Part 27: Grace Nakimura vs. Travel Plans

Chapter 25: Grace Nakimura vs. Travel Plans



Another morning dawns on Bourbon Street. And hey, look -- Gabriel's bike is out front. Looks like he made it back!

That was kinda anticlimactic.



Once again, the same paperboy delivers the latest cartel-filtered news to St. George's Books.



Grace arrives and brings the paper in.





Gabriel slowly, groggily comes to, only vaguely aware of his change in surroundings.





Grace rifles through Gabriel's closet and pulls down one of his dozens of identical T-shirts.







Grace put that together damn fast. Where's this coming from?







It's never really adequately explained just how Grace got Gabriel away from there. Presumably the cult was busy with their ceremony and their probably murdering someone and decided to let them go, but somehow Grace managed to carry Gabriel and his overcoat and all of his crap, and she's a delicate little thing.

She also got his motorcycle back. Maybe she secretly owns a truck.




Suddenly everything comes flooding back.






No, your other long-lost great-uncle in Germany. Gabriel is just a helpless kitten when he's hung over.







Grace leaves Gabriel alone in his studio to contemplate his next move, but Gabriel's got much more immediate needs:



As the coffee's sweet placebo effects work their immediate magic, Gabriel leafs through the morning paper.






Sounds like Gabriel missed quite the party. Too bad he's such a lightweight; the cool kids can handle way more of the powder.





Geez, even the astrologist is telling Gabriel what to do today. Guess it's time to call Wolfgang and see if the trend continues.




I suppose this is as good a time as any to make a proper introduction. Wolfgang Ritter (voiced by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who has a ton of credits dating back to the 1950s; I haven't seen the vast majority of his work, but he played Alfred in most of the Batman cartoons since the 1992 show and had a memorable guest role in the fourth season of Babylon 5) is the last known heir to the Ritter family, until Gabriel came along. Ever since Heinz left for America, he's been struggling to fill the traditional family role, even though things have been going steadily downhill since the incident with Gunter in Charleston.







You can see what I meant early on about the interrogation window getting huge. I forgot to mention it since they didn't lead anywhere important at the time, but "Damballah" and "Ogoun Badagris" were added to the list after the call from Hartridge early on Day 5.

Let's start with the basics.





Fair enough. Still, this guy's the closest we've got to a master spook hunter; he might know something about the less pleasant Loa.






Nothing special on that front; what about everyone's favorite snake god?






Hard to tell if he's serious or if he's just humoring Gabriel. Anyway, this is a really expensive phone call and Gabriel is not exactly made of money. It's time to stop fucking around.





"Shadow hunter." Doesn't exactly leave itself open to interpretation, does it?




The true origin of the Schattenjägers will not be speculated upon again until it's unexpectedly forced upon the player in a later game.






This is about all we're gonna get out of him from across the Atlantic, and Gabriel's got more pressing things to worry about than the ins and outs of the family business.







New personal topic: "Talisman."





So I guess reasoning with Tetelo to stop killing people is out. Shame there isn't a "shadow negotiator" job.








The brazen, manly course of action is set! Except for one problem.





Find her corpse and dig it up, huh? That may be the thing cool kids do in Rittersberg, but it's a little frowned upon over here. But fine, we'll roll with it for now and figure out the gritty details later. New personal topic: "Tetelo's Remains."





Well, one of those things is obvious. Gabriel tries to remember something else important while Wolfgang continues talking.





One more new personal topic: "African Homeland."




No worries there. After last night, Gabriel's in no particular hurry to snuggle up near the cult.

Finally, Gabriel's brain connects to the information he's been trying to get at.




...thought. He thought the tribe's name was Agris.








That's another vote for getting the hell out of town. Duly noted.





That was ... odd. The whole reason Gabriel called was so that Wolfgang could fill him in on what to do, but he might have actually been more help to Wolfgang. It'd sure be nice to have some sort of supernatural library handy.

The world is telling Gabriel in no uncertain terms to make his way to Germany. It's probably way out of his budget, but there's nothing stopping him from finding out just how expensive it is.



The phone book page Grace gave him days ago has proved its worth once again. He calls the number and tries to ignore the photo of the dog raging at him.






As expected, an overnight trip to Germany is well out of reach for the guy who had to bribe a vendor with a gift certificate to get a hot dog.




A trip to Rittersberg is out of the question, so Gabriel will have to make do with investigating the case locally. But how? He's dried up all his leads. The cult knows he's after them. Even if he could manage to get into Malia's house and talk with her, there's no guarantee Tetelo couldn't crash the party and murder the shit out of him.

If what Wolfgang was saying is right, they're going to have to find Tetelo's body and get that talisman back. Most likely, if it's in New Orleans, it'd be in their secret hounfour, but ... they've proven to be incredibly bold and perhaps reckless in the past. What if it's in a more obvious location?




Where better to find the bones of a Gedde relative than their giant, elaborate tomb?



The normally-locked panel by the door is conveniently wide open. Maybe a little too conveniently. Gabriel cautiously moves in and presses the giant red button.






The doors close behind Gabriel, leaving the tomb pitch black. He fishes for the flashlight he picked up from his bed.



The flashlight leaves a pathetically small beam and fails to illuminate any part of the tomb that's not in its direct line of sight, but it'll have to do. He begins snooping around.





Well, if we're gonna look for bodies, there's no better place. Gabriel picks a random drawer and pulls it out.





Nothing of interest in here. Gabriel shuts it and looks at the other drawers more carefully.

The middle drawer's plaque catches his eye.



No fucking way. Could it really be that easy?



Gabriel hesitantly pulls the drawer open...









Something smashes against Gabriel's head and he goes down.





Next time:

Gabriel wakes up in a strange tomb in Chapter 26: Gabriel Knight vs. A Massive Headache!

Videos!
49. Day 7 opening (Dailymotion) (Youtube)
50. And then we can wipe out all the telepaths! (Dailymotion) (Youtube)