Part 43: Blackwell Deception - Update 2

Gilbert is Jewish too, so I guess it was a natural one for him to make

Update 2

Yesterday, Rosa and Joey found themselves on a yacht haunted by a ghost floating around in the yacht's control room. Time to see if we can switch on the Joey charm and help the ghost to move on! This update will be a bit longer than usual, but I'm keen to move past the tutorial section and get to the game proper.

Deception Tension



Joey settles on his initial impressions of the ghost.

That suit should have been abandoned twenty pounds ago.

His opinion of the ghost will not improve throughout this update.



As of yet, the ghost doesn't seem to have noticed Joey, so we can look around a bit first. There is a key here, which will presumably unlock the door to this control room.



Joey's magic breath can be used to blow the key off the handle onto the ground. However, as soon as we do that, our ghost immediately hears the keys clinking and turns around.

What?! How'd you get here?
I just want to-



Suddenly, the ghost aims a gun at Joey. A ghost gun. Of course, Joey isn't scared of the ghost gun...

Heh. Right. Look, why don't you that toy down and-



...but he should be, because the ghost plugs him with a bullet. A ghost bullet. Goldfarb does a great job with this scene, sounding at once pissed off, confused, and legitimately pained.

Get off!
Listen-

But our ghost is in no mood to listen, and cocks the gun again for a second shot.

Woah! Hey, all right! I'm going!

Joey wisely back out of the room.



Rosa is waiting outside concerned, having heard the gunshot.

I'm... fine... yeah.

Joey takes a moment to settle his nerves.

Looks like we've got a spook after all. And he's packing heat.
You mean he's got a gun? Were you shot?
Yeah. Sorta.
Sorta? What happened? Does it hurt?
Stings a lot, yeah. But it's going away now.

Fantastic, a psychotic ghost with anger management issues and a love for nautical travel. This is going to be fun.



Quietly floating back inside, Joey comes back to the key, and blows it a little closer to the air vent in the ground. Hopefully Rosa will be able to reach it now.

On the wall to the right of the cabinet is a piece of paper with strange markings on it.



I can't make heads or tails out of this thing.

This diagram matches up to the knotty pine in the main cabin. The trick here is to spell out "June" to determine which order to push the buttons on the wall.



Continuing to search around without attracting the attention of our ghost, Joey comes across the GPS system.

Looks like I'm screwing with airborne signals again. Whatever this thing is, it's flickering like mad. The screen says we're in Antartica? So much for modern contraptions.



The ghost is obviously too caught up in whatever he's doing to notice Joey, so we'll just speak with him instead.

You! I warned you to get away! Why don't you listen?!
I just want to ask you a couple of questions.
Right. Sure. And I'm Mother Teresa.



Out comes the ghost gun again. Joey quickly tries to calm the ghost down...

Look, you don't want to do that...

But the ghost has no interest in listening, and plugs Joey with another ghost bullet.

Ow, jeeze! Ease up, will ya?
I won't repeat myself. Get off my boat!
Okay! Okay!



Shot again?
Yeah. Careful around guns, doll. Those things can kill you.

Joey seems a bit surprised that he can be hurt by a ghost gun, but after being smacked with the ghost saxophone so many times in Unbound, you'd think he would have learned his lesson. In Legacy, he comments that "ghosts aren't supposed to feel pain" when he punches up The Deacon, but then we see him and the Countess engaged in a clearly painful fistfight in the two subsequent games. I think Joey just doesn't understand ghosts very well.



Joey can keep trying...

NO! Why won't you listen?!
I just-

...but sure enough...
OW. God-dammit that hurts.



...things keep turning out the same.



Let's try actually mentioning his name. Presumably he's the Ryan mentioned on the carving on the side of the boat.

Yeah?
Your name is Ryan?
What's it to you?

That's confirmation, but at the price of having the gun drawn again. Joey quickly responds...

Nothing! Nothing!
Ow! What was that for?!

