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xyzzysqrlThe situation is continuing to ramp up, Gabe Knight-wise. We're getting into the darker parts of the game now, the situation's getting more and more... fatal. Gabe's going to have to step lively if he wants to keep his head on his shoulders. Let's see how well he does here on Day 6.
The day pretty much opens as usual. You've got the sunrise.
Newspaper.
Grace.
Dying chicken on the shop flo-- wait what.
Grace and Gabriel are freaked the hell out, not the least of which because (as Grace puts it) "They know where you LIVE." (I presume that's what Creepy Staring Guy was making sure of.)
Still, Grace leaves for a few hours and comes back with those fancy-ass italian coffee things for Gabe, and Gabe cleans the place up (he is alarmingly good at getting flour and chicken, uhm, liquids out of the carpet) and things settle down a little. Enough for Grace to remember that the Rada book Gabriel wanted showed up in the mail.
Well, hopefully Gabriel understands what that means. Because I don't. Gabriel also takes a moment (against his better judgement) to check his horoscope.
SURE WHY NOT. Seriously, what is EVERY OTHER AQUARIUS IN THE CITY thinking of these horoscopes? Good grief. As soon as Gabriel looks away from the newspaper, though...
A shadowy figure zips past the building and drops a letter inside. Gabriel carefully approaches it, picks it up and peeks inside -- and finds Mosely's office key and a letter. The letter is all "Gabriel: This thing runs deep into every corner of the department and beyond, I'm going undercover."
"PS: Keep this note. It'll look awesome in the book."
Whew. It was not the return of the crazed chicken killer. It was only Mosely being a spy-movie dumbass. Thanks, Mosely. Gabriel grabs his coat and checks to make sure Grace is okay working the shop alone.
Grace: "I'll be fine. Just... FIX this, okay?"
Gabriel: "I'm tryin'."
Right. Out to Jackson Square. Gabriel sets up camp and starts listening to the drumbeats.
As you can probably see, a lot of the drum hits are just noise, extra static to hide the actual message. If you sit and watch for repeated "phrases", though, you can parse out "Call Conclave" "Tonight" and "Swamp", which Gabriel decides is the Bayou St. John. Because where else would you have a St. John's Day voodoo conclave?
If only we knew where it WAS exactly. The Bayou's a big place. You don't wanna wander aimlessly through it in the middle of the night.
Over on the next screen, Gabriel cheerfully notices that hey! That fortune teller, Madame Lorelei, is back! He happily walks over to say hello, since she gave him quite a scare by running off before...
"STAY AWAY FROM MALIA GEDDE OR YOU WILL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE!" she hisses ...and in a swirl of veils, she's gone without a trace. (I missed catching the subtitle. Drat.) Gabriel's reaction this time is pretty simple: "What the HELL is going ON?!"
I dunno, Gabe, I think it's possible someone is trying to warn you about something. Couldn't say what or who though. It is a complete and utter mystery.
Y'know, while I sometimes get the feeling I'm casually hanging out with Nancy Drew and just watching as she cruises through her cases? I'm instead getting the feeling that Gabriel would've somehow driven his motorcycle into Lake Pontchartrain or something back on Day 1 if we weren't here safe-guarding his big dumb head.
On the way out of the park, Gabriel spots a beignet vendor cart. Beignets are fried shoes or something, and Gabe remembers a time when one of these vendor carts effectively stopped all work at the police station dead. Hm. With a little fast-talking, he persuades the cart guy to roll out to the New Orleans PD and park there for a while. Excellent. Then it's over to the police station...
And EVERYONE sprints for the fried dough with piles of sugar on it. Because om nom nom. Gabe ducks in back to sneak into Mosely's office real quick. And in Mosely's desk... well hello. THIS is a neat gizmo.
Okay. We got a way to track... but what do we track? Hrm. Gabriel nips off to the cemetary on a hunch.
There's a new message on the tomb. Gabe copies it over, then compares the two.
Let's see. E?ES is probably EYES. "B?T" is probably "But". And "HAR?" is likely... hark? Nah. Harm?
DJ Keep Eyes On GK But Do Not Harm.
...
FANTASTIC FUCKIN' JOB THERE, DJ. WAY TO NOT HARM. READ THIS SHIT, MAN.
...wait a minute. He -does- read this shit. Gabe grabs the little chunk of red brick by the tomb. Okay. DJ, CONCLAVE TONIGHT, BRING ... something. Something small and portable that we could hide a tracking device in or on. The whip... he'd notice. Same with the knife. Ah, but that little COFFIN...
Slowly, carefully, Gabe spells out DJ, CONCLAVE TONIGHT, BRING SEKEY MADOULE.
Perfect. Of course, we have to actually get the tracker in the coffin. Gabriel zips off to the museum and pops in it there. We have just enough time to do that before --
Doctor John throws us out. Okay, what's left... we can get to the conclave with the tracker, we have a mask to blend in -- crap. We need to be tattooed with a snake. The whole "marking" thing. We have that sketch of Crash's tattoo, but we don't exactly know anybody--
--who is an accomplished painter among her list of like fifty other talents and hobbies. Hey Grace, could you paint snakes all over Gabriel's stomach? It's for a book.
