Ashburry

One last trip to Ashburry. This time, you don't automatically walk into the reception area. There's nothing to say to the nurse right now and no linens to moisten. You now want the rear part of the graveyard to the left of the hospital’s side door.

But first stop by the little furnace-room window and grab the loose screw from the pipe on the left. You'll need it shortly and this saves you a trip.

The graveyard’s different now: Several stones are interactive. In the first (“central”) section, you can read terse inscriptions on the stones for (from left to right) Nathan Port, Gabriel Swen, Damian Gale and Tadeusz Lorn. Ditto the rear portion, where two stones in the foreground are now interactive: Evelyn (no last name) and Lewis Bait. (These would be natural spots for Easter Eggs, but none of these names appear in the credits.)

No "Lothar Gordon" appears among the inscriptions. But right-click on the unmarked crypt between the two tombs on the left side of the rear part of the graveyard and Samuel sees the Gordon coat-of-arms. (Like the symbol on the castle wall back in Chapter I, you can see this emblem before Samuel mentions it, but can’t interact with it.)

Naturally, there’s a problem. The graveyard has been neglected and the tomb is covered with branches. You'll need to clear them out to open the sarcophagus and you don't have anything in inventory suitable to that task.

You’ll have to conduct a search. It’s a kind of nasty one. See, if you’ve been diligent in your previous searches, you’ve already learned that the container for this particular item contains something else entirely. The box to the left fo the door inside the chapel holds two bottles of chlorine. Knowing this, you’re not offered much incentive to look again. But that’s precisely what you have to do to find a pair of gardening scissors.

A broken pair. Isn’t that lovely. The screw to hold the two blades together is missing.

But that loose screw from the pipe beside the little window we mentioned a few paragraphs back? Just use it on the scissors and, miracle of miracles, it fits! Use the now-functional scissors on the bushes and they're gone. You can now ...

... <ahem> discover that the tomb lid is too heavy for Samuel to move unassisted.

Another nasty search: You won’t find anything useful in any of the locations you already know about. There’s now a new one. The right side of the tin-roofed shelter to the right of the asylum's rear door has suddenly sprouted a "dark corner." Click on it and you'll come up with a metal rod. (This game fairly abounds in loose metal rods.) Use this one on the Gordon tomb.

Argh. After all that, the tomb turns out to be empty. The remains must have been moved.

Happily, the ultra-cooperative nurse knows the graveyard’s history. She says it's been run by Ashburry for the last century. Before that, it was administered by the Warmhill parish. Lothar's death dates from the earlier period, so it's back to the church.

Warmhill Church

The side entrance is open. This time, you'll find Father Frederick alone before the altar. He's happy to search the church records for the location of Lothar’s remains, but says it's going to take a while.

How long? Not very. This works just as it did with the chemist Richard looking up the gods referenced in the inscriptions above the statues in Dergham Gordon’s tomb. First, make a round-trip to any location -- even a location just one screen distant within the church -- and then another round-trip to the rear part of the church's graveyard, where you'll find tombs previously dark now creepily lighted from within. Note you must advance one screen toward William's grave at the back -- though you don't have to zoom in for a close-up on the grave this time.

As in Wales, you’ll have to check in with your researcher at the end of each trip and make the trips in this order. (If you go to the rear graveyard first, you’ll wind up having to travel there twice.)

On your return from the second trip, the father reveals that Lothar lies in one of your family's own tombs. He’s not specific about which tomb, but the game quickly resolves that issue for you: Enter the rear cemetery again and you'll find the second crypt to the left of William's grave open.

Odds & ends (new to version 1.01): Father Frederick also reveals that Lothar was the father of Thomas Gordon, who was the father of William. (Thanks to Zsolt Lassán of Hungary for pointing this out.) This contradicts Samuel’s earlier assertion (produced by clicking on the Rembrandt-like portrait in the Black Mirror library) that Jeremy Gordon was William’s father, but provides a more believable timeline.

