Never a Mist Opportunity - King's Quest 2k15 [[ Graham ]]

[Red Ring of Death]

Okay so I had this idea one night while I was doing anything but sleeping and for those of you who don't know, King's Quest has been a game for a long time that recently got rebooted by Sierra. If you aren't familiar with it, at LEAST go look up the character design of Graham. Then again, if you don't know ANYTHING about this game series (old or new) then this might not make sense with character names being dropped here and there. Long story short, king Graham (and sometimes relatives depending on the game) go on adventures to rectify wrongs. In the new one, old man Graham recounts his tales to his grand-daughter Gwendolyn - and the stories match up with what's going on in her life (fears, competitions, etc) and in the new game, there's this choice-based system. I will not be utilising that system here, opting instead for the framing device of the storytelling as the narrator while going back to the older point-and-click style of the other games.

This contains a few spoilers for Chapters 1 and 2 of King's Quest 2015 but again, if you haven't played or seen it yet, I urge you to do that anyway - I love it to bits; the characters are great, the voice acting's great, the style is great, it has Christopher Lloyd in it - C'MON WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR.

*ahem* Anyway. Oh, and two last things. 1) The parts entirely italicized are "present day" between old King Graham, Gwendolyn and/or any other characters. The parts that aren't in italics are the story he's telling. 2) My friend was also kind enough to lend me his Fanfiction account so I could upload it with a couple of tweaks to appear less fetish-y. He says anyone's welcome to R&R but I ask that you keep the reviews to a fetishistic minimum(on that website should you so incline) - not because of what we like, of course, but because I'm generally a private person and I'd rather the whole world not know this sort of thing nor do I want my friend to deal with any negative repercussions - if there are any. He's paranoid, what can I say. (and I mean that in the nicest of ways, you guys. You're all really nice here when not in the Snake Pit LOL)

fanfic.com story for those interested - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11749948/1/Never-a-Mist-Opportunity

With that long forward done, let's begin!

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“Are you sure you feel up to this?” The old man asked his granddaughter as the latter was wrapped in a blanket, huddled in a ball at the foot of his bed. She nodded enthusiastically though she stopped shortly and held her head, wincing slightly.

“Yes,” She affirmed though her face disagreed. Graham couldn’t help but chuckle under his breath and shake his head as he absently nursed his broken arm. “And, er… can we not tell gramma?” She asked shyly and Graham’s eyebrows rose.

“Oh? You mean you’re here without permission again?” He asked with a tone implying he knew all along that she wasn’t supposed to be here; he was fairly certain that she was put on bedrest though he knew how well that would turn out – as in, they’d be right where they were right at that instant. She didn’t reply but her blue eyes stared at him with earnest. This was followed by a faint throat-clearing as if to say ‘yeah okay get on with it.’ He stroked his beard in contemplation. “Very well,” He said, sitting up slightly with his pillow against the back board of his bed. “How about I tell you about a time where I myself was feeling very unwell?” He asked rhetorically. At first, Gwendolyn was confused.

“Why would you do that? That sounds kiiiinda boring, grampa,” She admitted dryly.

“And not hear about unicorns, pixies and a deathly plague that swept the land?” He replied with a small shrug. “Have it your way; I’ll tell you about the time I went to the dentist instead—“

“Actually now that you mention it,” Gwendolyn cut in hurriedly. “You… had me at the part with the plague… Was it actually the plague?” She added, tilting his head, her thick brown hair sliding off one of her shoulders as she did so. Graham chuckled again and gave another shrug, that familiar storytelling twinkle appearing in his own blue eyes – it was welcoming and friendly and Gwendolyn felt better and safer here than in her own bed.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” He said patiently and paused to see if she had any other qualms. When she didn’t and just gazed at him expectantly, he breathed and began to set the scene, weaving his words carefully but with the detail she liked.

_____________________________________

In fact, the story started with Graham exactly where he was now – in bed. It was still unfamiliar, however; the room didn’t smell like home where his mom’s cooking floated around in the air. It was rather bare (as most of ex-King Edward’s belongings left with him when he stepped down) and carried a lingering scent of musty fabric that seeped up from the old floorboards and out of the cobbled walls.

Graham couldn’t smell it at the moment anyway as the young king tossed and turned in his bed, snoring much louder than usual as he fitfully kicked the sheets off his sweating frame. This was his fourth attempt to sleep this night alone, the second or third night since the rescue – stress had a tendency to cling to him and it was still strange being back in his own bed after the previous weeks of being subterranean, under the beck and call of the goblins in their dank, wet caves. One would think the change of scenery would be good but Graham, smart as he may be, always seemed to be one step behind and even as he slept, he dreamed of failed scenarios and alternate dimensions where he couldn’t save everyone after all and he had let his kingdom down.

“But you DID save the kingdom,” Gwendolyn interrupted. “Why—“

“Patience,” the old man softly reminded her.

