Gabriel Knight - Well, Sonny, it Looks Like the Gremlin Has Struck Again...

Written by Michael

Game over.  Time to switch to my next title.

Last post, I had just landed in day 4.  I had a few plans for the day, such as getting the bracelet from our friendly jeweler, Sam, following up with the professor at the college, and asking Mosely why the investigation was put on hold.

Let’s start with that.  I head down to the police station, and as usual, walk behind the counter and into Mosely’s office without the officers on duty saying a word.  Mosely drops the news on us, which we kind of already knew from the newspaper: the mafia from Chicago was trying to muscle in on the drug trade here, because Florida isn’t as appealing right now.  “What we had here was a little resistance from the local ‘businessmen.’”

Gabriel brings up some good points, like, say, what about bringing the murderers to justice?  Mosely indicates that the powers-that-be like the idea of just calling it closed, and letting the cartels murder each other in the process.  But hey, sorry about that Voodoo book you’ve been working on all this time.

Can we convince the 5-0 to reopen the case?  We need to do three things:

• Prove there’s some legit Voodoo going on in New Orleans;

• Prove they pose a threat;

• And get Mosely a lead on the Voodoo cult.

I suppose we can do that; we’ve been given a clear set of goals, right?

I think I have an idea about part of this already.  Talking to Mosely about the markings around the bodies, he says it’s fake.  But we have the reconstruction from the artist, maybe that will help?  I show that to Mosely.

I admit... nothing.

But it’s not quite enough.  It looks good, “but that doesn’t prove that this pattern is really connected to Voodoo.”  Guess we need to wait for the professor to give us some help with that.

I also show him the markings from the side of Marie’s tomb, but again, it’s not enough.  Somehow, I’ll need to flesh that out too, I think.

So, since I haven’t any other inventory items I think will help here, I’m off to go get one.  A visit to Cheers should take care of that.

Could it be the 23 hours a day you spent playing chess?

Sam is seated at the bar, rather than the game table.  He greets us as soon as we walk in, he gives us the bracelet, and then says he’s leaving town -- “Markus used to tell me that if I ever beat him at chess, he’d take me around the world.”  Apparently, Markus is loaded and Sam is still a sore winner.  And still feeling “lucky”.

The bartender has nothing else to tell us after Sam leaves, so I head off as well.  Off to my final planned stop: the university.

You mean leaving his office and walking right back in won’t work?  Are we SURE this is a Sierra game?

It turns out I’m early -- my screenshots from the previous session, it says he will call me when it’s done.  Oops.  I ask him about new topics, but he has nothing for me.  He’s very academic, and my new conversation tree choices are largely about the local and Black Voodoo practices that he claims to know nothing about.  I show him things from my inventory, like the mask, hoping for help, but no dice.

So now, I haven’t a clue what to do next, so I explore places I haven’t been to yet today.  One of the things I do is visit the overlook again, to check out the binoculars.  I mean, really, this can’t be like Larry 3 where the binoculars are only there for one titillating animation and that’s it... right?

One of Todd Rundgren’s worst songs, IMHO.

In one of the scopes, I watch as Crash (the young punk the police arrested the other day) talks to one of the drummers who won’t give me the time of day.  Gabriel is curious, but not just because he’s jealous.  I then watch as Crash walks to the church.

Before Wikipedia, this game was really a wealth of knowledge.

So, I decide to follow him and head to the church.

Never trust anyone over 30.

Talking to Crash doesn’t seem to be fruitful.  He doesn’t trust me or Mosely, even though I assure him that I’m not like Mosely... I actually have a brain and know things.  But because I’ve visited Sam in the bar, I have something to gain his trust.  Remember, I think he’s a Voodoo insider, so I show him the snake bracelet.

That opens his eyes wide, and he opens his shirt to show me a tattoo.  “It’s the same--the same snake!”  He confirms what I’ve already suspected, that we’ll need the snake to get close to the people in charge.

Dude, you’re partied out.  If you’re gonna spew, spew into this cup.

