Part 62: VI - Hammer Back

So, when we last left our intrepid heroine, the game crashed and my autosaves weren't helping, so fighting Vick a second time it is. This time around, he very much gets his shit pushed in by three zombies that somehow managed to trap him against a wall. No idea how that came to be, those zombies are slow as shit.



This time around, we get the cash instead of the item because the item sucks. 250 bucks straight up suddenly sounds a lot better.



Next, I decide that we might be better off doing some main quests instead of side quests, so we head back to Santa Monica, stock up on some blood...



...and make our way to the Elizabeth Dane.



Things on the Dane get off to a flying start as the guard that's supposed to be called away doesn't actually move. Good thing we have Command available to make sneaking easy.



Anyway, we make our way to the computer room and turn on the cameras, then switch to see the sarco-



-who the fuck is shooting?



Who the fuck is this? Why is he trying to kill me? No, wait, better question, WHY THE FUCK DID THEY PUT COMBAT ON THE DANE? This is a sneaking mission, you fucks!



So a massive brawl erupts in the computer room on the Dane as Victoria goes to town with a sledgehammer and somehow nobody notices this happening. Eventually, he goes down and we continue on.



We grab the ship manifest as well an- ...wait, why did I get discovered?



OH GOD DAMNIT NOT AGAIN.



So now a shootout erupts in the records room on the Dane, and the guards prove to be completely fucking deaf, as nobody notices a thing. Good, at least they figured out that the only way you can do combat in a sneaking mission is if nobody notices the combat. Doesn't change that you shouldn't have fucking done it in the first place, but baby steps, I guess. This guy eventually goes down after an extended session of reverse pop-up shooting gallery gameplay (where the player is the one doing the popping up and down).



On the way back, the guard finally gets off his ass and moves to where he was supposed to go all along. Good job, buddy.



Then the game crashed again on the way to LaCroix and I had to do the segment over again. From then on, I was just constantly quicksaving. This shit wasn't going to happen again.



On the way to LaCroix, we pick up Heather and send her to our haven, since I thought that our next mission was going to be the museum. Still, I wouldn't have wanted her around during Grout's mansion, that was probably going to end badly.



The Primogen, now counting Alex Mercer amongst their ranks, bitch to LaCroix about Grout and we get sent to sort shit out as usual.



But before doing that, we take care of some loose ends by finishing Venus's quest (again) and grab some ammo from Fat Larry's.



We also drop by the haven to take twenty bucks from Heather and tell her to change her outfit - I want to see what the mod did there. That'll come later, so you've got something to "look forward" to there. Then the game crashed when leaving the apartment. Fucking fantastic.



Then, an interesting thing happened. I took some blood from Heather to top myself off, then remembered that I still had to tell her to change her outfit since the crash made that not happen. So I cast Command on her to get her out of the trance, she starts crying (which is just one of the things that can happen when Command gets used, since it's just a short one-word command like "cry", "sleep" or "dance"), and suddenly Azara ran over to her and asked her if she was alright! I've never seen that happen before. That's probably a vanilla thing, though. Anyway, next stop, Grout's mansion!



We run into Nines-Ming...



...she acts unnecessarily weird...



...and lea- ...why is there a force field?



So now there's a fucking force field here. I can't get through, and we probably need to turn it off somehow.



Then I get attacked by a dog while exploring the area and sledgehammer its face in, because of course. And while I explore the area, a realization kicks in that hits me in the face harder than any other realization I've had about this mod so far.

They added more platforming. Here's what I have to do (pardon the MS Paint):



We start at the circle, there's these broken stair pieces. We jump up those to the second story balcony and head along that.



At the end of the balcony (the circle), we make some dicey jumps across some very thin rails, then jump down to a nearby roof.



From that roof, there's another jump to a thin rail, then a VERY dicey jump to a nearby roof, from where we can get up to that area that looks like it might contain an entrance or something.



Here's a shot of one of those rails. For a good while, I thought you just couldn't land on them because I couldn't hit them.



And here's a better look at that last jump. It's pretty rough - it basically requires mid-air turning to somehow steer yourself onto the roof. And when we get there...



Surprise! Miniboss! So, for no reason, we now need to fight a Malkavian - another cheating motherfucker that uses Obfuscate and stays invisible while fighting. This time, he stays invisible the entire time. Fucking brilliant. However, this time, I have an ace up my sleeve, and it wasn't even one I put there myself, the game gave it to me. You see, for some reason, health regeneration suddenly broke for me. I don't know what happened (though the last time I loaded a save before noticing this, I was stuck in the ground for some reason and had to noclip out, so something bigger might have gone wrong), but my health regen shot way up, essentially bringing me to a near god mode state. It's still not immortality, but Victoria can suddenly shrug off pretty much any enemy in one-on-one combat unless they deal aggravated damage, and even then she's at a big advantage.

Fuck it, if the mod's not going to play fair with all these amped up enemies, I'm not going to throw it away when it inadvertently gives me an advantage. The Malkavian gets sledgehammered into the ground...



...and that removes the force field. Because Malkavians do force fields, I guess. Bloody hell.



We enter the mansion, and my ears are immediately assaulted by a familiar tone. The entire mansion uses music from Bram Stoker's Dracula... for the NES. Here, listen to it yourself. The music was run through some sort of filter to make it sound less 8-bit, but it's still undeniable that it's that soundtrack. It's a strangely fitting choice, since the music from that game was pretty haunting, but the fact that I know where it comes from kept me from fully appreciating it and instead going to "why the fuck did they pick this when the original music was just fine".



