it sounded perfectly neutral. But there was a lot of history behind that greeting, and now Guybrush remembered it. A long and very convoluted string of events had led to Wally being imprisoned in LeChuck's Carnival of the Damned. Guybrush had promised to free him, but what with one thing and another, he never really got around to it...
This was an awkward situation. Guybrush tried his best. "Great to see you, pal!" he said heartily. "Glad to see you escaped from that evil carnival after I..." he quickly pulled up from that chain of thought, "...heh heh, yeah."
Wally said quietly, "Someday everybody will pay."
There was a tiny pause. Wally blinked, and then he seemed to be back to his normal self - the cheerful kid cartographer who never knew when he was in out of his depth.
"Um, so what are you doing here, Wally?" asked Guybrush.
"I'm picking up my life of crime where I left off," said Wally. "It's a bit strange really. Yesterday I was back on Scabb, when I got this sudden urge to visit Cutlass. There are rumours that the Bazaar of the Bizarre holds the last remaining set of Blackbeard's treasure maps."
"Really?" asked an interested Guybrush.
"But they're said to be really well guarded," continued Wally. "So I wasn't going to do anything, but then some fliers landed on my doorstep which said LeChuck was governor and people were being turned into slavering zombies. I wanted a piece of the action, so I chartered Dread and sailed over."
"So what's happening now?"
"At the moment," said Wally, "I'm breaking the door down."
Four seconds passed. Guybrush and Wally looked at each other.
"Um, pardon me for intruding," said Guybrush eventually, "but how exactly are you going to break down this door?"
"Well, 'break' is probably a bit strong," admitted Wally, still looking at Guybrush. "I'm wearing this door down. Through sheer eye power. I reckon it's close to cracking."
"That doesn't sound like a very effective way," said Guybrush critically. "And shouldn't you be staring at the door?"
Wally stared at Guybrush. His eyebrows narrowed, as his face took on a look of total concentration.
Nothing was happening.
"Wilt, damn you!" exclaimed Wally. "Wilt!"
Guybrush tried to keep a look of polite befuddlement on his face. He wanted to break out laughing, but this was just too sad...
After a few more seconds, Wally gave up. He blinked at Guybrush in surprise. "Wow! You're good. If you can fight as good as you can stare, I might let you tag along."
"What an honour!" said Guybrush.
"You said it," said Wally. "Now, back to work." He looked back at the door, effectively ending the conversation.
Guybrush looked around. There, on the roadside, was a sign: 'Cutlass Island Interior.'
Well, he might not know where he was going, but a road was a good start.
Guybrush set out.

Though he didn't know anything about the interior of Cutlass Island, Guybrush was finding quite a lot out now.
At first the road he led upward through sloping, grazed hills, to a high crest above the town. Looking around from this peak Guybrush hadn't been able to see a single house light. The terrain before him sloped down into a dark jungle valley, before rising again on the far side to pine forested hills.
The road led downward, into the jungle. And this was where it started to get difficult. On the open plains, the light of the full moon had served fairly well to illuminate his surroundings. Under the jungle canopy, it was nearly pitch dark. About the only light came from fireflies and phospherent insects that swooped overhead and chirped in the distance. Low-lying vines, invisible in the dark, continually struck Guybrush. His feet began sinking into jungle mud, which either meant the jungle was turning into a swamp, or he'd lost the road.
Eventually, a dirty, stumbling Guybrush came to a slightly thinner area of jungle. The barest of moonlight shone down, so that Guybrush could see a tumbledown shack not far off in the distance.
The ground was nearly liquid under his feet. Taking the time to spy out tussocks of grass, Guybrush hopped toward his destination.
Soon he stood in front of the porch. Four thick stilts supported the hut several feet above the swamp, so that the bottom of the door was about at Guybrush's eye level. A small rickety ladder was bolted to one side of the porch. "Wonder who lives here..." he thought, "...wonder if anybody lives here." It didn't look likely. The place was falling to bits in front of his eyes. But there was something... through those grimy windows, behind the faded red moth-eaten curtains, there seemed to be a faint green glow.
