King's Quest III
To Heir Is Human

The 25-minute window does not start when the game does. It starts when Manannan announces his journey, which is usually somewhere around the five-to-seven minute mark. Everything before that announcement is on his time and costs you nothing, so bank the kitchen items first. Stay out of his office while he's home — catching him in there earns you another chore and pushes his departure back.

1. Do the assigned chore at once.
2. Dining room: take the tin cup from the table. +1
3. Kitchen: the blue bowl from the shelves by the butter churn, the spoon and knife hanging by the fireplace, and the mutton, bread and fruit from the window table. +6
4. Wait for him to announce the journey. Don’t rush this — nothing below can be done safely until he’s out.

He returns 25 game minutes after he leaves, so if he goes at 6:00 you need the office restored and your arms empty by about 31:00. Everything from here on burns the window.

1. Catch the black cat wherever it’s wandering — get cat, repeatedly, it takes several tries — then get hair. +1
2. Manannan’s bedroom, second floor: open the drawer under the vanity for the hand mirror. +1
3. Same room: look on top of wardrobe for the brass key. +3
4. Open the wardrobe, look behind clothes for the magic map, then close it again. +7
5. Open the drawer in the right-hand table for the rose petal essence. +1
6. Observatory, third floor: get the fly from the floor at the right. +1
7. Office, first floor: unlock the lower-left cabinet with the brass key. Gwydion takes the wand, closes and relocks it automatically. +4
8. At the bookshelves: move book, then pull lever. The trapdoor opens. +5
9. Down the stairs to the laboratory. Watch for the cat here — see Deaths.
10. Lab: examine the shelves and take the saffron. +1
11. While you’re at the shelves, clear them out. Take the mandrake root powder, toad spittle, nightshade juice, toadstool powder and fish bone powder. You need all five later and this saves a trip down. +5
12. Look at the table, then look at the book. Cast Flying Like an Eagle or a Fly, page IV. +10
13. Back upstairs. pull lever, move book, unlock and relock the cabinet to replace the wand. Office restored.
14. Keep everything on you and head straight down the mountain. Do not hide anything yet — the essence and the fly are both Manannan’s, and you need both in Llewdor. Hiding happens at the end of the window, in Phase 3.

Go the moment the house is cleared. There is enough time in one absence to do all of this and the cat cookie afterwards, so treat the clock as a reason to move rather than a reason to stop.

Take the essence and the fly with you. They’re Manannan’s, so they carry the asterisk, but you cannot do the tavern or the oak tree without them. Hiding your inventory is the last thing you do before he walks back in — not something you do on the way out. While he’s away, carrying his property down the mountain is perfectly safe.

1. Chicken yard: open the gate, get chicken until it works, then get feather. Open the gate to leave. +1
2. Walk down the mountain path — the first descent must be on foot, the map only fills in as you go. Save every few steps. To pass each concealing boulder, walk in behind its centre, then turn and walk out the far side.
3. Loiter at the foot of the mountain for the eagle to drop a feather. If it doesn’t appear, go east and alternate screens until it does. +2
4. Tavern (town, south): leave and re-enter until the bandits are present. Dip the fly wings in the essence and fly to their table to overhear the security details. Stay a fly — you’re going straight to the tree. +3
5. Still a fly: exit south, go west twice to the oak tree, and fly into the hole at its base. Inside is the rope — seeing it is what scores here. You cannot pull it in this form. +5
6. Fly back out, then fly begone myself return.
7. get acorns until you find dried ones. You may need to leave the screen and come back. +1
8. As a human, stand just south of the tree and reach in hole. Gwydion pulls the rope automatically — there is no separate pull rope command, despite every point table listing “pull rope” as the scoring action. +3
9. Save, then climb the ladder that drops. +2
10. Save. Enter the treehouse — leave and return until the bandit is asleep. Take the purse from the table and go. If your possessions were stolen earlier, open the bin and get all first. +4

1. East two, south one: get mistletoe from the tree at left centre. +1
2. Three Bears’ cottage (west one): leave and return until the bears are out and three bowls are on the table. Take the smallest porridge. +2
3. Upstairs: open the dresser drawer at top right, take the thimble. +1
4. Outside: look at flowers, then get dew in the thimble. +1
5. Medusa. Go west to the desert edge but don’t cross. Type show mirror to medusa and do not press Enter. Save. Cross west, turn to face away, stand still. When she closes in, hit Enter. F3 recalls the command if she’s still too far. +5
6. North: get the small green cactus at the base of the rock, top left. +1
7. North twice more: get the snake skin near the rock. +1
8. Map-teleport to town. General store: pet the dog for a tuft of fur. +1
9. Look at the shelves and buy the leather pouch, salt, fish oil and lard. +4
10. North one: get mud with the spoon from the brown stream bank. +1
11. East: walk into the surf where the white wave lines are and get water in the cup. +1
12. Oracle’s cave: at the cave screen, dip the eagle feather in the essence and fly at the web. As an eagle you eat the spider; as a fly the spider eats you. +4
13. Enter the cave. You learn about Rosella and receive the amber stone. +3

The whole game turns here. If you still have time on the clock when you get back up the mountain, do this now rather than waiting out another absence: brew the cookie, poison the porridge, put the office back, hide everything, and be standing there empty-handed when he walks in hungry.

