Black Sect - Infiltrating the cult

By Ilmari

Well of the devil

Last time I had just managed to empty this well of water. I thought I should use or pull the crank to lower the rope down. Well, no, the crank just got loose and I found it in my inventory. All the time I could have just simply descended to the well.

If I learned something from Maupiti Island, it was that in Lankhor games all rows, stacks etc. of things are possible places to try number codes. I already had two number codes, and the other one worked for the rungs of the ladder (I could turn them so I had to just know the right order to do it). After getting to the end of the code, a secret compartment opened in the wall of the well. I had found a key.

Note the bell in the upper right hand corner of this screen. For some reason, when I used the well crank on it (banging the bell, I suppose), a voice answered to me saying “Moloch is our perdition”. I am guessing this is meant to be a similar hint as in the original game, where eavesdropping a hole in the caverns lets you hear a name of another demon that you will need later on. Here the puzzle just feels a bit more ridiculous - is there a dedicated sect member shouting this piece of information always when they hear the bell toll?

In the original game, I had to take a bit of rope from this storage room and combine it with a piece of magnet to fish a crucifix from the well bottom. Here, I merely had to turn one of the horse shoes and put my safety pin in a hole behind it in order to open yet another secret compartment with the crucifix. I also found in the very suspicious hay stack a paper with some writing: “NYBBAS, the great parade artist. MELCHOM, paying treasurer. MOLOCH, prince of the land of tears.”

It took me a while to get to the secret room under the church: I knew I had to attach the crucifix to a cross (I had done this in the original game), but I erroneously thought it was the cross on the altar I had to do it. In fact, there was another, smaller cross at the side of the altar, which was explicitly told to have no Christ. Then, when I had entered the room, I faced the problem of finding the correct key for the wardrobe - I’ve found a few of these already, and because of the inventory limit, I’ve had to stack them up at different places. Finally, the right key was found and I could pick up a cultist robe from the wardrobe.

I also found a chest under the wardrobe. It had few buttons,and it was quite simple to use one of the codes I had found on it - well, simple and simple, it’s pretty complicated to manipulate objects in this game. Still, I finally managed to open it and found a bunch of pentagrams in it. One of them had the name of Moloch on it.

Next step was easy. I returned to the graveyard, attached the pentagram with the name Moloch to the skull and waited for the cultist. When I talked to him, he promised to take me to their hideout. I had to drink a potion to make myself unconscious, while I was being transported, because only the higher dignitaries were allowed to see where the hideout was.

Just what you’d want to find in a food closet

I woke up next to a large chest, which I couldn’t open. Moving west, I found a cellar full of intriguing stuff I had no idea what to do with. You see the larva on the column and the pulley that is just screaming for a rope. I could open one of the sacks, but I had nothing to take the grains within it. The table had some buttons, marked with letters, and there were other markings – figures, this time – for the four pieces of meat, which I could pull. Clearly a room full of puzzles to be solved.

I moved back to the chest and then east, just to hear the door close behind me. At least I found some digitalis growing on the wall. Also, starting from this room, I started to see cultists occasionally. For instance, sometimes a guard occupied this room, telling me not to touch anything.

Another cultist stood in a dining room. He guarded a door to the kitchen and demanded a precious object to let me in. If the game follows the original, I should find an ally in the kitchen. For now, I just picked up a pitcher.

The same cultist as in the dining room - or one just like him - guarded sometimes another room. Well, if you can call it guarding - I could rummage the room without him trying to prevent me in any manner.

The same room after I went through everything

So what did I do? Behind the shield I found a parchment with a line of those same figures I had seen in the cellar. Within the armour I found a key that unlocked the door at the back. Turning the chandelier on the table opened up a drawer with another paper telling me that digitalis combined with larva could be used for something. And oh yes, there was a rope on the floor.

I managed to also enact what I called the most ridiculous puzzle of the original game. I had to wait for the guard to move to the dining room, and then I could hide myself in the armour. After waiting for the guard to return and then to leave again, I could get a medallion he dropped.

The opened door led me to a cell with a dead inmate. The plate was pretty easy to pick up, but otherwise, this was yet another case of doing a thorough search for finding everything. Starting with the skeleton, I found in the poor guy’s possession a piece of paper with nothing in it - if this resembles a puzzle in the original game, I am supposed to find an empty bottle, through which to look at it. I also managed to turn one of the bars, opening a secret compartment containing a briquette and a note telling me that the dead person had found some recipe and that there was an ally in the cult hideout, who would wait for a black ring as a mark.

The briquette was useful in a nearby room, where I could light a fireplace with it. Doing my usual search, I found another piece of paper in a candlestick: this time it talked about using belladonna in a powdery form. I also found a ring and a key just lying on the floor. A little while later I found out I could lift one of the stones on the floor, revealing yet another, black ring.

I had an idea that the key might open the locked door that had closed on me. It didn’t, but I noticed that I could apply one of my rings to a shield on the background and this opened the door. Getting back to the screen I had witnessed at the beginning of my journey in the cultist lair, I noticed that the key let me open the chest there. Inside, I found a knife.

I now had several things to try in the food cellar. I had a rope to go with the pulley, and with their help I could lift a sack, revealing a shield under it. The pitcher I had found in the kitchen could be used to pick some of the grain in the sacks. I also could now try pulling the meats in the order indicated by markings in one of the papers I had found. At first, nothing seemed to have happened, but moving back I noticed that a previously locked door had opened.

I had found a library. My thorough examination of the room began unfruitfully, since I failed to open a locked chest I had no key to. The big book on the table also revealed to me no information, so I just began trying all the books on the shelf. In one of them, I found the recipe I had been looking for. It gave precise measurements for the larva, digitalis and belladonna powder, and it also mentioned a fourth ingredient, a chicken leg.

This seems like a good place to stop. I still haven’t searched all the rooms in the cultist lair, so that will be my next priority. I must also find the belladonna powder and chicken leg, and some valuables for one of the guards, and a bottle to read that empty piece of paper…