Part 22: Episode XXII: I Hope There's a Closed Casket Funeral

Welcome back. Ashley is a dumb bitch. That brings us up to speed. Let's continue...

Leon gets a buzz on the old communicator

"I'm without obvious instructions and repeating of information I already know or could have found out easily myself."

Leon is agasp!

Wait wait wait. Hold up here. These guys don't have electricity, are using medieval caliber weapons, the most modern vehicle they've used is a motor boat, and yet they managed to jack the transmission of some fancy government transmitter thingamabob?! Not to mention, have some sort of video cam that will transmit to it lying around somewhere as well? I just wanted to make sure I had that straight.

D'oh!

Wait, that trap obviously had some sort of motion censor or trigger to activate it and you didn't bother to put any sort of alarm or notification of it being activated and potentially capturing one of the whole three people you're after?

Ambushes? Apparently a hard concept to bring across cultural boundaries.

"I pray you're not reincarnated as a writer."

'Cuz boredom kills me' is the best he could come up with? Really?

Really?

Leon heads down into the sewers with the miserable insects and all that jazz.

The sound of misery makes itself known...

Or not...

Yeesh!

Aww. It's cool. It just wanted to boogie down.

Los Illuminados' plan for world domination is clearly through funk.

Unfortunately, an ill devised crotch thrust on Leon's part and too much alcohol consumption leads to a grave misunderstanding between the new friends.

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Meet the Novistadors, which Wikipedia informs me is a Frankenstein word of 'No' and 'Vista' ("View"/"Sight") and the noun suffix of dor. Meaning literally 'Nosighter' or transliterated as "Unseen Creature". All that crap is too hard to remember, so I'm calling them 'Novi'. It's like Navi, with an 'o' instead of an 'a'. Just as horrifically annoying, though.

Novis can, you guessed it, camouflage themselves. Though, it's a bit of a half assed camouflage. What with the glowing eyes and the acid drooling from their maws constantly. Though, it does make them a slight bit hard to get a bead on. They've also got some ninja reflexes backing them up, as well as the ability to climb walls and the ceiling.

Their attacks are the usual clawing affair, which they'll perform from anywhere they damn well please. It's worth noting their eyes will glow red just before throwing down, so that's something to look out for. Their other attacks include jumping off the ceiling and kicking Leon in the face across the room. They can also spit acid in his face should he stand around with a shotgun at the ready for too long. These guys are on to his game. Lastly, they can jump on him and pour acid sludge in his face. Resulting in a mild burning sensation, if you didn't watch the video above.

They also tend to come in pairs, if that all wasn't enough. Luckily, they only appear three or so times the entire game. This area being one of them.

Back on task...

Leon breaks up with his old dance partner and carries on. From this ledge up here, if you're slick, you can stay away from the edge and snipe the two Novistadors down below. Their AI is pretty weak and if they don't have a direct line of sight with you, they just sidestep back and forth until you present yourself, or they die. Hopefully, you're aiming for the latter.

Moving right along, what castle would be complete without a dungeon? Straight ahead, past that prick crawling out of the ceiling, is some water that needs to be drained. We'll get to that in a minute.

Let's check out the nearby cells.

Leon...his face was melted off by acid... That was not a quick death and you are a dick.

In the opposite cell

Has anyone heard of a binder or a briefcase in this place?!

Luis' Memo

Hey, we finally have a proper name for our evil parasite thinger. Las Plagas (The Plagues). I have a feeling the scenario writer for Blood Omen 2 had a Spanish half-brother working on the script for this.

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In the same vein of nature's horrors.

I couldn't find anything similar to this. Sorry.

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Yeesh!

Well, that was horrific. Moving on...

Around the corner in a nearby room is the solution to that water problem I mentioned.

As shown.

Leon ventures back out.

Oi! Don't think I don't see you up there!

Novis turn completely retarded if you stand in the doorway here slightly inward. They can't work doors, so they just go into angry sidestep mode, for easy sniping at your leisure.

Leon continues doing those slackers at Terminx's job and makes his way out of the sewers, coming to a most out of place hazard.

I WAS sick -- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence --the dread sentence of death --was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.

*Ahem*

This is no sweat as long as you have any sense of timing.

Piece of cake.

Scotty does a little victory jig for avoiding the dungeon oddity and bounces on out of the area. Arriving...

Back where he started... Now occupied by creepy cultist types making sacrifices to pagan gods and calling collect long distance. You know how these characters operate.

Quick! Think of a snappy one-liner!

Flashback!

End of Flashback!

"Aww hell naw!"

"Wait. No! Cancel the party?! No! D'oh!"

The head cultist with the big bounty treasure will likely try to flee, but Salazar's random traps usually deny him. Everyone flees if you're a dope and don't blow up the crowd for massive cash before alerting them.

Leon takes out the head cultist and grabs the mounds of treasure off his dead compatriots. Then heads back upstairs.

Locked gates?! The fiend!

Nothing our swashbuckling hero can't handle.

Lever pulling skills not included.

Merchant decided to move his operation up here so those prick cultists wouldn't give him shit for greeting potential customers with "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays".

Buy, sell, go for broke! The next area awaits.

Yet another piece of reading material lying about. Character interactions to explain plot details are for women.

Castellan Memo

Nobody expects the Notspanish Inquisition!

Parasite -> Religion -> ???? -> Profit?

So, this whole thing parasitic plague is caused by shit that was growing in Salazar's basement... I told you it was far more retarded than that alien invasion theory.

Leon pockets the memo and proceeds into the next room

"Neeeeerds!" This guy has the key out of here. He's also a jerk.

Jocks rush the room and give Leon a bit of trouble, he ducks upstairs to get a better vantage point on the leader with the key.

Here's where that JFK Reloaded training pays off.

Oh! You craft bastard! Hope you can avoid the speeding bus!

Leon drops down to pursue.

Yakety Saks begins playing as Leon takes off after him.

I'm sorry, but that music is far too overused.

Leon, distracted by Internet memes, doesn't take note of what the head Zealot jackass was up to

JESUS CHRIST!

Why do you have these things in the middle of a foyer deep in the castle?!

Luckily, goat heads don't make the best of sights for aiming chainguns and the threat is neutralized.

Hey, the key. How swell of him. Now uhh...where was the locked door?

A bit of searching brings Leon to that door and another room which has furnishing that could have funded that whole last room of baddies with AK-47's. (Cookie if you spot the Resident Evil throwback!)

There's another, shockingly enough, simple, if a bit morbid, puzzle in here

There's three different portraits of people being executed with a different number of victims portrayed. One with the guillotine, two with hanging, and three being crucified. Selecting one portrait rotates all the ones it is touching. The objective is to display six people.

I'm sure there's other solutions, but this is the one I came up with after some fiddling.

Solving this brain game opens another area to Leon.

I take it Salazar and running crew are just aimlessly standing about predestinated points in the castle hoping someone will wander in so he can monologue.

The elderly!

^________________^

My emo hair says you're just a stupid conformist!

"We disagree!"

"We're skeptical."

"I'm going to go off to my 1:30 appointment of standing in an empty room. Ta-ta."

This is just like that time Leon refused Girl Scout cookies...

Will Leon survive this shocking 92nd encounter with a horde of Ganado?! Find out in the next exciting feature! Episode XXIII - I Wear My Sunglasses at Night

Bonus Content

Me...dear brother...
Liquid?!
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Leon's suplex in action.