Come to know fear as I have! Let's Play Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

You can sign up for a Photbucket Pro account per month, if that's what you mean?

- Eddie

I don't really care for "pay as you go" things, so I'll just be getting a one-year deal.

Is this the least optimal choice? Very probably. Oh well!

Wow. So, how much bandwidth would it take to max out a regular account?

Not terribly long. Even if you have fifty or so people checking out an update with 15 MB worth of images, that's still 750 MB an update, and if you do more than one update a month...

derp I forgot to save the next update as gifs way to be a team player me The one after that? Definitely gif format.

But I did update to Pro, so for the next year there will be absolutely no problems.

Problems that are exactly the same as the prior problem, that is. No guarantee about other ones.

Man you don't want gif files, you want jpeg or png files man. Gif files are going to ruin your colours.

- Eddie

This is the first thing you see when you load the game from a save file. It comes with a horror music sting, too.



In any event, Alex checks out the three candles that mysteriously lit up. The array reminds her of the tale she just read about, so she extinguishes the center and rightmost candles.



This causes the bookshelf to open up, revealing an old-fashioned message scroll. Alex snatches it up as well.



Going to the inventory to check it out, one might notice that Alex's sanity is not in the best shape. This probably has something to do with reading a book made from parts of humans for an extended period of time, or possibly with reading stories about people who suffer grisly fates at the hands of powers beyond time. Either way, if you're too much of a coward to go into combat with low sanity, the sanity loss from the tome in the risk-free mansion means you have NO EXCUSE to not go completely mad and get a load of sanity effects.

Anyway, Alex pops open the message tube, and lo and behold, another Chapter Page is inside, this one titled "Suspicions of Conspiracy". No sooner does she open it, however...



Cutscene: The Absent Horror

Pious is in his inner sanctum, calling upon the one who grants him his power: the master of the planes, Ulyaoth.



Pious, as in life, is ever respectful to his master.



Ulyaoth, on the other hand, considers Pious only barely worth his time, cutting him off continually and idly musing over his meaningless existence in a voice like the bottom of the ocean.

Depending on the artifact you choose, you'll find a different being here talking with Pious, and each has their own personality and voice. The red Ancient is barely intelligible, speaking in such a low rumble that it may as well be a stone colossus, and being brutally direct in whatever it states. The green Ancient, however, switches between a loud and controlling voice to an insane whisper at the drop of a hat, and is the only one that gives Pious any degree of respect.



In any event, Pious thinks he's found a flaw in their plan to bring Ulyaoth into our world. Ulyaoth shushes him, saying that Mantorok is up against the wall, and neither it nor the other two Ancients will do a thing to stop him, being unable to unite against a common enemy.



Pious asks if the lost essence of Mantorok will pose any threat, and Ulyaoth is again the naysayer, claiming that once he enters the world of humanity, the essence of Mantorok alone won't do a thing to stop him. Ulyaoth's primary concern is Charlemagne the Frank. For those of you not up to snuff regarding history, Charlemagne the Frank was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire during the 6th and 7th centuries, and was pretty much the guy who started the ball rolling in forming Europe as we know it today. If the Empire continued to grow uninterrupted, it would be a lot more difficult to manage a cult dedicated to the revival of a being beyond time and space. Pious bows to Ulyaoth and vows to ensure Charlemagne's death at the soonest opportunity.



Meanwhile, Alex checks out this new Chapter Page.



Cutscene: Suspicions of Conspiracy youtube stop making me delve into other LPs for cutscenes

This chapter opens up with the page Anthony kneeling before a black-robed man, who hands him a scroll and gives him a request in Latin. This is the last time we hear characters speak anything other than English to each other in cutscenes.



The man orders Anthony to deliver the scroll directly to Charlemagne and to not let any other soul view it.



Anthony is loyal through and through to Charlemagne, and suspects shady business, so he ducks into a side corridor and examines the scroll.



Upon opening the scroll, the first thing he sees is a mysterious magickal sigil, rather than a letter.



The second thing he sees is a faceful of magick as the ensorcelled scroll knocks him flat on his back.

Anthony's first priority, upon getting his breath back, isn't to go get himself healed by a priest or whereever you go to fix curses. No, he reasons that if someone is sending Charlemagne cursed letters, then he's in serious danger, as is the Holy Roman Empire, and he runs off to warn him.



Anthony locates Charlemagne in the Oublie chapel of Amiens, where a number of monks mourn the passing of one of their brothers.

We get control of Anthony here. Anthony is a pretty good character, but not the best. He's got good health and sanity, although he's not as fast as Ellia is. Also, I just like his character for some reason. Couldn't tell you why, but he's just a pretty cool guy to me.



Anthony discusses his mission with a few of the monks, and learns that Charlemagne was in an audience in the Bishop's chamber. This is all well and good, only the chamber is locked, and the Bishop is nowhere to be found, so if Anthony wants to talk to Charlemagne, he first has to find the Bishop.

Talking with the other monks doesn't reveal much. In fact, many of them are suspiciously unwilling to discuss the deceased at all. Anthony suspects that something is amiss.



Anthony starts by inspecting the casket.

Finding the funeral service fairly slapshod and hurried, Anthony wonders if the body itself could be the problem. He pries open the casket...



And is greeted with a terrifying sight of the dead monk, whose torso appears to have exploded. The other monks begin speaking amongst themselves, worried about devilry and their own safety, and all but one of them flees.



The remaining monk stays behind to discuss the grisly scenario, marveling at the kind of evil that would desecrate his body thus.



The monk gives Anthony a sword to defend himself with and tells him to locate the bishop. Let's check out that sword, shall we?

It's pretty much another Gladius, really. But hey, the Gladius is awesome, so the Scramasax is, by extension, awesome.



