Part 20: Episode XIX: The Reveal

So who's ready for a wacky Scooby Doo-esque wrap-up of events? I know I am at least ready to get the fuck out of this chapter and godawful town.


Ben is no longer under our control. He's flying solo for the duration of the chapter. This should be... Well... It should be a thing...


Welp, all of Darkmere has arrived for the finale. Even the rancor secretary is in the crowd. That was nice to let him out of the office for another scene. Briggs seems confident enough. Expect critical levels of smug during this update. Critical levels.


Hey, did you know the Seal of Sufferance has a secondary function? Hell, I didn't even know it had a primary function.


It turns out it doubles as a portable projector screen, fog maker, and boom mike.


All dialogue out of Detective Briggs from this point on (which is to say pretty much all of it) is now said in a booming, echoing voice which rumbles through the building.


I don't think a mostly corridor filled dungeon, going in circles in some catacombs, and idling about in the sewerage system constitutes as "far in this world". If that's true, hobos are worldly scholars.


AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Bwahahahahaha!! Oh hohohohohoho! Oh... Oh that is rich... That is just too much... Fuck you in the ear, Briggs. Right in your malformed hastily rendered ear.


Also know as ash; a substance readily distinguishable from snow since the discovery of fire by man. Cave men could be set lose in Darkmere and pick up on this anamoly. It took you seeing a burning furnace over on the bad side of town to discover this startling non-snow source.


I'd just like to note that they actually did bother to render the baker woman's soulless husk. But only for this cutscene. Also, it looks nothing remotely like her.


"Does it not seem more than coincidence that the snow began to fall as the first poor victims first began to fall at the hands of the Soul Taker? And have you ever asked yourselves where the Taker came from? And why here in Darkmere?"


"What are the four Dark Generals?"
"Are they tanned dark or black dark?"
"Hey!"
"This is...er...irrelevant to the investigation! Moving on..."


We're just going to glaze over what exactly this price is and who has to pay it...


Well, first of all it is "rite" and second of all I'd image the motive would be:
A.) Soul Taking
B.) Killing undesirables
C.) A combination of A and B.


Those pharmacist pricks in their high up balconies. Who do they think they are? Lords of the domain? Arrogant jackals!


Closing at 5:00 PM on Friday and not operating during weekends. Ear infections on Sunday be damned.


Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........... Where are we getting this from, Briggs?


Yeah, I'm going with her. What...?


Okay, now him I can obviously see being involved. What with the being a surly pirate and keeping a skinned man locked up in his garage and all. Plus drinking alcohol out of jars. That shit just ain't natural.


Wait wait wait! Mantits McGee that showed up to say hi and offer a free drink way back at the beginning of the chapter is involved too? There's no possibility he's just renting out his basement? No? We're going to burn him at the steak too? I mean having an outfit composed of suspenders with no shirt and an ascot probably deserves capital punishment but still... This is some reaching business, Ben...


Secretary Rancor is not taking this news well at all. Wait until Mrs. Gammorean hears of this outrage.


Benjamin Spooner Briggs will come to you and ruin your day at least once.


What's this? We're actually acknowledging things that happened in previous chapters? But more importantly, Briggs actually paid attention to things that took place in previous chapters? This is the most startling reveal yet.


I picked up a Briggs Soul in Dawn of Sorrow once. It made me throw bear traps but extremely nerfed my INT and halved my running speed. Not sure what that was all about.


The vast majority of them redundant and unnecessary to boot.


You took that rubbing from the front door of the Stables, you twit.


"The Blind Beggar stated that the messenger had the smell of Death about him, also the smell of the fields... Hay in fact!"


I don't know if you've ever been to a stable, Ben. But the fragrant aroma of steaming horse shit is just a touch overpowering to the hay smell. Just sayin'...


Let's just not mention that by "some" we mean "one". Omitting that the location of the corpse was on the path to the stable and admitting that would be in no way out of the ordinary would also be wise...



He'd recognize those tell tale .jpeg artifacts anywhere!


"Was you who stole those, laddie?! Those were custom made. Very expensive. And the jewel box for old Mrs. He-"
"Silence! I am monologuing for official police business, good sir. Thank you very much."


You just know Briggs is pulling the biggest face he can muster off camera. But, keep in mind Ben also shoved both these pairs of glasses on his face and declared "these don't work for me!" before continuing his investigation. Very professional.


This whole argument of switching glasses is also rendered moot due to the developers not bothering to model a different pair of glasses on the annoying old wench's face at any point.


Remember, this is the pair of glasses from O'Negus' shop he claims to have switched on her. Of course this can be handwaved by Briggs just being a moron and handing her original pair of glasses back to her but continuing his rant anyhow.


Okay, now Briggs is making the biggest face he can muster.



Again, a cork just a few meters out of an establishment that sells alcohol is hardly an incriminating find. Hell, it's even more likely for a drunkard to drop a cork from a bottle of hooch in the middle of the street while stumbling home. It's not like the town seems to employ any custodial staff given years old rotten pies are left at the base of the only landmark in town daily and nobody touches them.


With the second also being blurted out for no real reason in the most ham-fisted mysterious clue manner possible.


Search warrants be damned. Nobody's hidden cellars and closets are safe when Detective Briggs is drunk with power. This case would have been solved in half the time if he got a crowbar with that detective badge. Granted, they'd likely be several more fatalities by now. But, you've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.