You can’t see him, but the grave-digger is here. Talk to the empty doorway and he emerges. He won't let you into the crypt, but agrees to retrieve Lothar's urn for you ... and then does! No charge (if you ask nicely with a “positive” answer). It’s almost too easy.

Odds & ends: If you respond negatively to his question -- "that's none of your business" -- you'll have to pony up 20 pounds first as a bribe.

Right-click on the urn in your inventory to retrieve the fourth key. Then click on William's grave -- this time, at the lower edge of his gravestone. Samuel observes that the ground hasn't hardened yet and asks, "What is it I am saying?!"

You're saying it's time to dig up William's body and rip the final key from his dead hands.

You don’t have any tools suitable for digging. But back in Chapter I, the grave-digger was using a pick at the far right side of the church’s entry screen. Did he leave it behind?

It’s a good idea, but don’t rush off in search of this item. You would arrive at the mound of earth beside that grave to find it’s too dark to see anything and that the cigarette lighter that brightened the cabinet in Wales and the alcove at the lighthouse is suddenly inadequate to the task. You need a light source that can operate in an open area.

Say, a flashlight.

A good thing there’s a flashlight in the toolbox outside the open crypt. Take it -- now that your business with the grave-digger is complete, you can -- and use it on the mound to find a shovel. (It’s invisible to the naked eye). Then click on the mound to take the shovel and get back to the rear portion of the graveyard.

Odds & ends: You can also use the flashlight to try to read two newly-interactive gravestones found en route: the stone just right of the church’s right front corner ("Isabella Sante, died 1932") and the cross-shaped stone to the right of the church’s side entrance (“Nothing’s carved in the cross”).

You can’t dig up William’s coffin straight away, but you have to try now for events to proceed apace. Use the shovel at the bottom edge of William’s gravestone and Samuel says he'll have to get rid of the grave-digger first. Just close the crypt door by removing the wire connecting it to the nearby fence and the wedge (here called a “peg”) on the right bottom portion of the doorjamb. (The game offers up a little inventory box, as though the peg has been added to your inventory, but it won’t appear there.)

Then use the shovel again on William's grave and you'll treated to a cut scene of Samuel going about his dirty business and, finally, William's slightly gray corpse. Take the key from his chest. (The “rip” and “dead hands” stuff was just theater.)

Odds & ends: And no, you can’t check out the burn marks on William’s chest. But look at the shadow cast on his chest by the plants in the foreground! Don’t those look like burns? Are we being teased a bit here?

You can use your map now. You’ll probably want to run right back to Black Mirror to find a place for your five keys. But that's for Chapter VI, and you can't get into the cellar now in any case.

This is your last opportunity to explore a wider game world, so poke around if you like. You can visit Black Mirror, Dr. Hermann’s house and Willow Creek. But no special lines or hotspots accompany this particular state of affairs -- only leftovers from earlier in the chapter.

When you’re ready, map-it back to the front of the church and you'll see a carriage bearing the Gordon crest.

Odds & ends: What century is this again? Evidently the telephone at Black Mirror is hidden under a rock and the Gordons don't own a car. This harks back to the timelessness of life at Black Mirror that we discussed in Chapter I.

Samuel goes inside the church automatically and sees a figure he identifies as Bates slip into the confessional. Father Frederick arrives to take Bates’s confession, but Samuel sends him off with an easy lie. He then slips into the booth and hears the confession himself. The servant takes a really long time to cut to the chase -- even longer than it takes him to turn around when you’ve talked to him -- but eventually names Samuel as the killer.

You'll then see flashbacks of other evidence pointing to Samuel’s guilt: the black hair in Dr. Hermann's palm, Samuel’s name on the wall of James's cell, Mordred's curse in Marcus’s chronicle and Henry's floating body ... this time with Samuel’s own reflection in the water to the left, with an odd light in his eyes.