Crash really doesn’t look that good, and he throws some random coughs into his conversation.  He won’t tell us much, but confirms we’re on the right track, turning over the right stones so far.  So, I ask him all the topics I can.  Talking about snakes, he throws a new word into play, “Damballah”.  I suspect it’s the name of a snake, but he doesn’t say.  Secret hounfour here in New Orleans?  Tells me to shut up.  “Are you tryin’ to kill me?”

Then... the drummer.  “You saw me with the drummer?  Nobody’s supposed to see!  Shit!  I blew it again!”  He asks me to promise I won’t tell anyone else I saw them together.  I agree if he’ll start talking.  So, we learn the Rada drummers are used to transmit messages around the French Quarter, using some kind of code.

And since he had agreed to start talking, I ask again about the secret temple, and this time he gives me something.  There’s an undercover Voodoo cartel in the city, they control everything, both legal and not.  He doesn’t know exactly where the temple is, but he’s heard it’s underground.  Then he tells me about seeing people by the lake turning into animals, and then... well, I guess he’s said too much.

I’d make a joke about a death rattle, but I suspect Damballah isn’t that kind of snake.

Crash has a seizure, and dies as Gabriel watches.  I can look at a close-up of him, and Gabe says he looks like he was strangled.  If I push up his shirt, I can see the tattoo.

I knew this seemed familiar somehow...

...dead bodies by the side of a lake and corpses with tattoos.

Just like before, since we aren’t in the smartphone era yet, I use my sketchbook to copy the image from his chest.  I try to search him, but no dice.

I then head out of the church and over to the drummer, but he still won’t give me the time of day.  I didn’t think to show the bracelet until writing this, so maybe that’s something to do.  But I don’t know what that will achieve.  Also in the park is our friend the fortune teller, apparently mesmerized by the performing band.  And for that, we get a warning.

And then she leaves.  Hmm.

The hot dog vendor has been replaced with a cart selling beignets and cafe au lait.  I suspect this is the same one we saw outside the police station the first day, where they dropped everything to get some donuts.  But I’m unable to interact here.  

Oddly enough, I remember making beignets in a 7th grade cooking class, and I think I have that recipe somewhere put away.  I’ll start looking for it.

As soon as I leave the park, the game tells me again that the hour is late and Gabe wants to go home.  I guess that means I’ve done everything I need to do today again. We head back to the bookstore, and after Grace leaves, Gabe can’t sleep, so he calls up Malia, who invites him over for a social visit.

Who wrote it better, Jane Jenson or Dido?

Well, the paperboy and Grace both beat us back to the bookstore.  Grace grumbles a little, that’s she’s worried about us, but Gabe doesn’t tell Mom he’s sorry for staying out all night.  But when we ask, she’s got some info.  That pattern we gave her to research?  Ties to a murder back in 1810.  She gives us a copy of the newspaper clipping.  (From microfiche.  Damn, this game makes me feel older and older.)  Gabe tries to mend fences: “You’re incredible.  All that work...” but she shrugs it off.  See, I’m just thinking, finally, she did some research.  She must be pooped out by now.  

Also, we got a FedEx package from Germany.  I know in that last post, I joked about it coming by FedEx, but that’s actually what the game said.  Huh!  Guess I’m psychic.  “Well... it kind of came open, but I salvaged the contents.”  A letter from Wolfgang and the journal we were expecting.  Gabriel thinks she opened the package, but if she’s telling the truth, maybe that’s a hint that someone’s watching.

Also, by the way, that creepy watcher is still outside my front window.  I don’t seem to have a way to interact with them.

Up until now, he barely tolerated us.

As she tells us to read the journal carefully, we’re interrupted by a phone call.  It’s the professor, telling me a lot of the details about the sketch, rather excitedly I might add.  We learn new conversation topics, and he mentions Damballah the snake being a part of it.  Hmmm.  This image showed up back in 1701 in a slave revolt in Santo Domingo.

After Gabriel assures Grace that he’ll be safe, he almost tells her about his dreams.  Probably a mistake.  So, he changes the topic.  Then, well, it’s a new day.  Let’s do new day stuff, like read the paper.  We skip the news and go straight to the horoscope.  “The shadow upon you is no longer reversible.”