Guybrush dismissed this. There was one out of place detail here, a large vending machine on the swampy ground in front of the porch. It too looked a little rusty. Guybrush had had some nasty experiences with vending machines, so he didn't give it any closer attention.
Guybrush quickly thought. Inhabited or not, he needed a break to get his bearings back. He tried the ladder. The first rung was so rotten it broke as soon as his foot touched it. So did the second. In the end Guybrush ignored the ladder altogether and just climbed straight up on the porch.
Some floorboards sagged, but they held. Guybrush walked to the front door and pulled it open.
An old, eldritch smell drifted out. Guybrush's nose wrinkled. About what he'd expected. He edged forward into the darkness.
But it wasn't completely dark. There were candles on the floor, and several hanging from the ceiling... candles that glowed with a green fiery light.
Then, like a picture coming into focus, Guybrush adjusted to the light, and saw everything.
The floor was bare. The walls, however, were plastered with illustrated parchments of strange, possibly illegal diagrams. Several stuffed animals swung from the ceiling.
In the middle of the room, sitting on her green voodoo throne, on a Mexican throw rug, was the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush screamed.
"What?" said the Voodoo Lady, surprised.
"Oh no, not you!" wailed Guybrush. "Not again! No!"
"Guybrush Threep-"
Guybrush ignored her. Could he never escape his past? Every time he'd thought he'd succeeded, another bit character from the Monkey Island series returned. Seeing Wally and Herman had started it off, but now a whole wave of existential despair was crashing home. "How'd you get here?" he babbled crazily. "What are you doing here? God, it's like some evil curse! I can't get away!"
"I have come, Guybrush," said the Voodoo Lady patiently, "to do battle with our arch-nemesis, LeChuck."
"No," said Guybrush, flatly.
The Voodoo Lady was confused again. "What?"
Guybrush crossed his arms. "I said no. I'm not doing it. Whatever it is you want me to do. Count me out." He waited for a brief while, but the Voodoo Lady didn't say anything. "And nothing you can say," continued Guybrush, "is going to change my mind."
"Have you wondered where all the townspeople are, Guybrush?" said the Voodoo Lady.
This was an unexpected response. "Um..." said Guybrush, "...well, I had wondered about that, actually."
Five seconds passed. Guybrush was waiting for the Voodoo Lady to speak, but she just looked at him. For some strange reason, this felt like a contest of wills. To speak now might have dire consequences.
"So, what happened to them?" Guybrush finally asked.
"There is an old monastery on the promontory," said the Voodoo Lady. She looked satisfied. "Nobody paid it any attention, until two weeks ago. Some pirates left the town and went to the monastery. They were followed by others. And none returned."
"You mean everybody's gone?" Guybrush said.
"Well, there's a family of Survivalists in the forest," said the Voodoo Lady, "but apart from them, this island has been scoured clean."
"What happened to everybody?"
"LeChuck has killed them all," said the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush grimaced. "Ick."
"Now he's assembled the largest ghost crew the world has ever seen, up in the monastery. With it he'll be unstoppable."
A few details were nagging away at Guybrush. "I thought LeChuck was governor."
"Oh, that's just some idea of Herman's," said the Voodoo Lady dismissively. "Ignore him."
"But how did he escape the ice?" asked Guybrush.
"I don't know," admitted the Voodoo Lady. "He may have access to some new form of Voodoo magic: something I won't be able to counter." She looked almost embarrassed by this.
Guybrush could see where this conversation was heading, but he first wanted to straighten a few things out. "So why aren't you out there fighting LeChuck?" he asked.
The Voodoo Lady looked sharply at him. "It's not that easy. I arrived here yesterday, and he's sealed the monastery and the peninsula off from the outside world with a huge force field. I can't get near. Unless," and here her voice grew deep and stentorian, "I can cast the Spell of Synchromesh."
"The Spell of Synchromesh?" said Guybrush dubiously. "Sounds like something from a bad RPG."
"It's a very esoteric spell, and I forgot to bring all my voodoo essentials. I shall require you to find some special ingredients."