Odds & ends: No great surprise. Samuel’s been recalling his crimes in dreams all along. His headaches imply either that Samuel is prone to blackouts -- which would explain why he doesn’t remember killing anyone at night -- or a link to the madness documented by William. (Then again, the “good” Samuel hasn’t heard voices.)

But this raises a few questions. In no particular order:

1) Can we pin down the killing from which Bates witnessed Samuel returning?

Maybe.

It must have been a grisly one for Samuel’s palms to have been stained with blood and it must have been from early in the game. (Bates says “All this time I remained silent.”)

And it can’t have been William’s murder. Samuel wasn’t yet staying at the castle at that time and so wouldn’t be returning there.

It’s tempting here to go back to earlier chapters and look for subtle changes in Bates’s behavior toward the young lord to fix the time for this encounter. But this proves unrevealing. Bates is a loyal, helpful (as recently as Chapter IV) and circumspect man. He seems to have held his dark thoughts about Samuel in check during their dealings.

We’ve already touched upon the single exception. That is Bates’s “you have changed” comment, which pops up in Chapter V if Samuel’s adopts a “negative” line about reporting Robert’s death to Victoria.

But that occurs optionally and only after Samuel learns of Robert’s death and so is inconsistent with Bates’s comment about his preserving his guilty silence “all this time.”

I’m guessing the murder in question was Vick’s, which was bloody indeed and isn’t covered in the ensuing flashbacks.

2) Did Samuel also kill William? If evidence and testimony suggests he’s the killer in four of the five murders, it stands to reason that he was also responsible for the first. But then why suggest his involvement in the other killings and not that one?

3) In prior chapters, I’ve called attention to hints that supernatural forces were at work in at least the first three killings: William’s wall-climbing assailant in the introduction, the mysterious burns on William’s chest that were reported in chapters I and II, the absence of blood in Henry’s body in Chapter II and the burns on the tree near the Stonering altar stone in Chapter IV. How to reconcile these facts with the positing of little old non-supernatural Samuel as the guilty party?

The game provides no help on this score. The only actual shot of Samuel at a murder scene is the flashback to the Black Mirror fountain. And the strange glitter in his eyes in that scene could just be the water.

So what to make of it all? Samuel was at very least animated by Mordred’s curse, but was he also empowered, possessed , transformed or even chaperoned by Mordred’s spirit? This might assign some relevance to James’s drawing of a vampire in Chapter IV and William’s flickering glance in the intro.

4) In contrast to the other killings, we don’t learn much about Robert’s murder or the period during which he was missing.

The killing is virtually undocumented. We know it’s occurred only because the asylum nurse says it did and we know Samuel did it only because James wrote Samuel’s name on his cell wall and Ralph in the neighboring cell says James knew who killed Robert. And that’s a pretty thin link: hearsay to establish a groundwork for evidence that is at best inconclusive. No dream cut-scene, no contact with authorities, no body and no forensics at all.

Here’s what we do know. Robert was last seen by the nurse at the Ashburry asylum at midnight two nights before Samuel’s interview with her in Chapter IV. That’s between chapters II and III -- the same night Samuel returned home from the Old Mine to find Robert preparing to set out for the asylum. Robert was then considered overdue at Black Mirror at the end of Chapter III and was reported dead at the Sharp Edge lighthouse at the beginning of Chapter V.

That’s a big window for the killing. Assuming this one followed the pattern of earlier nighttime murders, Samuel’s uncle could have died at almost anytime: between chapters II and III, III and IV or IV and V.

The available evidence points to the last of these three scenarios. The symbol at Sharp Edge and Samuel’s name on the wall of James’s cell show up only after Samuel learns respectively of Robert’s death and James’s suicide in Chapter V. (If the event had occurred earlier, it stands to reason these indicators would have popped up earlier.)

But if that’s the case, you have to wonder how Samuel squeezed in Robert’s murder on the same night as Dr. Hermann’s macabre one (which, barring supernatural intervention, must have involved a significant period for cleanup).

And you have to wonder, if Robert’s murder didn’t occur until the break between chapters IV and V, why the otherwise gentle and sensitive James would launch an unprovoked assault on Samuel beforehand in Chapter IV.

