Part 39: Day Three- Page 39

It's not too late. In fact, we should probably deal with this first before we dive in.

[Fast-forward to the Attic]

Attic
It's much cooler up here than in the rest of the house, and you find it hard to suppress a shiver. Grotesque, looming shadows crawl across the low, slanted ceiling, and the dust hangs thick and motionless in the air. To the west the ceiling dips even lower until the space beneath leaves hardly room enough to crawl, while to the north stands a wooden door, draped in shadows and half-hidden by the slanting eaves.


I think the old trick required a Newspaper. At least the episode of Columbo I saw used it.

>put newspaper under door
You slide the newspaper under the door, leaving only an inch or two sticking out on your side.

>put opener into keyhole
(first taking the letter opener)
The tip of the letter opener bumps against something, and you hear something thump onto the newspaper on the other side of the door.

>pull newspaper
Something metallic falls off the newspaper as you pull it out from under the door.

>Look

Attic
It's much cooler up here than in the rest of the house, and you find it hard to suppress a shiver. Grotesque, looming shadows crawl across the low, slanted ceiling, and the dust hangs thick and motionless in the air. To the west the ceiling dips even lower until the space beneath leaves hardly room enough to crawl, while to the north stands a wooden door, draped in shadows and half-hidden by the slanting eaves.

You can also see an old-fashioned brass key here.

There is it.


>take brass key
You pick up the old-fashioned brass key. It's an old key, the kind with a round barrel about a quarter-inch in diameter and flat, square teeth.

Your score has just gone up by one point.

>put brass key on keyring
The old-fashioned brass key is now on the keyring.

>unlock door
(first taking the keyring)
You go through all the keys on your keyring, trying each one in turn, and after several false attempts you discover that the old-fashioned brass key fits the lock.
You unlock the door.

Finally, we can clear the Attic and finish exploring the house.

>open door.
You open the door.

>North

Attic Cell
A cramped little annex off the main attic, with a tiny, shuttered window high up on the north wall. A pile of mouldering straw in the corner and what looks like pencil marks on the lower part of the walls seem to indicate that someone lived here once. Or, possibly, was kept here.

Miranda remembers the soggy diary pages. This must be where Anna sung under the door.

>look out window
Through the narrow slats in the shutters, you can make out the bony, grasping branches of the surrounding trees, waving in the wind. Not a soothing sight.

>look at marks
They look like a child's drawings, made with pencil or some kind of charcoal. Most of them are smudged and faded, but you can make out stick figures here and there, and the occasional, lollipop-shaped tree.

I can't explain why but the stick figures and lolipop trees I find most disturbing.

>look at straw
This disgusting mess might actually have been some poor soul's bed. You shudder, wondering what sick relative was kept prisoner here, and when.

>jump on straw
That's not something you can enter.

I...uh... Game? How do you equate "Jump" to "Enter?"
Also, I'm going to spare you guys what I felt was another dick move. The text-adventure version of a pixal hunt.

>search straw
You gingerly poke through the filthy straw, barely able to suppress your disgust. However, your search is not unrewarded: underneath the thickest part of the pile, you discover a tiny gold locket.

Yup.
Finding this locket the first time round was like searching for a needle in a...
Anyway, I'm pretty sure we can't win without this thing.

>take gold locket
You pick up the gold locket. It is oval-shaped, held shut with a tiny clasp.

>open gold locket
You open the gold locket, revealing a woman's picture.

>look at woman's picture
From the quality of the photograph, you'd say the picture must have been taken sometime in the fifties. The woman looks no more than twenty years old. Her pale, fragile face is framed by straight, dark, mousy hair, and she seems to stare plaintively out at you, her expression one of haunted resignation.

Anna Verlac, I presume.

>close locket
Which do you mean, the gold locket or the silver locket?

>gold
You close the gold locket.

>wear gold locket
You put on the gold locket.

We now have the complete set.
Time to take another crack at that wine cellar.

[Fast-Forward to Cellar]

Wine Cellar

All of the racks are dust-covered and empty except for one against the north wall, which contains some forty or fifty dark bottles.


Not bad sleuthing, Sally.
One nice thing is you can reffer to the bottle by letter, and not by Pinot or Cabernet.

Miranda just needs to figure how to activate the bottles.

>Pull C
The bottle won't budge from the rack.

>push C
Nothing obvious happens.

