Written
by Vetinari
We
have left our heroes on the verge of rushing in towards the temple.
We take the cultist by surprise, and Cameron tells me to take the
scroll from the high priestess and burn it, which I do.
Burn baby burn.This
has a pretty dramatic effect on the priestess, since she immediately
turns first into a serpentwoman, and then directly into ashes.
I didn’t manage to take a screenshot of it, you’ll have to trust me on this one.We
escape just as soon as the temple collapses on itself, burying the
whole cult under the rubble.
Very cinematic.The
denouement is at the police station, where Cameron says that we have
seen the last of them, “whoever they were”, and that he is glad
he won’t have to make a report since nobody would believe it and all
the evidence is now buried.
When
Sven asks him if he saw what happened when the scroll was burned,
Cameron just says that he’s been reading too much Rider
Haggard, and that the only reasonable explanation is that they
have caught a whiff of the incense themselves, which caused these
hallucinations. Then Sven thinks “Maybe, but how did he know what I
saw, when I hadn’t told him?”
Roll
credits.
Session
Time: 0 hours 15 minutesTotal
Time: 5 hours 15 minutes
Alternate
Paths
So,
what would have happened if I had made some different decisions
during my playthrough?
If
I decide not to help Cameron with his investigations, Sven
goes to Elytis’ office by himself to confront her with the
accusations of fraud, but once there Ariadne has a completely
different story.
Also some better positioned speech balloons.Ariadne
says that his husband was not a criminal, and that after his death
she discovered that their customs agent, Yusuf Al Raschid, was
involved in all sorts of illegal activities instead. She hasn’t
managed to find any proof about it, and asks me to help her find
some. She will keep him away from their warehouse with an excuse
while I snoop around.
At
the warehouse I find the folder with the evidence about drug
smuggling, and setup a meeting with her at the Savoy Hotel bar. Once
there, she reveals that she also subtracted some smuggled artifact to
have further proof against him. Unfortunately, right then Cameron
arrives and arrests her.
Tell it to the judge.I
try to tell Cameron that I have evidence that exonerates her and
involves Al Raschid, but he says that I can show him after we go to
the museum to make Professor Stone examine the golden case.
Yes, but now you have set me up on the path to be kidnapped by Thoth.After
I give him the folder, he asks his men to check out the warehouse.
Obviously once there they find the corpse of Al Raschid, they call
him back asking him to go there and while he is away the plot
proceeds as before.
After
the three-months time skip, Cameron informs me about what has
happened, but this time he thinks that I could be involved in the
whole mess, and that Ariadne and me were accomplices. Luckily I have
an alibi since when Al Raschid was killed I was at the museum with
both Stone and Cameron himself. His rationale for taking me to the
warehouse in this branch of the plot is that he thinks that maybe
whoever had kidnapped me might have held me there drugged for three
months straight, and going there might jog my memory. Once there the
story proceeds as usual.
If
you choose to help Cameron but meet Ariadne at her office, the
only change is the backdrop of our first conversation, then
everything is the same as before..
More
interesting is what happens if I choose not to go to the museum
with Cameron and Professor Stone.
The
game says that I leave the city and spend three months in
Constantinople, and when I get back to Alexandria Cameron contacts me
again for help on the case of the manuscript since he hit a brick
wall with the investigation. After he explains what happened we go to
the warehouse and proceed from there.
Let’s
see instead how much the story differs when I tackle it with my
alternate characters. (Spoiler: strangely enough, it’s quite a lot.)
Ariadne
Oliver, the mystery novelist, has a main background of Traveller
with secondary background of Egyptologyst.
Alter ego of Agatha Christie and all that, so well-acquainted with the Middle East…Only
now I realise that my main character has the same forename as Mrs
Elytis, so this could cause some confusion. Just bear with me,
please.
Ariadne’s skills (that’s my Ariadne, not the NPC Ariadne… know what, never mind.)The
first difference is right at the beginning, where the letter which
awaits me at the reception is not from Cameron, but from the
soon-to-be-deceased Professor George Leyton-Stone.
When
I visit the professor at the museum, he says that excavation permits
are difficult to acquire, but he could have an in with the local
authorities, if I agree to do them a favour, wink
wink, nudge nudge, say no more. This favour is none other than
posing as a buyer of ancient manuscripts for the local police, and
from then on the story proceeds in a way very similar to the Sleuth
one.
(If
I refuse, the following evening Cameron contacts me at the hotel,
saying that Leyton-Stone wants me to go to the museum with him so we
can examine together an interesting artifact that was retrieved
during the arrest of an antiquities smuggler).
