Missed Classic: Mewilo - End to slavery

By Ilmari

Happened thus far: Supernatural things have occurred in the Parnasse farm in Martinique. Since the slave revolt of 1831, in which the master of the house, de Ronan, was burned and died afterwards of grief, some strange phantom has cursed a bedroom of the farm. The daughter, Octavie de Ronan did not get hurt, because she and her mother were safe at the neighbouring plantation of du Banville family. Octavie later married Raoul du Banville. Four months ago, a descendant of Octavie, Geneviève Hubert-Destouches and her husband moved into Parnasse. Geneviève aggravated some zombie when she was tilling the ground. A local seer, Papa Echevain, thinks the zombie is trying to revenge something that happened in de Ronan family. Hubert-Destouches family have called me, a famed parapsychologist to investigate the matter. I arrive in the form of a colibri, a day before the nearby volcano is about to erupt...

Calm before the volcano eruption

I ended my previous post moments before I was about to investigate the city of St. Pierre and search for Valentin de Ronan, the only known living descendant of du Banville family, in addition to Geneviève. Just like with the main map of the game, I noticed that most of the locations were of no use: the river Roxelane and semaphore showed only pretty pictures, while theater and cathedral were completely inaccessible. The local school was empty of people, but at least I could pick up some fruit.

I’ve never tasted a soursop

The only place left was the Victor Hugo street. The street itself was empty, but a large white building led me to the banker de Ronan.

It seems a quiet city. I guess they’ve all heard about the impending doom and moved away

Valentin added some details to the story of de Ronans. His family line met the line of Geneviève with his grandfather Jérome de Ronan, who was the brother of Arnaud, the man who was killed during the slave revolt. Jérome had had little to do with his brother, because he was a travelling salesman, always going from one island to another. Of the events surrounding Arnaud’s death Valentin knew nothing, except the general information that rebelling slaves or their descendants hadn’t really gotten anything from their rebellion. He also mentioned the name of one particular person of mixed ancestry, Anselme Saint-Just.

In the strangest scene, Valentin starts to ogle his laundry lady, who walks by his window.
 I didn’t capture the lady, but the animation was quite fine

In the previous post I had tried to call up a spirit living in the bedroom of Parnasse, but I didn’t know its name. Now that I knew some names, I tried anew. Apparently it was the spirit of Arnaud that had disturbed the farm so long.

And he wants to atone for his sins

With nothing else to do, I tried again to visit all the locations. This time I managed to access the neighbouring plantation.

There’s all sorts of interesting tidbits about the nature and culture of Martinique hidden in the game

I couldn’t access habitation, but the picture of a horse led me to the stables, where I could speak with Laurent du Banville, last male descendant of du Banvilles. His uncle, Raoul, was the spouse of Octavie de Ronan. Laurent really had no explanation to what had happened at de Ronans, but he did know that Arnaud had been quite melancholic at the time of the slave revolts.

Plantation owner still dreaming of the time they could use slaves as a free workforce

And a descendant of slaves noticing that abolition has changed nothing!

Alcipe Condette worked for Laurent du Banville as a carriage driver. He spoke against the modern version of Martinique slavery, where the people of African ancestry had to take menial jobs at the docks to sustain themselves. This kind of rebellious mentality was in the blood of Alcipe, since he was a direct descendant of Albrand, a slave who had burned down the house of de Ronans. Albrand had died during the rebellion, but not a single bone of him was ever found.

What’s in that pipe of yours?

At the communal house, I met Da Évélina, nanny of the du Banville family. She had been raised at the same time as Raoul du Banville and she had taken care of his children and their children. Her mother Cassidoine had told her of the night of the slave rebellion. Apparently Arnaud had survived the assault of Albrand, but had died soon afterwards, because he had lost his will to live. Arnaud had also written a letter which he had given to the local priest.

Since finding more information of this priest seemed the next logical step, I decided to check if I could enter the cathedral this time. It worked. Unfortunately, the leader of the cathedral during the times of slave rebellion was long gone, and the current canon Éségippe knew nothing about any letter.