...but eats another bullet for his troubles. Joey's taking a real beating here!



Hahaha, poor Joey

Why are you looking at me like that?
I'm just wondering... where do the bullets go? Are they lodged in your ghost body somewhere? Or do they just disappear?
Shut up, will ya? The pain's real enough.
Just asking.



Let's try one more time here.

You leave my wife alone, you hear me? She has nothing to do with this!
Hey! Steady!

Okay, so it seems his name is Ryan, and June is his wife. Nonetheless, Joey takes yet another shot to the chest.

Ow. Quit that, will ya?
Tell your pig friends to stay away from her!

"Pig friends"? Was Ryan in trouble with the law?



The way you talk, I want to shoot you too.
What was that?
Nothing.

Hahaha I love the way Rosa starts off this whole sequence concerned, but by the end just watches with her eyes raised as Joey eats bullet after bullet. He finally decides to just stay the hell out of Ryan's way.

That spook shoots first and doesn't bother asking questions. I can't get a word in edgewise.
You think I should talk to him? If it's a ghost gun, it probably won't hurt me.
Let's hope you're right.

That... sounds like a bit of a risk, Rosa



Okay, let's see what we can do here. Rosa pushes the four buttons in the order that spells out June...



Will you look at that.

...and a little hatch opens up below, revealing a massive pile of hidden money.

There's got to be over a million dollars in there!
I know it's tempting, kid, but I say leave that alone. Nobody ever leaves that kind of dough just lying around. Nobody we want to meet, anyway.
Don't worry, Joey. I'm not stupid. It's just... wow. I've never seen so much money.
I know, dear. I know. You can look, but don't touch.

I suspect you've already met the guy who put it there: Ryan. Now we know why he was in trouble with the law.

Do you think that money is real?
Kid, don't even think about it. Money doesn't end up in a pile like that accidentally. Something smells dirty about it, and I don't like it.



Rosa looks closer at the money.

Hm. That's interesting. Each stack has the same wrapper around them. And they all have the same letters printed on them. "GCT"? What's that?
Sounds like a clue to where the money came from.

We'll have to figure out what "GCT" refers to.



Nobody I'd like to meet in a dark alley, that's for sure.

Again, I'm pretty sure you've already met him, Joey. And he's a bit trigger happy, for sure, but he can't kill you. I say we just take the money and swim back to shore.

No. Joey's right. There's something fishy about this money.

Gah, you two Still, I guess we really don't want to get caught with stolen money and put away in jail. That would prevent us from saving spooks, which has proven to be a really bad idea so far in this series.



So how are we going to work out what GCT stands for? Rosa now has a smartphone! Instead of needing to trudge back to her apartment to use the computer whenever we want to do research (or if we're stuck on a ghost ship with no access back to her apartment), Rosa can just whip her phone out at any time. Her emails are on the phone as well... here we see an email from Paul Meltzer who is asking Rosa to leave him alone. Considering at least a year or more has passed, Rosa must be damn persistent!

Let's check out the other emails while we're here.



Another fucking Tomo reference Gilbeerrrrrttt!!!



Hahaha, oh wow - Rosa actually did get the story based on Frank Lyons and Claude Urdin published somewhere! She even got to use the title she thought up back in Convergence! Though it sounds like sales weren't great, unfortunately. Still, now Nishanthi will actually be correct when she tells people her neighbour is a writer



Josie is still cashing in on Claude's paintings. Didn't he only have, like, ten paintings? Perhaps there were some more in storage somewhere. I wonder if she ever sponsored another artist? Without the Countess to knock him off, he probably wouldn't have sold that well.



In a heartwarming email, Susan Lee from Legacy has contacted Rosa and has offered a confused thank you for any help we might have provided her a few years back. Good to see she's doing okay



Rosa responded to Susan, but kept the details brief. Probably smart, really.



Apparently another case ended up with no ghost. At least Rosa is doing some amount of trade!

