Game 49: Elvira - Hell’s kitchen

By Deimar

Jake Spenser Journal Entry #4 "There is no way out. And now Elvira wants me to throw the cook away from the kitchen. If it wasn’t for her… personality I would quit. If I could leave the castle also. In any case, my ghost busting skills were useful when I dealt with the vampire in the second floor. They didn’t help with the multiple skeletons I had to fight in the dungeon but that’s where my trusty sword came through. Man, this castle is amazing, they even have their own torture chamber. If only I could put the cook in the iron lady..."

Previously on The Adventure Gamer...

When we left the last post we were at the entrance to the main keep. Elvira came running to say something about a lard bucket, which we should probably check... but the encounter with her reminded me that I am a man of a single woman. I had to do what any decent human being would do: break my affair’s heart. Literally. With a stake from the sitting room and the new sledgehammer. Strange use for a sledgehammer but when the need arises…

She didn’t take it too kindly

Searching the room I could only find some bolts and vampire dust left by the previous tenant. My last girlfriend didn’t leave me too much either, so I’m used to it by now. Time to check the mysterious danger that made Elvira run away from the kitchen. I went down trembling, expecting the unexpected, the horror, the fear, the cook… wait… the cook? Yep, that’s basically the charming lady that made Elvira turn tail. She was even making a stew. Poor sweet old woman.

She was just reading this book titled “How to cook for humans”

I left the good woman to herself and decided that it was time to explore the dungeons. I was hesitant to go back, especially now that Elvira was hiding somewhere unknown and was not available to save me. I left everything in the hallway next to the kitchen stairs and went to pay a visit to the castle dungeons.

Entering the dungeons changes the music again. If the keep and the courtyard are kind of adventurous and the garden is calm, this one is tense, even without much to worry about. The dungeons are a 10x10 rectangle with many rooms on both sides of the hall. Or maybe I should say room, because the image used is always the same. There are four items in each room: a wooden stool, a wooden bed, a wooden shelf and a sawdust covered floor. In each room you have to click on all four of them, because there can be either a spider, a centipede, an earwig or a beetle which is not visible in the graphic window. It gets tedious quite fast.

If you say so

To make things more interesting, while exploring the dungeons you have to pay attention to two things. First, there are spiderwebs all around the place that you can pick up. And, as was the case in the main keep, any door can be guarded by an enemy, waiting for you to open the door or walk into the the hall. In the dungeons we have to fight the nasty skeleton soldiers, which are exactly like regular soldiers but with a little more heath. Exactly in this case means that they even shout when hit like regular soldiers, which begs the question of where is that sound producer that is inserting all those Wilhelm screams. The only exception is an orange guy guarding the torture room. I marked him as the “Orange Bastard” in the map, so you can see it is not a simple enemy. I even had to take two healing spells. Maybe I am bad at this combat thingy.

He hurts so much that he can wound my eyes just by seeing his clothes

The torture chamber is a welcome variation after so many identical rooms. It’s not like it brings a lot of color to the dungeon, but I find the crimson hue of blood soothing at this point, especially when it’s not mine. There are only three items in the room: First, a bag of salt, described as “A bag of sodium chloride. Useful for the avoidance of decapitation”. I don’t have the slightest idea what that is about, but I think the cook can surely add some salt to her stew. There is also a pair of tongs, and something tells me I should leave alone for now. And finally an iron ring loosely fastened to the floor.

Bah, amateurs! Nobody expects the spanish inquisition’s tooling in every torture chamber, but this one is severely lacking some torture power

This is one of those puzzles that are more difficult because of the interface. You see, the iron ring can be brought to the inventory, revealing a skeleton, truly dead, with another golden key, “Cuartus” (fourth). The problem is that you can get a description of the iron ring by double clicking on it, but it does not appear in the Room inventory nor any of the verbs lightens. By the game logic, that would mean that you can not do anything with it, but you can actually drag it to the inventory to remove it from the screen revealing all the items. I think it is a little unfair.

By the way, see that little R? These close-ups can be closed by clicking it

In any case, I took the key and the skeleton. Examining the skeleton reveals that those are “the bones of a soul, tortured eternally, seeking a resting place of everlasting peace”, which may or may not have something to do with taking those tongs, but that probably should be left for later. Now it is time to go back to sunlight and learn a little about cooking.

Apparently, she can’t cope with salt

Everyone's a critic nowadays!! The cook was so offended by our suggestion of using salt that she left in a hurry. More specifically, she dissolved in a hurry. The moment she disappeared, Elvira came running to recover her precious kitchen, ready to do one of the two things she does in this game: cooking spells. But you will have to wait for the next post to learn about that.

Me! Me! Me! I’m a strong big boy!!

DUNGEON MAP:

DEATH BONUS ROUND (TOTAL DEATHS: 6):

Oh no!! The title of the book was “How to cook forty humans”!! AHHHh!!

Don’t play with his tongs...

Session Time: 0 hours 55 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

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