Legacy - Are We in Hell?

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

I'm not going to even bother mentioning the fire beasts as long as I have a functioning fire extinguisher. I quickly find a note. Its from Ellen. Remember Ellen, my distant cousin by marriage whom I brutally killed in self-defense with several dozen bullets and stabs?  Eh, its okay, I'm Superman's friend, I'll get out of jail just fine. It mentions that Elias is in his temple, two floors up, the 5th or 6th floor, as I've forgotten how this game is functioning. Also quotes "though the gate behind his face", "Robert said the gates can take you anywhere.", "...death and madness..." To sum up, Ellen probably shouldn't have imagined my face as a tree and I have probably already reached the temple. Remember way back when I found the weird chain room with the dismembered zombie? I don't know where the hell that led me. Its just as valid as any other explanation. There hasn't exactly been anything approaching the extreme south-west of the mansion. The very edge of the map. That'd be incredibly boring if its right.

 True terror is subtle in this game

I find a staircase near the note. I think to myself, hey, why not, after all, I might find some sweet loot there. The ensuing ten seconds are perhaps the most terrifying I have experienced in the game. I'm not joking. After the customary waiting period, I am greeted by two slimes. I stop for a moment. Oh, no, I think to myself in more vulgar terms. I press S, to go back down the stairs. "You fail to dodge past your attacker". Who is that? I quickly turn around. Its another slime. I back away from the door. He walks away, I slap W twice, and breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be the last we'll see of these slimes. Probably because its early on that floor yet.

At first, this had a different caption, but I like the implication of running out of ammo here

Unfortunately, back down in the asylum, my choices are limited. There's another room, with a Chinese coin, with a fire beast and I'm out of ammo on the fire extinguisher. There's a button where I got teleported to that opens back into the main hallway, but I don't want to use that yet. There's another button, after pressing it, I turn and see another eldritch squirrel. I have to admit, that's terrifying. So I reload, prepare myself and fight him to the death, his death.

All my bullets, throwing the .38, all my mana, two medikits on top of that. For one enemy. That made me curious, so I opened up a hex editor, gave myself 255 bullets (don't try that at home) for my gun, and started popping away. Some time later, when the thing finally died, I checked my ammo again and had 237 bullets. That means that at halfway good at firearms it takes somewhere between 18 to more than 26 .38 bullets to kill this thing. There are at least three more of these things somewhere on this map. Let's say there are ten of these things. That's somewhere between 180 to 360 bullets. If I kept at it with this cheated save, I would still need to reload my gun to kill all these things. I'd probably run out. Clearly, violence isn't an option here, because you can't do it more than once.

Your guess is as good as mine as to how they did that with a steel door

However, I can sidestep this guy. To his west there's a door that only contains an unlit lantern. Once I take that, he can be put into the room and forgotten. Unless there's a Chinese coin in there somewhere. They're hard to find on this black ground, because they're also black. With him out of the way, I have access to the items he was guarding. A note, that essentially tells me to find an item to find doors locked by magic, another fire extinguisher, yay. Oh, and Key of the Shadow Lord, magic lockpicking. Might only work on doors that are magically locked. I try it on the other door in the room, it works...but its still locked. Because someone nailed it shut. That's the one that reaches the front hallway, I guess. Remember that? I barely remember that.

I'm more in favor of keeping you here, but I don't think I have a say in that anymore

I've been in this section of the map before. Lots of locked doors. I can't pick them. There's a sign that says no firearms, but when I put mine down, nothing changes. Two more eldritch squirrels at the end of the hallway, they're not moving. Unfortunately, they're also guarding a door and a chokepoint, which means I probably need to kill them. Violence is not going to happen until absolutely necessary though, and I try each door. Luckily, one unlocks. Third demon statue, score. I don't have the room for it right now. Given the usefulness of my current gun, I think I'll put that someplace safe.

Did you really think I needed to be told that?

I spend some time searching through the areas that are free-ish of monsters. The section inside the safe trick had some more interesting things. A room that said laughter was happening while I turned against my will. Why they didn't write that when I tried the door, I'll never know. In another room, there's a magical circlet, which protects me against magical attacks. That might be useful if I have to kill all the lurkers. If not, I think I'll be fine, but it should still be handy. Then I return to the central hallway and try doors. The door that says no firearms allowed still does nothing. I have no guns nor bullets.