Anthony can't do much here until he finds the Bishop, so up the stairs we go!



wait what



This... is not the monastery.

Anthony finds himself in a strange building, the air filled with wails and screams, but not a soul is in sight.



On his right, Anthony sees a statue of Ellia. This doesn't do him much good, of course.



Across from her statue, the statue of Pious that was smashed earlier in the game stands. What could the significance of these statues be?



As Anthony crosses the walkway to the end, the floor seems to form faces purely to scream at him, and the colossal bony hand creaks open to reveal a familiar book.

Anthony can't see any way out of the room, short of diving into the massive, mist-filled chasm below him, so he takes the book.




As he does so, images from the lives of Pious and Ellia flash before him rapidfire, and before he knows it, he's back in the monastery, where he was climbing the stairs, but now with the book in his possession.

Oh come on, can't we go two steps without being assaulted by magick?



Guess that curse is starting to kick in. Better act fast, Anthony.

The upper floor is completely vacant, which isn't too reassuring. Perhaps there's another path around here.



On one of the shelves, Anthony spies an ornate blue urn. Anthony picks it up, and is surprised to hear a clinking sound from inside it. He tries to reach into the urn to grab it, but he slips and the urn breaks on the ground. Anthony picks up both the urn shards and the contents...



A strange red rune?



Welcome to the first element of Eternal Darkness' magick system. To cast a spell, you have to assemble the runes that make up the spell, and that means finding the runes. Unfortunately, without a Codex to identify our rune, a Spell Scroll to know what spell to cast, or a Circle of Power to unite this with other runes, it's just a shiny trinket.



How convenient! One of the desks at the other end of the room has a Circle of Power resting right on top of it! Circles of power come in a few different varieties. This one is a 3 point Circle of Power, meaning it has space to unite our first rune with two others to form a spell. Since three is the minimum number of runes you need for a spell, that works out nicely.



Unfortunately, there's no more mystical magickal artifacts just lying around, so Anthony checks the bookcases for any clues.



Most of the books look like they haven't been touched in ages, which is definitely weird for a monastery. What's even weirder, though, is that one of them is spotlessly clean and free of dust. Moving it, Anthony finds that it is a lever that shifts one of the bookcases into the wall, revealing a ladder downwards.

Yes, this game did just use the "book as a lever to a secret passage" trick. What of it?



At the bottom of the ladder, a green zombie turns to face Anthony. This one's a bit different from most, though. It has a transparent torso, containing a yellow rune! Anthony is adequately freaked out by the zombie, but he dismisses any fears he has, reminding himself that he's the last hope for warning Charlemagne against the conspiracy, and fights back.



And we've got our second rune. Still one shy for a new spell, though.



Anthony's finishing move is a kind of weird one: he cavalierly tosses the scramasax into the fallen zombie, then pulls it back out normally.



In the next room, he finds something disconcerting: a monk being attacked by these zombies.



The monk uses his torch to light one up, but in doing so, panics and drops his torch. On the upside, the burning zombie stumbles down the steps and lights up the tapestry on the far wall.

Now, you can save this monk and fight those zombies, or you can just sneak past. This being a game with an obvious Lovecraftian bent, you'd think the latter would be the better option.



You'd be wrong. Anthony leaps to the monk's defense with a boldness he didn't know he had, and the creatures are no more. He also snags the torch because hey, free torch.

Not too good, honestly. I mean, yes, it provides light, and it oneshots green and normal zombies, but what doesn't?



Talking to the monk reveals that the Bishop did indeed come this way, but he had with him a sword and the look of a possessed man. The monk hid out of sight, dropping the urn he was carrying, until the Bishop passed by, and when he came out of hiding, he found the Bishop's sword. He offers it to Anthony for saving him.

This, of course, begs the question: why didn't the monk use this awesome, awesome sword to fight the zombies?

Okay, the swords everyone's been using up until now? Small fries compared to the Two-Edged Sword. Whereas most swords would require you to sever both the zombie's head and arms before they fell, the Two-Edged Sword can take off their head with one swing and their entire torso with the second. This goes for every kind of zombie you fight, including red ones. The Scramasax is done, we're keeping the Two-Edged Sword.



We still need to find the pieces of the urn that the monk broke, though. To do this, we light up our torch and check the ground around here, finding three pieces of urn.



As we do so, the game helpfully informs us that we can "mix" compatible items with each other. Anthony does this with the three urn fragments, but they're still a far cry from fixed. Whatever can we do?



In the next room, Anthony spies a strange stone tablet: one marked with a new rune, with the word "Magormor" across the top, and the label "Item" on the bottom. This is a Codex, which we use to identify runes. Unlike the two spell components we found earlier, Codices are optional, but they do help you understand what sort of spell you're likely to get from mixing runes at random. So that's something.



Further down the stairs in the same room, Anthony takes down another rune zombie and claims the Magormor rune he just got the Codex for.

Magormor (Item) is kind of weird among runes. It only serves to make a single spell, but that one spell is your bread and butter for most, if not all, of the game, so I guess that makes it important? There's only one missable rune in the game anyway, but I'll pick it up because I love you all so much.



The curse is still doing it's grim work. Anthony's really not looking too good.



Anyway, the next room has a few zombies fighting amongst themselves, as well as a fountain, a filled red urn, and a new Codex.

This Codex identifies our red rune as a Chattur'gha rune, but doesn't specify the word it means. This is one of the three alignment runes, and determines which Ancient the spell draws power from. The order you get these runes in depends on the artifact you chose. If you chose the green artifact, you'd get an Ulyaoth rune. Choosing the red one gives you the Xel'lotath rune. As with Pokémon, your initial alignment rune is least effective against your rival, but it still does the job for now.



