Shadows of Darkness: Nuages (Part 1)

Honey, you got real ugly.

      

In the last session, I mapped out the boundaries of the world and put together a list of puzzles and mysteries. This session, I made multiple loops through this area, ultimately solving or at least advancing several of those puzzles while also identifying new ones. Since my movements were erratic, I thought I'd organize this entry thematically. In the comments, you can let me know what you like better: this approach or the more chronological narrative that I used last time.

  

This entry ended up being absurdly long, so I'm going to split it in two.

   

Small World

  

Despite his Boris Karloff-like intonation, Boris (the gatekeeper at Castle Borgov) is not undead. [Word's grammar check flagged "not undead" and suggested "dead" instead. I guess that has a certain logic.] He just ran away from his wife. Olga (the shopkeeper) dropped the "he was a good man" story once I told her that Boris was still in the area, essentially living next door. "Tell him he's a rotten no-goodnick!" she demanded.

       

This won't be the last time that a paladin acts as a marriage councilor. I remember a memorable quest from Icewind Dale II.

   

The next time I visited Boris, he complained that Olga was always nagging him. Olga retorted that he needed nagging, since he never did any work. He was always "carousing at the inn." Boris questioned what else he was supposed to do "in a shop with no customers." (This "conversation" is involving multiple trips back and forth between the spouses, you understand.) He resented Olga constantly giving him orders in an empty shop. Olga said, well, she wanted the shop to be neat and clean in case someone did come in. She resented that she had to do all the work in what was "HIS family's business, after all!"

      

Join the club, my friend.

    

Boris acknowledged that there's a lot of work to do in running a shop, but he doesn't see any purpose in keeping it open. Olga replied that her avocado-and-garlic sandwiches are selling like hotcakes. When I reminded Boris about his wife's cooking, he began to remember other fond things about her. He finally agreed to visit her. The next time I visited Olga, she said that Boris had been by and would return after work. I frankly thought I had been doing all of this to get Boris away from the castle gate, but he was already leaving the castle gate at night, so maybe I was just doing it for altruism. Paladin!

    

What Knockers

   

To get into Dr. Cranium's chambers, I needed the key to his door. Getting that had something to do with the antwerp maze in his foyer, but I needed to capture an antwerp first. The T.R.A.P. had indicated that antwerps can be baited with avocado, so I had been looking around for some avocado. It was Dmitri (the burgomeister) who reminded me that I already had some. The "trail rations" that Olga sells are avocado and garlic sandwiches. Those sound like the worst-tasting sandwiches I can imagine. I eat avocado grudgingly because it's hard to avoid it if you like sushi, but I don't like it.

   

I baited the trap with the sandwich (annoyingly, this used up all my sandwiches even though I'd bought like five of them), opened the door to release the antwerps, suffered their assault, and caught one of them. I then opened the door to the maze.

   

The maze brings up the special "puzzle" screen which is new to this game. We've seen it a couple of times already with the picture puzzle on Dr. Cranium's inner door and the bell puzzle on his outer one. In this case, it was a maze that I had to rotate to coax a bouncing antwerp first to a key and then to the maze's exit, all while avoiding holes. The antwerp naturally bounces up and down, but only so far, so if you want him to reach the top end of a current corridor, you have to rotate the puzzle twice so that top is now bottom, and he naturally falls to that point. If you want him to enter a corridor to his right, you have to rotate clockwise just as he's passing it, so that right is now down. I hope that makes sense. I found the puzzle frustrating at first, but eventually you figure out how to time the rotation and it's not so bad. 

     

It's like one of those handheld games with a steel ball, except with a bouncing thing instead.

    

With the key in hand, I just had to redo the picture puzzle on Dr. Cranium's laboratory door and then insert the key. This brought me to the inner lab.

  

Dr. Cranium is voiced by Jeff Bennett, who also does Igor. A classic "mad scientist," his current projects are reanimating the dead and brewing the perfect cup of tea. Cranium refuses to believe in anything magical, insisting that "magic is simply scientific phenomena that have not yet been properly investigated and catalogued." He loves pizza and classifies it as the fifth element, representing "the essence of well-roundedness and regaining strength." He goes on at length about pizza.