But then I approach a room with something coming out of the wall. Since its unlikely that the game will attack me with it, I examine it and talk to it. He tells me to rescue him from the Ethereal Plane. His warning about the Karcist would be much more valuable if I wasn't extensively checking rooms and Carl didn't come off like a drug dealer. So, there are three real objectives now, rescue him, and find a way to kill the Karcist and Alberoth. Since he says he knows how to kill the Karcist, it sounds like these problems are going to fall quickly before me, once I get past all the monsters.

For those of you keeping count at home, that's door no. 3

More doors fall before my tool kit. A door upstairs, not touching that yet. A door that has some screeching like an eldritch squirrel behind it. Not touching that. Another padded cell with only a note. It's from Ellen, just basically saying she doesn't know when the stars will align. I curiously wonder how many of these doors are locked in some mystical way or just doors that I'm barely making skill checks for. I say that because a door I assumed was locked by another method opened. My reward? Two more .38 speedloaders. Now I can kill two things, if my luck holds.

At least this invisible wall will be smashed to bits

I decide my next choice should be to go past the eldritch squirrel at a choke point. He's also guarding a door. I rush past him and...invisible barrier. Nice. I turn around, he's not happy that I decided to do that. So I rush past him again. The door he was guarding was unlocked. It's the fusebox. Light, finally.

These things are even uglier in the light

I grab a spell in here, the Crimson Mists of Myamoto. Its a defensive spell. Which sounds like it'll be very useful if I ever use a spell that isn't healing. There are also batteries, but I've been using the flashlight so little I don't think I need it. I've got a lot of bullets now, and they're burning a hole in my inventory. I've got six of them at this point. Six. I think I can afford to use them on one little monster. Not these squirrels. I mean, they're more like worms now that I see them, but I don't see anybody questioning my choice of enemy names.

Note the line around my character, that fades in and out

So I go to a place where there's a large amount of untouched space, the southeast. I know there's an eldritch squirrel in there, I can hear him. So I try casting Agatha's Iron Fist, to increase my damage. No dice. It doesn't work at all. I cast Aura of Mystic Defense, that works, but I do believe it's against magic damage. No dice against teeth. I don't realize this until afterward though.

So I open the door and let the eldritch squirrel in. I walk back and forth shooting at it for a good long time. It dies. Yay. I legitimately shot something to death. That's very nice. I used up almost all my bullets, so the practicality of this method is questionable at best. I do it again, still losing a lot of health, but at least I have 15 bullets this time. I'm just going to clear out a couple of ghouls from downstairs with this thing, let's not kid ourselves that this is going to work here. Reload.

I just drag the eldritch squirrel out, its worked in the past, it'll work now. With him out of the way there's some stuff in here, its some kind of wooden room, like on the ground floor. First I unlock a door for no reason at all beyond curiosity, and find another squirrel floating there and a note on the ground.

Following the death of my father at my hands, I have at last been able to discover the secrets that he has hidden from me for so long.

It seems that I am a direct descendant of the founder of this house, Governor Elias Winthrop, once of Tetbury, England. My ancestor was a most despicable man who delighted in torturing innocents whom he accused of witchcraft. As a warlock himself, he took great pleasure in persecuting any one who suspected him of leading the local coven.

Old Elias's depravities did not go unnoticed by the authorities in Boston. He was summoned for trial and freely admitted to all manner of vile practices. He was burnt at the stake, but died laughing, claiming he would rise again. My ancestor Elias Winthrop did indeed cheat death at the stake. He has become the Karcist who seeks to direct our fates from beyond the grave.

As a descendant of old Elias, it is my task to continue to open the gates that will allow the Great Beast, Belthegor, Lord of the Dark Triumvirate, to enter the earthly plane.

Thank you for the Christmas present father. May your soul writhe in torment.

Robert Prentiss

25 December 1964

Before I go about smugly stating that I was right, I'd like to point out that Robert here wrote his name, in his own diary, on a random page.

I was right. I was so right. Elias is the Karcist. I was right about there being three, but that's not so difficult to figure out when they're called the Dark Triumvirate. I go back and read the book I should have started off with. Its written by Miriam Murchinson, a hereto unmentioned member of the Winthrop line. The local rich families were sending their nuts to the asylum since 1865, they've been feeding them to the sea daemons. However, its the second mention of one Anton Wisniewski, whom I read a note by centuries ago. These acts line up. She mentions that Anton is getting lofty ideas. Presumably, she killed him. How horrible. Also, the Dark Triumvirate is complete, I think, she mentions Melchoir as Master of the Endless Void.

Why am I so surprised that this is in this house?