As the sun slowly began to creep over the water-coloured hills, Graham woke with yet another start, dark hair clinging to his forehead as tears mingled with the chilled sweat that had gathered under his eyes and onto his flushed cheeks; the colour that usually painted his face was much darker, harsher, hotter. He gulped the knot in his throat and he closed his eyes from the sting of the warmth in his face, reaching out blindly for the sheet he kicked off so he could wipe the sweat and tears away. He shivered and rubbed his upper arms with his hands, finally realizing that he was probably sporting a fever and some sort of illness, no doubt caused by the unsanitary location he was in a few days ago. He glanced out of his window briefly, seeing the first signs of day through the curtains and he knew he wasn’t gonna be able to go back to sleep.

He painstakingly slid out of his bed and almost crumpled onto the wooden floor but managed to stay standing though he wasn’t sure if it was because his body hurt all over or because he was still VERY tired from the lack of good sleep the past few nights. Month. Recently. It took a second to sink in but he put a heel of his hand to his head as the blood rushed up and dizzied him.

After getting dressed very slowly and donning his favourite red cape and familiar blue cap, he tenderly rubbed the sleep from his darkened eyes and headed into the quiet hallway where even in his state, he knew something was wrong; he might’ve gotten up a little early but even then “a little early” usually meant “a little early for Graham and a little late to everyone else”. Where were the guards? Or the cleaning servants? Er… not that he expected them to be around but if he was thinking well enough, there usually were some at work here or there. All of them were just… gone. As if Graham was the only one in the castle.

He sniffed quietly, knuckling the septum of his nose absently as he decided to check up on the guards before going down to the dining hall – he wasn’t particularly hungry; rather, he felt quite sick to his stomach as the dizzy feeling refused to leave his head. As he walked, his mind was both racing and going nowhere simultaneously, like Whisper trying to wade through a bog. He was having trouble deciding what he should prioritize as took shaky steps, pressing forward though his body was very eager for him to collapse and try to go back to sleep under straightjacket sheets and an alien bedroom – only it WAS his bedroom. His footsteps echoed through the empty halls, repeating back to him an unsteady gait full of weighted deliberation and more than a few brief pauses as if he suddenly forgot where he was going.

He was almost there now and as he woke up more, his sinuses began to go from a dull throbbing to a painful itch right at the base of where bone turned into cartilage. It was an unfamiliar feeling at best and at worst, like right now, it was insanely uncomfortable. However, he muscled through it (though he continued to rub it subconsciously as if thinking it would alleviate the problem) and paused at the door of the guard’s quarters. After a yawn, he knocked loudly, his knuckles rapping the door with strength that didn’t seem apparent in the young man’s lithe frame.

“Hello?” He asked and immediately thought of never speaking again ever; his voice was cracked and raw and the one-word sentence made his throat ache as if he just swallowed a handful of nails. There was no response. Graham knocked again, a little harder but not saying anything this time. Still nothing. Starting to grow a little concerned, Graham took the doorknob in a pale hand and pushed the door open and a harsh odour hit him so hard that he actually staggered back and clapped a hand over his nose, coughing the smell out before the itch took command and a harsh sneeze ripped from his figure.

“Hh’ISSHuh!” He didn’t try to stop it; he COULDN’T stop it. However, he followed up with a “Sorry! Sorry, that’s… uh…” He faltered and recovered with a nervous laugh, trying to swallow the smell and ignore it though it felt akin to ignoring a troll who hadn’t had a bath in ever and was lingering in the corner of the room. He covered his nose with his cape and pushed the door open a little more to see what was going on.

Every single guard, each still clad in their shining suits of armour, was… all over the place. Some were still in bed, some were sprawled on the floor, and Graham could see lights where a few might’ve been in the lavatories. “Uhm…” He was taken aback for a moment but figured this had to have been some joke, right? Was it Wednesday already? He’d have to get that stupid Opposite Day addendum fixed.

As the young king made his way into the room to further inspect, Guard #1 turned his head and attempted to stand in Graham’s presence though that failed and the knight only made it to his knees before he stopped. “King Graham, sir… Distress…” He said (rather melodramatically) and Graham could hear a strain in his voice. Graham, cape still over his nose, crouched in front of the knight and sniffed thickly.

“Is this some addendum I don’t know about?” Graham asked, his voice muffled against the material. He tried not to sound too cynical though that was more difficult than usual given that he didn’t feel well AND the guards were known for such pranks.

“N-no sir,” The knight replied and Graham quirked a thick eyebrow. “So much pain,” He grunted, his elbows quivering as they struggled to support his torso. “It was like a wave,” He explained vaguely as Graham took the time to look around at the other knights, all of which seemed to be in perpetual states of starting to move any part of their bodies, then faltering and repeating the motions only to fail again. The sight of it made Graham shiver and he knew Guard #1 was being truthful. Unless the servants were all on strike, that’s most likely where they were, too; holed up in their quarters, unable to move very far without succumbing to body-wracking pain. Before he moved to Daventry, Graham would’ve thought this a very strange phenomenon and he wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that he was so accepting of it at this point. Graham coughed into his cape; it was a scraping sound like a shovel in a fireplace but he pressed on.