      

I don't like artichokes any more than avocados.

      

Cranium had created healing and anti-poison potions, but I had to "help him with the formulas" in an obvious copy protection exercise. He will provide new ones once per day. From conversation, it became clear that the primary thing I'm going to need from him is Rehydration Solution, for which he wants some "Grue Goo."

    

An experiment goes poorly for the doctor.

     

Dark Brotherhood

    

At some point, I returned to the monastery at the north end of town to see if I could find a way to enter without the octopus above the door killing me. Throwing things at the octopus didn't help. But when I clicked around with the eyeball, I noticed something I'd missed before: the front door has an indentation that matches the Cthulhu figurine I'd picked up on the arch outside the Dark One's cave. I ran up to the door, put the artifact in place, and was able to enter the monastery.

   

I couldn't find anything to do in the opening room. The fireplace had two log holders, one of which showed scratches beneath it. I realized that it was the key to opening a secret door. But trying that just got me killed by another octopus figurine above the door. I tried throwing rocks at it, and it seemed to be doing some good, but I could never actually kill it or knock it out.

      

Many of this game's interiors have wonderful graphics.

     

I got to the point where I was just trying everything in my pack on it, and garlic did the trick. He ate it, and it sated him so that he no longer was interested in attacking me. I operated the fixture and entered the secret door that swung open in the fireplace.

  

The freaky basement had a roll-top desk, an altar with a dark tome, a statue of a half-man, half-squid, a cask of liquor, and a painting on the wall with letters that spelled "Avoozl." I wonder if the name of the demon is, as Radiant suggested, really derived from Scorpia's "foozle." The book, titled the Necrophilicon, came to life and killed me every time I approached.

      

My body on the basement floor.

    

The roll-top desk wouldn't open on my first trip. But later, I came back looking for Igor (see below), and I guess I must have gotten stronger, as I had a "force drawer open" option this time that wasn't there before. Doing so set off a trap that poisoned me, although I might have still been poisoned from the last time the game poisoned me.

        

An option that wasn't there before.

      

The desk held the diary of the Mad Monk. It mentioned six rituals, placed in the following locations:

    

• The Mad Monk's Tombstone, "there to be forever guarded by his followers."
• In the Stone of Squids, "revealed only by the light of a dead child's soul." That's pretty grim.
• In the Great Arch, under the Dark One's sign.
• Given to Gregor for safekeeping. Gregor went missing in the forest.
• In the hollow of the Hangman's Tree.
• Concealed in the monastery, found by "he who willingly seeks dark visions."

    

The cask, of course, is the "Cask of Amon Tillado." Drinking liquor from it showed me a vision of Avoozl--a demonic dragon--erupting from a volcano and, presumably, setting out to destroy the world as we know it. Once the vision was over, I found the "Ritual of Blood" on the floor. So that was clearly the last one. I suspect finding the others is going to be a major part of the game, and that they'll be used back in the Dark One's cave where everything started.

     

So this is probably something to avoid.

  

Usually, when your attributes aren't high enough to perform an action, the game lets you try and fail. This is the first time that I think my options have been "gated" by my attributes. It's a good thing I came down here looking for Igor, because otherwise I might have assumed I had already completed this area.

      

I Had a Dream

Wandering near Erana's staff (in the town square) at night brought me face-to-face with the ghost of Paladin Piotyr (Dmitri's grandfather), who was involved in the last big conflict with Avoozl. After Erana died in the conflict, Piotyr brought her staff back to town and now haunts its location. On the first night I saw him, he recognized me as a fellow paladin and said I would "share his fate" unless I "ease the sorrows of this land." 

       

Piotyr got a different version of the Rusalka's story than I did.

     

On the second night, he said that his soul weeps for the Rusalka. He said the gypsies would know how to free her spirit, which was correct.

