1. 10-09-2002, 05:17 PM by Deadfall #1

Deadfall

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Default The Royal Garmyth

FM: The Royal Garmyth

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 01:02:01
Loot - 3338/3338
Pockets Picked - 5/6
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 3/4

Comments - Very nicely designed mission. Although it wasn't much of a ghosting challenge, the real difficulty was finding all of the loot and secrets. I still missed one secret even after going on a blackjack run. I'm either missing something very well hidden, or something plainly out in the open.

There were no difficult maneuvers required in this mission; just straight sneaking and ghosting. There was one area in the mission that contained loot and I don't know how anyone could find this except with luck. The area was an alcove with several crates stacked like a pyramid and an idle spider next to them. There was a statue behind one of the crates and you couldn't see it unless you moved a crate or highlighted it. This was the only loot I thought would be in this area, but I was wrong. Above me was one wooden beam and it was pretty far up. It didn't cross my mind that there would be loot up there because the beam was very high. After going further through the mission and then comming up 50 loot short, I went on the typical blackjack run to see if I could find it. It took me a long time before I decided to shoot a rope arrow into the beam and see what was up there. I had to get on the top of the crate pyramid and jump onto the rope because the beam was so high and the rope could not be grabbed from ground level. It took a few tries but eventually when I climbed up the rope, I spied a 50 loot gold dice on a window sill. I don't know how anyone would think to go up there unless you were desperate for loot. Getting back down took a few tries because I couldn't jump back on top of the crate pyramid or I would alert the spider. I also couldn't just drop down from the rope because the floor was stone. Luckily, there was a barrel in the corner of the alcove and I could jump onto it without making a sound. I couldn't retrieve my rope arrow though.


  1. 10-09-2002, 06:26 PM by Vanguard #2

Vanguard

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Default Mansion of Chaos

FM: Mansion of Chaos
File: mansionofchaos.zip

Play mode: Ghost (failed)
Time: 2 hr 11 min
Loot: 3672 of 4172 (3000 required)
Pockets picked: 3 of 7
Backstabs: 9 Knockouts: 38
Damage dealt: 897 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 43

Cause(s) of failure:
- Far too numerous to mention in this section; see comments. The FM can be ghosted up to the upstairs mansion room past the portal-like curtain where you have 3 doors to select from (and where an apebeast stands and a bugbeast wanders). To the right (north) is the firey route. You cannot get past the first fire elemental (the 2nd fire elemental can be ghosted). Straight ahead (west) is the upside down room. You cannot get past the apebeast without getting spotted since there are no shadows anywhere to hide on the stairs, and there are no inviso potions anywhere in the mission. To the left (south) is the watery route but that is screwed up in that as soon as you surface you then die immediately. I believe the author noted a long time back that the design was flawed and that you should not die when you surface - but you do so this route is absolutely worthless. In fact, you cannot even backtrack into this water area from the one below where you retrieve the fire key and where fire elementals roam above the water; I used carrots in a stack-em-up method to get into the water "hole" in the ceiling, I was in the water and using up my air, but could not swim up into the water and would hit my head partway into the water so I could not longer jump atop the topmost carrot as I dropped it to get further into the water tunnel. Once you take the remaining survivable routes, there is somewhere that an AI will block your route.

Comments:
- Really, REALLY big FM! Multiply the endgame time stat by about 6 for the real amount of time I spent in this FM, partly to ghost and partly to explore, especially after figuring out how to stack carrots to get atop anywhere (and there is an unlimited supply of carrots).
- In the Foofie village is a machine that catapults carrots. It never runs out so you can pile up as many carrots as you want. I retrieved 200 carrots this way. Carrots can be stacked just like crates under your feet to gain altitude. Finding the switch to open the gate to Foofie village was tough. Hint: Just after the first drawgate you open, turn left, look up.
- There are no crates around for stacking but the carrots worked nicely. This allowed me to get to the control console up on the outside ledge by the church which opened the secret room behind the church where you find a switch console that opens the stone panel for the passage past the cemetery gate. To get to that passage, I stacked carrots by the cemetery gate to get up on the ledge and ran up the sloped ground to get over the wall where you find a big green spider (a really blind one) next to another switch console. You can then take the ladder down to the passage to the archway that leads into the cemetery - of course, after pickpocketing the archers at the mansion. By using the carrots as a stack-em-up ladder at both spots, I never needed to get the mayor's key to get the cemetery key. So far the ghost is intact.
- I would've expected that diving into the moat would alert the guards - but there is no splash noise. Even from a high dive, there is no splash noise. Sweet. I wish more authors would do this when they decide to have a guard planted at a well or beside a river or waterway. I often get infuriated at the game itself on how clumsy it makes Garrett.
- Back to the left side of the mansion is what looks like a doorway (but there's no door) and a spyhole for the guard pacing within. Above is a gas arrow. Yep, build a carrot ladder again to reach it.
- The guard that roams around the pool by the mayor's house often falls in. In fact, it seems that he always eventually will fall into the pool and drown.
- Ghosting the cemetery is pretty standard. There are some gems, gold, and a tiara stashed in the corners behind something. Then you take a high dive into the water to get into the caverns.
- A scroll states that the walls in the big cavern are not as precipitous as they appear. They are still pretty steep and you will incur damage if you simply try to backpeddle or even turn around and try to reduce speed by running forward while quickly sliding down the wall. The wall at the other entrance to this big cavern is not nearly as steep but you can only get to it from inside the house (and I never figured out how to get past the guards at the front door). So while sliding down the steeply sloped wall, I turned at an angle of maybe 30 degrees from straight back up the wall and concurrently hit the Run and Strafe Right keys. You get a little extra speed that way and it was enough to eliminate incurring any damage when you slam into the floor.
- After hitting the switch and coming back into the big cavern, getting out was tricky. I used a moss arrow on the lower platform (with a frogbeast on the other side) to land quietly and mantle up the stone beam, grab the gold nugget, and then approach the last platform with a big green spider. It is highly lit on the platform and around it on the side with the unpickable glowing mushroom. I tried various positions on the vine to jumped onto the mossed platform hoping that I'd just get a 1st alert by being in sight for only the minimal amount of time during the leap past the column to hide me from line of sight from the spider. I tried jumping at the platform which sticks you on the side and sliding around it thinking that not as much of me would be lit but that didn't work, either. Speed potion didn't help. So I took the scariest route: right in front of this spider's face! Oooh, what bad rotting flesh breath it had. From the stone beam, you can mantle onto the platform but ONLY if you hit the vertex of the platform straight on (otherwise you get stuck to the side and any jumping throws you off and you fall to your death). Since I could mantle up this very narrowly enabled spot, I didn't need to use up a moss arrow. I then crouched and repeatedly shortly tapped the move keys to slide up to the spider right past its face and get past it. I then started to get lit up by the glowing mushroom's light on the other side of the column, so I risked it by dashing to the blind side of the column from the spider and only got a 1st alert. Whew! I certainly like looking and almost kissing a big green spider.
- After getting up from the basement back onto the 1st floor of the mansion, I had to nudge a stationary guard aside to get past him.
- When I got to the front garden (just inside the front door), I had to nudge another guard aside that was blocking the hallway. I doused the torch there to give me more shadows but there is unsourced light here so you don't get really dark.
- Timing the guards that pace the hallways to the button to open the gate behind Baneson takes trial and error and reloads. I would follow the 1st guard on his heels and to his rightside to pass him when he turned left to head back. This put me in dark shadows but not dark enough not to be noticed by the 2nd guard. The timing had to be that the 1st guard was heading down the 2nd section of hallway just as the 2nd guard had turned to head back down the 3rd section of hallway, so you could sneak behind the 1st guard while fully lit without the 2nd guard spotting you. Then you tail on the heels of the 2nd guard on his leftside to pass him as he turns right, hit the switch, catch up with the 2nd guard to tail again on his leftside to pass him and into the shadows when he heads back. The shadows are far enough away from the 1st guard that you can let him turn and follow him on his rightside to pass him as he turns left to head back. And you're out. I don't remember how many reloads this one took but it must've been close to a dozen.
- An objective says to kill Baneson. He doesn't go down quietly. He is impervious to the blackjack. Even if you lure him out and lean forward to blackjack him while you are completely dark, or even if he starts to wander back to his post and you quietly get up behind him to blackjack him, all he does is keel over but he never goes down. In fact, other than keeling over when blackjacked from behind, he acts like nothing happened and continues on his merry way back to his post. Gas arrows and gas mines are ineffective on him. All the other weapons are noisy (sword, broadheads, fire arrows, mine). Even if you flashbomb him and manage to not alert the other guards, he lets out a cry that is heard when he dies (that's why I wanted to blackjack him to tote him somewhere that I could kill him without his death cry being heard). So I left him hoping that I'd find something along the way to quietly knock him out or dispatch him later. And, no, the holy sword ain't it.
- After getting upstairs in the mansion but before passing the portal-like curtained door, there are 2 doors to each side. One is locked and you need to find the "a useless key" to open it. The other leads to a circular recess with a gold nugget and another gold nugget next to a bogus trap. In front of the circular recess is a pressure plate - but it does NOT move down when stepped on. The author must've not wanted to bother with having another object actually show the pressure plate. You can jump over this into the hollow to snatch the gold nugget. Then you continue through a spiral tube to a room with geometry models and then into a room where you're told not to kick the bucket. There is no bucket yet. The gold nugget is behind the platform and there is no trap or danger in getting it. In fact, at this point you can simply leave. If you're curious, you might get hurt unless you're careful, and then you'll see the bucket.
- After the red portal-like curtained door is a set of 3 doors: right (north) leads to fire elementals and lava, straight ahead (west) leads to apebeasts at the foot of stairs and the upside down room, and left (south) leads to the water death trap (the design was screwed up in that you ALWAYS suffer the sudden heart attack syndrome on surfacing from the water). The south route is impassable. The north route has a fire elemental right at the next tunnel after the lava pit so you cannot get by it (several other places are like this in these mazes where an AI blocks a path and it is well lit so you cannot sneak by). The west route has stairs that are quiet but extremely well lit by an unsourced light and you will get spotted by the apebeast at the foot of these stairs that constantly watches them. So of the 2 usable routes, you can't ghost you way into them. And later there are other AIs blocking hallways or passages or you become so highly lit that you always get spotted no matter if you crouch and creep very slowly or try to use a speed potion to dash back into a more shadowed area. So after this red portal-like curtained door, ghosting was over. Thank God, now I can have some fun, and I took out all the AIs with a vengeance.
- As big as was this FM so far, it gets even more huge after this point. But since I had surrendered on trying to ghost anymore of it, it was actually much easier to play.
- In one aspect, this FM sucks. Monroe is given god-like powers of survival. Almost nothing hurts him. Even the holy sword isn't that helpful if he is alerted; by the time weakling Garrett manages to finally swing the sword overhead, Monroe has already entombed Garrett in webbing or blasted him away, and side whacks with the holy sword are futile. In fact, on a couple runs, the holy sword went right through Monroe (so obviously the time was lost and I got killed - again). Garrett is pretty clumsy when it comes to navigating around on uneven terrain. The number of reloads was making this part of the FM very boring. Reload, try something else, reload, try this, reload, try that, reload ... ad nauseum. Finally I figured that if I positioned myself at the entrance with the short section of floor between the hole and the wall, I would be facing away from Monroe and towards the rear wall of his chamber and could climp up the sloped pool to hide in the shadows in a corner and behind a side pillar (Garrett moves pretty slowly here for some unexplained reason). I would then crouch behind the rearmost side pillar, ooze around it, and get behind the next side pillar. I then managed to ooze around this side pillar and get about halfway to the next pillar before getting too lit up whereupon Monroe would spot me and splatter me against the wall. So I'd get up to just short of this point and do a quicksave. I tried using flashbombs (I had 2 of them) which would make him freeze in place while trying to whack him with the holy sword. Didn't work; he'd recover, I hadn't done enough damage, I got killed. So instead I downed a speed potion (there's only 1 in this FM back in Foofie village), stood up (for best run speed), and simply dashed by him to his side without even a 1st alert. This let me slink up behind him and give him an overhead whack with the holy sword. Because he wasn't alerted at all, one overhead whack was all it took. This was WAY TOO HARD! It reminded me of playing Descent in which the bots get progressively quicker, smarter, and more powerful but the last one is a God bot that is nearly impossible to kill (i.e., you get lucky if you survive long enough to damage the last bot enough to destroy it before you get killed). I got bored at the end of Descent, too, from all the retries.
- Now was the time to off Baneson since I wasn't ghosting anymore and didn't care about alerting him or others. Melee anyone? I lured the haunts to the front garden to kill Baneson. I first lured the ghost over to Baneson so it would keep his attention. I then lured a haunt over to attack Baneson while Baneson was busy with the impervious ghost. However, having the haunt kill Baneson does NOT check off that objective so now you're stuck with an FM that won't end. *YOU* have to kill Baneson for that objective to check off, so I simply hit Ctrl-Shift-Alt-End to end the mission. Baneson was already a corpse and hitting more with the sword wasn't going to change the mission to seeing me as his killer.

Is there any loot in the town church? To the leftside of the raised platform for the dais is an inset in the wall that looks like it might move and reveal a secreat room. I did hit the switch behind a fixed podium at the front of the church which spawns the ghostly figure inside the church. I scrounged around the pews, the high pews, the ledges around the dais' side walls (and stacked carrots to see above the ledges), scanned the pillars, jumped atop the wood cross and look behind and under it and still never found a switch. What was the point of getting into the church if there was nothing there you needed to complete the mission and no loot? I'm about 500 short of loot. And, NO, I am not going scrounging, especially in such a huge FM.


  1. 10-09-2002, 09:32 PM by Vanguard #3

Vanguard

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Default Poor Lord Bafford

FM: Poor Lord Bafford
File: poorbaff.zip

Play mode: Ghost (failed)
Time: 31 minutes
Loot: 3760 of 3870 (3000 required)
Pockets picked: 2 of 2
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0

Cause(s) of failure:
- One or both guards in treasury room go on alert when the torch is doused in that room. Doesn't matter where I am when I fire the water arrow or gas arrows to extinguish the torch.

Comments:
- Pretty straight forward ghosting. Can't douse any torch in the front foyer room or any in the next hallway since that alerts the guards in there, so the 100 loot for the gold vase had to be skipped.
- You have to get most of the loot in the treasury room to make the loot objective. However, dousing the torch in there will put one or both of the guard in that room onto full alert. Ghost busted.
- This FM definitely needs a dromed fixup to up the ambient light level. Touching the screen doesn't help me feel my way through the mission when all the torches get doused in an area.


