Part 24: Gabriel Knight vs. Unexpected Gifts

Chapter 23: Gabriel Knight vs. Unexpected Gifts



At the dawn of St. John's Eve, we once again watch over the morning ritual of Bourbon Street.



The paperboy rolls by with the latest Times-Picayune.



Grace arrives early to open up the store.



...but today, someone else showed up first.



A plucked chicken writhes slowly in a pool of its own blood.




Gabriel immediately spots the source of the problem.





He takes a quick look around the store.





Too soon, Gabriel.






Grace calms down a little, but not by much.






Wow, Gabriel is a little too good at cleaning chicken blood and flour out of the carpet. There isn't even a trace of it left.





Grace presents a new package to Gabriel.






Excellent. Now we can finally find out what those drummers have been going on about!

Grace is still looking really freaked out, though.






This whole situation sure went downhill fast, didn't it? It was just historical bad dreams and some innocent minor-to-moderate crimes, then suddenly there's dead people and snake stranglings and a mutilated chicken in the entranceway. But Gabriel is so close to some real answers he can taste it. At this point, dropping the investigation might not even help. And more people would definitely end up dead.



Gabriel walks over to check the newspaper when...





A shadow dashes by the door and slips something through the mail slot.





Gabriel cautiously moves in to check.








Thanks for scaring the crap out of everyone, Frank.







Damn, that was fast. Mosely just started looking into this, what, last night? Sounds like he found something very interesting, but he's too busy startling Grace to share.

Anyway, the office key might come in handy. Mosely seems to realize that Gabriel probably won't drop the case. He also doesn't seem that worried about Gabriel's ability to distract the cops. Gabriel's proven to be pretty good at that sort of thing.

Gabriel moves on to today's paper.






Between this and what Crash said, the cult's guaranteed to be out tonight. And they're probably not going to be at a church.






These horoscopes are getting awfully specific.

Gabriel makes sure he has the Rada book on him and heads out to face Wednesday like a man.







He takes his bike over to Jackson Square. The drummers outside the Napoleon House and the Voodoo Museum are probably involved too, but the Jackson Square drummer has been around every day he can remember. More importantly, Gabriel can hide where the drummer can't see him and still listen.

Gabriel settles into a spot out of the drummer's line of sight.






Gabriel spends some time studying the book to know which symbols are assigned to each drum beats, making the job much easier for the player.

The important words are pretty easy to find, as all the important ones are sandwiched by certain key symbols. Once you spot a word, you select it from the book page and move on to find the next word.



All you have to do is read and connect. The message loops indefinitely until you figure it out.




Bayou St. John is now accessible! It makes sense; that name has been popping up a lot lately. Gabriel heads straight there to try and stake out the ritual spot early.



Well, this is much spookier than Gabriel really expected. He shakes it off and presses onward.



Pretty soon, though, he starts feeling light-headed.



It's getting hard to just tell which direction he's going, much less finding where the conclave is happening.



And before too long...




Gabriel's not gonna be able to find where this shit is going down on his own. He'll have to try and follow a cult member.

Nothing he has with him will help with that. As he drives back to the French Quarter, though, he remembers one of his little "adventures" with Mosely years ago and realizes how he can do this. Turns out that office key will come in handy sooner than expected.



He strolls into the police station as normally as he can. He knows Mosely's not around, of course, but nobody else knows he knows that. He starts up his daily routine with Frick.




...wait, what?




Looks like Officer Frick, the bravest desk wrangler in all of Louisiana, has finally met his match. This is fucking ridiculous.






Gabriel storms out, perhaps a little more dramatically than is really necessary.

Frick isn't going to let Gabriel past. As Gabriel thinks back to the last few days, he can only remember one time when Frick got off his lazy ass: the beignet incident. He might be able to recreate that glorious moment with some help.



Gabriel arrives at Jackson Square once again, and notes with some relief that the beignet vendor is still hanging around here. Gabriel slicks back his hair and gets ready to work his magic.






Random fact I bothered to look up: The 8th District office of the NOPD is in fact located at 334 Royal Street, just off the corner of Royal and Conti. This knowledge gets me no closer to photos of their lobby to see if it's remotely similar to the game.







This guy is straight-up moping about his decision. Doesn't seem like it'll be tough to convince him to go back.





The weather, the Voodoo cult strangling the city as outsiders close in on their secrets, something like that.






The vendor's mood has already improved; he'll probably push his cart on over very soon.



Gabriel hurries over to the police station and lies in wait. He enters the station as soon as he sees the vendor come around the corner.



Shortly afterward, the vendor squeakily wheels his cart to the optimal spot.



Frick immediately notices and welcomes his presence. If only his observation skills were that strong when visitors use the copy machine to snatch protected files.



Franks, a beignet fiend herself, rushes out to be first in line for the pastries.



Frick waits for a moment, attempting to contain his not-so-secret beignet desires.



Seconds later, he's on his way, too.





Frick stares Gabriel down.



Frick unwisely shuts the door behind him.

This sequence is infamous. This is the first of a handful of sections in the game which rely on a strict time limit, but thanks to the timing bugs inherent in the original code, the whole thing blazes by before you can even click on the divider door. There's another chance to get into the back room, as Frick nods off on the job (what a champ), but that one also goes by at the speed of sound.

Thankfully the fanmade patch I'm using completely obliterates the issue. It actually overcompensates: I stood in the lobby for five minutes waiting for them to get back for a bonus video and they never showed.



Gabriel heeds Frick's command for the approximately four seconds that Frick remains in sight.



Sure enough, the key works like a charm. Gabriel enters the office before either pastry addict comes back inside.



There may not be a Detective Mosely, but all his crap's still here. You'd think if they wanted to clear out his existence someone else would have a key.



Gabriel considers perusing the file folders, but...



Instead, he opens up the desk and hunts for his prize. Pretty soon, he finds exactly what he's looking for:








I'm not sure how common trackers were in 1993, so the explanation may have been warranted.

Gabriel takes a brief look out the mirror window and sees that both Frick and Franks are back at their desks. Well, nothing to be done about it. He can't stay in the office all day; he might miss the ritual.






For some reason Frick either buys this excuse or lets it slide. Is it possible he's ready to help out?




Nope.



With the tracking device in hand, Gabriel sets off, somewhat hesitantly, for the Voodoo Museum. Hopefully the snake isn't hanging out in the rafters this time.



Next time:

Gabriel abandons all common sense in Chapter 24: Brother Crocodile vs. Brother Eagle!

Videos!
44. Another fun morning in St. George's Books. (Dailymotion) (Youtube)
45. Get me 3 or 4, will ya? (Dailymotion) (Youtube)