According to forums poster Accordian Man this email is actually a reference to The Shivah. Five years later and Gilbert is still dropping references to his first commercial game, that's dedication! I like the way that Lauren was able to speak to Russell Stone back in 1973, so if we're going to accept that as a part of the canon timeline, this lady waited fucking decades to check up on her husband's ghost.



Okay, let's get on with the case and search for GCT.

Wow. Look at all these results for GCT. This isn't going to help me at all.

There's only 103 results, we could go through them all! But Rosa doesn't want to. We'll need to narrow things down first.



Here's our more modern version of a notebook. After Convergence removed the ability/need to combine clues together, there was such a backlash from the fans that Gilbert put it back into Deception. It does make for some annoying puzzles, because we only need to use it very occasionally so it's easy to forget about it, but on the plus side it does allow for a bit more expository dialogue.

I'm not sure who Ryan and June are, but I assume they are in love.

Combining Ryan and Money...

The money is on Ryan's boat. Does it belong to him? Where did it come from?

Combining Ryan and GCT...

The money is on Ryan's yacht, and the money was bundled up in wrappers labelled "GCT". What could GCT be?

Money and June...

Maybe this money belonged to someone named June?

June and GCT...

There's no "J" in GCT, so I don't see any connection.

Money and GCT...

The money wrappers had the letters GCT printed on them.

I won't go through all combinations in the future, but as you can see, Gilbert has gone to great pains to try to have Rosa say something unique for almost any two items in the "Note Collector" now.



We can search for Tomo again, which leads to this random page. This won't be the last Tomo reference in Deception.



Okay, back on the yacht, Rosa reaches up into the air vent...



...and is able to grab the keys Joey has blown over. Now she can enter the control room!



Better hope that ghost gun doesn't hurt you, Rosa



With the sound of the door creaking open and shut, Ryan immediately notices Rosa's arrival.

Talk fast!
Woah. Relax! I'm just here to talk.

Ryan gives Rosa about as much consideration as he did Joey.

Talk? Talk is cheap. And so is life.
Hey, wait! No!



Ryan lets off a volley of bullets, furious that they don't seem to have any effect, while Rosa pitifully covers up. Finally, he gives up and puts the gun away.

I am so glad that worked.
My aim's off. It's gotta be the stress. Who are you?
I'm, uh...

Rosa has three choices here. She can pretend to be a cop:

I'm with the police!
No, I don't think so. You don't look like any cop I've ever seen.

She can pretend to be a friend:

I'm a friend. I want to help you.
Help me?

Or, hilariously, she can pretend to be the owner of the boat:

I own this boat.
What? No you don't. *I* own this boat!

Of course, it doesn't matter what we say. Ryan already has his theory.

Did someone from the bank send you?
Bank? What bank?
What bank...? You don't know?
I'm afraid not.
You're serious.

Suddenly, Ryan puts two and two together.

You don't even know who I am, do you?
Your name is Ryan, isn't it?
Right. You read the engraving on the side of the boat. What's my last name?



Rosa, of course, has no idea.

I knew it. I wasn't born yesterday, you know. So, what do I do with you. You don't look like a cop. And you're not with the bank. That only leaves... Oh, I get it. You're a stowaway, aren't you? Boy, did you choose the wrong boat. Look, I have no time to deal with you right now. I'm not going to shoot you again. Just go below and stay out of my way!

Ryan then turns his attention back to the controls, seemingly unaware that Rosa hasn't left yet.



She catches up with Joey quickly.

We need to find out where that money came from.
What should we do? Ask the ghost?
Nah. He's keeping clam. Shame there's nobody around here to ask.
Well, I've got my phone. If we have enough information, I might be able to do a web search.

Here's another little hint that Rosa has a phone for us to use, in case you missed the first couple.

That money's got to be dirty.
I agree. But where did it come from?
I think we've got all the facts. We just need to piece them together.
You mean cross-reference? My phone can handle that.
Great. Our success depends on a piece of cheap plastic.