Told you we’d get around to that. If James isn’t our killer, he must have had an actual reason to attack Samuel.

The thing is, the attack makes better sense in the context of an earlier murder than in the better-supported later one. Had James witnessed Robert’s death at Samuel’s hands between chapters II and III or chapters III and IV, he might well have believed Samuel was returning in Chapter IV to kill him and acted preemptively to save his own life.

By contrast, what’s the motive for this assault if Robert’s murder took place between chapters IV and V? It might be argued that James mistook Samuel for someone else. There were certainly bad feelings between James and Robert and we now know Robert came to Sharp Edge with a view to killing James.

But James didn’t know this. Robert and Samuel look nothing alike and James surely would have been familiar enough with the middle-aged doctor from his long stay at the asylum to distinguish him from his 30something nephew.

Most importantly, James wasn’t expecting Robert. He was expecting William. (He didn’t learn William is dead until Samuel told him so.) The Sharp Edge ruin was their special place. Would James have clubbed his old Dad and tried to bury him alive?

But there’s a basic problem with the earlier scenarios: According to the game’s logic, to kill Robert at Sharp Edge, Samuel would have had to know either that location or that of the Ashburry asylum (assuming he tracked Robert from there) as early as Chapter II... and neither place is written to Samuel’s map until Chapter IV.

Then again, we now know that Samuel is Dr. Jekyll by day and Mr. Hyde by night. In his subconscious, the Samuel who crept out at night to kill knew all the murder locations in advance of their appearing on his map. (For example: Vick is killed by Samuel at Stonering between chapters II and III, but the site doesn’t appear on Samuel’s map until Chapter IV.) There’s even some evidence that these sites were tethered to his conscious mind. After learning where Vick died from the grave-digger in Chapter IV, Samuel recalls playing at Stonering as a child. When he arrives at Ashburry’s gate, he recalls that Robert called the asylum “the place of laments.” And later in that same chapter, Bates contradicts Samuel’s assertion of unfamiliarity with the location in James’s painting and reminds him that he does know the Sharp Edge lighthouse -- which seems designed to prevent us from ruling out the possibility that he’s already been there!

Finally, what exactly happened to Robert while he was missing? The game isn’t exactly information-rich on this point, either, but following our visit to Robert’s study, we have enough data to make an educated guess.

The 5/12 and 5/15 entries in Robert’s diary report that James is threatening to expose Robert’s experiments and leave off with his plan to remove James from the picture with a fatal dose of his serum.

That would have to be during or around Chapter I. James then escaped during Chapter II. (You’ll recall Robert had to run off to the asylum at the end of Chapter II.) Robert must have realized he no longer had a passive receptacle and the overdose plan was presumably junked in favor of more conventional means: a gun. (Remember the bullets in Robert’s safe? No such gun surfaces in the game, so it stands to reason Robert had the gun with him.)

We can reasonably assume that Robert then looked for James at Sharp Edge -- based either on previous knowledge of his affinity for the site or because he recognized the drawing in James’s cell.

And how did it end? Hard to say. You’ll recall we left James hiding in the ruined lighthouse. Presumably, he was still hiding there when the hated Robert arrived and witnessed the arrival of a more experienced killer.

But there’s some bumpy terrain here. Why did James take Robert’s keys? After all, this discovery tends to implicate him in Robert’s murder ... and he doesn’t need the keys. Their only documented use is to open Robert’s study at Black Mirror and, even assuming James is acting on a hunch that the keys might unlock his cell at Ashburry, his cell already has a working escape hatch.

I suspect the rationale has more to do with gameplay than story. Evil Samuel could have taken the keys when he killed Robert, but we’d immediately suspect his involvement in the death. Good Samuel doesn’t see Robert’s body and so can’t take the keys himself. Hence, a character who’s body will be accessible to the player must take them for us.