  1. 10-09-2002, 09:46 PM by Vanguard #4

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Default The Item

FM: The Item
File: the_item.zip

Play mode: Ghost - gave up when reloads crashed the game

Comments:
- When the objectives are in French or German, I can maybe go to an online translator to figure them out. I don't know what language this is in this FM, so I haven't a clue what I'm supposed to do.
- Ghosting incurs reloads because you try something, your ghost gets busted, so you try something different - but you don't play the entire FM from the start to finish with reloads except for tiny unthreatening missions (or unless you're into Iron Man Ghost mode, which I am not). This FM will crash the game when you try to reload a saved game. I'm wondering if this might be because the author designed perhaps with an unpatched version of TDP and I'm playing using TG. Oh well, goodbye, onto the next FM.

<hr>

A new version was released which fixes the crash on reloading a saved game.

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Time: 1 hr 33 min
Loot: 3195 of 3675 (2500 required)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Comments:
-- When you get past the spiders and down the metal stairs, there is a patrolling zombie by a small trench with water. There is a door to the left (same side as the holy fountain) across the trench that is completely hidden in the black shadow. You'll only see it when you get it to light up when it is frobbable (to pick open). There is also a wood chest there that is completely hidden in the blackness until it lights up when frobbable.
-- You need to find 2 boulders to weight down a couple pedestals that then open a door to the eye. In the room with the 2 boulders is a fire elemental. I doused the torch but there is other light which puts you in the yellow zone on the light gem. I got into the room but it was difficult to tell if I had been busted or not. The fire elemental changed from being quiet to its groaning noise. However, it never fired on me nor changed its position where it was hovering. I snuck up behind the raised platform and frobbed the boulders over the edge. The fire elemental obviously went on a 1st alert but since it never moved from its spot and never fired at me while I was clearly visible and easy to hit, I figured it was just a 1st alert.
-- I tried to up the ambient lighting so the shadows weren't completely black. I tried "ambient 25" then 20, 10, 5, and 1 but any change in lighting completely removed all shadows. The light gem would respond like you had crossed into shadows but you couldn't see them. Even portalizing the mission (which no change in ambient light level) would remove all shadows. So you are forced to play this FM is total blackness for the shadows.
-- In the library room past the crypts is a roving haunt. The shadows intersect in the middle of the room but this is a trap. You can't see the pit that you'll fall into and die.
-- Back in the crypt room, there is some loot hidden above. You have to take the ramp up to the ledge and head toward the wall to find it up there.
-- When you dive into the big tower and pool (on your way to the eye), there are 4 ways to go. 3 are marked with a gold plaque and one is a dull gray plaque. The 3 gold marked routes lead to empty chambers with haunts that will alert when you swim into them, so don't go in them to preserve your ghost attempt.
-- There is no way to turn off the force field around the eye. You simply approach the eye to get close enough for the eye to remain illuminated and frob it when it is lit. If you only get close enough to have the eye flicker, it is unlikely you'll frob the eye when it happens to be lit, so you'll incur damage.
-- Getting the sword proved hard because of the total black shadows. In the pedestal room closest to where you surface from the water at the start is a switch behind the platform with the pedestal you weigh down with a boulder. A crypt slides over but you won't see the passage. You have to crouch to enter the passage. The only way I could tell if I was making progress was to turn around and back into the passage so I could watch the lit room get farther away.
-- There is a zombie by the ladder you take up and over the framework around the sword. You can quickly run and jump past the zombie without waking him. Or you can use a rope arrow anywhere on the wood framework to get atop of it. Then land on the rock blocking the rightside and fall towards the back where you can jump through a window. Just take the ladder back up to the top and jump atop the same rock to fall on the front side to leave.

Last edited by Vanguard; 10-29-2002 at 02:27 PM.


  1. 10-10-2002, 07:10 PM by Sneak #5

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Talking

Hidden Agenda

Built by: AsyluM

Final Release Version 1.0

AsyluM,
My biggest thanks for building this one.Definately a fine piece of work. A real nice layout and lots to explore and figure out. Keep 'em coming.

I had played this one back at the first of the year and was going back through FM's and decided to play it again. I played it on Hard Skill as sometimes you can use the bow and other options to drop guards. Had a big time and after completing it it dawned on me that I had not Ghosted anything in a while. This one seemed like a challenge for a Supreme Ghost so I loaded it up on Expert and dove in. HA, well a short way into it I realized that for some reason I had never played it on Expert before. No idea how that happened but tis true. Everything was different, keys not in the same place or on the same guards, things that worked one way before did not work the same, more areas seemed opened up, and my whole plan of attack went down the tube in one big hurry. And the elevator was going to get used a lot to get me where I wanted to go. And it wasn't working! Oh Yes, I had stepped into a Wet Fur Ball of Mega Proportions. Yeah, I love it, what can I say. Never a dull moment I just went with it. I was all over this thing several times trying to find things and being that I was Supreme Ghosting it, I had to cross the map a lot of times with NO Comments, No Lights Off, No Moss, and the whole drill trying to unwind and unravel the changes from lower skills to Expert. What a ride! Being that it was almost like playing a new Map for the first time I decided on a particular name for this Report. It alludes to something Peter Smith said to me when he issued me a Cold Turkey Ghost Challenge a while back!


Cold Sweat and Facial Ticks

AKA: AsyluM, the elevator ain't workin'!

Supreme Ghost Mode: Failed
Ghost Thief Mode: Success
Perfect Thief: Failed
Time: 3 hours 59 minutes 55 seconds
Locks Picked: 11
Secrets: 4 of 4
Pockets Picked: 3 of 8 ?
Damages Given and Taken: 0 Failure is fine, no damage done! Ha 

Even though I Failed this in Supreme Ghost I still played it from beginning to end in Supreme Ghost Mode. I just took my hits where I had to but still went forward with Supreme. On the Pocket Picks above, I have no idea where 3 came from. I took an Acolytes key and I believe an Gear Key but the third one eludes me. I don't remember taking a 3rd item.

What Busted Supreme

1. The Watcher in the hallway off the dining room that leads to the Priests bedroom.
2. The Watcher down the hallway near the Vault. .
3. I could not close the Sewermans Hatch from the top and had to leave it open

Interesting areas

1. The elevator that ain't workin.
2. The area way down there by the double doors that lead to the Haunts and Tombs.
3. Returning the Priests and Security Keys.

Things don't remain the same

The game loaded, the plan was set, and I was off. Heh, well til a door wouldn't pick that would before and I had to find another way to get the Acolytes key off of a Servant that, as it turns out, didn't have the key anymore anyway. Hmm, OK now what? I went off to the main building to get a Cog Key off a wandering Priest who, yaa, wasn't carrying it anymore. I slunk through the building and nabbed an Acolytes Keys off some dude as he walked by the dining room table next to the Temple. Well something was working in my favor. While in the area I noticed a door that had a Cog Key lock that had not been there before. Then I went around the Temple perimeter collecting stuff and ended up downstairs behind a female Mechanist who had a chest behind her with a Security Key in it. I didn't take it cuz I was gonna Supreme Ghost all those Watchers.  I could not find a Priests key though. Another inigma. Somewhere along the way I read some note about an elevator not working, I don't remember where I read it and it went right on by. And somewhere else I actually got a Cog Key. Yes, to the elevator via the door from the courtyard, through the kitchen, up the stairs by the watcher, and down through the small Temple. There was no Cog Key Lock on the elevator and no button. It was then that I remembered the note about the elevator and realized that I had set my foot right in Cat Regurgitation. I was stumped as to how to get down there. So I paused in shadow and said, "AsyluM, what hast thou Done!"

I went over the map.And then I went all over the place, back and forth, trying to find another way to get down below. Couldn't find one. Absolutely dumbfounded. Finally I found a Cog Key Lock way at the back end of the small Temple and a Ray of hope struck.

The Elevator that ain't workin and the Vault

I made my way down the ramp and through the underground snagging loot and a Rusty Key as I went and made my way all the way over to the elevator. Asylum, did I say the elevator ain't workin'? It wouldn't go up except for a burst of rising inspiration that ends in abysmal hope dashing failure when it stops 6 feet up the shaft. And it won't go down at all. Thats a long fall down that shaft and I could not use the Cat Fall you placed in the crate. Supreme Ghosters do not imbibe. And the other way down there? With the Watchers and Turrets there and the switches still on, well, I wouldn't go through there without a Water Cooled Fire Arrow Slinging Armor Piercing Mini Gun.

I finally figured out that I could crouch on the edge of the elevator platform and run off at an angle towards the corner below while holding the mantle key down. There is a ledge about halfway down the elevator shaft and you catch a piece of it and drop to the floor below with no damage.It works, did it many times. I turned off the Vault forcefield and rode the elevator back up to the level I had just left. Yes, Yes, Yes, the elevator works from the bottom but doesn't go any higher than iut did before! ha!

I found the Cog Key, opened the Vault, plundered the thing, and went back out the same way I had gone in. I did not open the Vault main door at all. I went back down and hit the switch for the Vault forcefield and it came back on and locked up the doors.


The Watcher in the hallway off the dining room that leads to the Priests bedroom

Well he was there and so was I. There is the Priest key and the Cog Key that I needed in rooms down that hall. I could get by him to get in but I could not get out without a yellow alert.So I had to turn off the dining room lights which busted my Supreme Ghost. However, getting in can be done this way. When the servant leaves the dining room and the guard patrols away up the hall behind the Watcher, I jumped up on the dining room table. Then ran towards the door at the end of the table. Aimed for the right side of the door. When I got to the edge of the table I jumped. You want to hit the door in the air and drop into the jambs right side. You do not want to hit the top or sides of the door jamb. I used that door to open it almost before I hit the floor and ran right on in it when I hit the ground. You are actually safe from the Watcher sitting with the door closed and just hiding by that jamb on the dining room side. You are lit up but he can't get a bead on you.

Getting out with nary a chirp did not happen. Maybe it can be done but I couldn't nail it during this play. I tried running and jumping back to the dining room table and other areas in the room but was not able to do it. Had no run up for any jump because that door must be closed behind you. I also tried walking under the Watcher and going as far forward as I could. Then running out in a blitz and around the corner. No deal! Just no room to maneuver and the Watcher is looking right down that hall with very little side to side movement. Crouched creeping did not help either.


The Watcher down the hallway near the Vault

I had hoped to be able to ride that elevator from below all the way to the top to go up and get the room with the evidence near the Vault. I now had a Priests key. But, ahem, the elevator ain't workin'! Ha! So I had to go back through the underground, up the ramp, through the small Temple, and up the stairs to get over there. There is a shadow right down the end of the hall where that Watcher and his Turret friend is looking. You can hide there. A Female Mechanist patrols down the hall. No way I could figure to get by the Watcher. There is no shadow in the hall, you step out of the one at the end of it and move down the hall and he has you. I was looking face to face at my second Supreme Ghost Bust of the mission. But I had to get in the Library Study Office at the end of that hall to get the Evidence. Nothing I could do but turn off the Watcher. But the Female Mechanist who was carrying the key in Hard skill did not have it any more in Expert. And the only other one I knew about was across the room, down the hall, around some guards, past another Watcher, down the stairs, through the kitchen, across the courtyard, through the other kitchen, through the Foyer of the main building, across the dark room, up the stairs, down the hall, through the dining room, around the perimeter of the second floor of the Temple, down the stairs, and into the guard room with the Female Mechanist who has a chest behind her holding the key. As George S. Patton said, "I do love it so!" Sooo, I went merrily all the way over there and back dodging guards and Watchers. Then I turned off said Watcher in the hall thereby nailing a second nail in my coffin of Supreme Ghost Bust. I am proud to report that I did turn it back on when I was done.


The area way down there by the double doors that lead to the Haunts and Tombs

I had thought this was going to be a trouble spot to get into but it turned out not to be. When you open the door to the area there is a Watcher up and to your right, a little bot patroling, a big drilling machine in the center and beyond it parked in place is a big blue Mech. A black guard patrols through the door and up on the drilling machine where he pauses. Then he goes back out out the door, across a hall and over to a counter and pauses. His cycle time is short. Once you enter the door to the drilling machine room you can not hide or pause. If you hide in the shadowed corner to the left inside the door it is not shadowed enough. Your Gem is light green though it has no sidelight. But that is close enough to make the Watcher Chirp when he rotates. If you get into the small nook right at the Watcher which is too the right when entering the door, if you pause, when the guard comes back in he will bump you and begin to cave in your skull. So I waited for the guard to leave the drilling room and cross the hall. When he opened the far door, I quickly went into the drilling room. I CCC'd around the short wall right under the Watcher, no trouble. When I got around that short place right under the Watcher then I was in full view of the big blue Mech and lit up. But crouched, walking, and hugging the wall he did not twitch. I moved the same way all the way down the stairs to the double doors leading to the tombs. The guard came back in and up towards the drilling machine. But his back was too me so it was no problem. Coming back out was just as easy. I closed and locked the double doors when the guard left the drilling room. Then crouched I hugged the wall and creeped up to just below the top of the steps. Moving slow the big Mech did not notice and the small bot was oblivious. When the guard came back in and headed for the drilling machine I crept right around behind him and for the door. When I was around under the Watcher I was out of view of the blue Mech so I stood up and went for the door and out of the area. Was all actually pretty easy.


Returning the Priests and Security Keys

Getting there was no trouble but dropping them was. Those keys make the same amount of sound whether you drop them from 8 feet or 2 inches. I tried all kinds of stuff but could not leave the security key on the wooden chest or the Priests key back on his metal desk. They alerted everytime. I thought I had it by dropping a scroll and then the key on top of it. But when I picked up the scroll the keys made the same sound. So I dropped the security key in a corner of the room and the Priests key on the carpet right at the corner of his desk. If anyone knows how to drop one on noisey material close to an AI without alerting them, please do tell.


Sewermans Hatch
I exited by way of the Sewermans Hatch. My original plan had been to end up topside getting some stuff and ride the elevator down from above and go over the crates to the finish. But, ahem, the elevator ain't workin'! LMAO! So I went over hill and dale to those crates, through the sewers, and out the Sewermans Hatch. There was no way to close it from the top side. Third Supreme Bust of the mission. I thought I was going to be short some loot. There were doors I could not open and chests I could not pick without getting AI comments. Thankfully the Mechanist Plans count as loot and that took me well over the needed amount. What Ghost Mission it was! 

AsyluM,
Thanks again for the fine mission. And don't worry about the elevator that ain't workin'! It made for a real fun and semi-cold turkey Ghost Ride! 

Prologue

What do you get when you cross a working Elephant with Darth Vader?

An Elevader that works! Oh Lord, I must be desperate 

Last edited by Sneak; 10-10-2002 at 07:14 PM.

Just Sneakin' Through!


  1. 10-11-2002, 11:35 AM by Deadfall #6

Deadfall

Deadfall is offline Gamer

Join Date

Sep 2002

Location

Shalebridge Road

Posts

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Default Tymoteusz

FM: Tymoteusz

Ghost - Failed
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 04:24:06
Loot - 8452/8937
Pockets Picked - 10/11
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 0/0

Causes of Failure:

1. Forced to use a sunburst device and blow up a wall in the basement to escape. This is propery damage, and also alerts AI in the vicinity.

