Part 8: Gunfight at the Winthrop Nut House

In this chapter we will be exploring the asylum lev- AAAH a ghost watch!



Oops forgot to turn the flash light back on.



The stairs to the next floor are right by the entrance. They are however guarded.



These twisted looking horrors are called Blood Beasts. There's no trick to dealing with these guys. They've a reasonable amount of health and will be able to strike you through both your Kevlar and Shroud of the Dark Walker combined. If they have any real weakness its that most of them will just kind of patrol and they won't attack you unless you approach, even if you hit them from a distance. They also have no ranged attack, so the best way to deal with them at this point is to use firearms. This is easier said than done, considering how finicky guns are in this game.

Look, I personally think this floor is toughest part of the game. Unless you save scum a lot, you're going to lose health, that's just what's going to happen. You'll likely use more health kits here than anywhere else. The random nature of getting hit in combat, combined with uncertainty of ever actually hitting anything with your weapons, particularly guns, makes me dread this area more than any other in the game.

Anyway, we get lucky with our guns and manage to hit the blood beast for a good chunk of damage.



I decide to makes sure we remain lucky and boost our firearms skill some more.



At least three shots with the sawn-off is what it takes to kill a blood beast. It gives you an idea how effective guns are in this game. Considering we've got basically all the ammo for this gun we're probably ever going to find for a while, this isn't really a good damage to ammo ratio even if we hit 100% of the time. Then again, its not like we've got anything else to use it on.

Entering the Asylum proper, we immediately find someone familiar wandering the halls.




Oh hey Ellen. That time already is it?



We've finally found Ellen Winthrop. Despite the fact she too is trying to stop the evil in the mansion, she's a little bit nutty and will attack us without warning. Thankfully, she's by far the easiest thing on this level. She just swings her axe at you occasionally laughing maniacally and she's not that good at hitting you either. I increase my dexterity and blade skill to let my knife have a bit more of an impact and she goes down rather quickly.



With Ellen dealt with, she drops two items. The fire axe she was swinging and her straight jacket. The axe counts as a blunt weapon and is I believe the strongest and last blunt weapon we will find in the game. As with all blunt weapons, it's a total joke and we shall leave it behind. The straight jacket on the other hand, holds some purpose and we shall be taking it with us.

Opening a nearby security door reveals a blood beast hiding inside.



We put him down like old yeller.



Inside we find, nothing of consequence. These are the padded cells of the Asylum, there's a good few of these and their usually locked up tight.

Unlike the doors on the floors below this one, the security doors have to be picked using the electronic tool kit.



Some of them are quite hard to pick too, so it's a good idea to put a few extra points into electronics.



This rooms rather strange as even with our torch switched on, it still appears dark.



This would be true even if we fix this floors breaker box too.

We find a note in the darkness.





Poor Miles He's mentioned another important fiend too, the Karcist.

The room further ahead, contains yet another blood beast.




That's the third one we've killed and we're already out of ammunition for the sawn-off. We switch to the .38 "police positive" so that we might poz up some neg blood beast. Hey look another note!



Well...good to know then.

Search me folks, I've got no idea. I certainly never took it.

In this room we also find one of these.
It's a chinese coin, there's a total of five on this floor we'll need to collect, for later.

I'd gotten smacked around pretty badly by this point, so I headed back to the lower level to pick up some extra med kits.



In the next room



We find a fire extinguisher. Even if you never ever bother to use any gun in this game, this is reason you want some points in the firearms skill. We definitely take it with us, a haunted house is most certainly an emergency situation.

There's another blood beast up ahead, guarding a sanctuary room no less.



And another one charging at us from the right.

Light em up!




By the time I finish the one to the right and I use up the rest of my .38 ammo on the one by the sanctuary. I throw my gun at the fucker and go in swinging. He dies rather swiftly.



Inside the sanctuary room we find a security card key. I'm not really sure what this opens exactly. All the doors I've tried it on don't actually work and I usually just pick all the doors on this level. It's also really hard to see and I generally forget where it is anyway. Junk.



We find some batteries and another box of tasty snax. Time to start a new stash methinks.

There's even a bath room on this floor!



Personally I think this might have been a design mistake and this room should be another padded cell. It's so hard to tell with this game though, the house is so logistically peculiar... It doesn't even have a kitchen.

This door has a warning sign out the front of it.



It's worth listening to this warning too, if you bring any guns into it, they'll all automatically jam. Doesn't work on the fire extinguisher thank goodness.

Ugh these doors...



This particular cell is rather unusual.



The wall is pulsing.

We can even talk to it too.




It seems someone's got himself trapped on the ethereal plane. Not much we can do for them at the moment though.



Further up the hallway, another document lies at our feet.



Ellen here is hinting to the reason we're carrying the straight jacket.

The nearby cell contains, surprise surprise, another document.








I believe I found some more ammo for the .38 so I put it good use on this blood beast.

Nearby we find the third and final demon figurine.



Scaruk. Next level we'll put these to good use, for the time being it can go in the stash.



We finally find this levels fuse box. It's just switched off and doesn't need to be repaired and look, another spell!

The Crimson Mists of Miyamoto:



It's another protection spell. These things stack too, so we immediately put a few points into it and give a cast.

We turn around to leave the room,



and a blood beast is waiting outside for us. With the combined protection magics we shouldn't have too many problems from these guys anymore.



Shroud of the Dark Walker also finally wore off so we recast that too.



At the very end of this hallway, we're a prevented from going any further by some kind of invisible force field.
This is what the straight jacket is used for. When wearing it, we are able to proceed.



Stylish! There's really only one reason to come up here, and that's to collect another Chinese coin.
There is one other thing up here however.



And that's this blob of foul smelling fungus. This item is cursed, if you pick it up you will randomly start dropping items everytime you move. It's otherwise totally useless so don't bother with it.



I spent ages trying to unlock this door before I realized that it's one of the nailed doors that leads to the foyer.

Nearby there's another staircase leading to the next floor.



There's also some ammo for a .45 automatic pistol.



I think this particular area is the old asylums staff room of something. It's got different wall decor anyway. There's a ledger on the floor nearby too.





Here we see the Asylum was built so they could get easy sacrifices for the fish people and we have Melchior's title of Master of the Endless void. Good for him.

In the next room we find another floor anomaly.



If we attempt to walk forward we are moved diagonally instead. There are two doors into this room, so you need to make sure you enter from this direction to be able to reach the middle tile.



Which we want to do so we can collect, the hand of glory!

It's basically a mummified left hand of a hanged that's been converted into a candle, using the fat from his corpse as fuel. These things actually existed too, supposedly thieves would craft them. When lit, they're meant to prevent the owners of houses you're burgling from waking up. They are also supposed to also allow you open any locked door as well. Anyhow, it serves a completely different purpose in this game, which we shall see in a later chapter. You can learn more about them here.

In the last staff room, we find yet another blood beast and a note.







So Elias Winthrop is the Karcist. We also learn of the true mastermind behind this whole mess of affairs, Belthegor, Lord of the Dark Triumvirate.

Lastly we find a .45 automatic pistol!



We'll put this to good use soon.