Anthony snatches up the urn and examines the fountain.

Grody. Looks like the urn we just got is filled with the same substance, so it's probably not going to kill us if we try to fill any other intact urns we may happen to find.



Unfortunately, there's no doorway further, just a tapestry. It would stand to reason, though, that the door could be hidden by the tapestry. So, Anthony elects to move the tapestry out of the way to check.



Or we can burn the tapestry to ashes. That... that's good too.



Aha! There's our quarry. The Bishop opens up the back wall to reveal a secret passage. He limps into it, and it closes behind him. Anthony doesn't see how to get into that passage himself, however. There's a tile on the ground, and stepping on it opens it up, but stepping off closes it again. He'll need something to weigh it down with. First things first, though: let's scour the area for any useful tools.



Anthony finds the Antorbok (Project) codex on the floor, which clarifies that rune as a useful offensive rune used in two spells, and a spell scroll for the Enchant Item spell! Spell scrolls are the last piece you can collect for a given spell, and it outlines both the effects and runes of a given spell. However, these, like Codices, are also optional, and you can obtain new spells just by mixing runes together using the New Spell function. There's no real reason not to, unless you dislike brute forcing rune combinations, and if you do, just collect all the necessary components and you'll be set.



If you do this, the game will automagically indicate the spell you've just enabled. Enchant Item is the first spell you get in the game, and it remains useful from start to finish.

As it claims, this spell has two purposes. The first is to fix items that have been broken, like urns.



This is the same spell the guard in Ellia's chapter used to repair the Short Sword. Our version is red, since it draws from Chattur'gha's power. The mechanical differences between magick colors will be discussed later, when it becomes relevant, but for right now, we've got urns to fix.



We also take the time and magick to enchant Anthony's sword. Enchanted weapons do more damage to anything they hit, and specific colors of magick work better against specific enemies. They also make a specific sound when swung. A Chattur'gha weapon, for example, makes a deep rumbling, like a growling beast or shifting stone.

In any event, to weigh down that tile, we fill up the three urns with water-stuff, and then set them on the tile. With that obstacle out of the way, Anthony continues the pursuit of the Bishop!



And there he is.



Uh-oh.

The Bishop here is the first boss fight, in the sense that he is a unique enemy who you fight to advance the plot. As far as an actual boss fight, though, he's just a zombie with a lot of health, although his gaze continually damages sanity. Which is to say, he's cooked meat against the Two-Edged Sword.



Two other zombies will rise up to assist him, but that's not remotely enough to make this encounter challenging.



Anthony's finishing move with the Two-Edged Sword is pretty cool: a straight stab into the foe, followed by a twist of the sword. Yes, we are finishing the Bishop here. He dropped the Bishop's key when we beat him, so Anthony loots that and begins his trek all the way to the beginning of the level.



Okay, starting to get an idea that the curse is going to adversely affect Anthony here. In fact, at this point, it does. Anthony starts swinging his sword slower and moving more slowly.



Also, we find a new friend here. This little guy is called the Trapper. They constantly make a maddening chirping noise, and if you get near, they'll wave their tails in the air and start glowing. Step too close, and they'll detonate, transporting whoever they catch...



...to the Trapper Dimension.

The Trapper Dimension is a sub-dungeon which says that only the quick will escape its shifting portals, making it sound even worse by the fact that magick doesn't work here. In reality, though, it's a free refill for whatever meter you so choose.



The portal in front of Anthony here cycles between red, blue, green, and purple. Taking the red teleporter lets you refill your health, the green one lets you refill sanity, the blue one lets you refill magick, and the purple one is the fastest route out. Enemies will be scattered throughout, but it's generally a useful thing to go to the Trapper Dimension.

In this case, since the only spell we have lasts for a good few minutes per cast and restoring sanity is for weaklings, I take the red teleporter and restore my health. This is also a dumb choice for Anthony's chapter, since the Two-Edged Sword wrecks everything, but oh well.



In the room after we escape, there's a whole crowd of Trappers, However, Trappers are blind, meaning that if you hold X to sneak, you can waltz on by with no problems.



On the way back, we find the monk from earlier. Anthony's suspicion is aroused... why would he be staying here, where it's clearly so dangerous, without a good reason? All the other monks, except for the Bishop, have already fled, and the Bishop is a monstrosity we've already killed. Furthermore, why didn't he use his sword on the zombies? Maybe the whole thing was a show, and he's really in league with the Bishop!



Anthony doesn't permit the monk to say a single word, but quickly decapitates him. He won't be ambushed so easily!

In case you can't tell, Anthony's sanity just took a massive hit. If you kill any non-hostile characters, your sanity goes down, because what else do you expect from someone who just randomly commits homicides? And yeah, you can't finish off humans for a sanity boost because are you a complete lunatic?!



One room later, and Anthony is looking REALLY messed up. On the upside, the ladder is but a hop, skip and a zombified lurch away.



Uh-oh.



A massive Horror appears before Anthony, crackling with energy, causing the room to quake with each step, and roaring furiously. Before Anthony can head for the stairs, a magickal barrier appears there, preventing escape!

Now this is a boss fight. If you don't have the Two-Edged Sword, the Horror can pose a real threat. Not only do their claws deal hefty damage, but they also crackle with energy that can damage and knock back people who get close, and can fire this energy as a magickal bolt. Horrors also have three heads, and if you want to kill it, severing all three is your best bet. As with advanced zombies, there are three colors of Horror. Blue horrors, as with zombies, drain magick with each hit, and their energy bolt will briefly paralyze targets that it hits, if I recall right. I didn't stay far away from it long enough to confirm this, what with lacking a ranged attack.



That didn't help me too much, though, and I still got Anthony killed. The Horror is a pretty tough enemy this early on!



