Part 36: 6 Days, Part 7: Just Awkwardly Nod a Bit.

6 Days, Part 7: Just Awkwardly Nod a Bit.



But there is still enough time to save yourself.
What happened to her?
Her weakened defenses allowed John DeFoe to crush her personality. In loving her, you tainted her. Just as the past affects the future, so too does the future affect the past. And your future, Dacabe, is a dark one indeed, so dark that its influence travels backwards through your lifetime, leaving an eternal blemish on your soul that worsens as your fate draws near.

I wonder at what point in the whole "becoming nonlinear" process that Malcolm lost his ability to talk in a straightforward way or about things that actually happened. I don't think Theo's love (that is, being pseudo-raped) did all that much, considering Janine's sanity started out at roughly the same level as a toothless hobo talking about brain implants, and Theo's dark future traveling backwards has precisely zero influence on the plot. Unless, I suppose, his demonic future retroactively tortures him with red tape and being dull.

Shut up! Why won't you help me get out of here?!
You will find the way out in the basement of DeFoe Manor. If you wish to escape, go there.
You expect me to go down into that madhouse? What about John DeFoe?
Enough clones of Trilby remain to provide an escort. They will buy you the time you need to break through DeFoe's defenses. Know him. Become him. Defeat him. I wish you luck.

Malcolm, you can teleport people and stop others in their tracks. You've already done it several times. You also vitally need to help me out for destiny or something. Now you're just being a jerk.

Wait, will you at least tell me who you are?
John DeFoe destroyed all I had, but a gift gave me the power to see the destiny of all mankind while simultaneously enslaving me to it.

Really, by this point, I think he's just trying to sound cool and do his song-and-dance "magically appear" routine every few seconds so that somebody will pay attention to him.

In other news, have my favorite horrible line in this game. It's not quite "I just wanted to go into space" bad, but I still wish to present it in screenshot form for added emphasis:


I'm declaring Malcolm making things up in an attempt to sound intelligent as unofficial canon. It frees up the dependence on destiny, fits with Malcolm's "understanding things is hard" personality, and allows me to pretend that Yahtzee knows what chess is.

...or at the very least, a prince.



Note: When a person dies, their body, mind, and soul separate and drift apart. An individual killed by Frehorn's blade, however, separates differently; they leave their body behind, while the mind and soul remain together. This results in a non-corporeal spirit of unusual ability, capable of strong manifestations, but they remain forever under the command of the one who wielded the blade. An individual can exploit a loophole in these rules by killing themselves with Frehorn's blade, which would theoretically transform them into an immensely powerful spirit, a magic-infused force of pure will. None, however, have yet chanced this.

Keep in mind that this is entirely unlike what happened. There's no indication that Frehorn had 12 magical servants, and "pure will" is probably the least applicable way you could describe someone who's entire set of motives is "I should do this because in the future I'll probably have done this."


John DeFoe has completely taken over the complex except for the part right outside his house. We can only expect so many original graphics, after all.



If that is what you order.
How many of you are there?
We don't know.
So if you die, I can come back here and there'll be more of you?
Until there are no more.

Somebody theorized that guard Trilbies were trained to be abrasive, hence the behavior of the first two. However, these Trilbies have perhaps the most important guard duty in the game, and they've been trained to be submissive to anyone who asks them to completely go against their single job description (guarding the door). So much for that attempt to rationalize it.


Throughout this manor, a heavily distorted version of the harpsichord theme plays. It doesn't make any sense or have any reason to be here, but I can forgive it because it's a pretty awesome harpsichord tune.

Note: The lich's body is indestructible. It can still be stretched, twisted, and made to feel pain, but only damage to their soul artifact will cause permanent damage. Wraiths are non-corporeal, and like all ghosts can exert influence over the environments and objects to which they are tied. It should be noted that the wraith's influence and manifestations become increasingly wild and uncontrolled if its soul is separated from its mind.

5 Days had the notes integrated into the game as things that other people had on them or things that would reasonably be in a manor. Notes had a rationale for why Lenkmann slipped some paper in front of your face while you were zoning out and thinking about murders. 6 Days just goes back to survival horror basics and has files appear for no reason. Who's leaving them, the Trilbies? The cultists who have either evacuated or died? John DeFoe as part of a surprisingly well-written attempt to explain himself? The Frehorn's Blade one magically appeared while Theo was curled into a fetal position staring at the wall where it would show up; is Malcolm trying to explain himself while being even less direct? We may never know.


Anyway, this is a puzzle that's tedious but not particularly difficult. You get three Trilbies and they get killed off one at a time as you progress through the rooms. You have to travel through the abridged manor (the TV room and area with the sofa don't exist anymore) and pick up the blue glowing trinkets, frequently leaving to get more Trilbies. Theo is remarkably unfazed by the genocide he is committing.


