Part 10: Cruel Inheritance

Update 10: Cruel Inheritance

Welcome back. Last time we uncovered a bit more about the Steiner family, culminating in a vision of Rion discovering his father’s corpse. Things are looking grim, but we can’t afford to dally.



There’s nothing else in this room that will offer us any clues. The only place left is the downstairs sink.







The secret escape hatch gives us a convenient shortcut downstairs. But when we approach the door…





Rion has yet another seizure.



: This is a new ring we had made. Your father has one just like it.



: Isn’t it beautiful? But remember - it’s a secret.

: Okay!



: You’re such a good boy, Rion.



A ring with a flat, disk-like top? Interesting. I think I know what we might be able to use that for.











After a bit more backtracking we find ourselves back in the sink room.





Rion freaks out as soon as we take a step. You know the drill by now.





Rion’s mother desperately tugs on her ring, eventually getting it off.



Suddenly, the door bursts open behind her!



: No! Go away!





She surreptitiously drops the ring down the plughole.





: Aaaaaahh!!





So, Elsa managed to drop her ring down the sink before being killed.



A normal person wouldn’t be able to reach it, but then again, Rion isn’t a normal person.





Using our psychic powers, we can retrieve the ring from the manor’s piping.



With the ring in our possession it’s time to return to the bedroom.







Slot the ring into the hole, and…





Inside is another ring, this one shaped like a square.



It is at this point that I, and probably many other people who played this game without a guide, make a mistake.



As a player your first instinct is going to be to go to back to the library.



Seems logical, right? I mean, it’s fairly obvious that the square and round rings fit into the square and round holes on the walls.







Okay, so, fairly simple, we just have to go to our inventory and-



Um. Where is Rion’s mother’s ring?







If you answered, ‘Still lodged in the jewellery box back in the bedroom’, you’re absolutely right. Unlike literally every other key or key-like item in the game, Rion does not automatically put his mother’s ring back in his inventory after it’s been used. You have to manually examine the box again to get it back. There is no indication whatsoever that you have to do this, and since I had forgotten it happens I had to run all the way back to retrieve it.



I wasted so much time running around that the AP bar is now completely full.



Taking the ring out again causes two Rabbits to spawn in the corridor.



Shorting would take them out easily, but it’s better to just run away since we won’t be coming back to this part of the manor again.



Rabbits also invade the southern corridor as well. Dealing with these guys is a higher priority.



Alright. Now wait for it…



There we go.





Right! Let’s solve this stupid puzzle.









Place the rings into the slots, and…



The conspicuously polygonal bookshelf slides back, revealing a hidden door!



The secret room is now open and revealed on our map.





It appears to be some sort of computer room.



A conspicuous workstation lies at the end, complete with projectors. Examining it triggers a lengthy and quite revealing scene.



: My dear son Rion. If you ever get this message, your mother and I have probably already been killed.



: But before you start mourning our deaths, there is something you must do.



: Seven years ago, Dr. Pascalle, a friend of mine, completed a next-generation computer names Dorothy.



: Dorothy was a revolutionary computer, with the ability to make its own decisions and repair itself. Under her own power Dorothy grew completely new cellular circuits, enabling her to abandon her old system kernel.



: Her growth continued smoothly, and before long she was controlling her senior computers, and rose to the status of Michelangelo city’s mother computer.



: That was when Dorothy’s insanity began. She began to wonder why such an inferior system such as humankind should not be wiped out, and why she could not kill people, even though people kill each other.



: So I told her about the existence of God.

This can only end well.



: I told her that God was the master of creation. God created humankind, and our fate is in His hands. No one can deny this.



: In Dorothy’s case, her creator was humankind. In other words, Dorothy’s God was humankind. She must obey the fate we decide for her.



: It appeared Dorothy accepted this and began serving humankind again. However, she secretly began simulating God’s existence over and over again until she reached her final solution. That solution…was the Family Program.



: Dorothy placed the city’s memorial hospital under her control, and then began genetic experiments on humans.



: She wanted to create a race of humans with psychic powers and absolute loyalty to her. She called them…



:…Galerians. And she was their God and creator.





: Dorothy was trying to create her own world, with herself as God. The Family Program was a ritual for her to become God.



: However, Dr. Pascalle and I had a backup plan in case Dorothy went out of control. In Lilia’s mind we hid a virus program that could destroy Dorothy - and in your mind, we hid the program for activating that virus. That was five years ago.



: Dorothy fears the virus program more than anything else. Only you can retrieve the virus program from Lilia’s mind.



: My dear son…the future of our race…is in your hands.



: You must save humankind.



…Well. That was a scene and a half, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. You spend the first part of the game being slowly drip-fed bits of the plot, only to have the entire backstory dumped on you in a single scene halfway through the second stage. It feels awkward, and I think it might have been better to have Rion uncover the mystery a bit more organically.

In any event, after all that information it’s fairly clear what happened. Dorothy must have found out about the virus program, or perhaps discovered that Rion’s father was snooping on her and knew what she was trying to do. The backup plan to shut her down failed due to Dorothy striking first. Rion’s parents died during the attack, and while Rion himself evaded the attackers for a time he was eventually captured and taken to Michelangelo hospital. It seems likely that Dorothy ordered Dr. Lem to experiment on Rion in order to find out more about the virus program, and this led to him developing psychic abilities.

There are still a few things left to consider. Rion’s family are accounted for, but where is Dr. Pascalle? More to the point, where is Lilia? To destroy Dorothy we need the virus program, but Rion doesn’t have it - only the means to activate it. Lilia has the actual virus, but while Rion hears her voice in his head, she can’t hear him. We need some way to talk back to her, some means to make the channel work both ways.



Before we leave this place there’s something on the desk we need to pick up.



Remember the snooker table downstairs? Here’s one of the balls that was missing from it. If you recall, Rion’s psycometry indicated the second is somewhere near the pond.







The path to the pond is free of enemies.









This is where the vision told us to look. Examining the area won’t help, however. We need to do something a bit more…drastic.







: Rrrrrrraaaargh!!



The surface of the pond bubbles and shifts as Rion dredges something up from the depths.







It’s a car! Not entirely unexpected, given the tire marks.



What is unexpected is the driver.



: Dr. Pascalle?





Shocked, Rion loses control and drops the car heavily.





This jolts open the door, revealing the missing 9-ball in the late Dr. Pascalle’s grip.



Well, I suppose that clears up what happened to Dr. Pascalle, although one has to wonder why he was here considering he had supposedly taken his daughter into hiding. Perhaps he discovered that Dorothy was planning an attack and came to warn Rion’s family, only to get caught up in it himself and get killed whilst trying to escape. Either way, he has the 9-ball, which we need.





With both balls in hand (hurr) it’s time to return to the games room. There are no enemies or anything interesting along the way, so I’ll cut out the backtracking.







Place the balls on the table, and…



The whole thing moves back, revealing a hidden staircase leading downwards.



What could possibly be downstairs? A testing area? A secret lab? Don't worry, we'll be finding out next time in the final update of the second stage.