"I think I saw this coming," muttered Guybrush. He sighed. "All right, what are they?"
The Voodoo Lady smiled with satisfaction. "First, you must find me a monkey skull."
"Easy," said Guybrush.
"The second ingredient is harder," cautioned the Voodoo Lady. "A very rare herb called Talbad."
"Sounds like an Arabian pirate," said Guybrush.
"I'm all out," continued the Voodoo Lady, "and there's only one place on this island that stocks it. The Bazaar of the Bizarre. Before you came I tried to summon a mighty pirate to ransack the place, but it didn't quite work out. Now it is up to you.
"Here's the key," said the Voodoo Lady. She held a small metal object out to Guybrush, who took it. "And take this map. You may need it." She gave him a rolled up parchment.
"Gee, thanks," said Guybrush.
"Thank me later," said the Voodoo Lady. "Now, go!"

Standing outside the hut, Guybrush thought about what to do next.
He knew where to get some Talbad, and he had the key, but Guybrush didn't feel like seeing Wally just yet. So that left the monkey skull. Guybrush wasn't worried about this item.
Off the shoreline of the main Cutlass township was a small offshore island, mostly rock. Up until a year ago, it had housed the Cutlass Monkey Enclosure.
Pirates have never been very fond of monkeys. Parrots maybe, although the price of a parrot eternally perched on your shoulder was a hefty laundry bill. No, pirates have never liked monkeys. In the opinion of the pirates, monkeys are good for nothing, a nuisance, and they tend to pinch your hat while you're digging up buried treasure.
So when the Monkey Enclosure opened on this small offshore islands, the pirates didn't come to look. Oh no. They came to gawk. To throw small pebbles and peanuts at the caged monkeys. To prod them with pointy sticks. To dangle large bunches of bananas outside the cage and then pointedly throw them away. To suspend the monkeys above dunk tanks and then throw balls at the trigger. To shoot revolvers at their feet and shout 'Dance!'. To... etc, etc.
Sometimes pirates can be really downright mean.
Guybrush heard all this from the ship captain, as they passed the small island on their way to the main pier. He could see the cages from the deck... they were rusted out and empty. When the captain had finished speaking, Guybrush asked: so why did it close down?
The captain told him. Apparently, Elaine Marley had gotten wind of the Monkey Enclosure and was horrified. In no uncertain terms, she told the Cutlass authorities that if the enclosure wasn't shut down immediately, she'd move to a distant island and become a hermit, forever removing herself from public affairs. Within two hours, every caged monkey was free and roaming Cutlass.
Ironically, in their place the pirates left large bunches of bananas.
From the captain's tale, Guybrush had gathered there were a lot of monkey corpses still lying around. Now, standing in the marshy land around the Voodoo Lady's hut, all he had to think of was a way to get to the island. This wasn't a problem either, as Guybrush could clearly remember seeing a rowboat tied to the pier where the captain had docked.
So Guybrush wasn't feeling too bad as he stood in front of the Voodoo Lady's hut. Now he gave the vending machine a closer look, and saw that it was a Voodoo Vending Machine, built to dispense all sorts of voodoo goodies. Guybrush saw bats wings and monkey droppings on the list. It was all moot though, as a large 'OUT OF ORDER' sign was draped over the top of the machine. Not really expecting anything, Guybrush pressed the coin return button.
A large gold coin spilled out the coin return shute and disappeared into the swamp with a 'glop'.
Guybrush shrugged his shoulders, and started the journey back to town.

About an hour later Guybrush was back in town, standing on the pier in front of a small rowboat.
It had seemed simple, but then nothing was simple for Guybrush. He'd found the rowboat all right - it was at the pier where the ship captain had docked, and was strung up above the sea by a complicated pulley system. The pulleys, Guybrush soon found, were completely rusted, and refused to budge.
He needed some lubricant. Guybrush thought about this a bit, then went to find Herman. When he got there, Guybrush saw an oil can in front of Herman's machine. Herman was absorbed in his work, and didn't notice a silent, creeping Guybrush steal up behind and take the oil can.