2. Forced to knock down a wall with the blackjack in order to get a required tome.

3. Frustration is a great enough cause for failure...

Comments - I would like to announce that this is one of the hardest FM's I have ever played. Simply because of the ridiculous hidden secrets/doors/panels and keys. How did the author expect anyone to be able to figure this out unless they were right clicking every object and wall in a room. It got so bad that I had to go to the ttlg boards and check out a thread about the FM and see how people were doing. Luckily, I found some information about parts I was stuck in. I wont put into detail about all of the difficult accounts I had from looking for each key and secret room, but I will explain about the very difficult ones.

When I first started this mission, and I had actually gotten into the mansion itself, I really thought this would be a nice mission. I was even going to compare it to "The Art of Thievery".

This is a polish mission, so I had no idea what my objectives were. The first part of the mission was fairly feasible. It was ghostable, but as I progressed, I have never felt so frustrated playing an FM before.

After exploring the 1st floor and the 2nd floor, I found myself stuck and I had no where to go. For hours I looked for any key I could find so I could get through the double door by the front door. The patrolling guard in the hall had a key, but I couldn't lean through the door and pick pocket him. After reading some comments at ttlg, I finally realized that I needed to douse a torch on the 1st floor, and then frob an unlit torch to open a secret panel. I would have never found this unless I looked at the ttlg boards. I did notice that the unlit torch looked like a frobbable item, but it didn't highlight when I approached. I never douse any torch unless it is my only option to get through unseen. How did the author expect anyone to instinctively douse this torch and then know to frob the unlit torch? I was quite shocked at the difficulty. After going through the panel, and ascending into a crawlspace area in the ceiling, I thought I would be back on track with ghosting.

All seemed well until I came across another ridiculous area. There were 4 numbered rooms in a hallway. In each room, there was a significant object that could be frobbed and would warp me to a catacombs area. Once again, the author does some unreasonable things with objects. The first room I came across had a silver key that was of great use later on in the mission(it unlocked alot of doors). But I didn't notice anything else, until I accidentally right clicked behind a plant and I was warped to the catacombs. Some objects in the catacombs were used as lockboxes and the silver key seemed to unlock them.
-I warped back and the next room had a gold ornate hammer on display in a glass case with a ring of fire around it. I tried shooting a broadhead into the target where I thought I would get a typical secret; and I did. A panel above the hammer was removed, but forget about grabbing it unless you use a water arrow on the hammer. It took me a while to figure this out, I kept falling into the case and then dying when I hit the hammer. Dousing the ring of fire enables you to grab this hammer. The hammer acts as a key for some reason and I later found out there are 4 hammers to be collected. I still explored this room for keys and secret switches etc. Once again, I accidentally right clicked, and I was highlighting what appeared to be "junk" eye glasses. To my astonishment, when I right clicked the glasses, I was warped to another side of the catacombs. I realized at this point that there were 4 sides in each catacombs, and with the numbered rooms, I was certain that some item in each room would warp me to each side.
-The next room had a water fountain and a key. The switch was at the bottom of a wooden shelf and was facing the wrong way it seemed. It took me a while to find that.
-The next room took me an hour to find the frobbable item. I gave up at one point and tried looking in Dromed. The only secret switch I could find was by the desk and the switch revealed yet another key by the statue. I almost gave up completely, when I looked at the ttlg boards and realized that one of the rope posts highlights and warps you to the catacombs. I tried jumping on the red rope and right clicking everywhere, but I still didn't find it. I had to crouch and fall through the rope poll because it wasn't solid, and then I was able to right click it. I found this so horribly difficult. It just didn't make the mission fun at all.

I now had all catacomb doors open, and a metal plate slid away to reveal a ladder down to the basement. I had no objectives completed at this time so I decided to leave the area.

With the mission being polish, I had no idea where/who Tymoteusz was, and what I needed to do with him. I later realized he was in a jail cell, and you needed to drop the "Gryps" scroll onto the tray by the jail bars. Tymoteusz would walk towards the scroll and start talking. After he talks, he gives you back the scroll which has been modified a bit and he disappears. I am now given new objectives, but it doesn't matter because I don't know what it is.

The next area that seemed to have an objective was a little room behind some crudely placed bricks. If I wanted to get into this area, I would have to knock the bricks away with my blackjack. This didn't alert any AI, but it was property damage sure enough. After reading the first tome on the shelf, it was placed in my inventory and an objective checked off. My delight was abrupt because I soon found myself being pummeled by 2 laughing haunts that seemed to appear out of no where. I experimented more with this and realized that 2 haunts spawn next to you when you read/grab the tome. I was able to hide in shadow on the shelf and then observe the haunts without alerting them. I thought nudging would come into play here, but the floor was marble and the room was bright enough that I would not have enough time to move next to a haunt. And one haunt was facing one way, and the other haunt was facing the other way, so it seemed considerably desperate. I discovered later that if you place the named skull (from the 1st floor room with the scrolls on the table) onto the pagan altar and then grab the tome, the haunts do not appear.

I can't decipher what some of my other objectives were. They were completed at one point from either collecting tomes or revealing secret walls. But after most of my objectives were checked off, except for finding 8000 loot, I went back to the catacombs.

The last area I needed to explore was the basement, which is accessible from the catacombs. There are several rooms in the basement with locked gates, and a control room with a keypad. The mechanist book (found from the labyrinth) has codes on the last page and each code opens one of the gates to the room. Each room had a number of loot and I was quickly able to get 8000 loot (an objective). There was also a book down in one of the locked rooms which was required for my objective.

The last door I needed to get through had an idle guard standing infront. I nudged him a little so I could open the door and slip through. I then found a brick wall, identical to the crushable wall with the tome, but I couldn't crush it with my blackjack. My blackjack attempt not only failed, but it also alerted the idle guard. I did have a sunburst device in my inventory that I found from one of the gated rooms, but if I were to use this, ghosting would be totally lost; property damage and alerting AI. I was thinking about nudging the guard all the way to the other end of the basement. It probably would have taken a few hours to nudge him, but I had already failed from breaking the wall with the haunts. I did, however, nudge him further out so I could stand outside of the room to prevent myself from being damaged from the explosion. So I set up the sunburst device and shot a fire arrow into it. The wall exploded and collapsed, alerting the nudged guard, the patrolling guard, and the apebeast. I had doused all torches in the area so I was able to escape without any of them charging me. But after alerting them, I was glad I didn't try nudging the idle guard because it wouldn't have mattered since the apebeast was alert.

There was a number of difficult secret areas to discover, and keys to find. It would take too much time and space to type in everything. The only hint I can give is to expect the unexpected. Anything that you can highlight could be the simple key to actually getting through the mission. I must confess though, I was really disappointed with this one. Looking at the properties of items in Dromed and spending my entire night in this mission, to only find the mission impossible to ghost at the very end, is quite vexing and dissatisfying. The mission was very well designed and Dromed skills were apparent. But the tedious search for keys and secret doors was simply annoying, difficult, and frustrating.


  1. 10-12-2002, 02:17 PM by Vanguard #7

Vanguard

Vanguard is offline Gamer

Join Date

Jun 2002

Location

Twin Cities, MN

Posts

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Default Tymoteusz

FM: Tymoteusz
File: timoteus.zip

Play mode: Ghost (failed - due to required property damage)
Time: 3 hr 48 min
Loot: 8737 of 8937 (8000 required)
Pockets picked: 10 of 11 (all)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0
Secrets: 0 of 0
(can't decipher any other stats)

Cause(s) of failure:
- This FM absolutely requires property damage to complete it. You MUST bash down a stone block wall to get a book (an objective). You MUST smash a large crate in a vault to get the huge vase - which is obviously way too huge for Garrett to be toting out (an objective). You MUST blow up a wall using a sunburst bomb to get to the sewer exit (an objective).
- One AI alert: the guard by the basement storage cell where you must blow up the wall to get at the exit.