What did they put into that curse, anyway?! Anthony is unique among the playable characters in that if he runs out of health, his curse will simply shock him back to life. This works indefinitely, I believe, which is good, because new players are going to have a lot of trouble against the Horror otherwise.



If you have the Two-Edged Sword, slashing the beast's triple heads isn't too tough, and even with just the Scramasax, it's doable. With the Horror's death, the barrier back downstairs goes away. Anthony heads down.



Hm... something here's not quite right here, but I can't put my finger on it.



Wha-- what?!



THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!!

And that's our first major sanity effect: upon entering the room, Anthony began gradually shrinking until he was no more than a foot tall. After a sanity effect like that goes on for a while, it'll flash back to when the effect triggered, and your character will yell out the above phrase or similar.

We head back down the stairs without hallucinating, and fight off the zombies there. Anthony's curse slows him down enough to let the zombies get in a few hits. We'd better warn Charlemagne fast!



Cutscene: A Conspiracy Revealed

Unfortunately, we arrive too late, as Charlemagne lies dead before us.



Anthony lurches forward, unable to believe his eyes, but the curse takes its toll, and he drops to the floor alongside him.



The cultist from the start of the chapter, as well as his fellow cultists, stands here, and tells Anthony that there was nothing he could do against their might.



And concludes his speech by having a strange blue creature burst straight out of his stomach.



Next Time: Wholesale zombie slaughter: A Love Story

Excellent! Keep up the good work!

She's not that innocent.

Fun fact about the colorless (Mantorok) zombies: if you cut off both their arms and leave their heads intact, they will just follow you around and never be able to attack you.

After finishing Anthony's chapter, nothing else happens in the room, so Alex decides to check out the various features of the room.









The bit from Anthony's tale about repairing urns with magick brought her broken key to mind, so for kicks, she decides to try casting the spell recorded in the book to see if it would fix her key.



To her great surprise, the spell actually works, with runes lighting up around her and everything.

As long as a character has access to the Tome of Eternal Darkness, any spells previously discovered by the player are available to them. So, if we wanted to, we could enchant Alex's gladius. But that would be silly and pointless, as there are no monsters in the mansion.



Alex tests out the key, and it holds together as though it was newly made, opening the Second Floor easily.



For the briefest moment, Alex thought she saw a fat drop of blood roll down the surface of this painting, but when she looks again...

It must have just been a bit of dust settling on the surface of the painting...



Something less mistakable here: that statue is definitely checking Alex out.

The mansion has a few fixtures throughout like this statue, which will change somewhat depending on your sanity. The statue, obviously, will stay still normally, but with less sanity, it will follow Alex as she walks across the room. Which is weird on its own, but it also seems to have its stare fixed quite a bit lower than eye level.



The room beyond the lecherous statue is a simple bedroom. There's only two things of importance here.



The first is some revolver ammunition on the bedside table. Edward did, in fact, have a revolver, but he usually kept it separate from the ammo so as to disarm any intruders. Or because he was a forgetful old man who spent more time studying than keeping track of his lethal weaponry, but what do I know?



The other thing is this dresser. Alex reaches for her dresser key, but on closer inspection, the dresser drawer, despite being firmly locked, is completely without a keyhole. In its place is a triangular design, with a weird rune to the side.

Generally, any time you encounter something out of place like this, it's a sign that you need a specific spell to progress, and the rune marked here is an even stronger indication. I mean, yeah, you could potentially find an item to fix that, but you usually end up finding those first anyway.



Beyond that is the bathroom. There's two things of importance here. Next to the sink, we find a page from the journal of Maximillian Roivas. I'm not sure of his relation to Alex or Edward, but I do know that he was in this house in colonial times.

Looks like his life hasn't been all roses and sunshine either. Man, the Roivas family sure is an unlucky one.



The second thing? Well, the next thing Eternal Darkness is known for, aside from the sanity meter, is Alex Roivas' Nude Bathtub Scene. I don't think screenshots will accurately convey how breathtaking it is, so without further ado:

Cutscene: Bathtub Scene

How was she, boys? I bet she got your heart going a mile a minute!



Okay enough of that tomfoolery. Alex heads across the hall from the bedroom and enters the door on the right.



Looks like a cross between a guest room and a study.

I'll give you a second to see what the thing we need to get next is.

If you guessed the slip of paper hidden behind the portrait, congratulations! You are absolutely correct! Here is your grand prize: the next Chapter Page, entitled "The Gift of Forever".

(if you didn't guess that, I am very sorry. Would you like a hug?)



Cutscene: The Gift of Forever



Today's unlucky bastard is Karim, seen here nearly passed out from fatigue while trekking under the merciless Persian sun.



Earlier (probably months or even years), Karim is seen here petitioning a woman for her attention.



Karim is so haunted by Chandra's beauty that he can barely function from day to day, and yet she doesn't really care one way or the other. The poor fool.



Chandra offers him a chance to win her over, though: she's heard of an artifact with such value that it changes all life around it. Where have we heard this one before?



Karim leaps at the opportunity, but he knows that the journey will take him a long time, and as such, he asks Chandra to wait faithfully for him.

She pretty much responds with "yeah go get the treasure already". I somehow doubt she'll spend all that time waiting on Karim.



This brings us to Karim's current situation, where voices from all around call out for Karim.



He eventually finds the same runestones that Pious did, and he gets sent to the same place that Pious ended up in.



With that, we end up controlling Karim.

Karim might be a lovelorn idiot, but he's a pretty competent character. He's got average magick and sanity, but his health matches that of Pious. Which is good, because his chapter isn't as tutorialish as everyone else's: you stand a very real chance of getting yourself killed here. Karim also starts off with a Tulwar, nineteen Chakrams, and a magickal Talisman. Let's check those out now.