This hallway fades into nothingness because John never went there. Given the status of the rest of the house, however, he apparently ran all the way from the basement to the trophy room, back into the entryway, upstairs, into one of the bedrooms, then into the bathroom to dig up tiles and die. All while bleeding to death and suffering severe brain trauma. I love this series.


The placement of these objects is fairly arbitrary; I doubt that John carefully removed his dad's rifle to put the machete in its place and neatly hung up his apron to air out the blood stains. This also brings up the question of where Janine got her welding mask, but perhaps it's another example of the very versatile cloning technology that enabled them to make several dozen hats.


If you're out of Trilbies, John stabs you and you wake up largely unimpaled. Assume Malcolm can heal injuries, thus making his voyeuristic watching of your struggles further proof that he's kind of a douche.


The arc words have lost a bit of their impact by this point, I have to say. Maybe I should change the thread title.


This house is John DeFoe's mind trapped in some ruins, so in theory the blue forcefield is also a product of John DeFoe's mind. I guess John gets tricked into thinking that Theo is actually John also, which strikes me as a little weak even by retarded ghost boy standards. Now would be an excellent time for the Prince to kill me, by the way. Or to kill multiple Trilbies at once and strand me. Or to have killed all the Trilbies days ago. Or to actually accomplish his soon-to-be-revealed plan at any point in time.


Since Day 5 apparently wasn't Lynchian enough, Theo slowly falls down as different character sprites and words related to the series flash all around him.


I have no idea who the floating man is. DeFoe floating in space? The bad mummy cosplay floating inside Chzo? Either way, I'm pretty sure this term is never used anywhere else.


I basically just mashed the "take screenshot" button throughout this sequence, since it goes too fast to plan anything. Sure enough, some amusing screenshots resulted.


It's all a metaphor for... Theo's descent into hell? I don't know.



I think so. They never came out.
Does that mean anything to you? Does that spark any memories?
When I think that, images start to flash before my eyes. DeFoe Manor being here feels wrong. It's supposed to have burned down.
Perhaps you should address the inconsistency. I can show you where to get some petrol.

Nobody in this universe has any problem committing horrible crimes at the behest of a random man who vanishes in and out of existence. The police must have a field day with arson and murder suspects.


Not shown: The minute of time you have to wait before you can do anything.


As always, there is no possible way I could make this less disjointed. I'm not cutting out anything explanatory. The prince suddenly vanishes, though.



Note: 200 years ago, the Body of the Bridgekeeper was destroyed. 200 years from now, the Soul of the Bridgekeeper will meet the same fate. These are known as Bridge Events. Their significance was so great that they sent ripples of weakness through the timeline itself, echoing off into both the past and future. If the third Bridge Event, the destruction of the Mind, occurs at this point, the force of the explosion will penetrate that area of weakness, and form the Bridge between the Realms. Over this bridge, the King, Chzo, will come. He will come to save us, and all the men of technology, from sin. We must, however, be alive to enjoy the new age of perfect purity, and so it is important that the complex and Optimology building be evacuated at least one week prior to the Bridge Event.

I'm sure everyone who went to the basement of the basement, avoiding all the demonic liches and wraiths, were incredibly glad to receive the notice.



There's enough nano-explosive here to atomize the county. Nothing for it. I've got to try and disarm...

This is the same man who openly admitted he didn't know anything about electricity, but apparently estimations of how bombs are made and their contents is common knowledge by this point. Also, the phrase "atomize the county" apparently means something. Good to know.

Wait a second, this bomb's already been defused. The wiring under the control panel has been ruined. As long as it's not damaged this thing isn't going to explode.

I find this hilarious. The cult wanted to destroy the mind, so instead of some fancy magical ritual they decided to just use a bomb. The Prince, evidently sick of killing Trilbies and sabotaging this plan very, very slowly and indirectly, decides to just defuse the bomb. Meanwhile, Theo's just hanging around showing off his John DeFoe costume. I love anticlimaxes.


Then, upon going upstairs, an explosion knocks you back and Trilby burns the house down anyway. Again. I know that you have no idea what's going on, but two updates from now I'm going to post a plot summary and you'll see how badly every single person in this game has screwed up what they're supposed to be doing.


The complex is, as we know, built on the ruins of the manor, hence the lack of any visible ravine (I'm still not over this). If you look at the scale of a parking lot compared to, say, the door, you'll realize that this is a horrendously designed building. This can also be gleaned from the completely mismatched windows on the front.


And alas, DeFoe's mind is destroyed by the cult's top secret lens flare bomb. It sure would have been nice to have actually done anything related to this destruction, what with it being the entire purpose of the game, but I suppose we'll have to settle for what we have. And what we have is a completed Bridge.

Next time, the final plot update, where some bad things happen. They're probably not as bad as you would expect, though. See you soon.