Comments:
- This is a huge FM. The author LOVES hiding switches, and there are LOTS of switches. That's not bad in itself except that many of the "switches" were non-switch objects, like a pair of eyeglasses or a rope post, and some were facing the wrong way (so all you saw was a block that would light up but in no way looked like a switch).
- At the start, you begin with a "gryps" scroll in your inventory. I don't read Polish and most times a start-of-mission scroll is simply more info and you don't need the scroll anymore. Since any info on it was undecipherable to me, I tossed it right at the start. I found out later with the help of other taffers that this scroll is required; you give it to a prisoner at the back of his cell to get more objectives. I had to go back and find where I has tossed this scroll.
- This FM starts Garrett at a bad location. His is lit well enough and a guard is close approaching that you will ALWAYS get a first alert from this guard. I even tried to press and hold the backpeddle key to see if the guard wouldn't alert when the mission first started. Nope. You can hide, it's just that you have to do so immediately when the mission starts.
- Some AIs do not move or initiate their rounds until you approach them. For example, the guard you meet after opening the side door stands there indefinitely until you start to enter and ghost around him; when you get close enough, he starts his patrol. Same for the kitchen servant: he doesn't move until you douse a couple torches in the kitchen.
- There are 2 fireplace switches in the kitchen. One reveals a secret loot room and the other disables the trap in there (although you can circumvent the trap). The switch for disabling the trap is in a crevice alongside the fireplace. You cannot get close enough to this switch unless you step into the crevice but then you get stuck there. It takes several jumps while rotating and leaning to get back out but the landing from the jump alerts the kitchen servant. If you're lucky, you might jump out of the crevice without making noise. I managed it at the backside of the fireplace. There are NO moss arrows in this mission.
- When collecting the loot in this kitchen secret, there are gold wine bottles on a high top shelf. You could tote in some crates to get up to them or use a rope arrow (which you can find later in a screwed up secret route) but you can manage to just reach them. Lean forward while clicking underneath the top shelf and you can frob the bottles through it. I later had to come back here because I missed a gold plate.
- When standing and looking level forward, anything you drop gets dropped 7 feet away, even heavy stone blocks.
- Some keys when used will disappear from inventory. Others do not. You might assume that the non-disappearing keys have multiple uses but not necessarily.
- I almost assumed that the author was going to require property damage to continue the mission onto the other half of this large building. I couldn't get to the other side of the building and the unpickable but frobbable double french doors on the 1st and 2nd floors had no key. I eventually found the secret route but only by accident. On the 1st floor by the door to the torture room is a wall torch. It is NOT frobbable. After careful examination of the wall panels, I concluded the one on the office side was decorative (because I knew of the backroom where this wall panel would be on its side wall) but that the other one one the same wall as the torture room door seemed to be misaligned. There was a gap around its bottom and it appeared somewhat more recessed. I found the switch by accident and it is very poor design. On the left or torch side of this panel, take a step to the right, then turn at an angle to look at the side of the wall panel. Frob along the middle of its left edge and you will manage to frob through this panel to throw the lever to open this wall panel; i.e., the switch is on the INSIDE of this wall panel and you have to frob through the panel to throw the switch. <small>(Other taffers have mentioned that the real technique is to douse the torch on the opposite wall which then makes this torch frobbable - but that sucks just as bad for design. I don't use consumables and I don't go dousing every torch around.)</small>
- This secret room has 3 rope arrows (although on Expert mode I don't see a reason why more than 1 is needed since I got where it could be used with just one of them). There is some loot in here, but more importantly there is another route to get to the room that is behind the frobbable but unpickable door next to the jury box in the 2nd floor courtroom. It bugged me that I couldn't get into this room. The secret area behind this wall panel got me there where there is loot to be had. The key to open the door that goes into the courtroom is INSIDE the door; you'll never be able to open this door from the outside.
- Next to the elevator at the back of the courtroom is a secret wall with more loot. Down the elevator is the law library where you have to find the switch to open the passage to get at the loot behind the outset glassed display case. There is also a bathing room with pool. I found a panel behind a banner (by saving, slashing, and reloading) that appears to be another secret route but could never find out how to open it - from either side. On the other side is a book with combination that you'll traverse maze and use an elevator to get and that you need to open some basement storage cells and the vault.
- There are some coins in the corner at the bottom of this pool. I forgot those on a reload and had to go back there to get my loot total higher than the objective (at this time, I couldn't get into the big vaults and so I was trying to get 8000+ in loot elsewhere, and which is possible).
- In the 1st floor offices marked "1", "2", "3", and "4" are teleport switches that take you to a basement chamber where you have to open 4 sets of double stone wall doors. The first door of each set requires a hammer key. The 2nd wall moves simply by throwing a switch found there. Once all 4 wall sets are opened, the metal plate in the center will move and reveal the way to the basement where you find a slew of doubly locked storage cells (you need a key for the metal door and the combinations to open the inner drawgate).
- In office #1 is a hammer inside a case protected by a ring of fire. Bullseye and you have access, but cool it off first.
- In office #2, the teleporter switch is extremely hard to find because it is nearly impossible to see. It is hidden on the floor behind a plant by the stairs coming into the room but you cannot lean over the plant to see the switch. When the switch lights up to indicate it is frobbable, you will get to see small pieces of the illuminated switch through the leaves of the plant.
- Similarly, one of the return switches in the basement chamber is also hard to find. It is a red button on the backside of a rectangular post between it and the wall.
- The hardest teleport switch to find is NOT a switch. You find a switch by the desk to open a secret panel to get the hammer key (and another key - which isn't required since the white "krusz" key you find on the floor in office #3 will open all the wall safe panels in the common hallway between these offices). The "switch" for teleporting to the basement is actually one of the rope posts next to the wall. Even if you jump onto the desk and crouch to approach it, the post will NOT illuminate and become frobbable from that angle. You have to lean over the sofa to make the post frobbable (or get on the sofa to get close enough to wipe your nose on the post before it becomes frobbable).
- The white "krusz" (or something like that) key on the floor of office #3 (or maybe it was office #2) makes doing the rest of the mission much easier as it is a master key for lots of doors. Later I found a dark gray "krusz" key in a basement storage cell, the same one where you find a book to satisfy an objective, but didn't need it for anything. In fact, there are other keys, like for the lower and upper Biblioteka rooms that are no longer needed because this key will open those doors.
- Back down on the 1st floor in the office across from the torture room is a backroom where you find lots of scrolls (more than half of which are blank), some loot, and a skull (that gets you more loot and is needed later). There is a switch to turn off the trap before you lift the skull. The script for the skull is defective: no matter where in this mission you drop the skull and pick it up, this trap will fire, so you can be anywhere, drop the skull, pick it up, and this trap will fire. If this trap fires, the archer patrolling outside doesn't hear it but a guard upstairs and through the floor will hear it and come running down on full alert.
- Reading one of these scrolls found in this backroom with the skull will create a new objective. Don't know what it means but you get a new one. You don't need to keep any of these scrolls, just read the one that gives you a new objective.
- In te lower Biblioteka room is a secret panel that leads you to a floating guy, some loot there, a maze where you find some more loot, and an elevator to find a book with the combinations needed to open the inner drawgates to the doubly locked basement storage cells. When you find the book, you'll see the panel that leads out to the bathing pool mentioned earlier but there is no switch here to open that panel, either. The book goes into inventory so you don't have to record all the combinations.
- In a side room by the library shelves in the upper Biblioteka room is a wall of stone blocks that you MUST smash to get at a book which is an objective. I closed the door (which turns out unnecessary) to prevent any noise from alerting the guard that patrols this upper Biblioteka room (it might be unnecessary since the door disappeared and he still didn't hear me making noise in this side room). Another taffer mentioned using the blackjack to pummel down the blocks. There is a life potion between the big blocks already in this room (for you non-ghosters). I recommend not entering the bricked off section of this side room until you are near the end of the mission (i.e., when you are ready to exit). Upon entering the bricked off section, or just by leaning through the blocks, a reversed played ghost voice plays over and over and never stops. It is sourced in your head, not somewhere in this room, so when you walk away it continues to play in your head. This is extremely irritating and a huge nuisance since it makes hearing any other sounds in the mission difficult or impossible. So I reloaded and would come back to this room at the very end of the mission so having to suffer the constant noise would be minimized.
- By the way, just for fun, I dropped a sunburst bomb at this stone wall (you get 5 of them, although I thought in one replay that I had 5 of them as one inventory item and a 6th one as a separate inventory item, but on a later replay I never found the one that stays as a separate inventory item). I used a flare to blow the bomb but there was no damage to the wall. A blackjack or skull can crash down the wall but not a sunburst bomb? Similarly, I put a sunburst bomb on a desk in the office across from the torture room and set it off and yet absolutely none of the glass dividers were smashed, yet tossed a wine bottle at the glass will break it. Inconsistent behavior.
- Doors often disappear in this FM when you open them. Usually when you first open them, they swing open and hang there. However, if you later close and reopen them, they swing open and disappear. This can be a great nuisance when you're trying to hide your presence on the other side or want to dampen noise.
- The combinations in the book found in the maze open the inner drawgate in the storage cells in the basement that you teleport to. The storage cells are unmarked. In the room with a stationary guard and the combination panel is a row of lights and switches. The switches spawn an eye orb in each cell to let you look around inside. I know it is an eye orb because when you hit the pushbutton for this same room, you can see the eye orb drop in the corner by the electric throw switch (which I never found did anything). The light by that switch comes on when you punch in the combination for that cell to drop its drawgate. You still need a key to open the outer metal door for each cell; the white "krusz" key works here, too. The switches and lights are in a straight row from left to right and correspond to the cells in a clockwise order. The combinations in the book are also listed in the clockwise order for the cells. "brak" must mean "broke" since some cells don't have drawgates (nor do they have a light, just a pushbutton on the panel). I doused the torches in this room to prevent the patrolling guard from spotting me when my back was turned when entering the combination or using the spawned eye orbs to see inside the cells.
- The dewdrop doll is in the cell with the apebeast. I managed to ghost getting it but it's just fluff in your inventory (i.e., no objective gets checked off).
- In the vault room are some wall safes that are too high to use the lockpicks; i.e., you can't get close enough for them to stay lit when you select the lockpicks. There were no crates in this basement section or anything else that I could drop on the metallic floor without making noise. I couldn't tote in a crate or two because you cannot carry something and also frob a switch (to teleport back to the basement after getting the crate from the house). So I use the stack-em-up method with health potions. They wouldn't make any noise when dropped so I didn't have to worry about alerting the patrolling guard or the nearby apebeast.
- The big vault doors were a big problem for me. I had a key labelled "deposytz" or something like that but it didn't open these big vault doors. Nothing I had would open them. It turns out that you must be smack dead center of the doors when using the lockpicks. While the doors will illuminate when you approach them from the side, the lockpicks only work in the middle. I've gotten very habitual in standing to the side of door when I open it. Doors can open deliberately so fast that they squash you between the door and wall or catapult you at supersonic speed to splat and die against a wall, or there is a trapdoor that you fall into and die, or fire arrows shoot out from the other side, or whatever. Basically I've come to always open a door while standing to its side and probably crouched. Although the big vault doors would illuminate when I was at their side and they were still illuminated when I'd try to use keys or other inventory items on them along with the click noise, I couldn't get them open until another taffer said that he had lockpicked them and so I tried again but found I have to be in the center of the door for the picks to work. When the door opens, its swings open slowly and pushes you along but you have enough time to quietly move out of the way of the door.
- When I thought that I couldn't open the big vault doors, I went wandering throughout the rest of this mission trying to find enough loot to satisfy the 8000 loot objective. I had 7807. I found 60 in coins in the bathing pool at the back of the law library (1st floor, under the courtroom on 2nd floor) and a gold plate that I missed in the kitchen secret loot room. But I was still short at 7917. I had seen the floating coins on the 2nd floor in a room where there was construction beams and an elevated boardwalk (up a floor using the elevator by the offices marked "1", "2", "3", and "4") but on a subsequent reload I must've forgotten to collect them. Each coin is worth 120 and there are many of them here so this got me to 8137. When I did get into the vault, there was even more loot so I was significantly over the 8000 loot objective. I never did find the remaining 200.
- When I went back to find my Gryps scroll and give it to the prisoner, the guard patrolling the jail room kept going on full alert. Sometimes he would just hunt around a short time, other times he would run in the hallway circling around back of the jail cells, and sometimes he would run out of the room, down the hallway, and to the 1st floor. When I had been in this room before, I turned on the switches next to each cell to see what they would do. A light comes on inside the cell. At that time, the guard did nothing as a result of me turning on these lights. Later when I got in the hallway near the door, or into the jail room, or into the hallway leading around back of the cells, and although I was completely dark and still, eventually the guard would go on these full alerts. I finally figured that he was alerting to seeing the prisoner in the middle cell. If I turned off the light in that cell before he passed it, he wouldn't alert anymore. The other prisoners were sleeping so they could not be spotted through the openings in the jail cell doors.
- In the basement, I would douse a torch, the guard would walk over, I'd run in the dark into the nearby cell, he'd relight the torch, and I'd snatch the sunburst bombs. I'd have to douse the torch again to get back out.
- Every time I doused the torch, the guard walked over to relight it. I needed to get him out of the way to get into the basement storage cell where I had to blow up a wall to get to the exit. I approached on his right side (next to the gas lamp) and could get behind him with just a 1st alert. I then nudged him into the next cell, the one where you get the sunburst bombs (I had left that drawgate open). To get him farthest in, I'd have to close the metal door; he could pass through the metal door but not me. I would then open the metal door, squeeze past it, and continue nudging him into the cell. This took several tries since there was still the patrolling guard that I had to hide from. When I got this guard into the cell, I changed the combination to open the next-to-last cell (the one with the wall you blow to get to the exit) and close the metal door. He was now trapped. I did this so when he alerted from the blast that he was out of the way and couldn't hurt me. I also did not have to blackjack him which kept my endgame knockout stat clean. When he went on alert but was within this locked up cell, he couldn't escape and he wouldn't alert the other patrolling guard. The guard inthe combination room never hears anything outside his room; there is a barrier to sound in the door even when the sliding metal door is open.
- I could drop the sunburst bomb quietly by looking straight down when dropping it. Although the guard in the next cell would eventually alert, this just prolonged how long before he went on alert. If you use a fire arrow to trigger the sunburst bomb, the guards and apebeast will go on full alert. But if you use a flare to blow up the bomb, only the guard locked in the nearby cell goes on alert. I waited until the patrolling guard was at the opposite corner of the hallways, threw in a lit flare, BOOM, but the patrolling guard and apebeast never alerted. It is possible to nudge the guard that was by this cell all the way to the opposite corner of the hallways so he doesn't alert but the number of hours of nudging him and having to duck away when the patrolling guard came around would be extreme and very boring. No thanks. There were already ghost busts from property damage that was required for objectives (the stone block wall to get a book and the large crate in the vault to get the vase). I was just trying to reduce how many AIs went on alert when I blew the wall.
- Okay, I have an exit but I still have to go back to the side room in the upper Biblioteka room to get that book in the bricked off section that I was forced to smash down. When you take the leftmost book, it goes into inventory and checks off an objective (but ONLY if you've already given the "gryps" scroll to the prisoner and gotten the new objectives, too). However, this will spawn 2 haunts behind you. You could simply run past them quickly to escape; they will not leave that bricked off section of the side room. Or, to preserve a better ghost although busted, toss the skull you found in an office backroom onto the recess shelf with the other 2 skulls. This prevents the haunts from getting spawned when you take the book. Other taffers have said to put the skull on the pedestal in that room but that didn't work for me; with the skull on the pedestal, the haunts still appeared when I took the book, and only by putting the skull in the wall recess with the other 2 skulls did the haunts not get spawned.
- If you decide you want to take on the haunts, be sure to stand on the thickest part of the shelf; otherwise, a haunt will run over to pummel you to death. As you are at the shelf looking back into the room, the left haunt is much stronger than the right one. I can kill the rightside haunt with about 15 broadheads or a single sunburst bomb (be sure to position a pillar between you and the bomb to deflect the blast). But the leftside haunt takes more than all the broadheads that I have (30 or 31) and all the fire arrows (5 as I recall) and even survives 2 sunburst blasts. I found that 3 sunburst bombs would take out the leftside haunt but not when blown all together; you have to blow them up one at a time. Since there is a delay after they spawn before they alert and a delay after they alert before they attack, I found dashing out between them and running away a safe and cheap tactic.
- I then teleported back to the basement and left via the blown up wall to get to the sewer to exit and end the mission - and the constant drone of the reversed ghost voice in my head.

Wow, what a mission! When it gets translated to English, it will be popular. Some bugs do, however, need to be fixed, like turning switches around so you're not looking at their blank flat backside (and I don't like the use of a rope post as a switch, either). The non-frobbable tilting torch for the 1st floor hallway secret wall panel definitely needs to be changed. I couldn't have finished this mission without the help of RiCh, Deadfall, and other taffers (and those taffers at TTLG that helped RiCh and Deadfall). I think a lot of the infuriating aspects of this mission would go away or become assets once the players understood the objectives and all the writings within.


  1. 10-12-2002, 10:01 PM by Vanguard #8

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Default Equilibrium

FM: Equilibrium
File: equil.zip

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Time: 2 hr 12 min
Loot: 0 of 0 (none available)
Pockets picked: 5 of 5 (all 5 required as an objective)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0
Secrets: 0 of 0

Comments:
- I thought I had already ghosted this one but it wasn't listed in the FM ghost threads (but I'm wondering if some pages were missed or truncated in the migrate to this new forum since there are other FMs that I thought I ghosted that aren't listed anymore).
- This one is tough because the rogue Keepers can disappear in the dark just like you. They are very tough; when not ghosting and if one spots you, run for the water. In Normal (when not ghosting), you can sneak up behind them and a single overhead whack will kill them.
- Their pace is erratic. This occurs when they speed through a lit up area where they too get lit up and become visible. Basically the technique I used was to listen for their footsteps, find a spot where I could remain completely dark and in a corner or somewhere they didn't travel too close, and watch them for a long time. This let me figure out their routine. Using the zoom view also helped in spotting them and watching them.
- The hardest talisman chamber to find was for the water talisman. You have to go swimming to find an underwater passage to this chamber.
- I got to the exit and noted the talisman symbols. So it would appear that those were the talismans that I was supposed to select and use to open the exit. Wrong. I remember from prior play that a transformation occurred although this time through I found no scroll or book that told me this. So I figured that the symbols for the talismans on the exit receptacles was for what talisman would trigger them but after a change; i.e., I would have to find the sequence of transformations for each talisman to determine what prior state it had to be in so when transformed became the state shown on the receptacle. After collecting all the prior-state talismans, none of them worked. Okay, so I went back to each talisman chamber and collected the talisman for the state that the talisman would change to from the one shown on the receptacle; i.e., I would collect the next-state talisman transformed from the one shown on the receptacle. That worked to open the sliding bars across the exit elevator.
- Because none of the books describing the symbols for the talisman states and none of the books for their transformations would go into inventory, you have to record all this data so you know it when you get to the talisman chambers and the exit.
- I liked the objective that required that I lift the pendant off each of the rogue keepers. This made it even harder because getting close to them ups the risk that they will spot you. However, if I was completely dark and crouched against a wall, they would walk around me like a regular AI. And by watching their routines, I could position myself to wait for where they would stop, then waddle over and lean to snatch their pendant or follow behind them.
- I wasn't sure why the author had switches around to turn on more lights. Garrett needs to hide even more than the rogue keepers (because he is no match for their speed and lethalness in a fight). I suspect that the lights help speed up a rogue keeper out of that area because they dash quickly to stay out of the light.


  1. 10-13-2002, 11:36 AM by Danventry #9

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Default

You turn on the lights to see the rogue Keepers. They are like you; except invisible. There are some flares in the game which are helpful too. The more light they're in, the better you see them. I had the worst time with this FM just playing on normal regularly. Though, I'm sure I could play again and do better, I doubt I could ghost it. I like to see what I'm fighting/pick pocketing/avoiding. 


  1. 10-13-2002, 01:09 PM by Vanguard #10

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Default Elevator Mission

FM: Elevator Mission
File: eleva.zip

Play mode: Ghost (failed - and gave up!)
Other stats: unimportant

Cause(s) of failure:
- Can't get by spiders (and cannot use tunnel to drop down to next level although I got past the spiders to get into this tunnel).
- In guard room next to smelting room is a guard that rotates every 2 to 10 seconds, making it impossible to creep up the metal stairs without being spotted.
- Cannot get unseen into the throne room where you must get the kitchen key to continue the mission.