Grace: "Why on Earth would I want to do that?"
Gabriel: "I'm goin' to a party. Costume. Y'know."
Grace: "Probably with ~Malia~, I'd assume. Again, why would I help you? I don't even like her."
Gabriel: "You know what they say. 'All the world loves lovers'."
Grace: "You know what else they say? 'No'."
Gabriel: "Well, if you're -jealous-..."
Grace: "What."
Gabriel: "I know you don't understand our love. And seeing it, day in and day out, no chance for your own heart--"
Grace: "Gabriel if I do this for you will you shut up?"
Gabriel: "Yes."
Grace: "Let me grab my paints."
They head in back.
Grace: "Just... hold still for this."
Gabriel: "Maybe you'd like to tie me up?"
Grace: "One more remark and I'm leaving."
And so, in silence, Grace paints a snake on Gabriel's stomach.
Gabriel: "Sorry I couldn't make it last longer."
Grace: "Eh. That's honestly what I expected from you."
That, uh, tense dialogue aside, we are now all prepared for the St. John's Eve Conclave. All we have to do is go out to the Bayou St. John and find the damn thing. Gabriel grabs a flashlight out of his bedroom and... we're off! As Gabriel walks through the swamp, the sound of pounding drums make him dizzy, and the dark woods make him feel lost...
But the tracker's constantly blipping away, so he knows where to go. Eventually, we're there. Gabe pulls on the mask and goes to mingle. Things are pretty wild at the conclave, with snake-dancing and people dressed as leopards...
...and Doctor John, who gives Gabe a quick voodoo pop quiz on the major loa. If Gabe gets this wrong -- well, game over! Hope you like being choked to death! We do not get it wrong because we paid attention, didn't we? Unfortunately, as Gabe is distracted by the dancing, big "Brother Eagle" (aka Doctor John) notices something's up with him and blows a big load of powder in Gabe's face.
Gabriel's vision gets wobbly. He pulls off the mask. (Nobody seems to care.) He wanders into the circle, staring.
That dancer looks kind of familiar somehow.
Of course it's Malia. The others begin chanting for Tetelo to take command, Tetelo to come and ride, and with a sudden snap she does.
Gabriel is flung to the ground and passes out, and as Malia/Tetelo gloats, a pair of hands reach in and drag him off into the dark swamp...
...and that's the end of day six.
The day pretty much opens as usual. You've got the sunrise.
Newspaper.
Grace.
Dying chicken on the shop flo-- wait what.
Grace and Gabriel are freaked the hell out, not the least of which because (as Grace puts it) "They know where you LIVE." (I presume that's what Creepy Staring Guy was making sure of.)
Still, Grace leaves for a few hours and comes back with those fancy-ass italian coffee things for Gabe, and Gabe cleans the place up (he is alarmingly good at getting flour and chicken, uhm, liquids out of the carpet) and things settle down a little. Enough for Grace to remember that the Rada book Gabriel wanted showed up in the mail.
Well, hopefully Gabriel understands what that means. Because I don't. Gabriel also takes a moment (against his better judgement) to check his horoscope.
SURE WHY NOT. Seriously, what is EVERY OTHER AQUARIUS IN THE CITY thinking of these horoscopes? Good grief. As soon as Gabriel looks away from the newspaper, though...
A shadowy figure zips past the building and drops a letter inside. Gabriel carefully approaches it, picks it up and peeks inside -- and finds Mosely's office key and a letter. The letter is all "Gabriel: This thing runs deep into every corner of the department and beyond, I'm going undercover."
"PS: Keep this note. It'll look awesome in the book."
Whew. It was not the return of the crazed chicken killer. It was only Mosely being a spy-movie dumbass. Thanks, Mosely. Gabriel grabs his coat and checks to make sure Grace is okay working the shop alone.
Grace: "I'll be fine. Just... FIX this, okay?"
Gabriel: "I'm tryin'."
Right. Out to Jackson Square. Gabriel sets up camp and starts listening to the drumbeats.
As you can probably see, a lot of the drum hits are just noise, extra static to hide the actual message. If you sit and watch for repeated "phrases", though, you can parse out "Call Conclave" "Tonight" and "Swamp", which Gabriel decides is the Bayou St. John. Because where else would you have a St. John's Day voodoo conclave?
If only we knew where it WAS exactly. The Bayou's a big place. You don't wanna wander aimlessly through it in the middle of the night.
Over on the next screen, Gabriel cheerfully notices that hey! That fortune teller, Madame Lorelei, is back! He happily walks over to say hello, since she gave him quite a scare by running off before...
"STAY AWAY FROM MALIA GEDDE OR YOU WILL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE!" she hisses ...and in a swirl of veils, she's gone without a trace. (I missed catching the subtitle. Drat.) Gabriel's reaction this time is pretty simple: "What the HELL is going ON?!"
I dunno, Gabe, I think it's possible someone is trying to warn you about something. Couldn't say what or who though. It is a complete and utter mystery.
