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When King Bluebeard left his wives at the palace in his absence, he gave them every freedom but one: they must not enter the Forbidden Chamber. |
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| —Note, Trusty John and King Bluebeard | ||
Trusty John and King Bluebeard is the bonus gameplay content included in the Collector's Edition of The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide. In it, we play as Chancellor Cassius, who must venture into the Kingdom of Kokkino to rescue Princesses Theresa and Daphne from King Bluebeard.
This bonus game is based on the French folktale of Bluebeard and the German fairytale of Trusty John.
Prologue[]
There is no text prologue to this bonus game. Instead, there is a video of Cassius on the sea with this voice-over: "It is done. Once King Alexandros performs the blood ritual, Prasino will lose the Goddess' favor. The war will be over and Kokkino will rise again!"
Plot[]
WARNING: This section contains massive spoilers!
The bonus game opens with Chancellor Cassius landing his boat just outside of Kokkino, ready to return home after successfully infiltrating the Kingdom of Prasino and orchestrating their downfall. He is surprised to find Princess Naida standing there. He strives not to blow his cover.
Naida tells Cassius that her sisters Theresa and Daphne went exploring too close to Kokkino and now she can't find them. She asks him to help her find them, as she fears they've been taken by Kokkinoan soldiers. Cassius finds evidence of the sisters right away, in the form of a ransom note left by King Bluebeard, who has abducted them. Cassius returns this news to Naida, who asks him to help her rescue her sisters.
Cassius and Naida travel through a hidden passage (the same one used centuries later by the Fairytale Detective to access the sunken land of Prasino) to King Bluebeard's palace. Along the way, they find Princess Daphne trapped in a fishing net. Cassius frees her, and the Princess tells him how Bluebeard captured them and left her there on the net. She says he took her sister Theresa somewhere and that she must be rescued.
Daphne makes haste to Bluebeard's secret pier, where the boat she and her sister came on is currently tied. Cassius and Naida follow her. Once at the pier, Naida and Daphne board the small boat. They promise not to leave without Theresa and Cassius, who heads off to the palace to find the missing Princess. Along the way, he finds more and more evidence that his once-beloved King has turned into a very different man, one that Cassius is no longer sure he wishes to remain loyal to. He wonders if he's made the wrong choice in contributing to Prasino's defeat.
The Chancellor finds Theresa inside the King's Grand Apartment, where she's been locked inside a tank and been left to drown. He frees her, and the girl manages to escape before Bluebeard returns. However, Cassius is not so lucky. Bluebeard shows up and punches him, knocking him semi-unconscious. As he drags his once trusted advisor into the Forbidden Chamber, Bluebeard calls him "Prasino scum" and tells him this is how he deals with traitors.
Left in the chamber, Cassius finds the skeletal remains of Bluebeard's four wives. The King killed them all for the sake of the portrait of the Sea Goddess also kept in this chamber. It seems that Bluebeard is obsessed with it, and has completely lost his mind. Cassius is lucky to make an escape out of the sealed chamber, and he rushes to the pier.
However, as the small boat traverses the stretch of sea between Kokkino and Prasino, the Sea Goddess rises from the depths. She has been called forth by Alexandros' blood ritual. As she has been bidden to do, the Goddess destroys Kokkino once and for all. But furious at her captivity, she also unleashes her fury on Prasino itself and the royal family.
The inhabitants of the small boat are cast into the raging waves. Now cursed with sea creature forms, the Princesses can easily survive this, but Cassius, still a mere mortal human, cannot. He drowns in the sea and his soul returns to Prasino, where it will remain, chained by his own sins, for centuries.
Parables[]
The Jealous King
Bluebeard's father, an ancient Kokkino King, was renowned as a just and honest ruler. He had only one secret, shared with not one other soul: his Forbidden Chamber. The chamber held a painting of the beautiful Sea Goddess that he worshiped and adored all his life. Before he died, he made his adviser swear an oath that his son should never enter the room; if he did, a curse would befall the entire kingdom. As soon as the throne was his, Bluebeard sent his father's adviser to Prasino as a spy, hoping to gain knowledge of the enemy kingdom's secret weapon. The adviser had barely left the palace, when Bluebeard entered the Forbidden Chamber. As his father had foretold, the beauty of the Sea Goddess in her portrait clouded his mind and his judgment. He married four times, taking the life of each young wife when she discovered the forbidden room. Bluebeard's kingdom slowly deteriorated, along with his sanity.
Connections[]
- This tale takes place in the Kingdom of Kokkino and the area just outside of it. It seems that the entire game of The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide actually takes place within the Kokkino palace.
- We play as Chancellor Cassius, who was first encountered as a ghost in the main game.
- We see the Sea Goddess' temple from the outside, as it looked before it sunk with the rest of Prasino.
- Princess Naida appears in this game. She asks Cassius to find her sisters, then helps to rescue them.
- Moreover, Princess Theresa and Princess Daphne also appear in this game, with Cassius rescuing them from Bluebeard.
- The Sea Goddess rises at the end of the game, destroying Kokkino, killing Cassius, and sinking the Kingdom of Prasino - leading to the eventual events of the main story.
Gallery[]