Comments:
- Again Garrett is nude of his basic tools, like lockpicks and sword (although killing is allowed on Expert level [when not ghosting]), without any story of why he lost his tools.
- You can jump off the chimney ladder onto the fireplace bottom without alerting the kitchen help although you make noise. You are at the bottom and your feet are on the ground because it is possible to lean forward, but you cannot detach from the ladder without jumping off of it.
- A lever by the fireplace is hidden in complete darkness. Like all the switches and levers I've encountered in this ghost attempt, none are labelled.
- I made it past the big green spider to get into the tunnel where you can use a rope arrow to climb down - but you can't! The guard down there stands right at the bottom of the shaft and he has eyes on the top of his head (and that can see through his helmet). Just leaning over to look down the shaft can have the guard spot you. You cannot go down this route to the next basement level without getting spotted.
- So I tried sneaking around the spider the other way towards the gated door where a little green spider rotates. However, this puts you in its full detect zone so no matter how slowly you creep the spider will spot you. Okay, one dead spider and a ghost bust. However, there's no way to ghost past the little green spider. Another dead spider and another ghost bust.
- If you slide down to the floor between the crates and the wall in this spider room, you get stuck there permanently. You can't jump back atop the crates to get out.
- When riding the elevator going down, crouch so as not to clang on the metal platform. When going up, you will also clang with the platform stops, so I pressed against the wall and when it reached the top then I would walk off the platform onto the narrow tile ledge and not make any noise.
- I don't know why the author bothered putting torches in this section of the FM since Garrett is nude of any water arrows and there are none to be found here. Maybe torches are easier to insert than electric lights.
- After the smelting room where you take an elevator up a level is a guard room. I can get to the metal stairs but there is no time to creep quietly up them. Garrett is also nude of any moss arrows. The guard by the stairs rotates so quickly and so often that it's like he is on a spinning top. He got blackjacked, and another ghost bust.
- Under the metal guard platform is a throw switch. Atop the guard platform is a slide switch. I have no idea what either one does except that one appears to have opened the gated door in the prior guarded room (which is ghostable once you can get in).
- I don't know what the big control console does back in this prior guard room (the one right after you get past the spider room and take a short elevator ride). The flip lever appears to open the big metal door into the throne room. But you don't need to bother getting into the guard room by the smelting room to get at this throw switch. You can frob this switch through the window slit in the wall without the archer inside spotting you.
- It is impossible to get into the throne room unnoticed. You don't have water arrows. There are electric lights outside the throne room door (although I managed to crouch and ooze past them slowly enough to just get a 1st alert). I could not find a route to go into the throne room without the guards there spotting me. The kitchen key is there (apparently the kitchen help are required to drop the prepared food onto the floor in this next section and aren't allowed in there). So I stood in the dark part of the door from the smelting room and took out both guards (one with a broadhead, the other lured over and blackjacked). Another ghost bust.

At this point, there were so many ghost busts that I quit trying to ghost this FM. I thought others had tried to also ghost this FM but there are no ghost reports for it, and as I recall everyone else failed, too. I had already played this FM a long time ago so there was no point in continuing. On to the next FM.


  1. 10-13-2002, 03:31 PM by Vanguard #11

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Default Fortune & Glory

FM: Fortune & Glory
File: fortune.zip

Play mode: Ghost mode (failed)
Time: 37 minutes
Loot: 2500 of 3185 (2500 required)
Pockets picked: 0 (none available)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0
Secrets: 0 of 0

Cause(s) of failure:
- You MUST slash 2 banners to get in and out of the room where the skeletons change to zombies when you approach a huge gold nugget.
- Reentering the water in a spider room (with a secret panel to reveal a mask which is an objective) makes noise and alerts all the spiders.

Comments:
- Finding the entrance to the lab with the time machine is tough because the edge of a bookshelf has no real texture that lets you determine there is depth to it. You walk down the end of a bookshelf.
- On arrival, you really only have one way to go, into the pyramid, down the ladders, and hit a button to open a panel to continue. The next room has a banner on each of 4 walls. Here is one of those FM's that I argued for relaxation in the ghosting rules because there is absolutely no way to continue without slashing a banner. You also have to slash a banner to exit and return to this room.
- You slash a banner to continue to the next room. A ghost bust. In that next room is a green floor area with a huge gold nugget. It is obviously way too huge for Garrett to carry and yet it is worth a measly 100 loot points. Must be Fool's Gold. As you approach the nugget, the skeletons will spawn into zombies.
- The exit panel is opened by positioning yourself between 2 of the adjacent torch poles in a corner; as you enter, it's the corner to your left. You can enter the room without spawning the zombies; you must approach the nugget to spawn them. So go press yourself up against the inert skeleton to get between the torch poles and open the exit (it will not close with the rest of the panels as you enter the room). Douse the 4 torches on the same side of the room as where you entered. Douse the 2 torches across from the room from the exit panel that you opened. You can save 2 water arrows by not bothering with the 2 torches in the corner opposite the exit panel. Sneak up on the gem, the zombies appear, snatch the gem, and crouch and creep out the exit panel.
- At the end of this exit tunnel is another banner that you have to slash, a ghost bust. You'll get a 1st alert from the zombie at the other end of this tunnel when you slash the banner due to the noise.
- You then have to head back to the central room where you came in because another wall panel has been opened for you to continue. I crossed another room (without boulders propped up on a sloped shelf as though it were a trap) and into another room with a ramp, a passage to the left, and a passage straight on past the ramp.
- I went down the ramp to find a pedestal with a gem. There are spiders behind wall panels that open when you take the gem and the pedestal rises. So I jumped atop the pedestal to keep it down, took the gem, crouched, and ran off the pedestal. The pedestal rises slowly so you can run out before the door closes that blocks the tunnel.
- I then took the passage that is at the other end of the ramp but on the upper floor of the ramp. The button to open the next panel is right above where you exit that passage; i.e., turn around when you exit that passage.
- I went swimming and came across a room with 2 huge ominous skulls and a spider pit. I temporarily went out of ghosting mode, killed the spiders (because one of them blocks the tunnel entrance) to go look inside the tunnel. Nothing there (except another big spider). Reload.
- I approached the skulls while pressing against the walls to keep out of sight of the spiders in the pit. There is a pressure plate that will fire off a splat ball at you but if you're against the wall then it will pass by. The sound of the splat ball getting fired and disappearing does not alert the spiders.
- I then came to a room with 2 pits (connected by a tunnel) to a lava pit room. Although the room's texture looks like stone, rope arrows will stick in the ceiling. In the room across the lava is another huge 100-only loot gold nugget. The pressure plates for the floor traps are obvious and can be easily avoided.
- After getting back across the lava and out of the pit, I took the remaining passage that leads to more swimming into spider pits. One has a secret panel that lights up and reveals a mask. This is an objective. However, you cannot get back into the water without making a big splash noise that alerts all the spiders in there. Ghost busted again.
- I headed back past the 2 big skulls and spider pit to the two side rooms where there were zombies in open caskets. In one of these rooms is a switch in the ceiling. I used a broadhead to switch it and open a passage through the casket. This leads into a huge mazes. Mazes are boring!
- I finally exited the maze into a lava room where you jump across platforms (nothing sinister about them) and into the loot room. With all the loot in this room, I just made the 2500 loot objective and the game ended. According to the endgame max loot total, there is another 685 in loot somewhere but I didn't want to bother going through the maze again.


  1. 10-13-2002, 04:50 PM by Vanguard #12

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Default Hightowne Museum

FM: Hightowne Museum
File: hmuseum11.zip

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Time: 15 minutes
Loot: 1887 of 1887 (1400 required)
Pockets picked: 1 of 2 (all)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0
Secrets: 0 of 0

Comments:
- I did get caught by the 2nd floor watcher in front of the gate into the chamber with the eye. I didn't hear it and was focused on going up the stairs. Sure enough, I hear it go on yellow alert and instinctively jumped back into the shadows. Too late. Reload.
- After getting the security key, you can get at the eye from either above or straight in on the floor. From above, I kept dying of SHAS (sudden heart attack syndrome trying to use a rope arrow and climb down through the opening. You find a slowfall potion where you start so I suppose you could drop in. However, going down to the 2nd floor and getting under the watcher, opening the gate, and creeping towards the eye works easier. There is mention of a security floor; I think it is the colored tile around the pedestal with the eye but you can simply lean forward to snatch the eye.
- Finding the last bit of 100 of loot was tough. It is a gem hammer on the top floor underneath the watcher. It is impossible to see that it is a frobbable item; it looks just like the metal junk and hammers in the box along with it. When it lights up, oh yeah, then you'll recognize its shape.

It's a small mission but fun. Although pretty easy to ghost, not every FM has to so stress out the player that their B.O. smells like rotting meat.


  1. 10-13-2002, 09:16 PM by Vanguard #13

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Default Lady Whitman's Disease (T2 version)

FM: Lady Whitman's Disease
File: lwd_t2.zip

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Time: 56 minutes
Loot: 1654 of 2164 (1400 required)
Pockets picked: 3 of 5
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0
Secrets: 0 of 0

Comments:
- This is the T2 version of the FM.
- I found it easier to get the other lockpick from the Physical's House before going into the manor. Actually you must get the other pick since many chests and doors cannot be picked using just the white one that you start with. I didn't have a rope arrow at this point, so I built unsupported stairs from crates (by overlapping them) to get up and into the window.
- Once I got inside the manor, I used a moss arrow to hit the light switch to darken the central hall. I lifted the gallery key from the guard standing in the middle of that room.
- On the 1st floor is a guard's dining room with a fireplace. When I doused the fireplace, one of the guards would go on full alert - unless I 1st doused the wall torch nearest the latrine. That was so I could get to the wood chest in the corner by the fireplace. Turns out it was a flashbomb which is completely useless to me when ghosting, so I reloaded and skipped this.
- I mossed the floor of the dining hall between the table and the reading room door. I had planned to jump on the table and run around when the gal left to snatch all the goldware. Doesn't work because the boundaries for the table are screwed up; you will fall through the table and get stuck there. So I reloaded and mossed the floor at the 2 corner of the U-shaped table (I had to jump between the mossed sections). This allowed me to run around quietly to snatch the goldware.
- I kept looking for my "tools" in the manor. Never found them there. Then I remembered that there was still a wood chest that I couldn't open because I did not yet have the other lockpick. That was back on the 2nd floor of the Coal Store. Yep, got my tools.
- The last objective to complete was to escape. Okay, but to WHERE?! The objective doesn't say to where you are to escape. So I had to wander around town checking out where this objective might get checked off and the mission would end. The sewers were likely for Garrett but not in this FM. Turns out I have to get near the street that leads to the coal door that I used to get into the manor and near the door where you exit using the secret passage but you have to pass the safety wall divider to be on the street that runs along the manor. That's a safe escape point?


  1. 10-14-2002, 11:54 AM by Vanguard #14

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Default Sir Lector Comes To Dine

FM: Sir Lector Comes to Dine
File: sirldines.zip

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Time: 9 minutes
Loot: 710 of 710 (610 required)
Pockets picked: 0 of 2 (actually only 1)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 15 (required) Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 1 (required)

Comments:
- This one sets you up right away to be paranoid about knives getting flung by traps (based on position, not by touching anything specific that is the trigger).
- The stairs were made deliberately hard to walk up to slow you down to get impaled by the knives. I stepped on the first stair and jumped up which triggers the knife trap.
- Killing the Sir was rather easy - except I lost my water arrows. In the room next to where you start, you get 3 water arrows. By the time I made it to the 2nd floor kitchen and got the knives (to use like arrows), my water arrows were no longer in inventory. Had to restart to get the water arrows again.
- Although I doused the torches in the hallway by the 2nd floor barroom door, you still get lit when crossing the door. Yet I only got a 1st alert from Sir. I then leaned out and shot him with a knive, and it only takes 1 knife to kill him. The kill is a required objective.
- The sword was the hardest to find. It is impossible to see until it lights up to become frobbable. It's in the dining room.
- Although you get the key off Sir for the front doors, the front door NEVER become frobbable nor do they ever open. Once you complete all objectives, the mission ends with you still in the house.

It's a small mission but the knife traps perked it up by making you paranoid.


  1. 10-14-2002, 12:43 PM by Peter Smith #15

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Default The Cistern

FM: The Cistern
File: cist.zip

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Perfect Thief (success)
Time: 1:12:30
Loot: 4320/4320
Pockets picked: 0 of 1 (actually 0)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Comments:

This is Gumdrop's re-release of a mission that I never saw when it first came out. The setting is a series of grey stone rooms with access to some water passages and grey stone water tanks, one of them huge. I guess that one is the Cistern. Fog effects give it a monotone appearance. Kind of interesting and creepy. True to form (as in Hedges and Hammerites), Gummie gives us a nice maze, only this time it is underwater, so you can't dawdle. There is at least one one-way passage, where you drop in and can't go back. I guess I was just lucky to find all of the loot the first time through it.

In the first part of the mission the AI consist of quite a few bugbeasts, which present the average ghosting challenge, needing some timing and risk taking in a few areas, but it is not too difficult. The main problem in the first part of the mission is to make sure you go everywhere and switch all the switches correctly to make further progress. One of the switches in the large cistern area, which you find after a lot of other switching, jumping, and dodging some AI, causes the previously empty huge water tank to fill with water. Very nice effect and change of scene. The bugbeasts down there drown, some new loot appears, and an opening appears in the floor, through which you can find more places to explore.

At the end of the mission you find a mausoleum with several zombies on partol. Here the ghosting becomes more interesting. The patrol patterns are random. Getting from room to room requires good timing, risk taking, and luck. There are a few good hiding places, but some long exposed runs where it is difficult to find a long enough break in the procession. In fact, I gave up on the first attempt, but Gummie told me it was possible so I persisted.

The two secrets, both in the zombie area, were interesting. I saw where they were long before I found the switches to open them. A lot of loot there completed the total.

You need to grab the hand of glory last to avoid ending the mission when you reach the loot requirement.

Nice mission, Gummie. Thanks.

Last edited by Peter Smith; 10-14-2002 at 01:07 PM.


  1. 10-14-2002, 02:15 PM by Peter Smith #16

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Default Shadow of Doubt Part 1, Walking the Edge

FM: Shadow of Doubt Part 1, Walking the Edge
File: ShadowofDoubt.zip

Play mode: Ghost (provisional success - you be the judge)
Time: 59:09
Loot: 2195/2643 (1500 required)
Pockets picked: 7 of 7
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 20 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Innocents killed: 1 (Roget, required)

Comments:

Walking the Edge is the first mission of the Shadow of Doubt series by Sperry. It is set in a small city, in which you must enter two buildings, get some loot, and kill a bad guy (Roget). Easier said than done.

As discussed in some other threads (here and here), Shadow of Doubt is a tough mission series, containing difficult puzzles to solve, and it is very difficult to complete the missions in Expert skill without seeking help from the many hints and spoilers found at TTLG. Shadow of Doubt, the first in the series, is no exception. I failed to complete it the first time through on Expert, and only after four prior playings at Normal (Fool) skill, a lot of loot hunting, and consulting TTLG several times, did I think I would be able to complete it in Expert (Master) skill, never mind ghost it. As it happens, trying to meet the no-kill / no BJ objective of Expert skill almost demands that you play it in ghost mode.

There are basically two problems to solve. One is to find the required loot: 1500 of 2643. The loot is very tricky, and at first I could get only about 1100 with much hunting. After much discussion at TTLG, during which I posted a loot list of my and others findings, I achieved the above total. Maybe this violates the rule about loot lists. That's one reason I said provisional. It would be interesting to see if someone can do it without help.

The second problem is to complete the mission, avoiding bugs that prevent its completion. That is also a non-trivial exercise. For the record, you have to do the following in order, or it will not complete successfully:

1. Find DuPont, who is supposed to guide you (he doesn't).

2. Approach a gate. DuPont lets you through and then follows to the closed gate.

3. Find another switch and let DuPont through the gate. Then he guides you.

4. Visit the Embassy basement and find the key to the Museum. Leave by the sewer (important).

5. Vist the Museum and find the key to the Embassy upper floors.

6. Go back to the Embassy, enter the upper floor, and do not leave until all business there is taken care of (save a game there).