Meanwhile, resting in Erana's Garden produces a new nightmare every night. They all start out good, with the hero floating in the source of magic and feeling love and happiness, but they swiftly turn malevolent as the hero finds himself in darkness, a voice calling his name, an evil entity reaching for him.

     

This is unexpectedly moving.

       
In a Quaint Caravan

    

On the third or fourth day, I wandered by the burgomeister's office. The three losers from the inn were standing outside arguing with Dmitri. It transpired that Igor, the gravedigger, had gone missing. As the town set out to search for him, they encountered a gypsy hanging around outside of town, and they somehow concluded that the gypsy was a werewolf who had murdered and eaten Igor. 

   

The burgomeister was handling the situation honorably. He put the gypsy in jail--half for his own protection, I gather--while he tried to convince the bloodthirsty townsfolk to wait until the results of the investigation. "We don't even know if a crime has been committed," he kept telling them. During the conversation, there were some words exchanged about Tanya, the missing daughter of Yuri and Bella (the innkeepers), that would become important later. The inn patrons were suggesting that she also had been killed by werewolves, and Dmitri warned them never to say such things in front of her parents.

     

Dmitri proudly bears his grandfather's legacy.

      

Dmitri said he'd be glad for my help in determining what happened. I tried to speak to the gypsy, but he just sneered at me. I figured Igor would be found near his usual haunts, so I first searched the monastery near his stone-carving station. Igor wasn't there, but I finished the monastery puzzles as above. I then headed for the cemetery. There, I found Igor trapped in a grave on top of which a tombstone had fallen. I lifted it and he bounded out.

      

Idiot.

   

Back in town, Dmitri had already released the gypsy when I returned. He thanked me for proving the man's innocence and for saving Igor. Igor, for his part, gave me the key to the Borgov crypt.

      

I appreciate it, but I'm going to stick with "Chester."

     

I later visited the gypsy camp. Davy, the gypsy whose innocence I proved, had an entirely different attitude about me. He named me Gypsy Friend and took me to meet their leader, Magda. Davy is voiced by Cam Clarke, who also does Nikolai. Magda is the late Joan Gerber, except for one line of dialogue (the one where she says her name and calls the player "gorgio"), which seems to be a different actress trying to imitate Gerber. Magda had a lot to offer me, so I'll just bullet the key points:

 

• She gave me  the "Aura" spell, which is supposed to protect me against undead. 

• She confirmed that the gypsies are, in fact, werewolves, although they prefer the term "shapeshifter." They can change forms at will (the moon has nothing to do with it) and retain full capacity when they do.

     

But you're okay with "gypsy," right?

    

• "Dreams are messages." I should keep sleeping in Erana's Garden and see what else I learn.

• Baba Yaga lives in a hut to the south. Some kind of magic hides the pathway. "Her only weakness is her love of food."

• She told me how to free the Rusalka (later).

      

The visit culminated with a long tarot reading. To summarize it, I am the Knight of Swords, with the qualities of a paladin. The five cards exerting the most influence over me currently are:

     

• The High Priestess, inverted, a "woman of [my] past . . . a person of selfishness and passion." I'll need to satisfy her needs and vanity, and she'll help me as long as it requires no effort on her part. I'm 99% sure this is Baba Yaga.

• The King of Coins, "an old and vicious man," who will do anything to satisfy his desires. But he has recently suffered a failure and is in bondage to someone else--someone who is preventing him from harming me yet. This has to be Ad Avis.

• The Queen of Cups, a virtuous and wise woman, full of love, who is influencing my present. This is clearly Erana.

• The Queen of Swords, lonely and suffering. A deceiver by nature, she is both victim and villainess. This is obviously Katrina.

• The Void. This freaked Magda out and she wouldn't say anything more about it.

       

Katrina is a complicated character.

     

After meeting with Magda, I partied with the gypsies all night, danced with Davy's sister (who turned into a wolf in the middle of our dance), and woke up refreshed.

   

The rest of this entry tomorrow!