Google translate says this means “Bring me a cup of coffee, boy.”The
only differences are that I am adroit in Egyptian history and
customs, so for example I am the one to provide all the background
explanation on the scroll case, and further elaboration on whether
the sarcophagus and the scroll are fake or genuine.
The
real kicker, however, comes after the three-months time skip. Cameron
visits me at the hotel bar to update me on what has happened in the
meantime, and then tells me that for my own safety it’s better if
I leave Alexandria with the next ship. So I’m left there hanging,
with nothing to do, when out of the blue, Mrs Elytis contacts me.
The game is doing a 180° on who is a good guy and who is a bad guy.When
I go to the appointment, Abdul proceeds to guide me through a secret
door in the back of the café which leads inside his employer’s
sanctum
sanctorum.
Which is not what it looks like.Apparently
Elytis is an accomplished occultist, and when Al Raschid brought her
the scroll she found out that it was dangerous. Nonetheless she
agreed to show it to me to sell it, thinking that later on she could
switch it with a fake, but Cameron arrested her and made it all go
wrong.
She
then says that the spirit door through which Thoth appeared has names
written on it that she already saw in the forbidden book “De
Vermiis Mysteriis”, and which makes her think that that
creature was not in fact Thoth at all, but instead Nyarlathotep,
the Crawling Chaos, Haunter in the Dark, who was only pretending to
be Thoth (which makes sense because Nyarlathotep is a d**k).
We
brainstorm on how to find out where Al Raschid had stolen the scroll
and the case, since he brought that secret with him to his tomb, and
Elytis suggests that she could perform a ritual (with my assistance)
that will allow her to speak with the dead.
This is the coolest sequence in all of the game.Together
with Elytis’ manservant Abdul we profanate Al Raschid tomb and
perform the ritual to coax Yusuf into the telling us where we can
access the catacombs (i.e. from the place where he died). At the
warehouse we find the secret trapdoor, enter the tunnels, and
suddenly…
Poor Abdul, we hardly knew you.Abdul
is killed by an unseen force, Elytis says that we must find some
Powder
of Ibn-Ghazi to see the invisible, and luckily we find some
hidden in the nearby tunnels.
I said that this room seemed like it could have had something interesting in it.The
magical creature turns out to be a captured efreet
(or maybe djinn)
which we can avoid as long as we don’t step inside its cage. We
arrive at the temple and there the plot proceeds as before. When we
make a plan to destroy the scroll, my knowledge of arabic folklore
suggests to make a pact with the djinn, releasing it from its
imprisonment in exchange for destroying the scroll during the ritual.
This happens, the high priestess dies, and also, for some reason,
this time the temple burns down instead of collapsing.
We’re just two Ariadnes and we’re having a good time…That’s
all for Mrs Oliver. Let’s see instead Professor Dylan Martin, the
occult investigator, who has the Occultist template with Mystic
as secondary.
This will be mostly useless……while this will be invaluable (not really, but at least it will be interesting).Professor Martin is packing, I tell you.At
the beginning, we find out that the letter which welcomes us in
Alexandria is from none other than Mrs Elytis herself!
When
we visit her, Ariadne tells us that she is worried about her customs
agent, Al Raschid, who is filching antique objects from somewhere. We
agree to meet at the bar of my hotel to discuss further, and there
she brings the cased scroll with her, saying that she took it from
Yusuf since as a student of the occult it disturbs her deeply.
Unfortunately just at that moment Cameron steps up to arrest her, and
Ariadne asks me to follow the scroll to the museum because it is too
dangerous to let it go unsupervised. Then the plot proceeds as usual,
with Dylan’s occult knowledge only useful for some background musings
on the scroll and the sarcophagus.
After
the time skip and reuniting with Ariadne, Professor Martin uses his
clarvoyance to have a vision of the cellar where the secret passage
is, and they proceed down to the catacombs.
When
Abdul is killed, the fact that I already have the Powder
of Ibn-Ghazi in my possession is not only
good enough to avoid the efreet, but also to make Ariadne swoon.
It would seem that an occult investigator I know is getting some tonight.After
our exploration of the temple, I decide to use the Seal
of Solomon (also in my possession) to compel the efreet to help
us, but when we get back there…
Ah, yes. I already saw one of those in the previous adventure.It
would seem that a magical Gate has been opened, which connects the
temple to the fabled city of serpents where the ritual is taking
place.