7. Leave the Embassy by the sewer again.

8. Do not return to the Embassy.

Without doing 1-3 in order, the mission will not complete. Without doing 4-8 in order, the objective to visit the Emassy will become unchecked, and you can't complete it. Nice, huh? I think a little beta testing would have helped this mission.

The ghosting is straightforward sneaking with two exceptions.

One was to take a purse off a guy on a balcony with a guard circulating rapidly behind him. That was a question of maneuvering on rooftops to get a good position and making a quick mantle in and a quick jump out. Delicate, but doable.

The second was to use rope arrows to gain access to the second floor of the Embassy. The first time I played it I nudged a guard away from the gate. He was too close to enter. It is much easier to use rope arrows if you can figure out how to plant them. The guards in the foyer seem to be blind and senstive only to to the sounds you make.

There is another provisional aspect of this ghost report. The killing of Roget creates what I believe is a scripted alert, such as occurs in Return to the Cathedral. The guard partrolling up there always goes on alert, even when you close the door, when Roget makes the least possible noise, and when the Guard is farthest away from the scene. On the other hand, with the door open you can make a fair amount of noise in that room and the guard doesn't hear you. Is his hearing selective, or is it a script? It doesn't matter to me. Call it a bust if you like. It's the best that can be done, IMO.

My loot total includes amounts obtained by cracking a safe in the Museum through an intact banner. That's how I initially found it - honest. There are four additional stacks of silver coins there that cannot be frobbed from behind the intact banner. How do I know they are there? A little birdie told me. Anyway, accounting for the value of the unfrobbable coins, (48) I have accounted for 2243 of 2643 loot. As for the missing 400 loot, it's anybody's guess.

Second playing

1/15/06. I just went through this mission a second time. This time I tried two other tricks attempting to avoid alerting the guard in the stairway. One was locking the door to Roget's office, which reduces sound transmission, and the second was nudging Roget to the far left corner of the room, hoping to get some advantage from increased distance between sound source and guard's ear. It did not work.

This time through I had an even more vexing problem, perhaps one I had not noticed before. There is a guard partrolling the basement and the upper floor in a loop. Even though a "legitimate" AI could not possibly have heard or seen me (e.g., he is in the basement, and I would not be alerting him if he were closer and visible), he goes on alert while hidden in the basement and comes upstairs in hunting mode. This seems to be part of a script that gives him superhuman powers so he can come hunting when Roget is killed. This behavior can be avoided by being super-scrupulous about ghosting and checking that he is on continuous patrol after every move. If you witness too loops at about 1 minute each, he is OK. If not, he is down in the basement with sword drawn, and he will come up eventually in alert mode. The amount of checking needed to verify no alert is substantial. If you go too long between checks, he will alert and you don't know where it happened, so you have to repeat much more stuff. I got around this problem by checking very frequently and saving in a slot after every successful check. You need also to reload saves, because sometimes that seems to set him off. It is just unbelievable how sensitive he is when you can't see him. 

Perhaps the reason I had this issue this time is that I did not take the side trip to the museum to get the key for the embassy basement doors. This time I followed the basement guard up stairs and jammed the door open as he passed through. That move could have caused a permanent state of unobserved alert. No matter. I got through it with the same result but with less loot - missing 600 rather than 400.

Last edited by Peter Smith; 01-15-2006 at 01:50 PM.


  1. 10-14-2002, 03:55 PM by Deadfall #17

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Default Deceptive Perception

FM: Deceptive Perception

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - N/A
Time - 00:12:27
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 0/0

Comments - This was the scariest mission I have ever played. Inverted Manse comes close, but this one is truly unique and it can be ghosted actually.

The entire mission has different areas that trigger different events to occur. This became a problem when I came upon Grimsby's corpse. I had to walk over the corpse in order to trigger a huge spider to spawn next to the doorway. But each time I tried to walk over the corpse, one of the little green spiders would always become alert. There were 3 little green spiders and they were tiny; smaller than rats. This didn't really mean anything though because they were actually the same size as a normal spider; they just appeared to be smaller. I used Lytha's "spiders-see-with-their-butts" and crate nudging knowledge in order to ghost the little green spiders. Each spider had their rear facing the back wall, so I knew they were actually looking that way. With this in mind, I was able to drop a crate on top of the spider that was giving me trouble, and I easily nudged him further away. Problem solved, and I was able to walk over the corpse and trigger the huge spider to spawn.

The huge spider had his rear facing away from the door frame, so I was able to just creep slowly around him and I got out of the area with a first alert.

The last problem was the massive zombie spawn. When I first played this, I remembered reading the note, watching zombies rush me and then the mission ended. The solution to avoid alerting the zombies can be quite overlooked, but it is very simple. I crouched at the hammerite banner, and I realized I might be able to only get a first alert because I was in medium-high brightness. I tried reading the note, and to my astonishment, the zombies spawned and just stood there. A few gave a first alert "moan", but none of them started searching around or charging me.


  1. 10-14-2002, 07:53 PM by Deadfall #18

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Default Quick Cash

FM: Quick Cash

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:10:10
Loot - 502/502
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 0/0

Comments - Whoa... I thought I was busted on this one. I read an old report by RiCh, and he had the same problem I did with this mission. However, I found an extraordinary and somewhat strange way of ghosting it.

This really is a small mission, but the problem is in the Hammerite Chapel area. The room has 2 torches that light up the area pretty well, and about 5 hammerites; 2 on one side of the pews, 2 on the other side, and 1 at the altar. I tried dousing the torches but the hammerites would always go on 2nd alert. I hate it when this happens in missions. I've dealt with this before, particularily in the FM, "The Ritual" where you cannot douse torches without alerting AI. I needed to get 2 candle sticks which were on the altar, and they were the last loot I needed. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to try and nudge any AI because the room was too well lit... or was it? I didn't try nudging, but I tried CCCing very slowly up the aisle between the hammerites towards the hammerite at the altar who was facing right towards me. I kept creeping further along until I was in a very medium-high brightness and the hammerite was already on a first alert. I continued creeping until I was in almost full yellow brightness and I was certain I would get busted; yet I didn't. I was able to continue forward creeping inches at a time and then finally leaning forward, I was able to grab the 2 candle sticks without completely alerting the hammerite. At this point, I was in full yellow brightness, and probably one particle away from getting the red mark in my visibility gem. I don't know if the altar obstructed his view or if I was just going so slow that he couldn't spot me. After I grabbed the candlesticks, the mission ended right where I was in full brightness, but the hammerites were not alerted.


  1. 10-15-2002, 09:38 PM by Deadfall #19

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Default A Lesson Learned

FM: A Lesson Learned

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 01:42:45
Loot - 820/900
Pockets Picked - 11/12
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 2/2

Comments - Never underestimate the power of nudging. That is the material point I acknowledged when I successfully ghosted this mission.

-In one of the houses there was a female noble who stood infront of a cabinet with a gold wine bottle. I had to nudge the female noble towards the wall so I could open the cabinet and get the wine bottle.

-I never did find a way to get into that window when Garrett says, "doesn't look like I can get up there". I totally forgot about it after finishing this mission. There might be some missing loot there.

-The loot was very interesting in this mission actually. The author changed the value of common loot to an extreme low. For example, a gold cup would be worth 3 gold instead of 25 gold. A gold wine bottle might be worth 5 or 10 goods instead of 50. The author also changed some "junk" items into real loot. There were a few "junk" vases and hand mirrors that were counted as loot.

Nothing in the city measured up to the difficulty of getting by the guard at the front door in Lord Whelan's manor. Each time I tried to move upstairs, the guard by the front door would spot me and go on 2nd alert. I tried shooting a rope arrow and then dropping down on some moss on the stairs, but this didn't work either. I read an old report by Vanguard and I could pretty much relate to everything he had reported about this. However, I didn't want to be defeated by an overly alert guard. I observed the guard by the front door and I noticed he pivoted in 2 directions. This sparked the idea of nudging. It appeared I could get behind him without him noticing, but the patrolling guards would become a problem. I doused all torches in the library and positioned myself by one of the bookcases. I then waited for the archer to head up the stairs and the patrolling swordsman to exit the library. This is the time to move. I leaned to the right to make sure the guard by the front door was looking to the left, and then I ran behind him and started nudging. I was safe when the archer came down the stairs, but if he was going back upstairs I would get spotted. After observing these patrols, I realized that I would have to nudge for about 10 seconds and then retreat to the library and wait for the archer and swordsman to meet up again. After a few attempts, I realized this would work.

It took 30 minutes of nudging to finally get the target guard under the staircase. From here, I went around to the dining room and hid in the shadow under the staircase. I was going to try what I did before; shooting the rope arrow, and landing on moss. This is what I had to do, but I had to do it very quickly. The archer and the guard upstairs would always go alert if they spotted one of my rope arrows. It was some odd AI behavior. The archer would say "Hmm, that's not right" and then the guard upstairs would scream "Ah!" and become alerted. I attempted to climb the rope and jump on the moss again, and this time I removed the rope arrow from the ceiling. I didn't have much time until the archer came back upstairs so I had to mantle onto the wooden railing and then drop off onto the floor and hide in medium-brightness against the wall. Each time the archer patrolled down from the staircase, he would give a 1st alert.

Looks like I did it. The guard by the front door was under the staircase and clueless, and the patrolling archer was not a concern anymore. Before I could rejoice in my success, however, I realized that getting into the rooms infront of the guard at the top of the staircase would be impossible unless I nudged him. So I decided to nudge him forward into the wall between Lady Whelan's room and the barracks while dodging the archer patrol. After 10 minutes the guard was nudged as far as I could get him towards the wall. I was now able to slip through each room with only a first alert from the guard.

Everything was straightforward from here. I doused one torch in Lady Whelan's room and picked the money box. I was also able to get the loot in the footlockers in the barracks without alerting the servants. The last area, Lord Whelan's bedroom, contained loot and the amulet for my objective from a secret door. The switch that opened the door was located at the bottom of a desk.

It's too bad I couldn't get all of the loot. But I believe I found most of the difficult loot. The difficult loot: gold cup on top of the keg shelf in Lord Whelan's manor, gold cup between the keg shelf in the Inn, a loose coin on the couch in one of the apartments, gold coin stack behind banner in mechanist church, and a gold ring on the sink in Lord Whelan's bathroom.

I must say, the title of this mission "A Lesson Learned" is significant because... I did learn a lesson. I learned how effective and invaluable nudging can be when there is simply nothing else that can be done.


  1. 10-16-2002, 02:56 PM by Deadfall #20

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Default The Game

FM: The Game

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:45:31
Loot - 3205/3205
Pockets Picked - 4/5
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 4/4

Comments - I read some old reports about this FM and noticed that people were having some trouble. So I decided to try it out myself. I was real sloppy with this one. I used every last water arrow that was found in the mission. I only did this to speed up the process of sneaking around and avoiding first alerts.

-I had to douse all torches in the guard room so I could sneak through and get the Games Room key, and the serp torc in the footlocker.

- I also had to douse a gas lamp next to the storage tower entrance because there was an idle guard who never rotated.

- I was able to run into the room with the nobleman and guard without alerting any of them. I couldn't use the secret door from the spider tunnels since one of the spiders was blocking the passage way.

- There is a very difficult loot location that I should report. Outside of the storage room there is a painting of The Trickster on the upper left corner of the wall. There is actually a 200 loot purse behind the painting. I had to douse all torches next to the storage room so I could move freely without alerting the idle rotating guard. I then had to drop a crate inbetween the chair and the wall. From here, I jumped onto the crate and then jumped straight up while right clicking. After a few tries, I nabbed the loot and I didn't make a sound at all while jumping on the crate.

- The key to the 2 doors at the top of the staircase in the tower(with the objective Mask and loot) is located in a little niche in the spider tunnel next to the secret door to the Games Room and the Storage Room.

The real problem was trying to sneak by the spiders in the tunnels. The ground was gravel and there were plenty of mushrooms lighting up the place. The spiders were different than your average idle spider. These spiders actually rotated. The first spider at the bottom of the ladder from the storage tower was real sensitive. I couldn't sneak by him and move around one of the corners in the tunnel and it was only because of the mushroom. I also didn't have enough time to creep along because I had to move as if I was moving over tile or metal. The spider was that sensitive that he would go on 2nd alert if I made one little footstep on the gravel. It turns out that I didn't have to go this way. There is a secret door in the Games Room that gives me access to the other side of the spider tunnels. So I was able to completely avoid the spider by the ladder of the storage tower.

The next spider was positioned in one of the tunnel passage ways and he gave me some trouble at first. This spider was just as sensitive as the one by the ladder, so I had to creep very slowly while in medium brightness. Once I came upon a corner full of brightness, I just had to move when the spider was facing me (rear facing the other way). Once again, I used Lytha's spider knowledge in order to sneak away from him.

The last spider was the hardest to deal with. He was an idle pivoting spider, but the area he was in had about 5 mushrooms that lit up the area completely. There were some artifacts beside the mushrooms that I needed in order to complete my loot objective. I was going to try and haul some crates to this area and see if I could create a bridge and perhaps skim across them and get the loot before the spider sees me. I didn't feel like doing this so I simply tried to move towards the loot while the spider is looking away. After a few attempts, I was able to move towards the artifacts, lean forward and grab one, and then retreat back out of the spider's view. I got busted a few times, but eventualy I was able to get all of the artifacts without alerting the spider.

Finding the loot was tough as well. Hard-to-find loot: several loose coins under the crates in the storage room, 1 loose coin on top of the big crate in the safe and power room, 1 loose coin on a wooden post by the guards outside of the castle, a gem ring in a niche behind the door near the Games Room, 4 loose coins in a fountain by the hammer church, and of course the 200 loot purse behind the painting.


  1. 10-16-2002, 09:42 PM by Deadfall #21

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Default Lord Burkhard

FM: Lord Burkhard

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:14:24
Loot - 920/920
Pockets Picked - 1/2
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 1
Damage dealt - 10 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 1
Secrets Found - 0/0

Comments - I needed clarification from Old Man and Peter Smith before declaring a ghost success on this mission.

Before I go into detail about the questionable ghost bust I thought I had, there are some other things that should be explained. First of all, this is a German FM, so I could not decipher the objectives. Second of all, you should not play this mission unless you are willing to play without saving/loading. Everytime I tried to load a saved game, Thief would close and I would get kicked to desktop. This makes it very hard to ghost because now I'm playing Ironman style.