Another Gladius clone. Fortunately, we'll be seeing a lot more awesome weaponry in Karim's chapter. Those Chakrams, for example.

The Chakrams do a bit more damage than the blowgun, but not by much, and they don't poison enemies either. However, Trappers can only be killed with ranged weapons, so these do a good job of dispatching those enemies, and there are a handful of them in the chapter.

Karim starts out with a five-dose healing item, not unlike Ellia's magick necklace. However, while you could generally rely on having Ellia's necklace throughout the chapter, it is a very real possibility that you will run out of uses for this item, what with all the fighting you'll be doing.

On that subject, note that while Karim has a magick meter, he does not have the Tome of Eternal Darkness, and as such, cannot cast spells. Later chapters will be a lot more challenging early on, when you lack access to magick.



Karim starts in a room full of fallen zombies, as well as a few slain soldiers. Gruesome.



As soon as he starts down the ladder, his vision swims, and we get taken to the same room Anthony ended up in.



There's a new statue on display here...



Anthony's statue now stands here.

It seems that those who meet a terrible fate at the hands of the Ancients end up here in statue form. Odd. In any event, Karim claims the Tome of Eternal Darkness



This time, Anthony's scenes are added to the flashback as well as Pious' and Ellia's.

Meanwhile, zombies arise to attack Karim!



Karim quickly enchants his tulwar and gets to work fighting off the zombies. As mentioned earlier, if you sever the arms of these weak zombies, but not the heads, they'll just amble around following you, unable to do a thing. This isn't really a good idea here, though, because of the large number of zombies that go after you. Karim proves himself to be a capable swordsman, however, and the zombies die off without causing too much trouble.



This looks a lot more unfinished than the area Pious was exploring. A few blue zombies get up to attack, but Karim messes them up. Also, fun fact: if you remove both arms of a blue zombie, they do not follow you around adorable, but instead start singing. Bad idea!



Karim demonstrates the reality-defying capacity of his pants pockets in carting around this white statuette. It's heavier than it looks, apparently, and I don't even know how carrying it and swordfighting zombies like a pro at the same time works.



Further down the cavern, more blue zombies, including one with a rune, show up.



Did you honestly expect any other outcome?



Karim's finishing move hacks up zombies three times before letting up, which is okay, but not great, and a lot of later characters have this same finisher for their swords, which gets old fast.



In this large room, there's a central shrine with a set of braziers and three pressure plates on the ground. Stepping on one lights up a pair of braziers. Karim takes the statue from who-knows-where and sets it on one of the plates, but he can't weigh down the other one while he stands on the third, so he instead checks out the shimmering golden barrier marked with a rune.



Since Karim has the rune marked on the barrier, it dissolves and allows him to pass.

This is the game's way of ensuring you don't miss any runes, because many spells are required to get through the game. Which is kinda lame, but at least it's not The World Ends With You.



Karim snags a torch from the wall of the next cavern. The torch tends to be a recurring piece of equipment in several chapters, and it's even a viable main weapon in Xel'lotath games.



Yeah, this isn't a trap or anything. As soon as Karim moves for the second statuette, those three blue zombies will get up, which is a close-quarters scenario that's bad for most characters. Karim is arguably the best close-quarters fighter in the game, though, so these zombies are screwed.



On the floor near the carved up zombies is a Codex for the Ulyaoth rune. This is the first big clue for a first-time player that the spells from the Tome are drawing their power from the Ancients. Don't get too excited yet, though, because we're not getting the Ulyaoth rune for a while.



Heading back to the main room and lighting all the braziers shows that the shrine doubles as an elevator. The elevator itself is crawling with Trappers, so we switch to our fancy Chakrams and dice them up from a distance.

As previously mentioned, Trappers are too small to effectively hit with your sword. Try all you like, but you will not kill a Trapper with your sword. Has to be done with a ranged weapon. Of course, you could sneak past, or get hit by them purposely so you can restore your stats, but that is for tiny baby cowards.



The elevator itself leads to a wide hall littered with more corpses of warriors.



One of them even has a second Tulwar embedded in his back.

Karim takes the opportunity to wrench the Tulwar from the man's back, allowing him to fight Florentine style! This is the game's way of saying "dual wielding" in a historically accurate fashion. Mechanically, Karim's Tulwar fighting is almost the same, but he can get a lot more range out of both Tulwars this way, and his finishing move changes to something appropriately flashy.

As Karim turns to leave, the corpse he retrieved the tulwar from gets up...



And punches Karim in the back of the head.

Sometimes, normally docile NPC humans will punch your character for no reason. If you exercise your right to defend yourself (which is to say, chop them the hell up), not only do you take the sanity hit for killing a human (although not as sharp as if it was unprovoked), but you take a further hit from...



The Bonethief that erupts from their body.

Bonethieves are an annoying foe to fight. They're a lot faster than either Horrors or zombies, and their claws have pretty good range to them. If that wasn't bad enough, they also dodge ranged weapons, with one exception. If a bonethief leaps at you, unless you hit it in midair, it will cling to your front and start clawing at you mercilessly. Unless you throw them off in time, you will die, and even if you do throw them off, they deal quite a lot of damage. This bonethief is red, which doesn't really mean a lot: the only major difference between bonethief colors is that green ones have no head, which is a shame, because cutting off the head of a blue or red one with a melee weapon is an instant kill. If they're missing either arm, though, I think they can't pounce, so there's that going for you.



Teach you to explode from corpses I steal weapons from!



The next room has two blue zombies, and a few features of notice.



Karim swings his swords around stylishly before finishing off the first...



But the second doesn't offer that opportunity, as a blue bonethief explode from its body.