“Okay, uhm… stay right there,” He instructed to the guard, pointing down. The knight (dutifully) flopped over onto his side with a clang and nodded weakly. “I’ll, uh… I can fix this,” He said, trying to assure the guard as much as he was trying to assure himself; true, after the last adventure he felt more confident in his leadership abilities but he was run-down, exhausted and running a fever. He wanted to go home – HOME home, back with his mom where she could make him pancakes and he could just curl up under his favourite blanket.

He couldn’t afford that luxury and wishing wouldn’t get him anywhere, though. He straightened up shakily and cast one last, quick glance at his debilitated knights before turning and leaving the room though the smell followed him; the air in the castle seemed to carry the same stench. Granted, it wasn’t in such a concentrated manner but still there nonetheless. He lowered the folds of his cape and tried to breathe deeply, knowing that he should probably get used to it until he could at least get to the bottom of it but to his… ehh, either his delight or annoyance, his nasal cavity was sufficiently blocked and he coughed a few more times. He wasn’t sure which was worse, how awful he felt or the fact that everyone else in the castle was out of action because of some mystery wave of pain.

“Wow. EVERYONE in the castle was down and out?” Gwendolyn asked, having since scooted slightly closer to her grandfather as he told the story.

“Yep. You know the guards around here aren’t ones for lying around doing nothing,” Graham replied.

“So how come you could move?” She inquired curiously.

“We’ll get there,” He assuaged.

Unlike the past couple days, the clouds were thick overhead with rain as if threatening to pour over any moment and a fog hung in the air, still, quiet, nipping against Graham’s face. He gritted his teeth and hugged his arms closer, nose twitching faintly as he crossed the drawbridge – weird that it was lowered given the circumstances but he didn’t feel as though he had the strength to lower it himself anyway so he wasn’t asking any questions. The moat monster slowly churned the waters below his feet, a steady rumble like rolling thunder in the distance as it rhythmically circled the castle. Graham was curious; the knights and servants were paralysed with pain but the moat monster was okay? He logged this in his mind and continued forward, shivering slightly as he cleared his throat, the sound of metal against bricks still present though he felt slightly less like an anvil was on his back and a little more like a cinderblock – still stiff and sluggish but with a new determination.

Arriving at the first gap where a bridge troll was needed, but before he blew Pillare’s ornate golden horn, he noticed a faint glimmer in the underbrush, partially obscured by a little bit of wet earth. Frowning slightly, he approached the glimmer and knelt, plucking a gold coin from the dirt. “How does all my money end up outside?” He asked aloud but remembered that he just up and left, not visiting the treasury for any spending money should he need it (and if this was anything like his previous excursions, he would indeed need at least two “shiny gold coins”). He straightened up again, placing the coin in one of his cape’s many pockets. He approached the curved horn used to summon the “fanciest” bridge troll and gathered the deepest breath he could… which seemed like an immense chore as the humid air choked his lungs and brushed hundreds of tiny feathers down his esophagus. He only just barely managed to blow the horn before faltering, dissolving into a small coughing fit as he slid his hands down the horn’s main tube and he slowly sank to his knees.

“Yeah, I know how that feels,” Gwendolyn chimed in sorely.

Unlike the last time, however, Pillare slowly approached the gap, arms crossed in a bored manner. “What is it ‘zis time, little King bridge goose—“ She stopped herself at the sight of the miserable Graham as his coughs eventually subsided, replaced with sniffling and shuddering. His dark-ringed blue eyes glanced up at the bridge troll, biting his lower lip in a slightly guilty manner.

“Sorry,” He breathed, standing up, using the horn as a crutch. He cleared his throat again and regained what little composure he had. “What do you mean “what is it this time”? I need a bridge,” He motioned at the space where she fitted perfectly. She glanced over at said space and huffed.

“I knew I should’ve let Waddles take ‘zis place…” She grumbled until it turned into inaudible French muttering under her breath and she did as she was requested, sitting down with an Earth-rumbling “thud” and setting her bridge in place. “Just don’t get me sick,” She warned, which led Graham to hastily clean the mouthpiece of her horn with the end of his cape haphazardly.

“Of course,” He agreed, rolling his eyes, taking his arms up in each other again, and carefully walking across her back, trying to be light in his step as to not cause her discomfort. This didn’t stop her from mumbling further in French, no doubt complaining about her lot in life. Once he was across, he rubbed his nose again and yawned once more. “Thanks, Pillare,” He said as sincerely as he could, turning and departing for town. However, he stopped and turned slightly. “H-hey…” He began uncertainly. “Does the air… smell weird to you?” He asked. Pillare stood from her job and frowned down at the man.

“No more filthzy ‘zan normal,” She replied with a half-shrug. “You could ask Olfie; he has a mind for ridiculous questions like that,” She added unhelpfully and Graham cast her a quick glare over his shoulder. She scoffed and waved it off. “You asked me, I answered,” She said. “Can I go now?” She huffed impatiently. Graham sighed and nodded, turning his head again to continue on the road to town.

[Rook]

I LOVE THIS EVEN IF I HAVE NEVER PLAYED KING QUEST By the way HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII RedRingOfDeath its been a while