Part 93: Blackwell Epiphany - Update 17 (Part 2)

Vantini



Joey phases through the door, and finds himself in a closed-off alley. The music continues outside, but is mostly muffled.



Floating up a bit, Joey finds a second-story window. The upstairs room we saw earlier had no windows, so this could be Ray's office.



Floating inside the window, Joey finds an office. Is it Ray's? He looks at the pictures on the wall.

Pictures of young women in... interesting poses.
Pictures of important looking people. I don't recognize any of 'em.
A painting of a young and attractive woman in a state of undress. I don't recognize the model, but for some reason she looks familiar.

I'm going to guess that "yes", it is Ray's office.

Looks like a bunch of hone numbers and addresses. Nothing relevant.
Another one of those computer things. Even if I could touch it, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

That's most likely where any information about Heather's clients would be. We'll need to get Rosa in here if we want to access it.



Heading out what appears to be the exit, Joey finds himself phasing back into the upstairs room. I guess there's some kind of secret door here. Joey calls out to Rosa.

Hey Red. Get over here.
What?
There's a door hidden in the wall. I can't see it, but it goes into a secret office.



Rosa tries feeling the wall, but can't find any obvious way to access the secret door. How are we going to get her in there?



What's the secret? We need to distract Denisse so Rosa can sneak out the back. To do that, we have Joey blow Ray's glass off the table. And who said that his ghost wind powers were useless!?

Denisse. Could you get that for me?



While Denisse is clearing up the mess, Rosa can duck out, although if we wait a few seconds, it's too late.



Fortunately, if that happens, Joey can just blow the next glass off as well

Oh Denisse...?
*sigh*

Let's quickly duck outside.



Rosa heads out, and checks the door behind her to find that it has automatically locked. Hopefully we can get out the gate back to the street



Joey come floating out as well, and immediately notices that Rosa has left her coat inside. Whoops!

Damn Joey and his not being able to feel the cold.

They quickly catch up to formulate a plan.

Well, here we are. Stuck in an alley next to a dumpster.
First class all the way. That's us. You doing okay? You're looking a little...
Freezing? Yeah. Thanks for noticing.
Why are you just standing around here? Go look around!
All right. All right! What do you suppose is on Ray's computer?
You're asking me? You're the one with the fingers. Go let 'em walk.



Joey was apparently pretty impressed with Ray!

Liked her? Even knowing what she does?
It's not a profession that going away anytime soon, Red. And Ray's better than most.

Rosa takes a look around. Immediately, she notices the ladder heading up to the second-story office.

A fire escape ladder. Way out of reach.

What can we do about that, then?



There's a dumpster here. Maybe we can use that to reach the ladder? Rosa has a few options here, although the first three are really just there to make Rosa do stupid shit

It only opens a bit, but it appears empty.
Ow!
I don't know what that was supposed to do, aside from make me walk with a limp.
Urf! It won't budge.



We want to climb the dumpster, but first, I have Rosa pace around in the snow a bit. Because I can.

Trying to keep warm.
Right. Carry on.



With her adrenaline levels raised, Rosa straddles the dumpster. I can see this going very, very wrong. She eyes the ladder.

*sigh*
You're not seriously going to try that, are you?
Quiet. Let me concentrate.



Rosa has a myriad of options for how to approach the ladder, but...



...whichever way she chooses, her feet slip off the iced lid of the bin immediately, and she goes flying flat on her back

I'm. Fine.
Be careful!

Oh, Rosa



Ever the trooper, Rosa heads atop the dumpster for another try.

Shut up. Let me concentrate.

However, sure enough...

Ooh. It looked like that one hurt.
Yes, Joey. It hurt.
Just saying. If it hurts, maybe you should stop doing it.

Poor girl is taking a licking here, and she doesn't even have her coat for padding.



Another attempt...

Yes. Again.

...and another tumble.

Darling? Could I point out the obvious?
No.
Maybe you should leave the flying to the guy who can, you know, actually fly?



Eventually, even Joey can't bare to watch as Rosa cracks into the snow.

Not saying a word. Not one word.

Obviously, we need to go about this another way.



Rosa spies an old rag sitting draped over the side of the dumpster, and picks it up.

A filthy rag from a dumpster. Why am I carrying this?



Hahaha

... I got nothing. You wanna act like a crazy homeless person, be my guest.

Initially I thought we would need to use the rag to wipe the dumpster, but Rosa doesn't like that plan.

Cleaning the dumpster is pointless. Especially with all that ice on it.

I guess we need to melt the ice first.



I remember this from the Karth House brick puzzle!

*sigh* It's now a puddle of foul, coffee-flavoured water, but at least it's melted.



Now Rosa is more happy to use her filthy rag.

I think I got it all. But I'm NOT carrying around this wet rag. Good thing there's a dumpster here.



With the ice gone from the dumpster lid, Rosa actually makes the jump and action-woman's herself up the ladder with one arm, pausing for just long enough to drop a one-liner Way to go, Rosa!



Inside Ray's office, Joey reflects on their latest aventure.

But sneaking into the secret office of a known flesh-peddler? This tops the list.



Rosa isn't even listening, though.

She looks like she's beginning to thaw off.
He keeps looking at those photographs.

Now that we're here, we should try to learn about Heather. Joey prompts Rosa in that direction.

Let's do what we need to do and get outta here before someone sees us.

However, Rosa takes the opportunity to look around the office first.