Bonethieves are annoying because they can also hide in zombies, which can turn a regular crowd of zombies into a much bigger threat if you don't expect them.

There was just the one zombie left over, though, so this bonethief was alone versus an irritated, Florentine-fighting Karim.



As Karim ends the creature's existence, he spies a spell scroll held by a fallen soldier. Yoink!

Sounds quite handy! However, we only have three runes, and only one of them could be a possible component for this spell. Oh well!



The second feature is a large seal over the northeast door, bearing an Ulyaoth rune and an image of a large sword. We don't have either one, so we can't get through here. Man this room is full of disappointments. I guess we'll just go through the other door.



BLOODBATH!

Fun fact: if a zombie grabs you from behind, the act of throwing it off will also knock down nearby zombies! It is not advisable to let a zombie grab you, however.



Unlike earlier, we do not have the rune marked here, so we can't go through this barrier. There's a door on the other side, though, so we can go that way.



Oh hell why did we go this way

This is a fairly tough encounter no matter what color this Horror is. Red is just the worst of the bunch. They do even more damage than most horrors, and their energy bolt will knock you on your back if it hits. Bad news!

I throw a few enchanted chakrams at it to soften it up, but at this distance, hitting anything with the chakrams is unlikely unless you aim for the body. The Horror quickly corners Karim...



But he manages to lop off the Horror's triple heads, bringing it down and earning another rune!

Also, the Horror's body evaporated like a split second before I tried finishing it. Karim's sanity meter at this point is all but empty. Hoo boy.



Oh and it was guarding a Codex for the Santak (Self) rune too. Santak is a super useful rune. It covers two spells, but both of them are instrumental to keeping your character from dying a horrible death.

Speaking of, let's burn a charge or two on that Talisman to keep Karim alive before we head into the next area.



The rune we got from the Horror lets us break the barrier that barricaded our progress forward, but as Karim descends the ladder...

Alex, reading Karim's story, is visited by the spirit of Edward Roivas.



He promises to keep Alex safe from the darkness when insanity threatens.



Problem being, Karim just witnessed this scene in a completely different time and place.

The game has a few fixed sanity effects that are guaranteed to occur no matter what you do. This is one of them, and there are a few more where Edward's ghost talks with Alex.

In the room beyond, Karim finds the Codex for the Narokath (Absorb) rune. This one is kind of weird. It governs one really useful spell and one completely useless one. So... yay, I guess?



No, scratch that, we are definitely in "yay" territory here.

Recover is another highly useful spell, and will probably see as much usage, if not more, as the Enchant Item spell. Unlike Enchant Item, though, which changes the color of the weapon you use it on, Recover will refill a different meter depending on the alignment you cast it under. If cast as a Chattur'gha spell, as shown here, it recovers health. Under Ulyaoth, this spell is a waste of time that heals exactly as much magick as you used for the spell anyway. Under Xel'lotath, it restores sanity.

I'll let you take a while to process that one.

Yeah, a game based on a gradual dissolvement into madness lets you restore your sanity with the second spell you find. As you can probably guess, this takes pretty much all the fun out of the game, since you can prevent any sanity effects from happening. As such, I will not be using any magick to restore my sanity. I'll still finish guys off, though, since corpses are in limited supply and seeing too many sanity effects at a time ruins the immersion like nothing else, but I will never cast Recover under the Xel'lotath alignment. Ever.

I'm still assigning the Chattur'gha version to Quick Spell because it is useful as hell.



Karim eventually finds himself in a wide open arena, which should be familiar to all of us, but for Karim, the interesting thing is that sword in the pedestal before him. He wastes no time in claiming the Ram Dao for himself.

The description lays out the Ram Dao pretty plainly. It is the BFG of the swords. The overhead swing has pretty poor range, but it can bisect regular zombies in a second and drops the tougher ones right quick, and even a weak enchantment allows head swings to drop Horrors in a single blow. If that wasn't impressive, then the normal attack packs heavy damage to enemies in a wide area around Karim as well as knocking them down.



No sooner does Karim claim this sword, however, than the exit is sealed.



A crowd of colorless zombies is summoned into existence as well.



Yeah, just try it.



The Ram Dao's finishing move isn't as flashy as the Florentine Tulwars, but it gets the job done.



As soon as Karim finishes the zombies off, blue zombies are summoned into existence.



I'm not entirely sure what's going on in this picture. I think that zombie somehow snuck up on Karim? In any event, this wave is barely more of a threat than the first.



In the third wave, more zombies turn up, one holding an Ulyaoth rune.

The trick here is that the other zombies contain bonethieves.



Karim's sanity gets so messed up that enemies can damage Karim just by looking at him. To further problems, the bonethieves are tricky to hit with the Ram Dao. Even so, this isn't too tough, and once you clear out all enemies, you're free to leave.



Checking the spell menu, we see that we can now cast or assign spells under either Chattur'gha or Ulyaoth alignment. I assign the Ulyaoth variant of Enchant Item to replace the Chattur'gha one for reasons, but I leave Recover alone because, as previously stated, Chattur'gha Recover is the only useful spell of the three.



We have both the Ram Dao and the Ulyaoth rune, so let's go back to that seal!

Hold on a moment...



No! We're sinking! Aaagh!



THIS ISN'T REALLY HAPPENING!

Major sanity effect the second: Karim began gradually sinking through the floor.

Don't worry, sanity effects do eventually graduate beyond Garry's Mod parlor tricks.



We enchant our Ram Dao to Ulyaoth and slide it into the slot on the seal, causing it to vanish.

Ulyaoth weapons glow blue, and when swung, you can hear the rumble of distant thunder. Classy!



Shown here: Karim bisecting red zombies with a single blow. Wait, what?