There’s a whole new location only for the ending of this branch.We
find the underground sanctuary where the high priestess is performing
the ritual, but the power of this place is such that even the magic
of the djinn would not be enough to confront her.
The eponymous “Daughter of Serpents”.Then
we remember that the citizens of the city were magically bound during
the conquest of the city by Neneferkaptah, so we hit on the idea to
find them and release them in order to allow them to get their
revenge on the serpent cult. But where are they?
Have you tried looking beneath your feet?That’s
what I was talking about back then in my first post. The inhabitants
are hidden in the manipulation
screen
inside this place. Then I complete my showing-off by saying that I
can free them all with the Formula
of Borellus,
which I obviously know. Because I am such a great scholar of magic
and occultism. And also very modest.
They’re coming out of the goddamn walls floor!The
plan works, the sanctuary is destroyed, we flee through the gate and
then close it after us to avoid the cult troubling the world ever
again. The end.
Since
this post is already too long, let’s go directly to the Final Rating.
Puzzles
& Solvability
There
may be a total of three or four “real” puzzles in this adventure.
This is one of them.All
the others consist in talking to people in order to acquire
information on where to go, and then going there to talk to other
people, and so on. The most interesting ones were actually in the
“alternate” branches, not my main Sleuth one (like the ritual in
Al Raschid tomb, which involves using the right magical powders at
the correct time), so they have not been showcased very much in these
posts. In any case, I cannot improve on my rating for “Hound of
Shadow” on this one. My score: 2.
Interface
& Inventory
As
I said in the introductory post, the interface feels unnecessary
clunky and the controls unwieldy.
Yeah, me too.However,
after getting used to it, it is not all that bad. It’s not
particularly sleek or handy, but it does what it has to do. Let’s
settle on “functional” shall we? The main frustration concerns
the need to go to the manipulation screen to examine inventory
objects in detail, or the main menu which is hidden under Cook’s
Guide, which is itself only accessible through the inventory. At
least I did not find any bugs. My score: 4.
Story
& Setting
The
story is perfectly adequate, but nothing more.
In a part of the game which most of the players will never see.The
frustrating thing is that the most interesting plot beats (as was
true also for the puzzles) are in the two branches that I played as
alternates. My main Sleuth one was frankly bland, but when I played
as an amateur Archeologist or an Occultist this opened up a lot of
interesting locations, as well as in-depth discussions of the Mythos,
Egyptology and other topics which weren’t there at all when I was
stuck with Cameron. On the negative side however, all three branches
of the game are quite short. My score: 4.
Sound
& Graphics
The
lead artist seems to have done his homework, and it shows.
A rare screenshot of the Savoy Hotel by night.I
am impressed with the quality of both the still images and
animations, starting with the intro sequence. Everywhere in the game
the graphics are quite nice, just marred in some points by a little
inattentiveness to detail. Also the sound and music (even if not
exceedingly memorable) are decent and appropriate for getting you in
an “egyptian adventure” mood. My score: 7.
Environment
& Atmosphere
I
enjoyed the atmosphere of the game quite a bit.
Actually, that’s one of the worst locations in the game.Many
of the locales are taken from real life places, like the museum,
Hotel Savoy, or the port of Alexandria which can be seen in the
introduction sequence. This goes a long way in making the environment
of the game feel realistic. Unfortunately, the historicity of the
background does not come through very much during the game, and it is
mostly entrusted to the infodump inside of Cook’s Travel Guide in the
inventory. My score: 6.
Dialogue
& Acting
Secondary
characters have been an hallmark of this series so far.
It is not just me that thinks that Elytis had been flirting, right?There
are only three main NPCs, and it’s no coincidence that each one of
them is the point of contact in each of the three main story
branches. Stone is the least characterized (but in any case he dies
halfway through the plot). Cameron and Elytis are well-written
(Ariadne more so, as is now customary, in the alternate branches) and
their dialogue is more or less what I expected from them, even if
there are no highlights. This seems unfortunately to be a step back
from “The Hound of Shadow” but still manages to ensure a good
rating. My score: 6.
Adding
Up The Scores
If
we add up the scores we get (2+4+4+7+6+6)/0.6 = 48 points. I feel
however that I have to add a bonus point for the alternate paths
which have some very marked differences between each other and add to
the replayability. So 49 points it is!This
game comes up just on the wrong side of 50, and I think that all in
all that’s a fair assessment.
Having
been burned by the low rating for The Hound of Shadow, the
commenters gallery guessed an average rating around 41, which is
quite lower than the final result. So the winner is MorpheusKitami,
which had the “unrealistical” higher guess of 48!