The oil can, nearly full, freed up the pulley system. With a little effort, Guybrush was able to lower the rowboat into the sea.
Phew. After that effort, he was half-expecting a search for a pair of oars, but there were two lying in the bottom of the boat. Guybrush climbed down, picked up the oars, and pulled the boat out to sea.
The sea was strangely calm. Barely any waves at all, no wind, and no perceptible current. It was almost spooky, except it made Guybrush's task a lot easier. He could see the offshore island in front of him, not far off, now partly overgrown with trees and vegetation.
Getting there took about twenty minutes of rowing. Coming to the island, Guybrush found a small jetty, just large enough for a couple of boats. He anchored the boat and climbed out. A set of wooden steps led up through a thin patch of jungle, then came out at a metal gate.
At the metal gate, Guybrush had to stop.
There was a lot of stuff to take in. On his left, hanging from a tree branch, was the sign.

Near the sign was a metal box, attached to the gate. The box held a coin slot.
Guybrush looked through the gate. A straight concrete path stretched out in front of him. On either side were the cages. Small, grim and bare. Some had small dead branches. Others had bunches of bananas swinging from the wire ceiling. These were really starting to stink.
Above all, he could see the skeletons. Two small, tiny skeletons hanging in the air. Many more huddled broken on the ground. And in one cage, sitting there on its own, was a shiny intact monkey skull. Guybrush knew, as soon as he saw it, that this was his goal.
But how was he to get it? The monkey skull was inside one of the cages, and almost ten feet from the concrete path. There was a feeding slot near the base of the cage, large enough for the skull to pass through, but too small for Guybrush to reach in and take it.
This was assuming he could even get inside the enclosure. No matter how hard he rattled the gate, it stayed closed. And after paying for the ride out here, Guybrush was again penniless.
For a while Guybrush stood there, not willing to admit defeat. But finally he turned and started trudging down those wooden steps. It was time to rustle up some money.

About half an hour later...
Guybrush was deep in the interior of Cutlass Island, on his way to the Voodoo Lady, when he had a thought.
He stopped and took out the map the Voodoo Lady had given him. He'd been intending to return to the Voodoo Lady's hut so he could, well, break into the vending machine and steal some change.
Now he looked at the map. The Survivalists' hut the Voodoo Lady had mentioned wasn't far from here. A detour wouldn't be much work, and Guybrush was curious. How come these people hadn't fallen prey to LeChuck?
So he took a sharp veering right, into the mountains. The jungle and swamp were soon left behind, as he came into conifer territory. He walked over dead pine needles and tripped over pinecones.
Then, he came to the hut.
It was tucked away near a high rockface, in a slight clearing. From his first glimpse, Guybrush could see it was well built. Thick pine trunks were lashed together to form the walls, with the roof a shallow inverted 'V' above.
But there was no light, and no smoke from the chimney.
Guybrush came forward, noting various details. The front of the hut had no windows, just a thick barred door and a bare porch. On one side of the hut, which Guybrush was approaching, a large store of firewood was stacked up. Very large. Enough to last months. At the rear of the hut was a squat watertank. Also very large.
He heard no noise as he approached, even though both windows on this side of the hut were open. Coming near, Guybrush saw a pole near one window, and he got an idea.
It was a long pole. He didn't have anything else to get the monkey skull with. Why not take it?
Guybrush was standing at the side of the house now. He could see no motion in those perfectly dark windows. Maybe the Voodoo Lady had been wrong.
Guybrush reached for the pole.
A light inside the hut flicked on. A shotgun was poked out of the window at Guybrush's head, and Guybrush found himself staring down twin metal barrels. He lifted his head a little and saw, holding the shotgun, a short middle-aged man.
"Ulp!" said Guybrush.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" yelled the man. "Leave that pole alone!"
The gun barrel pointed at his head froze Guybrush up. "Ummm... I..." he stammered.
