T w e n t y S i d e d

Remember how my breastplate was rudely sundered after I forget to take it into preventative maintenance for just one or two entire videogames? Well, the good news is, I found a new one. The other good news is, it seems to have been tailor made for me. The bad news:

So you know what this does? I never look up enchantments unless I’m debugging, and even then only if there’s a chance it’s relevant, but I realized I couldn’t leave this one alone. So now that I’ve found a replacement a few hours later, I’ve gone ahead and checked the wiki.

Craven Knave and Jackal: Increases the Missile skill.

Well alright then.

There’s two big wings of this level, but from the map, which shows areas of the game I can’t reach or even see at any given time, I can already tell I’m going to be wandering these friggin’ tunnels like a rat door-to-door salesman drunk in a bad neighborhood. Each of these levels has lasted almost exactly long enough for me to know my way around before I have to shuttle out to the next one. This one looks like I might not quite achieve that.

I find another little note from Vatasha Trenelle, my unseen expositional ally and fifty percent of the living human characters I’m aware of. The letter has a password to get into one of the rooms in the hallway–but that’s not what I want to get into right now. Against my better judgment, I’d like to get into…this game’s “story.” The one that seems to have happened at some point and that it’s probably too late to patch.

Vatasha’s most recent (almost content-free) note was where I realized that one of the very few things in this videogame I thought I understood, I probably don’t quite understand.

Let’s talk about Vatasha Trenelle and who the gasping fuck she is supposed to be. Allow us to reel back the choppy, scratched, that-better-be-coffee-stained tapes for a minute:

This game starts. An intro happens. The first conversation sparks between me and a scamp, and it involves my character implying some small knowledge of “Trenelle” without actually expressing familiarity or curiosity or anything else about her. Specifically I know Trenelle’s a “she,” despite only having been told the character’s surname.

So that’s weird, because my offhand, clearly-not-concerned dialogue option sort of implies I know who she is. Except then I found her name in a note that wasn’t addressed to me, so I figured hey–this game’s the Bride of Jankenstein. Maybe I was supposed to read this note first. But the note seems really familiar in a nonspecific way, so–I dunno. I guess I figured it was meant for somebody else. Like this old friend from level 1!

I’ve actually found a couple of Vatasha’s notes near corpses now. The first time I sort of figured it was the corpse of whatever friend of Trenelle was supposed to be getting these things to–like she had some kind of Ace in the Hole, and that he ended up in a regular, actual, extended-lease hole. I figured I was some kind of dark horse who was picking up her breadcrumbs. But unless Mister Ace’s corpse keeps dusting itself off, getting up, and somehow outpacing me only to get put down again–which, it does look the same every time–I’m starting to think something else was supposed to happen here. Like maybe Vatasha is supposed to be my friend, and I’m supposed to want to rescue her because we know each other, and I somehow didn’t know this for almost the entire videogame. Because the game didn’t ever tell me.

I checked again. It’s not in the intro. It’s not in the manual. The sure sign something’s wrong here is that the wikis are sketchy and a little inconsistent about it–or else they have the voice of loud conviction arrived at after considerable discussion. I’ll save the full depths of how much sense it doesn’t make for the end, but for now, let’s concern ourselves with practical matters.

The room’s not very large, so a couple of things catch my attention straight off. The good news is I’ve found another important female NPC. The bad news is how I know that.

NEXT WEEK: OH BOY LET’S FIND ALL THESE HIDDEN LEVERS AND THEN CHOKE TO DEATH ON OUR OWN BLOOD

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.