He did note the depravity of St. Pierre and its carnivals resembling voodoo rituals.
No wonder there’s a taint of sulfur in the air and earth rumbles

With no open avenue of investigation, I was forced to just go through the various locations. At the Roxelane river I found something new.

Here’s the laundry lady, Séraphine, whom Valentin de Ronan was ogling earlier

Séraphine didn’t really have anything to say about the mystery I was trying to solve. She had noticed that the river had started to become strangely hot and washing laundry in it had become impossible. When she had tried to explain this to her employer, he had grabbed her, but she had been able to distract him by shouting that the school teacher Saint-Just was walking nearby. This was a name Valentin de Ronan had mentioned. Should I try to meet this school teacher?

Just missed him

Anselm Saint-Just wasn’t at the school, but Malou, school’s cleaning lady, told me that I might find his wife at her store, somewhere in the city. Malou also mentioned that if I wanted to know about zombies, sorcerer Gwanzong was the local expert. The only problem was that he lived in the area occupied by snakes. I would also have to find a black chicken, before he would speak to me.

Why weren’t you here earlier?

I found Pélagie Saint-Just, wife of the school teacher, at a little shop on Victor Hugo Street - again, another hotspot that hadn’t worked before. This time there was some explanation, since Mrs. Saint-Just had been with the grandmother of his husband, Nanor. She told me that her husband was at the moment busy with the elections. Pélagie thought this was a bit foolish of Anselme, since it would just aggravate all the Whites. I also found something for my inventory - the picture doesn’t really look like anything, but since I took it from a shelf full of bird cages, I guess it’s also a bird cage,

Again without any hints left, I just started going through every location. This time, I could access the pit, which was apparently a place for raising chickens. I was told I could get a black chicken, if I just answered couple of riddles correctly. I just love these moments…

“I own a shop, everything inside is all burned, everything outside is intact”.
I have no idea, what this was supposed to be

“I go back to my house and only my head remains outside”.
I thought this must be “escargot” (snail), but apparently not

“You put them on table and cut them, but don’t eat them”.
Surprisingly, this pun works in both English and French - it’s of course “cartes” (cards)

“If you don’t push me, I won’t let you pass”.
Simple,”porte” (door).

What to do with my black chicken? I still couldn’t get past the deadly snake, so I couldn’t visit the local sorcerer. Oh well, it was back to checking all locations. Wondrously, a carriage on Victor Hugo Street now had a hotspot that led me to a discussion with someone called master Duchaudé.

You saw me at cocoa farm? I’ve seen you driving around this street all day

Master Duchaudé, apparently of a mixed heritage, told me that people like him often chose to dedicate their life on higher education and become lawyers and doctors, instead of tilling their land to produce rum. Apparently, local whites were a bit uncomfortable with these people, especially if they were their own descendants. Indeed, they had had the habit of naming their “cross-breed” children with anagrams of their own names, so that behind a slave name one could often see a bad joke. This sounded like a hint, so I toyed with various names. The best fit was between “Ronan” (of de Ronan family) and “Nanor” (grandmother of Anselme Saint-Just).

At the cathedral, I met Minerve Doussaint, who knew the fate of the letter Arnaud de Ronan had written. The letter had been left for a faithful servant, who had given it to her or his granddaughter Marie-Reine. Marie-Reine had then wanted to give the letter to me, but had died of fever before she got the chance. Now, the letter was with Minerve Doussaint….

...and she isn’t giving it to me! I don’t know if I should still visit some place or if I should find some item or if I’ve encountered some sort of bug. The latter option seems likely, because whenever I now enter the cathedral, Minerve will just repeat the same lines - something that hasn’t happened before. Since I have yet failed to find any walkthroughs for the game, this will be an official Request for Assistance - hopefully someone knows whether and how Mewilo can be completed! And remember to use ROT13 for all your clues!

(Edit: Well, I did manage to pass this point without any assistance, but I think I'll still give the readers a chance to find out how I did it. If you are the first to know or guess how to get past this stage, you'll receive 10 CAPs. If no one has the exact answer by the time the next Mewilo post is published, the one with the closest and/or funniest answer will get the prize.)