The beginning of the mission took so many replays just to get the idea of how to sneak by the guards. You start off in a small room on the upper floor of a house, with your blackjack on a bed and no other tools in your inventory. There are 2 guards in the entire house; 1 who patrols in 2 rooms, and 1 who stands idle near a table staring at the wall. Outside of the house is a patrolling guard carrying a lantern. The patrolling guard inside of the house has such a short patrol within these 2 rooms. The tactic I used was to wait at the staircase, follow the swordsman out of the first room, then hug the left wall and strafe to the left, thus slipping around the guard after he hits his trol point and turns. However, I could not linger around after successfully sneaking by this guard. My tactic only worked once and I needed to get out of there before he came back into the room again, which would be in a few seconds.

This is the room with the idle guard staring at a table. On the table is a sword, some lockpicks and rope arrows. The only thing that was needed to complete this mission was the rope arrows. I didn't have time to grab everything, so I just took 1 rope arrow. From this point, I exited the house and the patrolling guard with the lantern was walking away with his back turned. There are no shadows outside of the house. I thought I was busted here because this guard also had a short patrol. Ultimately, I had to follow him, hug the right wall, and slip around him as he turned. This was very difficult because I had to do all of the above in one attempt or else I would have to restart the mission.

From here, the difficulty eased down a bit. There was shadow at the end of the street, and another short patrolling guard. The key on the guards belt opened the door to the right. Inside of the building were a few rooms of interest. There were a few loose coins on a table in one room, and upon taking them, one of my objectives checked off. I had no idea what this meant though. In the next room there was a key on a table which opened a shed by the guard outside. In the shed there was a lever which opened the portcullis next to the guard and the mission was straightforward from here. I needed that one rope arrow from the house to get into the mansion from the left side.

The last problem I needed to deal with was the area I needed clarification on from the expert ghosters. From the first floor of the mansion, there is a room with a ladder descending downwards. At the bottom of the ladder are a few corridors that eventually take you to a prison area. There are a few servants in jail cells along each wall in the prison area and they are totally blind. They can still hear, however, and this became a problem. At the end of the prison area next to the wall there is a guard with a sheriff truart skin. After a few seconds of observing inside the prison, the sheriff truart guard would start attacking this nobleman in one of the jail cells and inevitably kill him. This attack alerted the servants and would force them to search around. The sheriff truart guard also searched around after he had killed the noble. I thought this multiple alert would be considered a ghost bust. But after reading some opinions from Old Man and Peter Smith on the subject, I guess I'm ok with this one. I discovered in a previous game that the last objective was to kill this sheriff truart guard. After everyone calmed down, I was able to sneak behind him and blackjack him. I wasn't about to kill him infront of these servants, so I carried him up the ladder, and up into the foyer of the second floor where no guards patrolled. I beat him to death with the blackjack because I didn't have my sword or any other weapon. After beating the unconscious guard to death, my objective checked off, and it looks like I managed to ghost this FM.


  1. 10-18-2002, 02:53 PM by Vanguard #22

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Default Sisterhood of Azura Pt 1

FM: Sisterhood of Azura Pt 1
File: sofa1a.zip

Play mode: Ghost (failed - but only due to the loot objective)
Time: 2 hr 55 min
Loot: 2004 of 2594 (2000 required)
Pockets picked: 6 of 25
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 3 (via gas arrows on unalerted AI)
Damage dealt: 30 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 1 (required)
Secrets: 6 of 8

Cause(s) for failure:
- Had to blackjack the Mechanist inside the security room in the police station with the cathedral gate switch. (Not enough inviso potions to cover getting enough loot and to also ghost this spot.)
- Had to blackjack the 2 Mechanists in Sara's house. They blocked the bedroom door so being invisible wouldn't help. Had to get the key in there for the backdoor to the sisterhood's mansion.

Comments:
- There looks to be 1 secret that I didn't find. One had to be skipped, the one across from the Tippled Burrick Inn where you stack crates to open a ceiling panel (to find broadheads and a gas arrow). I could never manage to sneak into this building without the stationary guard spotting me that is across the street and next to the outdoor pub area. I needed my inviso potions for more important reasons, like getting loot rather than finding secrets (with no loot). But there appears another secret that I haven't found and maybe that has the missing 200 loot. I don't think anyone has managed to get all the loot in this mission whether ghosting or not.
- I suspect the missing 200 loot is in the secret room that you get teleported into from Lord Wilson's house. You teleport to the room, find a drunk passed out on the floor, and a secret painting behind another painting. Clicking the pushbutton to slide the painting to reveal the other one is a secret. The painting lights up to indicate that it is frobbable but it is not. I suspect this painting is the 200 of missing loot but you can't take it although it looks frobbable.
- You somewhat get stuck right at the beginning of the mission. You can't get over the gate to King's Street because of the archer watching the street and gate next to the guardhouse (but you dash quickly enough past the metal doors that are invisible to the guards to only get a 1st alert). You might get past the stationary guard at the square by the Tippled Burrick Inn but you would have to nudge him forward to circle around behind him. The patrolling 2 Hammerites and even faster gal means you would have to keep ducking back around to the corner so nudging this guy would take a really long time. The last route available is past a watcher and guardhouse. I could squeak up to the corner to see the position of the watcher without getting spotted. I'd then time when it was looking away and run into the shadows under the window at the guardhouse, then wait for the watcher to swing and look the other way to dash into the Cathedral Square and out of view of the watcher.
- Getting past the next 2 watchers is tricky. The watcher up on the cathedral wall over the door is the most blind. I would time when the middle watcher started to swing to look away from the cathedral wall and then run under the cathedral watcher, and repeat to get over to the Pool Cafe. You can find shadows by the vending displays.
- I think there are 2 keys in the FM for the Pool Cafe but I don't remember having any when I got to the door so maybe it was pickable. I could not get into the kitchen in the Pool Cafe to get the loot in there. It is so highly lit in the dining area that it hurts my eyes. There is no way to turn off the lights. The gal in the kitchen faces the door you enter and the guy standing in the room will see you, too. I can't even get an inch into the room without getting spotted by the guy and gal.
- I had to nudge the gal archer in the locker room so I could reach the loot in one locker and the police station key in another.
- The weaponsmith's key you find in the locker in the Pool Cafe doesn't open either the front or back door to the weaponsmith's building. Only the front door is pickable. The key opens a basement door but inside is a guard that constantly watches the door and it is highly lit there with no on-off switch. Took him out with a gas mine (you can get 4 more atop a roof by the building with 2 archers posted at 2nd story windows). You don't even have to hit the pushbutton on the table that moves the wall to the safes in the basement. You can lockpick and frob the safe and its contents right through the banner and right through the stone wall panel.
- One of the secrets is a cache in the target practice area in the weaponsmith's.
- Down the street is the alchemist's shop. Go into the garden, rope up to a roof, and get in via the shuttered window. There is a trap inside: touching the cabinet doors spawns a gas arrow to impale on the cabinet doors.
- I went back along the pub to Porter's street where a bluecoat sword guard and Mechanist patrol. A they passed me in the direction of Cathedral Square, I would run up the street behind them, crouch, and creep around the corner very slowly to prevent getting spotted by the 2 archers posted at the broken windows on the 2nd floor. This was a close call: the patrolling bluecoat and Mechanist were coming up on my butt, went on 1st alert when they got close, but I had to still move slow enough so as not to alert the archers. You're in the green zone with yellow indicator when crouched and against the wall when approaching these archers. Around the corner and there is a bright spot that will light you up and get you noticed, so I stood (for best speed) and immediately dashed around the corner into a more dark area. Didn't even get a 1st alert.
- You cannot get into the area with the archers. They block the windows which is the only way in. So even if you did use an inviso potion, you couldn't get past them to get the 100 loot for the purse on the table behind them. You can rope up along the left of the window with the bluecoat archer to frob her purse worth 100.
- Getting to Lord Wilson's manor proved impossible by taking the streets. There are 2 archers, 2 swordsman, and an occasional black clad Mechanist that patrol the street in front of his house. A bluecoat lies in wait in a doorway down the other street towards the ramp (an approaching there sets off a melee between a greencoat and this bluecoat). For the building next to these 2 archers, its eaves are wood so I roped up to its flat roof. That's where you'll find some more gas mines. I would then wait until all the guards on the street were heading away from the front door to the manor. To get get down, I would run off the roof and onto the ledge for a window, then hop down off the wide window sill onto the street.
- To get past the standing gal in the bedroom behind whom is the library key, jump atop the dresser and slither past her. The edges of the dresser do not match its visual size but you can manage to jump atop it without any noise.
- There is a black clad housebreak in the kitchen. You cannot get by him in this small kitchen. There is 180 in loot in there.
- The secret room requires finding the pushbuttons. One opens a wall panel with loot and another button. There is some loot in the secret room. There is also a painting in that room which counts as another secret, it lights up as though it is frobbable, but you cannot take it. I don't think anyone has yet gotten 100% of the loot in this mission and I suspect this painting was supposed to be loot so it is possibly the missing 200 in this mission.
- Getting into the secret room in the manor also opens the unbreakable immovable window in the rear bedroom. This provides the route by which you get to Sara's house to get the key for the backdoor to the sisterhood's mansion. There is beam sticking out from this window so use a vine arrow to rope down to the street. There are shadows where you can hide to let the patrolling black clad Mechanists pass you by and then run behind him to continue. The ghost is pretty easy to ghost.
- In Sara's house, moving past the first interior door sets off a scripted melee between Sara and 2 Mechanists. She dies. The Mechanists are on full alert and remain agitated for a long time. They block the doorway into the bedroom so you couldn't even use the inviso potion if you wanted to, and you running around on the wood floors trying to get to the key before the potion wears off puts the AIs back on full alert. I saw no way to get past these 2 Mechanists so I made noise, lured them to where I was hiding in the dark corner in the vestibule, and blackjacked them as they approached. I then went back the way I came to rope back up into Lord Wilson's manor. You can't go via the streets because: (1) You'll start a melee between 2 bluecoats and 2 hobos, and sometimes a guard is left after the melee that you cannot get past; (2) You'll hit a black clad Mechanist that would require a LOT of nudging to get him down the street; (3) This nudging moves you closer to a bluecoat at the other end of the street that will spot you; (4) You'll have to nudge a Mechanist that stands at an archway (near a guardhouse whose guard you can ghost) and this would take awhile to get the Mechanist out of view of the next archway he is facing and that you have to pass through to exit; (4) This leads to Market Square with 2 Mechanists and a patrolling mech bot. Going back to Wilson's was far easier to get back into town.
- There is no way to get into the security office in the police station to hit the switch to open the cathedral drawgate (and turn off the watchers). A Mechanist stands inside the door and blocks entry to that small room, the hall is brightly lit, and there is no on-off switch for the hall light. You could use an inviso potion here but I needed both of them to get loot. Besides, I'd have to nudge this AI backwards and nudging doesn't work when on the face side of an AI as they will spot you that near to them.
- The scene in the chapel crypt (where you watch Mechanists pelting and killing kids) didn't play when I first got there and grabbed the eye. The "get to the pub" objective has to get checked off first for this scene to play. I needed the inviso potion that is available in this scene. So I went to the Tippled Burrick Inn and managed to get down the street with the patrolling 2 Hammerites and gal. You can get the "get to pub" objectived checked off just by moving a little bit past the front door into the inn but not so far that the extra guards outside the door get spawned. There's nothing in the pub you need other than the loot but that loot has another spawn trap that possibly busts the ghost and does so in the worst way (by spawning a bunch of AIs, a melee ensures, lots of AIs get killed, and you get spotted [and, again, the inviso potions had more important uses elsewhere]). So I had to skip the loot behind the bar.
- I was at 1904 and needed 2000 for the loot objective. I went back to the chapel to play the cutscene where I could get another inviso potion. I needed 2 of them to grab the 2 silver nuggets in the mech bot shed at Market Square (to get past the 2 Mechanists nearby and the patrolling mech bot on both the way into the shed and back out). However, triggering the cutscene (where you watch kids getting killed) also triggers the spawning of 2 more haunts in the chapel. Usually this would be no problem but they are enemy haunts to the haunt and mage already in the chapel so a melee breaks out. Although, according to many, this was not a ghost bust, I couldn't reload and replay this melee so the original haunt or mage were left. The mage was blind enough for me to sneak out without having to use an inviso potion (the reason I went here) and the original haunt's position was to face towards the altar and away from me. I could only replay the melee with one of the spawned haunts left behind at a minimum, and he would always spot me trying to leave unless I used up an inviso potion. So I decided not to reenter the crypt room and play the cutscene which prevented the spawning of the battling haunts. I then positioned myself about halfway down the chapel's middle aisle on the carpet at the point when I'd get a 1st alert from the mage. Then I downed the only inviso potion that I had and snatched the gold candlesticks and ran out. I needed 100 to satisfy the loot objective. If I couldn't keep the one from the crypt so that I had 2 to use back at Market Square for the silver nuggets, I'd use the one that I had to snatch the gold candlesticks that were worth 100. This gave me 2004 in loot which just squeaked me by the 2000 loot objective. Whew!
- Once I had gotten to Lord Wilson's manor, already discussed, getting to the library was easy. Douse the torch by the altar after getting into the secret passage. This will keep you hidden in the dark. Frob the chest on the right and run to the rightside of the altar which triggers the spawning of 2 haunts. Since you're in the dark, they don't alert. Frob the torch to leave.
- When you frob the torch, you get teleported back to the library. The fall incurs damage, so down a slowfall potion before frobbing the torch. Joshua is patrolling the section of the library to which you get teleported. You can't figure out where he will be so it is just luck that you enter the room when he is walking away. Do a quicksave before downing the slowfall potion and frobbing the torch, frob the torch, see if Joshua is walking away, if not then reload and try again. Joshua is impervious to gas arrows so it doesn't help to ready one as you frob the torch. When I managed to slowfall into the library with Joshua walking away, I'd run into the side room and crouch by the bookshelfs. He would walk past and I'd run up behind to blackjack him. Then I lugged his butt over the table and to the farthest end of the library away from the bluecoat. I then pelted him with repeated blackjack blows until he died; he dies most quietly this way.
- To exit, I tried to rope up over the railing to the 2nd floor of the library, but there is no key to the door up there nor can you pick open the door, and there is no switch to open it.
- To get around the bluecoat and to the exit door on the 1st floor, I used a vine arrow to rope up atop the bookshelf by the guard. I then drop on the guard's head and slide off to her left side to be in the dark and slightly behind her. I then nudged her to the left and forward to squeeze between her and the bookshelf, and then nudged her left and forward into the corner so she wouldn't clearly spot me going through the door at the top of the stairs.
- I went back to the cathedral to check off that last objective of getting into the mansion. As a cautionary note, move to the side of the step as you enter. A gas arrow gets spawned when you move off that step and it hits the step about where were those fire arrows. The archer in there fires gas arrows at you but if you blackjack him (when not ghosting) all you get is broadheads from his quiver. All the lights turn on when you enter the cathedral area but you can remain unnoticed if you stay far enough away from the archer and guard at the gate.
- There is nothing you need nor can put into inventory in the first building to the right as you enter the cathedral area, but it's a fun show. However, if you trigger the constant firing of the fire arrows from the cannon, the mission thereafter becomes very choppy until you turn off the cannon.
- You can slither along the cemetery side cathedral wall to get around and behind the guard at the drawgate to get past the moat and to the back of the sisterhood's mansion. To open the door, I slithered over to the control room where there are 3 guards. I had to nudge the gal near the door clear across the room to get close enough to frob the control console to open the drawgate.
- When not ghosting, another melee you can setup is to alert both mech bots. They don't like each other and will blast at each other.
- I didn't have anymore inviso potions and so I thought the ghost would get busted when I had to pass the mage in the side room after passing through the back door of the mansion. However, you can run right past him without even a 1st alert. He's really blind.
- If you decide to enter the Tippled Burrick Inn farther than where that objective gets checked off and the tune plays showing you accomplished that objective, the gal behind the counter has seen you. She doesn't alert but it takes a minute of standing behind her before she goes into idle mode and when you can finally lift the room key from her belt. Other AIs are like that, too. The hobos that fight with the bluecoats near Sara's house stay on alert for awhile and you cannot lift the health potion of a belt for awhile (assuming the hobo didn't already drink it from his battle with the bluecoats). Because the "get to pub" objective can be checked off without entering too far into the pub (which prevent spawning of 2 guards outside the pub), you also don't have to get the loot behind the bar - which triggers that other melee. If you're not ghosting, you can drop a gas mine in the hallway next to the door (without alerting the patrons so they don't wander over and get gassed) so the guard spawned in the bedroom gets taken out when she comes running to the bar, select gas arrows for you weapon, and down an inviso potion as you trigger the melee. You can then take out the AIs, friendly and enemy alike, while safely invisible atop the bar. I had a lot of fun with these friendly AIs. I'd open the door, bash the sword against the metal door, and draw them out to "play" with the other AIs. Then I'd lure more AIs to these friendlies while they were still outside, or I'd lure the enemy AIs to their slaughter inside the pub (but it was often hard for me to move around all these AIs to avoid damage from the chasing enemy AI).

