2.6 On the Battlements

 

 

"I feel bad I'm not home so often. I'm always running off and leaving you alone while I do crazy quests," Flora voices her fears to her husband.

Ariel wraps his big arms around her reassuringly. "It's not what I imagined life would be like, but I can't complain. I have my own career to attend to while you're gone, and when you are here... life is amazing."

She kisses him. They fall into bed, but before they have their clothes off, Ariel continues, "I only wish things weren't so dangerous for you. Some of your stories..." he shudders. "Do you think you'll ever be done working for the Resolute Fist?"

"I think I'm getting close to the conclusion," she promises.

 

She's off to France again. Today she must appease the ghost of a museum curator who tragically lost his life when he stumbled into a hidden passageway in the museum and could not get back out. This case made her cry for a while, but at least she has another one of those damn keystones.

 

This would ruin my whole career, but it's only a minor inconvenience for Flora.

 

Another mummy that needs to be put down.

 

Like cats, mummies are ambush predators. 

 

They will pretend not to be interested in you until you turn your back.

 

 

 

Flora is almost done with France. On the outskirts of Champs Les Sims is a scary castle she'll have to break into if she wants the final pieces of some relic she has to reassemble to enter the Sanctuary of Horus.

While some of the French aristocrats Flora has learned about were entrusted with relics to keep them safe for future generations—and deliberately made them difficult to get one's hands on—other relics were simply plundered, their thieves ignorant as to the items' true value.

This castle belonged to one of the latter type, and the long dead man who lived here would be surprised that his home has become part of some world-spanning puzzle game for some woman on a quest to seal an ancient threat.

 

 

Flora uses zeneport to get up on the battlements, and gains access to the upper living chambers.

 

 

The remnants of an old study, maybe even an alchemy lab.

Like Admiral Landgraab, the original owner of the estate was extremely paranoid, and filled the castle with traps. 

 

 

 

 

 

These markings on the floor. They mean something. Hmm.

 

If only Flora had time to go get an archaeology degree.

Nobody will miss this vase, right?

Old nectar cellars. There's some good stuff in here!

Flora's presence awakens a mummy. He is not a morning person, and he bursts out of his sarcophagus in a rather foul mood...

"The things I do for shinies..." Flora grumbles.

Three mummies converge on Flora.

 

But as it turns out they are very polite, only attacking her one at a time.

The mummy in the stripey clothes claps and laughs at his brother's failures.

The shiny isn't even that shiny, if we're being honest here.

There's something depressing about the way the undead panic and cling to life as it's stripped from them, but what choice does Flora have?

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Etc.: I always get sad about the museum ghost, no matter how many times I play through EA's tombs.

 

Gilgolem Castle is a player-made tomb. I used the version without store content. The lot is extremely well put together, inside and out. It's beautiful, decently sized, and the puzzles match the energy of the base game, which I like.

 

Most of the traps in Gilgolem Castle were telegraphed in a subtle way, rewarding me for paying attention while not forcing me to tediously click every floor tile to see if "inspect" came up. Good puzzle design. Great job. I highly recommend this tomb.

Obviously Gilgolem Castle isn't part of the base game story lines, or connected to the Sanctuary of Horus. I'm taking a lot of liberties with my story because if I just wrote out all the adventure prompts word for word, what would make Flora's adventures different from any other adventurer's?