Part 9: One Burnt Down The Cuckoos Nest.

Having scooped up a .45 we shall finish up the rest of this level.



This safe is no ordinary safe. You can't open it but if you try to enough times, a secret door appears behind you.

This is kind of dick move if you ask me. You absolutely have to find this secret to finish the game, but there's no way of knowing its here. You just have to get bored enough to try and open it enough times.

Anyway we've equipped our fire extinguisher for good reason.



And here we have these fuckers. These are Fire Spawn, they are the sole reason you should never ever ignore the firearms skill. I'm pretty sure none of our armor protects us against their attacks and they hit hard. They're really hard to evade and they tend to occupy cramped little rooms that prevent you from opening doors whilst they're still alive.

They're also immune to physical attacks so normal weapons are worthless. They are only fire though so our fire extinguisher can destroy them in one or two hits. Problem is, the fire extinguisher has a finite capacity and guns being what they are in this game, you won't hit every single time. In short, I hate these things.




We find yet another Chinese coin lying around this large corridor area.

Off at the very end of this hallway,



We uncover another rune, this particular one glowing blue. I will explain both what these do and all the other runes do as well later in just a moment.

Gah!



Oh, it's just you lurker buddy! Whatchadooin playing with these fire spawn?



My second fire spawn down and it's already taking a serious toll on my health.

In the room it was guarding we find a new and exciting spell on the floor!



Dimensional Rift:



This spell is the reason for the runes scattered throughout the mansion. Casting this spell successfully upon one of them opens up an inter-dimensional portal to the ethereal plane. This isn't merely an easy floor access spell that allows you to travel swiftly between different parts of the house. Oh no. The Ethereal plane is an actual place unto itself. I won't be traveling there anytime soon, but rest assured we will be eventually. I loves me some inter-planar travel. Oh and if you try to cast this spell on the blue rune stones, you take damage, so don't do that. There's actually a number of portals that are already open on various levels and there are a few other ways to get to the ethereal with casting this spell at all, making it kind of pointless.

There's a tome near the spell that goes into a bit more detail, let's read it won't we?




Looks like we'll need to appease some Mayan deity in order to traverse safely.



This room is a little odd. If you walk into its dead end, you start spinning around in a circle while someone laughs at you. How malevolent.

Another fire spawn ambushes me



And fuck my extinguisher is outta quashin' juice. We'll have to find another one and run away in the meantime.

In this room we find something special.



A magical circlet that gives us a margin of magical protection, this might give us a little bit of an edge against the fire spawn.

Now Henry shall assume the form of a magical princess.



It does however mean, that we will have to give up our trusty shades. Farewell, good sunglasses, you served us well.
That plaque up ahead is unreadable by the way, as soon as you step near it...



You're teleported to a different part of the asylum. It's a part we haven't gone to yet so that's good.

There's even a note from Ellen here too.



So you know how I said there was no floor above museum way back in that update where I said that?
Well it appears that I was wrong, but it looks like it was actually the area I was thinking it was. There's just no direct way of getting there. I seriously must have skimmed over this message every single time I've played this game, well that answers one of my long asked questions at least.



Ducking and weaving we find the last of the Chinese coins, they'll all go in the stash for the time being.

There's a button here.



It opens up the entire wall next to us.



And at last another fire extinguisher!

And a new spell too!

Key of the Shadow Lord



This spell is so incredibly useful. It's an unlock spell. We are just about at a point in this game where the skill required to unlock doors is unreasonably high. I'm almost certain there are doors that are locked so tight you actually can't get your mechanical skill high enough to pick them. There are also doors that are a little bugged further on that cannot be opened by any other means. I would say this spell is absolutely essential to completing the game.

It does have a small draw back though. The first thing you have to do is successfully cast the spell. Now this isn't too big a deal as you just make sure you've got enough skill points in it and that shouldn't be a problem. However, just because you successfully cast the spell, doesn't mean you successfully unlocked the door. You generally have to cast it a number of times and carefully listen for the small click of the door unlocking. So, while it's a terrific spell, it can be a hell of drain on your spell points. Save often before casting or you might just find yourself out of magic.

And there's a piece of parchment here too.



This note is a damn liar as you will eventually see.



Urgh this floor is really taking its toll on my health and healing supplies.



We go back and get revenge on that fire spawn for earlier.

We also find some more musings from Ellen somewhere nearby.




She speaks of a plane beyond the Ethereal, the Astral plane. And an important sounding heart.



I do believe that is the last of the fire spawn, thank goodness for that.

In this room we find an oil lamp.



This would be what the oil can on the floor below would fuel. We don't really need to downgrade to old technology and we're about done needing illumination anyhow.

Alright I'm just about dead by this point, so it's time to rest.




That's a good ton of health we got back. We're hungry so we should eat some tasty snax too, the box seems good for two eats.
Protection spells wear off after resting, we won't really need them again for a bit though so that's okay. Just as well I forgot to recast them.



Chomp chomp chomp.

We up our first aid a bit and go collect so spares med kits we left down on ground level.



Apart from maybe meditation, we're just about done with improving our skills. From this point on all our experience points should really go into our spells, we're gonna need them.



Here we have a third set of stairs heading upwards. It goes to a completely separate part of the next floor. It's only one room, so we might as well do that now.



Welcome to the third floor. You'll notice the weird green things in the distance. Those are slimes. They're slow moving and only aggressive if you approach them, they won't pursue you either. They're just about impossible to dodge around them though, I don't think you actually can. You need magic to do any sort of damage to them, but really there's no need. There's a special trick to these guys, but for the time being we just step into the middle of this room and wait for them to move out of the way.

The reason we came up here is for this little beauty.



The Heart of the Karcist. This is old great great great grandpa Elias' heart. It's full of thorns and is still beating. Not much we can do with it now, but it will serve its purpose later on. There's also an extra magic crystal up here too but otherwise we're done with this area, back to the asylum.

We're ditching all of our weapons for the next floor, we won't be needing any of them.



We're taking all the statues with us as well as the Hand of Glory too.

Next time will be a goody hunt as Henry grows ever more powerful against the forces of darkness.

See you then.