Missed Classic: Daughter of Serpents – WON! (plus alternate paths and Final Rating)

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 minutes
Total 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.

I'm pretty sure that by this time that's Istanbul (not Costantinople).

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...

...and quite well-versed in archeology, due to her second husband.

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.

What do you know, it really was the Graeco-Roman Museum!

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!

And she also name-drops Rowland Marcus from The Hound of Shadow!

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!