>Twist C
The bottle with the faded label rotates a quarter-turn clockwise, then snaps back with a loud "click".

There we go.

>Twist W
(the robust Pinot Noir)
The bottle of robust Pinot Noir rotates a quarter-turn clockwise, then snaps back with a loud "click".

>Twist H
The bottle of vintage Cabernet Sauvignon rotates a quarter-turn clockwise, then snaps back with a loud "click".

>Twist E
(the bottle with the torn label)
The bottle with the torn label rotates a quarter-turn clockwise, then snaps back with a loud "click".

>Twist M
The bottle of light Cheval Blanc rotates a quarter-turn clockwise, then snaps back with a loud "click". A rumbling grating sound suddenly fills the wine cellar, and the racks and a portion of the stone wall behind them swing back, revealing a dark passageway to the north from which blows a hot, foul wind.

Your score has just gone up by two points.

You can almost feel Miranda's anticipation given what she saw in the telescope.
Not we descend from the skies to the swollen rocks below.

>North
You take a few cautious steps into the corridor, when the wall suddenly slams shut behind you with a reverberating boom. You are trapped!

Windy Passage
The walls of this passageway are carved from solid rock with unearthly precision; ten feet wide, ten feet high, perfectly smooth and perfectly square. The passage runs north, sloping downward into the depths of the hillside. A foul wind gusts intermittently from the darkness below.

>look at walls
You can't see any such thing.

B-b-but you said! I mean... But...

>North

Edge of the Pit
The passageway ends here at a fathomless pit, a puckered circular hole in the rock from which the foul wind seems to emanate, howling up from the depths like a reeking banshee.

A thin and decrepit rope bridge spans the pit, shivering occasionally in the wind.

When I first entered here, I read too fast and missed the word "Bridge." I thought I was supposed to swing from the rope across the pit like Indiana Jones.
Yeah. Cool.

>look at pit
The pit nearly spans the corridor from wall to wall and is at least twenty feet across, much to far to jump. The wind which occasionally gusts up from the bottomless reaches smells of decaying things, and moans like a living thing as it races past you.

>look into pit
The bottom is lost to darkness.

Another blast of hot, foul-smelling air comes shrieking out of the pit.

>look at bridge
The ropes are frayed and tangled; the planks are rotten and, in places, missing entirely, leaving dark, howling gaps. A very dubious structure, all in all, but there's no other way to cross.

Welp. Who wants to live forever?

>North
Carefully, you edge out onto the swaying planks. A blast of wind roars up from beneath you, shaking the thin strand like a pennant in a stiff breeze, and you cling grimly to the ropes. A few more steps, however, and you are safely on the other side.

Other Side
The passageway turns east here, the stone floor dropping down in a series of wide steps carved into the living rock. The stairs continue down to the northeast, eventually curving out of sight. The only other way on from here is a narrow, oddly-angled corridor in the northwest corner.

A thin and decrepit rope bridge spans the pit, shivering occasionally in the wind.

We won't bother with the North West passage. From experience, Miranda recognizes the strange secret passages.
It probably leads to the Observatory or the Attic. We'll find out later.

>Northeast

Great Stairs
The vast, stone staircase plunges down into the earth. The seemingly interminable steps curve in a gentle sweep from the southwest, above you, dropping toward black, unplumbed depths to the north.

>look at stairs
You needn't worry about that.

At least they're there! Unlike the walls.

>North

Bottom of Stairs
The stairs end here at a huge, greenish-gold door set into the north wall. There is nothing else here; nowhere to go but onward or back.

Uh oh.


>look at door
The door is enormous, nearly fifteen feet on a side, and made entirely of some smooth, greenish-gold metal that reflects your light with an oily, wavery sheen. There is no handle, no keyhole or latch of any kind. There seems to be no physical way of opening the door at all -- just the smooth rectangle of metal, adorned with a single symbol etched into its center.

This... This isn't good.

>look at symbol
The emblem in the center of the door is that of a stylized open eye, surrounded by wavy, radiating lines which resemble nothing less than a crown of sinuous tentacles. You shudder, unable to suppress the feeling that you have seen that eye somewhere before.

>open door
There doesn't seem to be any way to do that.

>push door
The door is far too heavy.

>pull door
That would accomplish very little.

How does Miranda even know this is a door?
Also... A. What now and B. Do we even want to see what's on the other side of this thing?
YOU decide!
In Bold.
Obviously.

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