Of course, none of this proves anything -- except perhaps that Robert’s murder was pretty much shoehorned into the game and that another chapter would have been required to the lay it all out properly.

Chapter VI: look through the mirror ...

You begin the final chapter with Samuel still in the Warmhill church, asking God for forgiveness for his numerous sins and strength to "destroy the curse that was harassed my family for so long."

Odds & ends: “Harassed”? This sounds more like a bad-tempered next door neighbor than a curse that has claimed six lives (counting the collateral damage of James’s suicide).

The designers appear to have switched gears again: They aren’t talking about the family curse as the murderous “conversions” mentioned in Marcus Gordon’s chronicle in Chapter II but as the inconvenient madness referenced in William’s diary.

This raises again the issue we took up back in Chapter II: Which is the actual curse? Are they supposed to be the same thing?

When James was the prime suspect, they seemed to be. But now that he isn’t, we’re back to the same messy issue and it’s never resolved.

And this may be an academic distinction, but the destruction of the curse isn’t a particularly meaningful objective at this late date. Samuel’s pretty much fulfilled the conditions of the curse reported in Marcus Gordon’s chronicle. He has converted the five required souls. All that’s left is for Mordred to return. And even if the murders were an ongoing concern, the events of The Black Mirror have effectively wiped out the male line of the Black Mirror Gordons. Barring unadvertised children, who’s left for Samuel to save?

The scene then moves automatically to the castle sewers where you’ll find Samuel has shed much of his inventory. All that’s left is the five keys, the black sphere, the ancient ring from Robert’s safe, William's diary and the cigarette lighter. (The cigarette lighter?)

Find your way down to the stone relief and look at it again. Initially, the cursor is hot only for the central pentagram ... and you won’t get any response if you click on it. Ah, but place the ring from Robert’s safe here and click on that. It'll turn 180 degrees and eight red symbols will light up around the relief’s border.

Five of these should be familiar from the murder scenes. Using the red buttons in the triangles on the relief's outer rim to punch in the symbols in the order in which they appeared. (If you don’t recall, just consult the back pages of William's diary. The correct order is: upper left, upper right, right, left and down.) If you get it wrong, clear out all the lit symbols by hitting the respective buttons again, exit the puzzle and restart.

Once you get it right, the remaining three symbols vanish, the wall slides back and you can enter the catacombs.

This looks like a maze. You hate mazes in adventure games? Well, don't worry. It’s more of a maze-like setting for minor puzzles than an actual labyrinth. You can't get lost in this 4 x 3 grid.

But Samuel can die here -- two of the three tasks you must perform put him at risk -- and if you’re not the daring sort, this would be a good place to save your game.

You'll find Samuel facing an archway with a runic inscription. He can't translate it, but makes the reasonable assumption that it's a warning -- a la the "All hope abandon ye who enter here" that appeared on the gates of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy.

A quick reconnaissance indicates the grid has no obvious exit. The portal down to the secret chapel is hidden. Your task is to open it up.

We’ll start by revealing a hidden room. From your starting position, go left and then forward. You'll see a circular mark on the left wall. Press it. Samuel hears a distant sound and looks up the corridor.

We're going to head that way in a moment. But while you're here, grab the horned helmet from the floor. (It’s just like the one back on the shelf at the rear of the library.) This goes with the sword two screens to the right. (It’s the one on the left side of the screen -- and just like the sword on the wall beside the fireplace in Black Mirror’s main hall.) You'll use both to get through a dopey little puzzle a little down the road.

Now move all the way forward from the mark you pressed and you'll find a gate where no gate existed before. (The pattern on the gate should be familiar; it’s similar to the one on the wall above the interior side of Black Mirror's front door.) Click on the opening in the middle to learn that there's no lock.

That's not quite correct. The lock and key are just unconventional.

And now things get nasty.

At three locations in the maze, you'll find small holes in the walls. You have to reach into one of them to get the amulet that serves as the key for the gate.