I dispute that.  There’s very clearly a “restart game” button in the options menu, just like every other Sierra game.

I check with Grace, no new messages today, but I ask her to do some research on the Rada drums.  She seems to be on a streak lately, so let’s see what she can get.  She says she’ll order some books in.  We ask her about the other new conversation lines, but no luck.

Hmm.

Reading the journal, it’s basically the story from the graphic novel.  So, I think that the game manual should have said to read it before day 5.  It talks of Gunther’s going undercover as a sailor to allow himself to fall into the hands of the coven.  Is this a hint of what we should be doing in the future?

Pages covered in teardrops, even.

The journal ends with a page that is shown to us rather than read aloud.  This information did not appear in the graphic novel, unlike all the rest of the information given.  It seems that he lost the talisman that we saw in the graphic novel and also in Gabriel’s dreams, at least the nights he doesn’t sleep with Malia.

After reading this, I head back into my bedroom to call Wolfgang, but Gabriel stops me.  “I can’t afford to call Germany again until I’ve figured more of this out.”

So, I head over to visit the professor.  Definitely the most important visit on my agenda today.

I had an uncle who used to ask this, so with the help of a thesaurus, I started answering him “superfluous”.

Everyone we meet turns dead.  Makes me think it’s time for a rewatch of Dead Like Me.

Well, this is becoming a nasty habit.  Another person looking to help us has ended up dead.  While the game doesn’t let me strip his shirt off looking for tattoos, I am able to snoop around the place.  On the professor’s desk is a paper with notes about my case.  Some of this, he brought up in the phone call, and some of this was in the graphic novel, so likely also referenced in the journal.  “The Agris tribe”,  “The People’s Republic of Benin”, “Damballah” next to a drawing of a snake, and “Ogoun Badagris” beside a drawing of a base vévé.  There doesn’t seem to be any other items of interest in the office right now.

We slip out, but the game tells me that on the way out, Gabriel tells campus security about the body.  So I suspect there’s nothing else I needed to do with it.  I hope, at least.

I think I have some info for Mosely, so I head over to the police station again.  There’s an expected visitor, and there’s a curious typo that might be revealing a future development.

Shouldn’t that be “Rada Drummer”?  When was it established that the drummers worked for Malia?  Don’t get me wrong, TV show logic says she’s an obvious suspect... but jumping the gun here?

Anyway, I walk into the inner sanctum to chat with Mosely.  I show him the newspaper clipping from 1810, witht he exact same M.O., and he concedes that IF there is a Voodoo cult, they are a threat.  I also show him the notes from the professor’s desk,translating the drawing.  After explaining it to him, he admits, “I’m impressed.  Okay, you’ve convinced me.  The murders were done by a legitimate Voodoo cult.”

So I go and interrogate him, and one of the options is to tell him about Crash’s death.  He hadn’t heard yet, but wasn’t immediately all broken up about it.  “At the cathedral?  Guess he was trying to get a last minute A-train ticket, eh?  Poor bastard.”  He’s not eager to investigate Crash’s death, but when I tell him it looks like poison, he relents a little.  If it’s not a basic OD, I’ll get involved.  Also, by the way, someone else I was with died at the college too.  Again, Mosely isn’t interested.  IF the medical examiner finds something fishy, THEN he will look into it.   But so far, there’s nothing to prove either one is related to Voodoo.

But wait, I’m the common link to Voodoo for them!

Saying that, Mosely wisely tells me to hush, because anyone else might haul him into jail for that connection.  Oh, and maybe you should stop getting outsiders involved.

After all this, I use the dialog option to check the status of the case.  He tells me I still have one task left, to get him a lead on the cult.  I don’t have that yet, so I’ll head off.

Okay, so the skull in the corner of this room is a nice touch now that it’s dark.

Where else haven’t I visited in a while?  Let’s try the Voodoo Museum.  

I walk inside, and for some reason, the door was open but the lights were off.  I get just a couple of steps inside when the snake drops in from the upper floor and gives me a very warm embrace tries to squeeze the life out of me.  He moves me back towards the door, so the solution to this was very obvious to me.  However, I conveniently saved just before this visit, so I’ll give you both outcomes.