If you use weapons of a specific alignment against specific enemies, the effectiveness of the weapon is increased. Red enemies are susceptible to Ulyaoth weapons, blue ones to Xel'lotath weapons, and green ones to Chattur'gha ones. As such, the Ram Dao turns these once hulking enemies into ribbons.



Further ahead, there's a ladder branching off of the main path. You should take this ladder. Karim took this ladder.



The ladder leads to a dark room with a central area filled with mist and Trappers. Karim throws some chakrams around to clear the area out, and moves into the area to collect his prize.



His prize, apparently, is a ruby effigy!

We will not be using this effigy in Karim's chapter, but it looks cool.



Moving on, we encounter another red Horror.



Bow before Karim's might, you mewling whelp.

Yeah, we just one-shotted a Horror. Want to make something of it?



The way forward is barred by a gate, but there's a strange pedestal off to the side.



To progress, you must place the Tome of Eternal Darkness on the bookstand. The Tome reacts with the bookstand, causing the gate to open. Does this mean that only those who can claim the Tome are allowed further in?



When you see this part of the level, know that you are in for the toughest fight yet.



The second Karim steps into the hall, a barrier blocks off his escape path, and blue zombies begin spawning behind the barrier.

As soon as a zombie drops, another is summoned to take its place. Finish them off quickly, unless you want to die from sanity loss.



The Ram Dao's massive arc with its normal swing is immensely useful, but if you miss, expect to eat a hit or two.



Bonethieves start showing up within zombies later on. Here, one of them attempts to carve a heart with its initials + another bonethief's initials into Karim's neck. See my health there? Yeah, I can't use Recover spells normally, since hits from blue enemies drain your magick.



Things get completely out of hand once a Horror shows up. It's a good thing I play so many roguelikes, or I would have forgotten about Karim's talisman and I would have died here.



Victory! Take that, spawn of Ulyaoth!



As Karim finishes off the Horror, a familiar artifact materializes on one of the three pedestals in the area. Karim realizes that this must be what Chandra asked him for, and moves to claim it...


Cutscene: Shadow of Corruption

Chandra's voice calls out to him, causing him to spin away from the artifact to see her.



However, she appears to be a ghost. Karim asks of her what happened.



Chandra admits that she was not faithful to Karim while he was gone. Also, she chose the wrong nobleman to sleep with:



His mistress had Chandra carved up, and she swore that she would be with another only in death.



Karim can barely believe his ears. He nearly got torn apart by zombies and horrors for this?!



Chandra goes on to state that she knows the truth about the artifact Karim was about to claim, and says that they should remain here to guard it from the forces of darkness.



Furious, Karim asks why Chandra should demand anything of him when she could not do the one thing he asked of her. Uh... dude? Pretty sure she thought you were heading to your death in the first place.



At least he has some priorities straight.



Chandra tells him that she has already paid the price for her error, but if Karim guards the artifact, he will find himself much greater than he was in life, and will prevent the world from falling into eternal darkness.

Karim finally agrees to guard the artifact, and moves to kiss the ghost of Chandra.



Apparently, this proves fatal for him. Whoops!



Well, that was a weird conclusion.



And as the planets move further into alignment...



...my LP comes to a close. Yeah, kinda short, but it's good thus far, right?



I do have plans to LP the sequel, which I hear is being produced by 3D Realms! I hope you're as exci--



THIS ISN'T REALLY HAPPENING!!

Next Time: Dr. Chunky Peanut Butter and the Monstrosity Autopsy

The next chapter used to be my favourite in the game, but since I started reading Lovecraft, it's pretty disappointing in retrospect how blatantly it rips off The Rats in the Walls. Every other chapter managed to work more as a homage, since they also had original and/or mixed-up elements to them, aside from Lovecraft Horrors.

Don't get me wrong, it's still one of the best chapters in the game, and SK aped their "inspiration" well, but it's still a bit of a disappointment in an otherwise surprisingly great game.

The 'meta' sanity effects are the best ones. I hope that you get the memory card erase message and the BSOD.

I also liked how you included the bathtub scene! That thing gets me every time. Like when John Hurt explodes in Alien. SPOILERS.

Man, really? If anything, reading The Rats in the Walls only made me love that chapter more.

I always thought cursed Anthony looked like a groaning, whining Marilyn Manson.

Amazingly, that premature ending screen actually got me for a few seconds before I realized the game was fucking with me. It was definitely one of the more brilliant moments.

As before, nothing new has occured in the study. Now that we're slowly expanding our repertoire of spells, we can start influencing things in new areas of the mansion that would require magick to handle, so we usually don't get an obvious pointer to the next chapter page. We might get occasional nudges towards the right area, though, and there's little harm in just stumbling about the mansion blindly looking for what to do next (in fact, as your sanity gets lower, it gradually gets more interesting).



For example, we've got ourselves a phone call! I wonder who it could be?



Oh, it's just Edward Roivas.

Wait, what?!



This is another preset sanity effect. The only time that phone will ever ring is right after the conclusion of Karim's chapter. Shame, they could've done a lot more with the phone, I think. But in any event, that will land you near the next place you need to go, so player laziness points you in the right direction. Hooray!



This is the dining room! I'm not sure what Alex is looking at: the more interesting thing is that seal on the pantry, not unlike the one Karim had to deal with.



Alex tries the same solution Karim used to handle the seal, and it works! The seal disappears almost as soon as the blade enters the slot.



As Alex opens the pantry, a lone rat runs out of it, squeaking in fear. Inside the pantry, there isn't much, since Edward spent more time studying than keeping himself well-fed. There is a jar of Arabian spices with the next Chapter Page inside, however.



Cutscene: Preparations Begin

As soon as Alex touches the page, we get another view of Pious discussing plots with Ulyaoth.