Pictures of young girls. I guess they all work for Ray.
Is that...? Yes. It's a painting of Ray. A much younger Ray, but still Ray.

Rosa apparently recognises the younger Ray, even though Joey didn't. She also recognises some of the other photos around here.

These look like pictures of celebrities and politicians. I don't recognize many of them, but...
Holy crap. Is that Kennedy?

Hahaha, geez. Alright, let's get to work before we're discovered.



Rosa hops on the computer and searches around for anything that might contain information about Heather's clients.

... You're KIDDING me.
What?
It's a text file. "ClientList.txt."
And that's... good?
Good for us. All I need to do is transfer the file to this memory stick...

Rosa quickly plugs in the stick, copies the file...



...and transfers it straight to her phone.

And we've got it! Some security.
I guess with the secret door and paying off the police, she didn't feel the need for any more.
That and she's a bit old. She might not know a lot about computers.
Huh. I can relate.

Gilbert freely admits in the game's commentary that this scene was really a placeholder for what he intended to be a proper hacking scene, with a proper UI and all. Eventually he decided that would be pretty boring, so we just ended up having the placeholder dialogue become our actual dialogue in a moment reminiscent of the original Monkey Isl... no, I promised myself no more Lucasarts references in this LP. I can't, I mustn't.



Rosa checks out the list, but it's fairly extensive.

I'd say the odds are good.

That's a bit of a hint for what to do next, but we'll think about it later. For now, let's just get out of here while the going's good. Now, the gate downstairs is locked, and Rosa doesn't like the idea of climbing back down the slippery, icy ladder. So she instead figures she'll just exit via the secret door.

Prelude to Tragedy



Oh. Hi. Um...

Oh, shit. Bad plan! Rosa exits the office and finds herself face to face with Ray, in a scene reminiscent of Loom... oh, God damn it!!!

Without even waiting for Ray to speak, Rosa searches for an excuse. She can claim to have been looking for the bathroom:

I was just... looking for the bathroom. Is it up here?
The bathroom. In the office behind the secret panel.
Um. Yes?

She can try to pass it off as a misunderstanding:

This isn't what it looks like...
Oh, I know exactly what this looks like.

Awesomely, she can try to pass off her actions as being in Ray's best interests

I was just... testing out your security.
Is that right?

Or, she can take a leaf out of the interrogation scene from earlier and zip her lip.

... Nothing to say? Well. There's nothing TO say, is there?

No matter what she says, Ray is pretty pissed.

I've been meaning to glue that window shut. I suppose I should thank you. But first. Give me that memory stick.



Huh. Now, that's fortunate. We already transferred the data to our phone, so Rosa is perfectly happy to hand over the memory stick. Maybe we'll get away with this after all!

Thank you.
Now get your coat and LEAVE.

Excellent. Perhaps Rosa was right about Ray being bad with computers! Or, more likely, she didn't want to do anything that might bring the police down on her.



Outside, with her coat finally back on, Rosa takes a moment to calm her nerves.

And I'd almost gone a full three hours without a restraining order.
Well, the night's still young.
And I need another cup of coffee.

Cory is going to be so pissed at us



Rosa and Joey quickly head back to their apartment to peruse the client list.

Yeah, well. Anyone on that list look familiar?
There might be, but there are too many to examine one by one.
I'm sure you'll figure a way to narrow it down. You always do.

Another obvious hint. We need to do some clue combining.



Now, we suspect that Jim is the 'J' that wrote the note to Tanya about knowing about Heather. He seems the most likely option to cross-check.

... A James Peebles is listed as being a client of Ray's... and the girl he saw was Heather Goffstein. This just got VERY interesting.

Bingo! Hopefully we'll be able to nail him down and get some info out of him.



First up, though, Joey tries checking with Heather. Perhaps we can avoid dealing with the middle man?

I can't talk about who I might know. I don't want to get anyone into trouble. Especially me.

She's still keeping her mouth shut, though. I guess it's time to pay a visit to Jim.


We'll get to that tomorrow. With any luck we'll be able to learn something about Heather, and possibly Tanya as well from him. Then we'll send Heather back to Michael's circle and learn about what's attacking the Grace Group members. See you all tomorrow!





Although there is still a fair bit of Epiphany to go, we're well and truly in the second half of the game. The Blackwell series is almost at a close!

Now, although Epiphany is going to do a pretty damn good job of answering most of your questions, there are always dangling plot threads that don't get addressed in any large work. The fact that I had enough questions to make Word of God into a daily update feature speaks to that fact. Does Gilbert have any plans for future Blackwell material? I tried asking him about whether he'd ever consider making another Blackwell game, or even a spinoff.

Gilbert intends to make more games based in New York, and potentially in the Blackwell universe

Like I said, I asked him if he would ever consider releasing any kind of Blackwell product (not necessarily a full game) again in the future. He responded: "Sort of yes, and sort of no. As (many) people have commented, there are some plot threads dangling. While I don't plan on making another Blackwell game, I *do* plan on making more games set in New York. So those plot threads will probably get resolved by someone else."

Now, while this all sounds pretty awesome, it obviously won't take the form of a Bestower/guide - although, just to be sure, I asked him. "Hah. No. No more Bestowers and Spirit Guides. At least, not as the player characters." I'll leave it up to you all to interpret those comments.

Personally, I'll be happy with just having a Shivah-style cameo