This section quickly proves itself even more lucrative. After an empty room, I spy something in the middle of the next. The room teleports the player in a bishop like fashion, meaning I automatically go there, but I can't check the chest of drawers nor reach the other door. The item in the room is a hand of glory. These are supposed to be removed hands of criminals hanged for their actions, now they're used as candles to prevent people from moving. I'm sure that will come up in some way.

But that's not all, no, by walking through the locked door to reach the other side, there's a Colt M1911A1, a magazine, and inside the room, a remote control. Its time to do some testing of these two items.

Results, need more ammo

I am rapidly reminded how grateful I should be for the game killing off or nullifying the enemies on the ground and 1st floors. The hand of glory does nothing, even lit, and it takes 12 shots from the M1911 to take down the eldritch squirrel. I have 14. I just do what I should have done to begin with, put the guy back where he started off. Regardless of the lack of killing prowess and still lacking the experience to even put in a point of willpower, I've gotten some stuff done here. But something troubles me. Something about the plot.

Think about the recent events in this game. The ones taking place roughly in the year leading up to this. R. Prentiss was killed by Ellen. Ellen can safely be assumed to be hiding in a hidden wall somewhere, cops don't have an automap. They are through in murder investigations though. They search the ground floor, they find nothing, because Roberts of Boston hasn't unleashed the zombies yet. Let's also assume they don't open the painting and don't find the dismembered zombie in there. They can go into the mausoleum, and eventually get killed by zombies. It's safe to assume they didn't open that part of the house, because Roberts screwed that bit up. There must be something in there that prevents access, and we'll assume the cops are stupid, because that's this house.

So, instead, let's say they go into the basement. Now, there are two enemy types down there, and neither are explained away. But let's assume that the rock fiends are in hiding because Elias told them to go hide or whatever. The ghouls are not that smart, that is a fact. So, then we have the rock fiends moving the ghouls somewhere. I'm just assuming that Elias can talk whenever he wants to whoever he wants and this Karcist stuff is just him being an overdramatic ass to me. The cops go through that basement. They reach the second basement. There's Alberoth, someone who can't be passed. Okay, maybe Elias tells him to back off. And at that point, I don't know what's down there, but I assume they're going to find something that can't be hidden down there. I'm sure there's a temple or something down there with faint traces of human blood, and this is a murder investigation.

Clearly, they didn't go down into the basement. So they go to the 1st floor. The spirits and the daemons are just Elias's servants, and I'm sure he can have them do what he pleases. But then we get to the 2nd floor. Ellen, I'm going to assume is safe, as I mentioned, but there are the eldritch squirrels, I have no idea what's going on with them. Then, there's the fire fiends. R. Prentiss specifically said he did an oopsy summoning them. They are clearly unaligned with Elias, I'm not even sure they're intelligent.

What I'm saying is that the cops are dead, it shouldn't even be a question of who's the last heir, I should be a federal agent or a private detective, not some random character. Don't give me anything about not being investigated as a murder and they didn't investigate it. Even if that was the case, they'd still check. And let me tell you, it is something they'd be concerned about. Guy's head looks like it was cracked open like a watermelon. They'd get a medical examiner on that. They can tell you in what order a bunch of varied weapons were used, determining that this was an axe-wound is child's play. This is a quiet area, the cops are going to be concerned.

Let's continue with all this though. The movers. On the ground floor all the convenient doors to the other floors are locked or nailed shut. Its safe to assume that Roberts of Boston, Ellen, the PI, nor anyone else nailed it after they came through. Thus the movers are going to have to take a long and non-direct route to each other floor. To say nothing of how much of a pain it would be to move all that stuff throughout the house. We run into the same problem, but who cares about movers? We know they succeeded because the furniture isn't there, but we also know there's no way they could have survived.

Finally, we have two more questions, who are the dead people in that one room on the ground floor, and where the hell is Roberts of Boston? I joked about Roberts killing himself, but there'd be a note in that case. It would be the most melodramatic thing ever, but it would exist. Maybe Roberts is that guy who was in the wall.

Inventory: Medikit (x3), Axe, bullet-proof vest, spellbook, keyring, briefcase, electronic tool kit, mechanical tool kit, matches, fire extinguisher

Spellbook: Shroud of the Shadow Walker, Agatha's Iron Fist, Belgor's Mental Violation, Elixir of Health, Aura of Mystic Defense, Flames of Desolation, Dimensional Rift, Key of the Shadow Lord

This Session: 2 hours 30 minutes
Total Time: 14 hours 00 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!