Y'know, while I sometimes get the feeling I'm casually hanging out with Nancy Drew and just watching as she cruises through her cases? I'm instead getting the feeling that Gabriel would've somehow driven his motorcycle into Lake Pontchartrain or something back on Day 1 if we weren't here safe-guarding his big dumb head.
On the way out of the park, Gabriel spots a beignet vendor cart. Beignets are fried shoes or something, and Gabe remembers a time when one of these vendor carts effectively stopped all work at the police station dead. Hm. With a little fast-talking, he persuades the cart guy to roll out to the New Orleans PD and park there for a while. Excellent. Then it's over to the police station...
And EVERYONE sprints for the fried dough with piles of sugar on it. Because om nom nom. Gabe ducks in back to sneak into Mosely's office real quick. And in Mosely's desk... well hello. THIS is a neat gizmo.
Okay. We got a way to track... but what do we track? Hrm. Gabriel nips off to the cemetary on a hunch.
There's a new message on the tomb. Gabe copies it over, then compares the two.
Let's see. E?ES is probably EYES. "B?T" is probably "But". And "HAR?" is likely... hark? Nah. Harm?
DJ Keep Eyes On GK But Do Not Harm.
...
FANTASTIC FUCKIN' JOB THERE, DJ. WAY TO NOT HARM. READ THIS SHIT, MAN.
...wait a minute. He -does- read this shit. Gabe grabs the little chunk of red brick by the tomb. Okay. DJ, CONCLAVE TONIGHT, BRING ... something. Something small and portable that we could hide a tracking device in or on. The whip... he'd notice. Same with the knife. Ah, but that little COFFIN...
Slowly, carefully, Gabe spells out DJ, CONCLAVE TONIGHT, BRING SEKEY MADOULE.
Perfect. Of course, we have to actually get the tracker in the coffin. Gabriel zips off to the museum and pops in it there. We have just enough time to do that before --
Doctor John throws us out. Okay, what's left... we can get to the conclave with the tracker, we have a mask to blend in -- crap. We need to be tattooed with a snake. The whole "marking" thing. We have that sketch of Crash's tattoo, but we don't exactly know anybody--
--who is an accomplished painter among her list of like fifty other talents and hobbies. Hey Grace, could you paint snakes all over Gabriel's stomach? It's for a book.
Grace: "Why on Earth would I want to do that?"
Gabriel: "I'm goin' to a party. Costume. Y'know."
Grace: "Probably with ~Malia~, I'd assume. Again, why would I help you? I don't even like her."
Gabriel: "You know what they say. 'All the world loves lovers'."
Grace: "You know what else they say? 'No'."
Gabriel: "Well, if you're -jealous-..."
Grace: "What."
Gabriel: "I know you don't understand our love. And seeing it, day in and day out, no chance for your own heart--"
Grace: "Gabriel if I do this for you will you shut up?"
Gabriel: "Yes."
Grace: "Let me grab my paints."
They head in back.
Grace: "Just... hold still for this."
Gabriel: "Maybe you'd like to tie me up?"
Grace: "One more remark and I'm leaving."
And so, in silence, Grace paints a snake on Gabriel's stomach.
Gabriel: "Sorry I couldn't make it last longer."
Grace: "Eh. That's honestly what I expected from you."
That, uh, tense dialogue aside, we are now all prepared for the St. John's Eve Conclave. All we have to do is go out to the Bayou St. John and find the damn thing. Gabriel grabs a flashlight out of his bedroom and... we're off! As Gabriel walks through the swamp, the sound of pounding drums make him dizzy, and the dark woods make him feel lost...
But the tracker's constantly blipping away, so he knows where to go. Eventually, we're there. Gabe pulls on the mask and goes to mingle. Things are pretty wild at the conclave, with snake-dancing and people dressed as leopards...
...and Doctor John, who gives Gabe a quick voodoo pop quiz on the major loa. If Gabe gets this wrong -- well, game over! Hope you like being choked to death! We do not get it wrong because we paid attention, didn't we? Unfortunately, as Gabe is distracted by the dancing, big "Brother Eagle" (aka Doctor John) notices something's up with him and blows a big load of powder in Gabe's face.
Gabriel's vision gets wobbly. He pulls off the mask. (Nobody seems to care.) He wanders into the circle, staring.
That dancer looks kind of familiar somehow.
Of course it's Malia. The others begin chanting for Tetelo to take command, Tetelo to come and ride, and with a sudden snap she does.
Gabriel is flung to the ground and passes out, and as Malia/Tetelo gloats, a pair of hands reach in and drag him off into the dark swamp...
...and that's the end of day six.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-02 04:24 am (UTC)Why do I have this feeling Lorelei is Grace in disguise or something?
no subject
Date: 2014-02-02 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 03:37 am (UTC)Anyway... well that escalated quickly. This is day six? Of ten? I'm not sure how you can get four more days out of it at this pace; today appeared to be gearing up for final boss showdown already.
I kind of called it on Malia being connected to Tetelo the way Gabriel is to Gunter, but who is this mysterious benefactor who saved him?? (Mosely, I'm sure)
no subject
Date: 2016-02-01 10:34 am (UTC)...
*glance sideways*
*bigger endearing grin?*