Two of the holes are trapped. If you click on the ones in the maze's upper right and upper left corners, Samuel gets a blade through his head and dies. If you activate the third, in the near left corner, you'll find an amulet shaped like the opening in the gate. And there's no way to identify the correct hole save by trial and error. (They appear identical.)

To find the right one, just go all the way back down the hall from the newly-minted gate, then left one screen and reach into the hole in the right wall. See, no blade. Retrace your steps to the gate, place the amulet in the hole and the gate draws back to reveal a golden pedestal. Click on it and Samuel says something's missing. If you're still wondering what, look at the last page before the photos in William's diary to sort it out: the black sphere you’ve been lugging around for an eternity. Place it atop the stand.

What happened? Something happened. There's a rush of sound and a previously non-interactive button on the left wall lights up.

This button lights the globe above it. You have seen other such buttons and globes in your sojourn here, yes? (And before: They recall the ones just inside and outside Black Mirror’s main gate.) Nine dot the catacomb walls.

Well, now you have to light up four specific globes and only those four. (And not the one above the button that just lit up.)

So which four? Is there a guide somewhere?

Yup. Look at the bottom of the left-hand alcove behind the pedestal. There’s something there. Take the item and then right-click on it in inventory.

It's a map. The catacombs entrance and pedestal room are clearly displayed and there seems to be something behind the stone beast head (similar to the one up in the castle sewers) that appears on the wall at the far end of the entry hallway.

Now that’s weird. The maze is far too small and simple to require a map. The document must have some other purpose and your inventory is too small and the significant locations here too few to conceal it for long. From the pedestal room, walk two screens right to the candlestick in the far right corner, light it using your lighter and use the map on the candle to backlight the document. The areas that contain the four relevant buttons and globes now glow orange.

However, the map’s not required and you can light the four globes in any order. From here:

1) Get back to the stone beast head and light the globes on both sides of the hall.

2) Scootch left to the pedestal room. Walk back down that hall until you can't go any further. You'll see buttons on both walls. Push only the button on the right.

3) Finally, retreat to the pedestal room again, go left to the maze’s far left corner and then one space back down the hall.

A button can be seen on the right wall. A pit can be seen in the floor. If you try to push the button now, Samuel will try to jump the pit -- the only time in the game Samuel tries to jump over anything -- and appear to succeed ... only to slip in and die.

This is the “dopey little puzzle” mentioned earlier -- dopey because the solution doesn’t fit in with the timbre of this little dungeon. Why would we expect a maze that stabs Samuel through the head in one breath to renounce the tools of medieval combat in the next? And how hard would it have been to put a riddle on the wall somewhere?

I suggest you think of the pit as a garbage dump and throw away your two useless items: the helmet and the sword. (If you haven't collected them yet, the helmet is now one screen to the right and the sword three screens to the right.) In fact, they’re the only things you can use on the pit. There are some crashing noises below and a lid then slides over the top. You can step up and push the button safely.

Odds & ends: You can close the pit before you place the black sphere on the golden stand. The buttons don’t have to be activated first.

Once all four globes are shining, the stone-beast wall slides right to reveal a dark, shifting portal.

The Black Mirror? A fair guess, but no. That would be the glimmering green pool you saw at the bottom of the pit when you logged the final symbol in Dr. Hermann’s morgue. This is merely your ride down to the Black Mirror. From this position, go forward and then right twice to reach the portal. Step into it to step into he secret chapel and the endgame.

Odds & ends: Blocked permanently are the near ends of each of the three corridors that run parallel to the catacombs’ entry hall. You’ll get a door icon when you place the cursor over each screen’s lower edge and discover in each case that the near side of the catacombs is impassable.

This isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s just a side effect of the camera placement, which prevents the game from displaying the near walls.

Other hotspots: the pit blocking the far left corridor, the roots in the maze’s lower right corner, the standing skeleton one screen up the same hall, the barrels one screen up the entry hall from the warning message, the image of the stone beast and the flag on the right wall (opposite the helmet) in the first corridor to the left of the entry hall.