When Ryan mentioned that he thought we were from a bank, Rosa entered "bank" into her phone as a clue.



Let's combine the clues...

Hm. "GCT" could stand for a bank's name. Easy enough to find out. Time for a little cross-referencing.

Rosa jumps straight onto Oogle without the player's involvement.

Thought so. There are a lot of GCTs out there, but only the "Grant City Trust" seems to be a bank. It's a pretty safe bet that the money in the hidden compartment came from the Grant City Trust.



Rosa is pretty chuffed with herself for having solved the mystery using the phone Joey is less impressed, however.

Use that thing often enough, and you won't have to think at all.



Is it some kind of mind power? Or is he actually manipulating the controls?
Does it matter?
If that ghost can control the boat, maybe you can too.
I don't think so. I think this boat is linked to that guy, somehow.

As I understand it, Word Of God is that ghosts are able to still operate things that are of massive emotional important to them. This makes some sense in the case of Isaac's saxophone, or even Ryan's gun, since they manifest as ghostly objects. But the physical boat itself? Seems a bit weird to me. I guess it's not impossible though, since ghosts can affect airborne signals, so they can clearly interact with electrical devices in some way. I don't know. For now we'll just have to accept it, I guess.



Joey doesn't like Ryan very much.

You're just saying that because he shot you.
Well. Yeah. The guy is trigger happy. On edge. I don't like it.

Joey is also wondering about that money.

How'd all that dough end up there, anyway?
Maybe we're being rewarded?
I doubt it. I wonder if Grant City Trust knows their money is here?
Should I call them and tell them? There might be a reward.
Let's take care of business first.

That's actually a good point. We might be able to get a bit of profit from this case on the side after all!

We want to talk to Ryan again, but Joey has given up on being the mouthpiece.

I think I'll let her do the talking. Those ghost bullets sting.



Alright, let's get Rosa to do it.

What do you what? I'm busy!
Is your name Ryan, by any chance?
What it's to you?
Oh, nothing. Just making conversation. I'm Rosangela, by the way.
Great. Now leave.



Instead of leaving, though, Rosa uses her smartphone to prompt some more dialogue.

So tell me about June.
What do you know about her?
Nothing. I just saw the engraving on the side of the ship.
Just get out of here, okay?

Ryan is not very expository, however.

Tell me about the money.
You leave that alone! Don't you dare touch any of that money. It's *mine*. I've earned it ten times over with my own blood, sweat and tears. I've got to get away! Then I'll be free and clear.
Free and clear from what?
Forget it. Just get outta here, will ya?



Now that we've done the gruntwork and figured out what GCT stands for, we should be able to move things along here.

What about them?
I know the money downstairs belongs to them.
Heh. So you say.
Well... talk to you later.
Just stay our of my way.

Oh. I thought that would prompt him more. Apparently we need to do a bit more research first. Before we get to that though, let's see what else we can do here.



The poor GPS is going haywire with all this ghost activity.



We can ask Joey to use the tie on Ryan, but it doesn't work.

It wouldn't do any good. A spook has to be spiritually ready before it can move on. Until this guy realizes he is dead, he's stuck here. And so are we.



Asking Joey to "blow" on Ryan elicits an amusing response:

Not without dinner and a show, first.



Okay, research. By searching for the Grant City Trust, we find out about a bank robbery. Presumably our ghost is the Ryan Jacobs mentioned in this report. We also know how he died, which might be helpful. Now that we know a bit more, we can confront him with it.



What about them?
I know you robbed them.
Yeah, well. It doesn't matter if you know. They can't catch me now.

Rosa mentions that Ryan was a former employee of GCT.

You used to work for them, didn't you?
You bet I did. Thirty years of service! And they were going to lay me off without a second thought! Well, I certainly showed them. I just gotta get to Boston. Once I get there, I am free and clear.
Boston? What's in Boston?
I have a cousin with a private plane. That's what. Once I get to Boston, I'm going to dump this yacht and take a one-way trip to anywhere.