We make our way through the mansion, sledgehammering people in the face as we go.



We solve the first puzzle by repeatedly pulling the same switch over and over again, which then opens a set of doors, an-



What the fuck? Is this just going to be a thing? "Solve puzzle/advance quest, summon miniboss"? So now the female Malk PC is taking potshots at us.



And of course she uses Obfuscate and cheats with it, because why the fuck not. Thanks to Victoria's newfound healing factor, the threat is easily dispatched and we move on.



I spend a lot of time getting knocked around by multiple enemies - the healing factor means we practically can't die against these enemies, but they can still make me spend a lot of time getting attacked and not a lot of time doing the attacking.



Eventually, we hit a locked door where there should be an unlocked door. What's going on here? There were no unlocking mechanisms here, unless I have to listen to the tape recorder nearby...



...hm, nothing seems to be happening.



...why are there guts there all of a sudden?



Oh. Can't say I'm surprised. Anyway, now we get to beat up the male Malk PC.



He can use Dominate to keep us locked in one place for a while, which isn't helping when I'm trying to shove a sledgehammer up his ass. Or is that Dementation? Fuck, I can't tell, you could theoretically make a case for either. But this is purple and Dominate is blue, so I guess it's Dementation. Regardless, it sucks. I eventually pelt him to death with bullets instead of pelting him with the sledgehammer, and that unlocks the door because I JUST DON'T KNOW.



Strangely enough, there is no miniboss up here. I would have bet money on there being one.



We continue our trudge through the mansion, this time with less sledgehammering and more rat-tat-tat.



As we make our way to the second switch puzzle, a book is pointed out to us. And when we activate it...



...it skips the puzzle! I guess that's alright with me.



More mansion, more shooting, nothing interesting for a while...



But when we make it to the holding cells, we find something... interesting. I end up going through all the holding cells to see if there's some loot to be found. Instead...



OH SWEET JESUS IT'S THE ALIEN.



AND IT DOES AGGRAVATED DAMAGE!



Thankfully, the alien is no match for the power of guns.



And then I run into a second one, here doing its best Archvile impression. Sadly, there was nothing interesting in the holding cells, however, there was something interesting in the secret room.



This amulet. Of course, it's still kinda shit, because Giovanni have enough problems getting blood out of people, and we don't need to make that any harder, so on the pile of "shit to sell" it goes.



Finally, we make it to Grout's inner sanctum. We play the gramophone (at least I think that's what it is)...



...Grout's wife starts turning in her container...



...and then teleports out and whips out a Glock.



And then she attacks us. While a mix of more Bram Stoker's Dracula NES music and the Witch music from Left 4 Dead 2 plays.

...

If you'll excuse me, I think I need a bit of time for myself to ponder just what the fuck I've gotten myself into.



So yeah, Grout's wife is a boss fight in this game. This terrifies me. If I knew this awaited me before starting this, I wouldn't have LPed this, because I would have been convinced things would get too batshit for me to properly comprehend. As it stands, I'm stuck here, and we're all on this one way trip to hell. And we're less than half-way through.

...I feel like I just succeeded a Sanity roll. Things are still OK, but a part of me is forever gone. I'll never enjoy Bloodlines the same way again, knowing that there's a mod out there where Grout's wife is a boss fight.



She's also capable of using disciplines and disintegrates like a vampire. GROUT'S WIFE WAS NOT A VAMPIRE YOU TWITS. FUCK.



Aaaaanyway, we find what could either be Grout's remains or somebody else's remains. I'm not getting into this, for all I know, that skeleton is actually animate and will attack me the moment I turn my back.



We also find this interesting item on the table nearby - this is basically the thing you use to dominate people if you can't dominate or something like that it's kind of vague. Apparently there's some sort of way you can dominate Therese using this that was detailed in a video posted in the thread but that was kind of weird. Let's just move on.



Bach makes his presence felt.



It turns out that the healing factor actually neutralizes most of the threat these burning enemies pose. Wonderful, that's another problem I thought I'd have dealt with. Man, it's nice when the game gives you a hand, even if it's a bug.



And of course, they couldn't just let us leave in peace, so before we get to jump out the window, there's one more extraordinary encounter with two vampires with guns.



And they actually deal enough damage so that I can't just run up and shove a melee weapon in their face, which is quite surprising given that fire was less of a problem.



So hiding behind a wall and taking potshots it is.



And once the first guy is down, the second guy gets his too.



And with that, we're finally done with that madhouse, except not really, because there's another cutscene!



For some reason, there's some sort of crazy vampire paramilitary group out on the lawn (is that a fucking helicopter how the fuck did they land a helicopter there and more importantly why).



The guy in black jabbers some weird evil talk (blah, blah, you are my enemy, blah, blah, feel my power) and kills one Malkavian.



He jabbers some more (blah, blah, my power grows, blah, blah, my lord rule) and kills the second Malkavian.



He jabbers some more (blah, blah, we'll be invincible), then the scene ends.



And that's Grout's mansion! Are you confused? Well, suck it up, because I am too! Let's hope this gets cleared up in the future. I think that'll be enough for this update, and I'm pretty sure I need a break. Next time, we're going to get ourselves a gargoyle!