As he did so, the angry look vanished from the man's face, replaced by an almost ecstatic joy. "Hey..." he said, as if just realising something. "You're a looter! We've got a looter!" He turned his head to shout to someone else in the room, "See, I was right, Midge! A looter! There must be looters everywhere! Cutlass Island is overrun with looters!" He sounded like he'd just won the lottery.
The man looked back at Guybrush, and now his face was full of swaggering confidence. "So, looter, come to ransack our carefully prepared post-apocalypse shelter?"
"I'm not a looter-"
The man cut him off with a laugh. "Ha! That's what they all say. You just want to borrow our food stocks and have a lend of some gasoline and take turns with the generator, right? Well I didn't come down in the last shower, pal. You're a looter!"
Guybrush said, "But I'm not-"
"Save it, mate. I know your type. Wouldn't listen to me six months ago, would you? Laughed and went about your business, didn't you? Ha! The boot's on the other foot now, isn't it? Sucked in!"
"I don't even live on Cutlass Island," said Guybrush. "I came here-"
The man's grin grew wider. "So you're a foreign looter, are you! I knew it! Have the foresight to put away a bit of gas and food and next thing the whole Caribbean's breaking down your door! There must be scores of ships converging on Cutlass Island, ready to loot! Hear that, Midge?" he yelled to the unseen Midge. "Scores of 'em! And they're all crawling back here!" The man cackled with glee. Proven right at last!
Guybrush took a deep breath.
"I'M NOT A LOOTER!" he yelled.
There was a pause. "...are you sure?" asked the man in a small voice.
"YES!"
The man looked at him doubtfully. "Actually, you don't look much like a looter. Shouldn't you have a flaming torch in one hand, or a rusty crowbar or something?"
"I'M NOT A LOOTER!" yelled Guybrush again.
"Okay, okay, no need to take that tone of voice," said the man. He pulled the shotgun down from the window. He looked at Guybrush again. "So, you're not a looter?"
"NO!"
"Are there any looters about?" asked the man hopefully.
"I haven't seen any," said Guybrush.
"Rats," said the man, looking down.
He turned to the unseen occupant of the room - Midge, Guybrush guessed. "Sorry, Midge," said the man. "False alarm."
Midge spoke up. The voice was low, and Guybrush couldn't hear the words, but he didn't need to. There was something about the tone - patient, long-suffering and quietly powerful - which got the message across very well.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" said the man. "He comes barging in, stealing wooden poles..."
Murmur, murmur, murmur, said Midge.
"Yes, there are looters around," said the man.
More murmuring from Midge.
"I don't know, somewhere..." said the man vaguely. He was starting to cringe. This was obviously an old argument.
"Yes, I am sure... " said the man.
Guybrush realised the man was no longer looking at him. If he was quiet, he could steal the pole.
"What do you mean I've been wrong before?"
Guybrush knelt down and reached forward.
"Don't start on that."
His fingers touched the pole.
"You're not still going on about that, are you?"
They grasped it firmly.
"That was ten years ago!"
Guybrush concentrated.
"You still can't get the stains out?"
Slowly, carefully, Guybrush lifted the pole away from the wall.
"No, we can't make a trip to the drycleaners. It's not safe! ... No, it isn't! ... Look, it bloody well isn't!"
The man turned and glared at Guybrush, who hastily hid the pole behind his back. "What are you still doing here?" he yelled. No more good humour from him.
"Er..."
"Yes, you! Get out!"
Guybrush nodded, and backed away. The man watched him, holding the shotgun meaningfully, until Guybrush was about fifty feet away, and lost in the darkness. Guybrush sighed with relief, turned around, and started the walk to the Voodoo Lady's.
Well, at least that answered the question about the Survivalists.

Forty minutes later, Guybrush was back outside the Monkey Enclosure.
He hadn't needed to break into the vending machine at all. When he tried the coin return button, it dispensed another gold coin. This happened the third time he used the button. Then, frustratingly, it packed up.
Still, two gold coins would do, even if he meant he entered the Monkey Enclosure as a kid. Guybrush paid the two coins into the coin slot.
The rusty latches on the gate flipped open. Guybrush picked up the pole and pushed his way into the Enclosure.