If you do nothing, the snake strangles you to death.  Not much of a death scene, after the strangling, that is.

The proper solution is to turn on the fan.  If you’ll recall, the first time we visited, I had discovered that the fan really messed with the snake, so that was the way to get him off you here.  Then, a second later, Dr. John walks in, wondering why you’re there when the museum was closed.

Um... door open, no sign... how would I have known?

Someone’s always posting on her Facebook wall.

Next stop, I visit the cemetery, and talk to the caretaker about all the new topics, but no luck.  But glancing at the coded message on the side of Marie’s tomb, I discover it’s a new message.  So, I jot that down.  I also explore the rest of the cemetery, but nothing new.

She couldn’t foresee my need to visit her?

I head over to Magentia Moonbeam’s, hoping to have her translate this new message, but it seems she’s out of town for the next month or so.  That’s a nice, long business trip, I hope she isn’t forced to stay in 1-star motels.

I head back to the park, for not particular reason other than I needed to leave the map screen.  This is because I had a thought: I had the previous translation.  If I compare them, would some (all) of the words line up?

Well, this is pretty obvious.  The missing letters make the message: “DJ keep eyes on GK but do not harm” with, of course, DJ being Dr. John and GK being our intrepid hero.  Gabriel doesn’t comment whether he has also figured this out. 

Also, while at the park: Madame Lorelei’s deserted her booth, and a quick trip to the cathedral shows his body has been taken away.  A quick look around shows nothing changed at the cathedral.  

So, I head back home, before the game forces me.  As soon as I walk into the door, Grace is concerned that I look pale green.  I shrug it off, but she makes me come close for an evaluation.

“What’s that on your face?”

She picks a sparkly something off of my face, and throws it in the ashtray.  Sparkly something?  Right after I got a loving embrace from a snake?

Let’s look in the ashtray and see what it is.

A quick glance under the scope, and it seems they are a match.  Which means that,. If snake color is as unique as DNA, Dr. John’s snake was present at the lakeside murder.

So, Mosely, does this interest you now?  It’s proof!  A lead on who’s in the cult!  Let’s go tell him.

Mosely: “Is this common?  Do they all look alike?”

Mosely reluctantly admits we did some good detectoring, and says he will reopen the case.  But he’ll pretty much be on his own, because no one else in the police department  feels the case is worth looking into any further.  He decides to lock up his office, and tell us to keep out of the investigation.

Yeah, right.

Now the game forces me back home.  After we get there, and Grace leaves, we try calling Malia again.  This time, she doesn’t answer.

“Damn!”

So we sleep alone tonight, and have our usual nightmares.  Well, with at least one new graphic I don’t recall seeing before:

Ironically, Gabriel has no Cash.

And we head into day 6.  Grace arrives to work before we’ve gotten up, as usual... but when she walks in, there’s a grisly scene waiting in the middle of our floor.

I guess we’ve ruffled the wrong feathers...

Gabriel: “With a knife?”

She’s all worried, but we calm her down and clean it up.  “At least that creepy guy is gone.  <shiver> Not that they aren’t still watching.”

Still, she gets her mind back on the work, and hands us a book on Rada drum codes.  No sooner does she hand it over when an envelope breezes in the mail slot.

Wait, we already played the Spellcasting games.

Inside the unmarked envelope (that Grace is scared of, but tries to hide) is a key and a note from Mosely.  

Gabe--I have to go underground with this thing.  It runs wide and deep throughout the department and the city board... I’m already being watched.  It was “suggested” that I take vacation time, so I am--at least, as far as they know.  Try to keep out of this--it’s too hot for a rookie.  Just in case, I’m sending you my office key.  You might find some useful things there.

P.S. I think this note will look great in the book, don’t you?  Make sure you save it.

And it seems a good time for me to take a “vacation” as well.  It’s a good time to pause; last post was half a day, this post was 2 days.  I guess I have been front-loading the game a little, but I don’t know how many days are left.  Guessing from the score, I’d say we’re just over halfway done.

Score: 196/342

Session Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 9 hours 0 minutes