Remember that ladder and locked hatch before? Yeah. That was supposed to lead to the Mayor's statue. Sure, there was no way to know that unless you mapped out the directions between each screen to see where the geography above ground would roughly be. But, even then I don't trust Majestic Studios to have done that properly and hell if I am going to check.



Soul Taker's accomplice...?


Wait, hold up. Let me get this accusation straight... So we're lead to believe now that the Inn of Sin proprietor, who doesn't wear a shirt and displays his man bosom for all to see at all hours, stole the pie baker's soul by reaching out of a hatch and snatching it from...wherever she kept her pickle jar sized soul container... And while doing this he managed to drop a cork that was apparently wedged beneath one of his man tits for that to make sense.

On top of that, anyone who loses their soul bottle apparently instantly crumbles into an empty shell like a Metroid had just latched onto their head and went to town. Do I have all that right?


Now keeping that in mind, this leads to my next hole in this supposed story.


If, as proposed, this is how Mrs. Hudson's soul was snatched. Wouldn't the whole fetch quest to retrieve O'Negus' soul bottle from out of William Nilmates' back be impossible? It would least have been quite difficult to do seeing as Mr. O'Negus would be very much deceased following these rules of soul bottle possession.


Except complete strangers. Then he'll just throw the doors open and let you borrow bottles and jars at your leisure.


Well, actually he said he was collecting and hanging onto lost souls he'd found wayward about Limbo. Which, given how utterly idiotic most of its inhabits have turned out to be (O'Negus included) seems not much of a stretch. Indeed, you pulled that whole highest bidder thing straight out of your ass.

On top of that, Briggs stole a soul of his own for personal gain. It's still sitting in his inventory this very moment. I don't think you can be much more of a hypocritical douchebag than the good Cap'n right now...


This is a perfectly valid question in a land where people carry their souls around in jars in their pockets and living people straight up don't belong and haven't been around until Briggs' bumbling ass stumbled into the scene. But, go ahead and take that quote out of context to benefit your argument that a junior high debate team could rip to shreds.


Apparently Noskin von Nightmarefuel is supposed to be in the room with everyone else. I like to pretend they rounded him up with the rest of the Darkmere residents like it was no big thing.


Ah! I should have seen it! The answer was right in front of our faces all along hiding in plain sight. The nefarious Soul Taker and its accomplices are none other than...






















SNATCHERS! It all comes together. Case closed... Good job everyone.













































Oh...the fake Mayor isn't a SNATCHER? Err... Well... Looks like it's time for Detective Briggs to...




I did not see that coming...


The Soul Taker just doesn't know what in the blue hell just happened.


Detective Briggs is over this shit. Time to bust out...


...a good old fashion deus ex machine to resolve this situation.



Ben starts by lighting a match with his thumb because there isn't any time to dawdle when it comes to unmasked villains.


The Soul Taker stops to see where Ben is going with this. I too am err...a bit curious as to where this is heading...


Benface seems pleased at least.


Three: The chapter it feels like we've been on for eternity...


Peace: Something I wish Bovis and his band never ever get to enjoy.


Welp... I'm expecting the death of at least a third of Darkmere with whatever Benny just did.

A light flies from the glass box...


Suddenly a near blinding lens flare erupts from the foul creature enveloping the room in undesirable Photoshop effects.


And so the Soul Taker is err...apparently imprisoned... What... What just happened here? Are we going to get any explanation for that? No...?





Welp. The Soul Taker is now officially defeated. On the down side Briggs managed to murder four more people in the process. And thus the population of Darkmere is reduced to the single digits. But on the bright side the mutilated mayor who can only whimper and moan in agony is returned to administrative duty.


Of course, the residents of Darkmere are stone stupid and Ben revels in the glory of cracking a case even Sherlock Holmes would have been stumped on.

Let's just back up for a moment and examine what happened here. So...the Soul Taker was actually the mayor the whole time. And O'Negus and friends were apparently the ones summoning him... So... Uhhhhhhhhhh...


WHY THE HELL DID THEY GIVE HIM THIS JOB IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?! They could have just left Ben in his jail cell to rot or else done the sensible thing and burned him allowing soul taking to be done at their own convenience. Were they trying to pull some Metal Gear 1 crap where they sent the most inexperienced person they could find in to put up airs of trying to remedy the situation when the person in question is really supposed to fail? You see for that to work, there has to be some manner of danger to kill off the operative. Having him wander around an nonthreatening town (outside the dental work) doesn't really work... Nothing about what happened really works! I... I... Oh...let's just finish this thing...


"Yes. I am afraid I probably am."


Laura gives one last creepy ass smile for the road.


Suddenly a giant cave troll appears!


Ben is once more treated to a very poorly animated and random as can be emptying of his inventory before being launched across the room.


If you're going to have some random as all hell inventory snatching monster...why the hell wasn't there one between the last two chapters? Especially given the two dozen or so items collected last time...?



This game... This fucking game...


And so Chapter 3 finally and mercifully comes to an end... Thank fuck for that.

Bonus Content:

Movies -


Bring Together the Clues (Warning: Briggs Rant)


The Defeat of the Soul Taker! (You should probably watch this...)