The smell was worse in here. Guybrush didn't want to waste any time, so he went straight for the cage with the monkey skull. It took no time at all for him to knock the skull back with the pole, then bring it through the tiny latched opening.
The skull was heavy in Guybrush's hands. Even as he picked it up, tiny scraps of shrivelled brain matter dropped to the ground. Guybrush wrinkled his nose.
Well, disgusting or not, he had the first ingredient. Now to go after the second...

When Guybrush came to the Bazaar of the Bizarre, he found Wally still standing there on the street, still staring at the closed door. Wally's door-breaking technique was obviously not going well.
Guybrush came up in front of Wally and reached for the door. Wally protested, "Hang on, I'm working on that door-"
With a loud click, Guybrush unlocked the door.
"Or we could do it your way," said Wally smoothly. Guybrush pushed the door open, and Wally followed him inside.
It was dark in here. At first, Guybrush felt rather than saw his surroundings. He was standing on a long roll of thick carpet, and the air around them seemed very cramped. Then Wally moved inside, letting more light in, and gradually they began to make out details.
The walls were lined with shelves, and every shelf was piled up to the rafters with junk. Pure junk. Mounds of it. When there wasn't room on the shelves, stuff was simply dumped on the floor, in huge compost piles. The only clear space in the whole room was an off-green roll of carpet, which led to a small door.
Wally scampered across the carpet, and rattled the doorknob. "Locked," he said, disappointed.
"What are you trying to do?" asked Guybrush.
"This store is split up into three sections," said Wally. "Only the first two are accessible by the public, and this must be the first one. The maps will be in the last room - if they're here at all."
And the jar of Talbad, thought Guybrush. For no particular reason, he was worried. Sure, LeChuck seemed to have gotten rid of every single person on the island, but what if the proprietors of the Bazaar were still here? Waiting for them? Even with a key, this felt too much like breaking in. Plus, there was Wally's talk of booby traps to consider...
He joined Wally by the closed door. No luck - the key didn't fit the lock. Guybrush sighed, then kicked the door. It rattled, but the lock held.
Wally stepped forward. "I'll take care of this," he said confidently. He stood in front of the door, and stared.
Guybrush groaned, and turned away.
Something caught his eye.
Guybrush slowly looked around. Yes, there it was, on the edge of the largest pile of junk. A cannon.
The idea arrived almost simultaneously in Guybrush's mind. A cannon. Was there a cannonball? He felt around in the barrel, but there was nothing in there. A quick search of the pile of junk, however, soon turned up a small battered cannonball.
A cannonball. Was there gunpowder? Guybrush searched the shelves until he found a box of low-grade gunpowder. Wally, oblivious to all this, was still staring determinedly at the door.
Now Guybrush arranged things. He dragged the cannon onto the carpet and lined it up with the door. In went the gunpowder, and cannonball. Using a small length of string, Guybrush fashioned a fuse. He still had matches from Booty Island, so without further ado Guybrush lit the fuse.
He'd altogether forgotten about Wally. Hearing the faint hiss of the fuse (or possibly seeing a slight glimmer of yellow on the door) Wally turned around. He said, "Hey, did you-"
The cannon exploded.

"Okay, okay. I said I'm sorry. Now can we please just drop the subject?"
Wally coughed. "You're just lucky I move fast, Mister Brush."
Gradually the smoke cleared. The door was a splintered wreck, and standing beside it was a very dusty Wally. Some of his hair was singed, and his face looked very red.
Hesitantly, Guybrush knocked the last of the broken door panels away. It was definitely breaking and entering now. They climbed through the gap and into the second room.
This room was clearer, with shelves stocked adequately instead of overflowing, and the floor kept relatively clean. Unlike the last room, the stock seemed to be at least nominally useful, but unfortunately it was all Voodoo material. Guybrush knew Voodoo magic to be immensely powerful. He also knew, after some very horrific Voodoo experiences over the past few years, that he didn't want to have anything to do with it. Even the tiny Voodoo dolls that looked somewhat like LeChuck didn't interest him.
There didn't seem to be any Talbad in here, either.