Ulyaoth doesn't say anything here. It's all Pious stating the situation as it currently stands. Which is to say, Ulyaoth is but a hair's breadth away from being summoned.



All that remains is for the gate to be prepared for the summoning. That doesn't give us much time... except we don't know exactly when this occured. Ominous.

After the scene concludes, Alex gets right to the Chapter Page, entitled "The Lurking Horror".



Cutscene: The Lurking Horror



The doctor is seen here writing in his journal about the recent death of his father, and his intent to learn all of the secrets of the mansion.



He concludes his writings, presumably to do just that.

The distinguished Dr. Maximillian Roivas is... well, as far as his parameters go, he has excellent health and sanity, and pretty good magick. The downside is that he's a fair bit more portly than the other characters, and not only moves slower, but tires out more quickly from continued exertion. He's not a bad character: far from it. He's just got a significant handicap. Also, he's got the best voice acting in the game, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

As far as equipment, the doctor starts with a Medical Journal and a Flintlock Pistol. The Medical Journal lets Maximillian take autopsies on any creatures he kills to learn their properties. I'll do this regularly throughout gameplay (although I forgot one out-of-the-way one but I'm just gonna link videos of it anyway so bleah). As for the pistol...

This seems consistent with my experience with the gun. This is the first firearm in the game, and on a completely unrelated note, the first ranged weapon that's worth anything. A shot from the Flintlock Pistol will usually outright drop any zombies you face, and will damage the hell out of most other enemies, especially when enchanted. On the downside, it only stores one shot, and it takes about a full second to reload.



You only start with one shot, though, so you'll want to regularly pick up the Flintlock Ammo scattered around the mansion.

No, I don't know why everybody scatters ammo around the mansion. You usually pick it all up long before you face any enemies, too, which puts the idea of gameplay balance out of the question.



Save for a few renovations that have not yet been added, the mansion has almost exactly the same layout as in Alex's day. We never went into this room in her time (and it'll be too dark to do anything if we try anyway), but we can go right on in here.



The mansion is populated with servants and maids, most of which have very little to say. A few say some odd things, like remarking on the Solstice, but for the most part, they're pretty untalkative. This guy won't even stop his work to chat with us.

This would be a lot more amusing if you could actually see the interior outhouse in question, but Eternal Darkness loves to make certain areas almost impossible to see. Which would be easy to fix considering the game's brightness setting, except that it also makes other areas correspondingly brighter, so Alex would look radioactive if I did that.



Further down the hall, to our right we find the servant's quarters. It's locked, so we can't go in, but Max feels as though something ominous and horrible is lurking just beyond there. Kind of a weird feeling to have about your servants' sleeping places, but okay.



At the end of the hall is a stained glass window depicting an idyllic village with a bright sun overhead. Max finds this fairly strange as well. Something about the shapes and content? I must be missing it, whatever it is.



Let's check out the bedroom.



On the bedstand, we find a letter carefully penned by one Aaron Roivas, presumably Maximillian's father. Let's give it a read-through, shall we?

So Aaron had access to the tome as well. But unlike the others, he couldn't read it. So why can all of the playable characters read it?



Above the fireplace, we find a Codex for the Redgormor (Area) rune. Max finds this to be a weird conversation piece, but not weird enough to not carry around with him.



There's nothing else noteworthy on the upper floor, so Max heads down to the main foyer.



There, he finds another letter by Aaron Roivas. This one is a bit less calmly written.

I'm not entirely sure what he's referring to here, but I'm guessing Aaron's dabbled in Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.



Max enters the dining room to find yet another Codex, this one for the Xel'lotath rune. As with the two before it, the Codex/Rune you find in this chapter changes for each playthrough. If you chose Chattur'gha's artifact, you'd find an Ulyaoth rune. In a Xel'lotath game, you'd get a Chattur'gha rune. We'll get into what they all mean later.



In Max's time, the pantry is considerably better-stocked. Everything you could want to eat here... and a pump handle. I'm not sure why. Max takes it and makes a mental note to stash it in the basement or something later.



Max leaves the dining room and heads into the... I don't know what this room is called. I've never been good with the anatomy of mansions, so let's just call it the fireplace room.



This is, of course, because the central feature of this room is a fireplace with another bizarre mantelpiece decoration.



The painting, which shows the runes of Chattur'gha, Xel'lotath, and Ulyaoth, as well as a central purple one we can presume to be Mantorok's, has a caption.

This is not only another puzzle, but the game's first overt clue towards the alignments and what they mean. The three main alignments, those of Chattur'gha, Xel'lotath, and Ulyaoth, form a triumvirate of sorts, with each holding dominion over another. Chattur'gha is dominant over Xel'lotath, who is dominant over Ulyaoth, who is dominant over Chattur'gha. In gameplay terms, this means that Xel'lotath spells will usually be the most effective, since we're more likely to encounter blue (Ulyaoth) enemies than anything else. Mantorok is a special case, and one I'm not going to get into during this chapter because there's a way better opportunity next chapter.



Anyway, the puzzle here is that you have to move the raven statue, as indicated, to the symbol matching the one dominant over Pious' ancient. Since Pious chose Ulyaoth, we move the raven in front of the Xel'lotath symbol. This reveals a secret passage through the fireplace.



On the other side, we find a familiar, if less decrepit, study. The first thing that catches Maximillian's eyes is a Spell Scroll. This one is for the Reveal Invisible spell.

This is probably the most useless spell in the game. Sure, other spells have extremely limited usage, but this one is pretty much just a glorified key that persists across chapters. What makes it even worse is that there's something in a later chapter that requires this spell, yet gives no cue to find it, but as with Mantorok, I'll burn that bridge when we get to it.