Apparently Ryan won't stop until we get to Boston.

So you're not stopping until we get to Boston?
Not a chance. So make yourself comfortable.

This is a problem, since Ryan was able to start the boat, but not actually control it eyond that, so we're just going in circles. We're not going to be arriving at Boston any time soon.

So... how far are we from Boston now?
Well let's see. According to my satellite navigation system, we are...



Hahahahaha Of course, his navigation equipment is useless.

Something must be interfering with the navigation system. It'll fix itself in a minute.



The puzzle here is to have Joey float next to the GPS long enough to change the location to Boston. Fortunately it just cycles between a few locations so it doesn't take too long...

... still in New York. We have a while to go yet. Good thing nobody is following us.
... in Antartica? That can't be right!
... just outside of Greece? That's impossible!

Hahaha. Ryan sounds so incredibly frustrated whenever locations that can't possibly be correct show up Finally, Joey sits near the GPS long enough to trick it into thinking we've arrived at Boston Harbor.



I feel like I've been piloting this boat near forever. I've got to go on deck and take a look. What a beautiful sight this is going to be!

You're in for a surprise, I'm afraid, Ryan.



Rosa goes outside to find Ryan staring at New York coastline.

That's the George Washington Bridge.
That's right.
This isn't Boston.
No, it's not.

Poor Ryan looks exhausted here.

How is this possible? How can I still be in New York?! I've been piloting this boat for... I don't know how long! I *must* have left New York waters by now.
How long, Ryan?
What?

Joey tries his usual trick of pointing out the logical fallacy.

Just how long have you been piloting this boat?
I don't know! I grabbed the money a few hours after closing time. That must have been... 9PM? I came straight to the boat. So it's only been a few hours. Right?

Ryan continues to relive the moment.

I hid the money down below. I set out... and then... I heard sirens. The harbor police on the bullhorn. They boarded... No. *No*. They didn't get me! They couldn't have!



That's all I remember.



The realisation sets in for Ryan.

They *did* get me.
I'm sorry, Ryan.
For thirty years they made me bleed, and they've finally killed me once and for all. Excuse me. This is a lot to take in.

Ryan floats back inside the control room in a daze. Looks like we're almost done here.



What do you think? He just found out he's dead. Let's get after him.
He doesn't look happy.
Do they ever? I think he's ready to move on.
I'm ready when you are. Got your tie handy?
I'm never without it, dear.

Let's do this.



What is it?
It's to help you on your way.
My... way?
Yes, Ryan. It's time for you to move on.
*sigh*

Ryan takes a moment to compose himself.

Yes. I guess it's time.

In The Void



With Ryan holding onto on end, Rosa takes Joey's tie and pulls Ryan's spirit into her Nodespace, which still looks rather square and ordered. The watery effect on the portal is a nice touch.



As usual, Ryan's spirit starts to see things more clearly once it is inside of Nodespace.

My wife died. Did I tell you about that?
Her name was June?
Yes. Cancer. It wasn't pretty. But when she died... I kind of lost it. My work suffered. Quite a bit. Maybe they had no choice but to fire me, but I thought that thirty years of service was worth something. I guess I was wrong.

Another depressing story



I wish I knew.
Still, the bank will never get their money back. I made sure they paid for that, at least.

They will if we can claim a reward for it! Rosa can either mention that she intends to return it:

We found the money. We'll have to return it.
I know that's the right thing to do, but you won't get the chance.

She can ask if Ryan is happy for her to have it:

Are you saying... that I can keep the money you stole?
Hah. You're a sweet kid, but no. I'm not that generous.

Or she can point out that money is meaningless to Ryan now:

You know you can't take it with you, right?
No, I know exactly what I mean.

Either way, that sounds a bit ominous. What does he mean?

What are you talking about?
You'll find out.



With a parting call to his wife, Ryan's spirit moves on. Case closed.




With that case finished, we'll get the game proper started tomorrow! Join me then as we see what Deception has in store for us