1. Climb the mountain and go straight in. Open the office, move the book, pull the lever, go down. If the window has already closed, wait out his return, do whatever chore he assigns, and start this list at his next departure.
2. Only if you skipped them in Phase 1: take the mandrake root powder, toad spittle, nightshade juice, toadstool powder and fish bone powder. scored in Phase 1
3. Cast Transforming Another Into a Cat, page XXV. +10
4. put cookie in porridge. The item is renamed poisoned porridge and — critically — loses its forbidden asterisk, so you can hold it in front of him. Save.
5. Upstairs: pull lever, move book, unlock the cabinet to replace the wand. Office restored.
6. Your bedroom: put all under bed, then take back only the poisoned porridge. This is the moment everything gets hidden — do it now, not earlier. +4
7. Wait. When he returns and says he’s ready to eat, go to the dining room and give porridge to manannan. +12
8. Retrieve everything from under the bed. The timer is off for good.

Five spells left, fifty points, nobody watching. Two of them — Language of Creatures and Teleportation — aren't needed to finish the game at all, but they're twenty points and you can't have 210 without them. Save between each one.

1. Cast Understanding the Language of Creatures, page II. +10
2. Cast Teleportation at Random, page VII. +10
3. Cast Causing a Deep Sleep, page XIV. +10
4. Cast Brewing a Storm, page LXXXIV — immediately after the sleep spell, while the brazier is still lit. +10
5. Cast Becoming Invisible, page CLXIX. +10
6. Map-teleport to town. In the tavern, talk to the sailor in the hat and give gold to captain. +3
7. Leave, go east twice, and walk up the gangplank. +2

Optional, scores nothing: with the dough in your ears you can eavesdrop on the chickens, the desert lizards, two pairs of birds, and a pair of squirrels east of the desert.

Fourteen minutes at sea, one captain's chest, and one shark. The essence is out of dips by now — do not fly ashore.

1. In the hold, go east. Leave and return until mice are present, then wait until they discuss the treasure. This is where you learn the digging instructions — you can’t skip it.
2. Get the small box, return west, and drop it just west of the large crate. Jump on the small box, then the large one, then jump again to catch the ladder. +2
3. Up one deck, arrow-key off the ladder. Leave east and return until the captain’s cabin is empty. Save.
4. Open the chest at the foot of his bed and get all. Caught once, retry; caught twice, overboard. +3
5. Go east and take the shovel from under the boat. +1
6. Return to the hold and wait for “Land ho.” Check the map to watch the ship’s progress.
7. Pour the sleep powder on the floor — the hold counts as the dank, dark place the spell demands — and slumber, henceforth!
8. Climb to the top deck, go east, and walk off into the water. Swim — do not fly. Hug the bottom edge of the screen, and when the shark closes in, duck south off-screen and come back; it resets to the top left and you can slip past. +5

Pure platforming — save constantly. The essence has one dip left, for the snowman. Everything else here is climbing, drops that only look survivable, and a dragon.

1. Go east, stand east of the palm tree, slow the game down, walk five steps east and dig. Adjust slightly and retry if nothing. +7
2. North, east, up the path and back west. Climb the boulder with the up arrow, cross right, drop to the far path.
3. Follow the path east to the stream, then climb the waterfall with the arrow keys. Save.
4. Type dip eagle feather in essence and hold. When the snowman appears, press Enter — he retreats from the eagle. Fly east. This is your last use of the essence. +4
5. South, then down to the ledge directly below and stop the instant you touch it. Enter the cave. Repeat the climb-and-enter twice more, saving each time, working toward the centre ledge and then the exit east.
6. East two, south one — the fall is unavoidable. Optionally go west and north to hear the gnome’s account of the dragon.
7. Back east, up both flights of stairs. Hug the wall and use the diagonal key.
8. In the Land of the Clouds, walk to the western edge without changing screens and rub ointment on body. Then go west.
9. stir storm brew with finger, then brew of storms, churn it up. The dragon dies. +7
10. untie rosella. Talk to her. +3
11. East, down the stairs, west and north. Follow the gnome to the castle. +4