Part 15: Gabriel Knight vs. Lectures
Chapter 15: Gabriel Knight vs. Lectures
Still reeling a bit from the latest weirdness, Gabriel realizes that it's time to head to Tulane for that lecture on African religions. That ought to put whatever the hell just happened with Madame Lorelei out of his mind.
On his way out, he notices the Lucky Dog vendor, reading again. He stops to chat.
What a charming fellow.
Gabriel makes it to the lecture just in time.
Up on the stage is Professor Hartridge (Monte Markham again, voice of the bartender), a cold, sarcastic man whose main love in life is talking endlessly about
I don't really have the best research tools for the task, but the more I look into it the more information I find in the wild that more or less confirms what's presented here. It's simplified, but seems to be largely accurate.
Hartridge paces back and forth throughout the lecture. The audience members occasionally shuffle around, but for the most part the only visual of interest is the slides.
Try as he might, Gabriel was not born to sit through lectures. His mind starts to drift.
Hartridge stutters for a moment after Gabriel yawns. I think he heard.
Now there's something. Gabriel's definitely going to have to show Hartridge that pattern.
Gabriel thinks back to that crocodile mask he saw at the Dixieland Drug Store. He'd love to get ahold of that thing, but he doesn't have any money and Willy doesn't seem like the kind of guy who could be persuaded to let it go.
It's a dead ringer for the knife Gabriel saw in his dream last night.
"Wait, wasn't that one of the words written on that tomb?"
Okay, these last two I'm pretty sure Jensen made up.
In the darkness of his dreams, Gabriel hears a strange voice.
A small object zooms in from a distance.
As it gets closer, we see the object more clearly -- it's a sekey madoulé!
The small coffin opens. We zoom inside it and--
The lecture hall clears out before Gabriel has a chance to really recover. Gabriel wonders how much of the lecture he missed.
This is as good a time as any to explain the tape recorder function of the game, activated by clicking the highlighted icon here.
Each of these tapes has a recording of your conversations, one line at a time, to include any repeat questions you may have asked. I'm not 100% sure, because I never use it these days, but I seem to recall from years ago that the tapes only save so much before clearing out one line at a time.
The lecture has its own special tape. Let's check it out.
You can scroll through either one at a time or in jumps, though after the jump there's no real way of telling how far you've gone. Let's see if it recorded anything while Gabriel slept.
Damn. Guess he snores pretty badly. No wonder Hartridge was so pissed when he left.
Once he's collected himself, Gabriel follows the professor out the back door of the lecture hall.
He finds Hartridge's office without too much trouble. I'm going under the assumption that there was a hallway behind that door and it didn't just lead directly in here. That would be a bit too sweet a deal for a random religious studies professor.
He certainly doesn't seem very friendly. Gabriel turns on the charm.
Fine. Fuck the charm. Hartridge seems like he'd be more interested in information anyway. Gabriel pulls out the reconstructed vévé and places it on the desk.
Hartridge rushes out like a kid on Christmas who doesn't want to seem too excited that he just got the best present of his life.
He's not gone long enough for Gabriel to snoop around.
Hartridge is stunned by this. We definitely have his attention now.
Hell yes.
Finally, there's hope of getting some real information about these murders.
Compared to some of the things Gabriel's said and done this is practically harmless.
While he's got a captive audience, Gabriel pulls out his photo of the murder victim.
Hartridge considers this for a moment.
Black Voudoun? Gabriel lets that slide for a moment, not completely sure he wants to know.
Gabriel considers asking him about some of the specifics of Voodoo, but he doesn't really want to get back on Hartridge's bad side. It'd probably just lead to another snide comment about that nap.
Creepy. Well, let's leave him alone about that and ask about some of the questions that have gone unanswered the last couple days.
As a reminder, we're currently on June 20th. St. John's Eve rapidly approaches.
Whoaaa, hold up. What the hell was Willy Walker doing talking about human sacrifice? If we could just get that bastard to talk, we could probably crack this whole case wide open.
New personal topic: "Human sacrifice"
He really gets into that chant. Thanks, Prof.
I guess that just leaves the elephant in the room.
Shit. If we're dealing with stuff on that level, maybe Gabriel shouldn't be interrogating half the population of New Orleans.
All right, that's it. Gabriel's had enough of this spooky crap for now.
On his way out, Gabriel gets the nagging feeling that there's something he needs to do at Gran's house. Besides, it'd be nice to be in some familiar territory right now.
Next time:
Gabriel grills his grandmother in Chapter 16: Gabriel Knight vs. Family Secrets!
Videos!
27. <snore> (Dailymotion) (Youtube)
28. Tell me about yourself, Professor Hartridge. (Dailymotion) (Youtube)