"So, is this it?" asked Guybrush.
"No, we have to go through one more door," said Wally.
"Let me guess: it's locked too."
Wally was already examining the door on the far side. "It is. How did you know?"
"Lucky guess," said Guybrush resignedly. He came forward and bent down by the door. "Hey, Wally! You missed something. The key's still in the lock."
Wally rushed forward excitedly. "It is?"
"Yeah," agreed Guybrush. "On the other side."
Wally looked disgusted, and turned away. Guybrush, however, was thinking. With something thin and long, he could poke that key out of there.
Guybrush stood up and looked over the shelves. Before too long he came to a small cardboard box, full of voodoo pins ("Extra long for extra pain!" announced the writing on the side). He took one, and returned to the door.
Now... he couldn't just poke the key out, as then it would fall to the floor on the far side of the door and be lost forever. If he could get something to catch it...
Guybrush stood up again. On a shelf to his right, he saw what he wanted - a stack of paper. Guybrush picked up a sheet. He loved clean white paper. This stuff looked like it had gone mouldy.
He slid the piece of paper three-quarters of the way under the door. With a tiny jiggle, the pin dislodged the key. It fell onto the paper. Guybrush dragged the paper, and there was the key. Textbook really.
"Got it!" he said to Wally. Wally came rushing back. He seemed to be fully over his cannoning near miss, and the flush in his cheeks was one of excitement.
Guybrush stood up, and unlocked the door.

The third and final room in the Bazaar of the Bizarre was a light, airy storeroom.
There wasn't much here. A few notices tacked to the walls, a rickety spice rack hanging from a nail, two skylights in the ceiling letting thin beams of moonlight in, and a flat wooden table right in the middle of the room.
On the table was a coffin. It was placed so that most of the moonlight from the skylights fell on it, as if a spotlight was trained on the spot.
Guybrush stayed by the door. He wanted to examine that table closer... one half seemed to disappear completely into darkness, and the table itself was so thin as to be little more than an elongated bench.
But Wally, as he always did, rushed ahead. "It's here!" he gushed. "I've found it!" Wally came to the table and flung the coffin lid off. It clattered noisily on the wooden floor. He started rummaging around inside, but his short body and stumpy arms weren't up to the task, so he simply climbed up and fell into the coffin.
There was a tiny pause. "Wally?" said Guybrush.
Wally's head reappeared. One hand was held aloft triumphantly, and in it Guybrush could see a set of fiercely clenched maps.
"Sorry, Mr. Brush," said the grinning Wally, "but this is where we part ways. I'm not letting anybody in on my moment of glory. Now get out of my way, so I can-"
His speech was cut short as the coffin was simply hurled up into the air. It crashed straight through the roof without stopping, leaving a vague dark hole. Guybrush heard a thin scream, very quickly growing faint, and at the end a tiny 'splash'.
Guybrush stepped forward. Now that the hole in the roof was letting in more moonlight, he could see the dim end of the table. There was a complicated array of tightly wound pulleys, ropes and spoked wheels. It dawned on Guybrush what this was. Not a table at all, but a cleverly disguised catapult!
"Whoops. Guess he forgot about those traps," said Guybrush, shaking his head.
He took another look around the room. That spice rack on the wall looked hopeful, and on closer inspection Guybrush saw a small jar of Talbad. What was Talbad? As far as he could see, it was a thick, mustard-coloured herb.
Well, this made it two ingredients. Time to go visit the Voodoo Lady.

About half an hour later, he was back inside the Voodoo Lady's makeshift hut.
The Voodoo Lady looked sternly at him as he entered. "Have you found any of the ingredients?" she said.
"I have this monkey skull," said Guybrush. He gave the heavy, dirt-encrusted thing to the Voodoo Lady, who looked satisfied.
"Good work," she said. "Do you have the final ingredient?"
"I've also got this jar of Talbad," said Guybrush, handing over the jar.
The Voodoo Lady set both ingredients down on the floor. "Perfect." She drew herself up impressively. "Now, I can-"
She stopped.
"Oh dear," she said.
"What?" said Guybrush.
"I forgot my voodoo stirring spoon," said the Voodoo Lady.
Guybrush sighed. "That would be typical."
"Hey, I told you I forgot to bring everything. Without some kind of spoon, I just can't create the spell."
"All right, I get the message," said Guybrush. "One spoon coming up."

He was getting mighty sick of this half-hour, trek-through-muddy-bogs-and-steep-rises walk from the Voodoo Lady's hut to the main town, but at least it gave him time to think. Where to get a spoon from? He didn't remember seeing one at the Bazaar.
Then he remembered Herman's mad witterings, and his promise to give him a spoon if - Guybrush searched his memory - if he could find some paper.
Guybrush quite specifically remembered there being paper at the Bazaar. So he went there first, and found a large stack in the second room. Carrying it in both hands, he went to see Herman.
Herman was still standing by his machine, which was still pumping the 'LECHUCK IS GOVERNOR' flyers into the air - there was going to be a large cleanup bill when all this was over.
He looked pleased to see Guybrush. "Paper!" he exclaimed. "Just in time."
Guybrush dropped the paper down next to the machine.
True to his word, Herman reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a spoon. "Here you go, sir, one barely-dented wooden spoon."
Guybrush took it.
Herman was already forgetting him. "Now I can get on with..." The sentence trailed off into random giggling.
Guybrush didn't hear any of this - he was already on his way back.

What was this - the sixth or seventh time he'd been trudging through this swamp? Standing on the porch of the Voodoo Lady's hut, Guybrush was muddy up to the knees, sweat running down his back, flies and gnats buzzing around his head.
Hopefully this would be the last time. If the Voodoo Lady wanted any more errands run... Guybrush ground his teeth thinking about it.
He entered.
The Voodoo Lady spoke up almost immediately. "Have you found a spoon?"
"Here it is, check it out."
The Voodoo Lady took the spoon and examined it closely. "Excellent." She dropped the spoon beside the ingredients. "At last, I can cast the spell of Synchromesh! I've been waiting to do this for ages. Stand back, Guybrush, and give me room!"
Guybrush didn't need to be told twice. He backed up against the wall, as far from the Voodoo Lady as possible.
She muttered some incomprehensible words, and the whole room went pitch black. A millisecond later, it flashed brilliantly with light. Then, the air around them began to throb and pulse with darkness and light - two separate entities - and dimly glimpsed at the centre of it all was the silhouette of the Voodoo Lady, her body jerking about spasmodically.
"Aargh!" screamed the Voodoo Lady. "Ack! Yeeooow! Erk! Oooh!" The screams didn't sound like screams of pain, but like... the words of the spell.
The screaming stopped. And slowly, as if someone was gradually turning up the current, the normal lighting returned. Guybrush took a couple of steps forward. The Voodoo Lady sat in her chair, perfectly composed. The ingredients, and the wooden spoon, were all gone.
"Did it work?" asked Guybrush.
"It worked. Even now I sense the gaping hole where the force field once was."
"All right!" said Guybrush. He turned to leave.
"Wait!"
Guybrush turned back. "You should not rush in there blindly," said the Voodoo Lady. "I sense great danger."
"I'm not worried."
"LeChuck has turned the whole population of this island into ghosts."
"Who cares about ghosts?" asked Guybrush. "I've got root beer." He tapped his pocket. Inside was a half-full bottle of root beer, by now uncomfortably warm, but still potent.
"Don't put too much faith in your magical fluid," said the Voodoo Lady. "You may not have enough... for the whole population. Here - take this root beer recipe."
She was holding a small scrap of paper out to Guybrush, who took it.
"Makes large quantities," said the Voodoo Lady. "And take this too."
She gave him a small unlabelled bottle.
"Corn syrup," she explained. "You'll have to find the other ingredients yourself."
"Gee, thanks."
"Now, go!" urged the Voodoo Lady. "The fates of the Caribbean rest on your shoulders!"
Guybrush bucked up. "Yeah, I guess they do! Look out LeChuck!"

Part 3