I was actually surprised and pleased with how much of this mission that I could ghost. If I could've kept the inviso potion found during the chapel crypt cutscene, I might've been able to ghost the AIs at the cathedral gate switch or those that slew Sara (but they also blocked the doorways so that might not have helped to have more inviso potions). I just squeaked by on the loot objective. My ghost was busted so I supposed I could've gone on a blackjack rampage but I wanted to ghost as much of the mission as possible.


  1. 10-18-2002, 06:45 PM by Vanguard #23

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Default Prisoner's Revenge

FM: Prisoner's Revenge
File: prison.zip

Play mode: Ghost (failed)
Time: 2 hr 25 min
Loot: 574 of 574 (500 required)
Pockets picked: 6 of 8 (of 7 real)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 2 (actually only 1)
Damage dealt: 48 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 2 (spider was ghost bust, traitor was required)

Cause(s) of failure:
- Could crate-nudge one spider out of the way but this puts its butt radar in line with the 2nd spider. I could not crate-nudge the 2nd spider without getting spotted by the 1st spider. Killed the 2nd spider.

Comments:
- This is a very hard FM to ghost. Most of it is straightforward but requires several tries while figuring out the AIs' timing.
- Had to nudge the gal in the kitchen/pantry forward and against the wall. This was needed so I could get up the stairs unseen (for a key) and through the nearby door to the basement unseen. Nudged her up against the wall.
- Getting into the target and sword practice room with the sensitive 2 guards in there required a swift move to dash through the door to minimize my exposure to light - provided your feet don't happen to clap on the tile between the carpet runner and the wood floor in the room.
- Had to nudge the basement guard against the wall and into the corner by the next door leading to the underground passage. This was to prevent him from seeing me moving up/down the passage.
- In the caverns and turning right is the library. A scroll in a room on the 1st floor hints at which is the correct button to push. I didn't get that scroll until later when I managed to lock the roaming guard on the 1st floor in the front room (described later). It doesn't take much to figure out: quicksave, press a button, and if the trap triggers then reload and try again (there are only 3 buttons). The pushbutton to open the next gate to get into the caverns is above a bookshelf in the corner. You have to jump to reach it. You can just manage to stay on the carpet while jumping so you don't make noise that is heard by the guard in the backroom.
- Getting past the guard in the backroom proved very hard. He rotates after only short pauses in each position. Sometimes his pause when facing away is long enough for you to crouch and creep (so as to not make noise on the tile floor) to hide behind a pillar, and then repeat to get behind the next pillar, and the same to get out. There is a chest in there with loot. This took a lot of reloads to manage sneaking from pillar to pillar when he was turned away because the pauses are not regular so he often turned back in too short an interval to catch you slithering across the floor.
- In the caverns are 2 spiders. One protects the switch to open the gate to where there is a haunt, gemstone, and key. The other protects the gate the key opens. I could crate-nudge the first spider along the hallway to push it to the other end and far enough away for me to get into the balance-beam room where you hit a switch. I could not simply creep or walk into the room without a full alert from the nudged spider; I had to dash into the room to only get a 1st alert. But coming out, no alert at all from the spider.
- In the pit room with the haunt, I got behind the haunt and nudged him during his turns so he was atop the movable oblong transparent sewer cover. However, once he got fully atop the sewer cover, he stopped rotating and I couldn't nudge him anymore. When I leaned over to push a wrong button which makes the sewer cover open by dropping down, the haunt just floated in the air. AIs often never incur damage from high falls; they just drop down unaware that there was any change (and so does this haunt). I tried leaning over the edge against him to see if I could push him further, but no. So I reloaded to try to see if I could nudge him further or maybe across the room and into the corner. However, on the reload, the haunt ended up at the bottom of the pit - and the sewer door had not yet been opened! I pushed the correct button to open the wall safe to get a gemstone and gate key.
- I used the key to open the next gate (leading to the pentagram room) and was going to crate-nudge that spider all the way down the hallway into the pentagram room and possibly into a corner to get past it. However, the first spider had already been nudged down the hallway and was in sight of this second spider. Although I was about 30 feet away, the first spider can easily spot me there. I could dash across this hallway with only a 1st alert from the first spider, but crate-nudging is a slow process. I had no choice and shot the 2nd spider with a broadhead to kill it. The first spider did not hear the 2nd spider die. This busted my ghost.
- I got to the church, snatched the gem hammer from the altar, and got outside only to realize that I had not satisfied 2 objectives: kill the traitor and get 500 in loot. I had a miserable amount of loot collected so far, maybe 75, so I knew the loot was going to be hard to find or hard to get at. So I went back into the mission.
- You'll never make the 500 loot objective unless you get into the room with the traitor where there is a blue chest. The total loot in the mission is 574, there is 300 in this chest, so you can only get 274 elsewhere.
- The problem was with the 1st floor guard that keeps roaming this short hallway with periodic loops in the front room and the kitchen/pantry. The 2 crates in the kitchen were not sufficient to get this AI stuck walking against them. They were sufficient if I put them in a doorway but then the guard was stuck walking against them while he was partially in the hallway, and I needed to close the door with him on the other side (to ghost the kill of the traitor). So I went all the way back into the caverns and into the church basement to lug 4 of the large crates to the this front room. Although the crates look large, they are just resized small crates so their boundaries are the same size as the small crates; i.e., getting an AI stuck into walking into them requires a stack of 2 of these large crates. But that only alters his path if there is enough room for him to get to the side of them. So I had to pile two stacks of 2-high crates in the front room. These had to be sufficiently inside the room so the guard would walk into the room and then get stuck there. I could then close the door behind him.
- I had to close all doors. The front room door to the hallway and into the kitchen so that stuck guard wouldn't hear the flashbomb. The kitchen door to the hallway so the gal wouldn't hear the flashbomb. I also had to close both doors in the room with the basement guard along with the door at the top of the stairs to the basement to prevent the guard down there from hearing the flashbomb.
- I then picked the middle door in that hallway to get at some loot in there. You now get a scroll telling you which button at the library door to push. Too late. The next door is where the traitor watches the door. It is all highly lit there and this AI is highly resilient to damage; i.e., you cannot sneak up to the edge of the doorway but short of his line of sight to hit him with a broadhead to take him out (he just reels and then attacks), and the noise will alert the stuck 1st floor guard and the 2nd floor guards, anyway. So I opened his door while to the side of it, dropped the flashbomb on the carpet runner, and went in to blackjack the traitor. I closed his door and proceeded to continually blackjack him figuring this was the quietest way to slay him. After 100 slaps, the blackjack still just thumped against him. Usually when an AI dies, it makes a wail plus your weapon doesn't make any noise when it hits the AI (for the sword) or just passes by the corpse (for the blackjack). So I lugged his butt down to the bridge in the caverns and was going to slay him there. I had to drop his body to go back and close the basement door so that guard wouldn't hear anything. The corpse didn't land in the best spot so I picked it up to move it over and then saw that I was carrying a corpse. So I dumped him into the pit under the bridge (so they won't know immediately what happened to him) and left.


If I could've managed to crate-nudge the 2nd spider without the first already crate-nudged spider alerting to me, I would've ghosted this mission. It's not that large a mission but it take a long time and lots of reloads to ghost 99% of it.


  1. 10-21-2002, 01:03 AM by Deadfall #24

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Default A Brawl in the Tombs

FM: A Brawl in the Tombs

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 02:04:50
Loot - 5420/5420
Pockets Picked - 1/9
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 0/0

Comments - This is a new T2 FM that I found at the cheap thief missions site. It was a well done FM and I certainly enjoyed it.

The mission isn't straightforward really. It is perfectly non-linear. There were no difficult maneuvers required but I did alot of meticulous sneaking. This is the one of the darkest FM's I have ever come across. About 90% of the setting is in catacombs and tombs that have no torches at all. It made "The Bonehoard" look like "Song of the Caverns" in terms of brightness and lighting. This wasn't bad actually. It made my sneaking easier, and there were tons of undead, so running through pitch black was much prefered.

The Objectives

-The sword is floating in the blue laser beams above the huge pyramid, accessible from the hallway with the hammerite statues. It is hard to see the sword at first because there are sapphires under the sword that could draw your attention away.

-The "old artifact" is actually a light brown "precursor mask" located in one of the many niches along a hallway that leads to the glowing blue pyramid.

-The golden skull is positioned on an altar in the Haunt area, accessible by the sewers.

-The rosary is found in the safe in the strongroom behind the old chapel of the Hammerite area.

-The Mechanist information is located inside a pickable vault door in Brother Arbez' zombie labratory.

-The Hammerite information is one of the scrolls in Brother Thoren's chamber behind the old chapel.

-The primary objective was to get 4500 loot. Loot was actually easy to find and the only loot I ended up missing were 2 gold goblets in the Haunt area. I didn't explore this area completely because there were alot of haunts patrolling around. The goblets are on the sarcophagus' in the center of the Haunt area.

-The last objective was to escape. At first I thought I had to go back to the area where I started. I found out the hard and long way that this isn't so. You actually have to escape from the thieves hideout using the yellow key on the "exit tunnel" door.

Some things I noticed:
-The dead hammerites in the room with the broken pews and rails would turn into Haunts after a certain time.
-Sometimes zombies would freeze in place and not make any sounds at all. They can still become alerted, and this could become a problem if they are blocking a path or entrance. If you come back to the frozen zombies, they will usually patrol again. This was not an alert. It just appeared to be a little bug or dark engine glitch.
-At certain times, I believe zombies would start spawning and more undead would gradually pour into the catacombs. I noticed more patrols as I visited an area that I have previously been through. On my way out after completing all of my objectives, there was a batch of thieves with lanterns patrolling through the catacomb halls killing everything in sight... except me. The thieves are indifferent to me and supposedly they are my "allies" as evident from reading scrolls in the Thieve's hideout. The thieves would search around after every successful zombie kill, but this is acceptable since they are indifferent to me and were not alerted by my presence.
-The allied thieves could still be alerted if you made certain sounds. I once accidentally picked up a crate and dropped it near a thief and he went on 2nd alert. Opening doors, dousing torches, or dropping something loud could put them on a 2nd alert. When the thieves are on 2nd alert they end up searching around for nothing since they won't attack you or notice you. But this is still an alert and thus a bust, so it is important to be careful when running around the thief hideout.

The pockets I missed were some pickable arrows from archers. The archers were standing in an outpost area and this was the only place that contained alot of light from torches. I did have 2 invis potions, so I guess I could have used them to sneak up and grab the arrows out of their quivers. Dousing torches in the mission would sometimes put AI on 2nd alert. It put the patrolling guards at the outposts on 2nd alert every time.

My stats also reported "Bodies discovered by enemies: 2". There were thieves, hammerites and perhaps even mechanists eventually getting into fights with the undead. I have no doubt that a hammerite noticed a fallen comrade or a thief noticed a dead thief and this is why the stats show 2 bodies discovered.

Nothing else really significant to report. I do, however, recommend this FM to everyone. The combination of thieves, hammerites, mechanists, and human guards all wrapped up in their struggle against the undead was quite creative. The mission never got boring, and that is a virtue for an FM definately.

Last edited by Deadfall; 10-21-2002 at 01:06 AM.


  1. 10-23-2002, 04:56 PM by Vanguard #25

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Default Rogue's Honor

FM: Rogue's Honor
File: roghon.zip

Play mode: Ghost (success)
Time: 1 hr 34 min
Loot: 1000 of 1125 (none required)
Pockets picked: 10 of 11 (all)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 0
Secrets: 0 (of 0)

Comments:
- This is a really tough FM to ghost. The AIs get pretty thick in the house, a servant (Brian) keeps relighting most doused torches, and you can get trapped in the house due to one-way routes (except I found a way out that wasn't obvious).
- In the warehouse basement is a button for a buzzer that has a guard come out. This is your only opportunity to get into the mines. You can hide right next to the door in the dark and scoot in behind the guard that comes out as he walks away.
- You can lockout the guard that answers the buzzer by closing the door before he comes back in. Unfortunately, if you deliberately alert him (when not ghosting) to draw him back into the outer room, he may close the door, then turn to hunt for you, and now you both are locked out of the next section of the FM. The guard has no way to open the door from this side and neither do you.
- Anytime the door to the treasure room in the warehouse basement is opened, 3 guards are scripted to wander over and enter that room and look around. One will eventually leave but 2 remain in that room. It is possible to sneak out of the room if you get caught in there cowering in a dark corner. It is easier to douse a hallway torch, open the door, run in and frob the treasure chests through the bars, and run back out and hide in the shadows in the hallway before the guards wander in.
- The elevator from the warehouse to the mines will only work once. You can push the button to bring up the elevator platform but the doors only open on the first time you use this elevator. This makes this route a one-way route.
- Once in the mines, getting atop the metalwork to fetch the gold stone up there is tricky because you're climbing and mantling metal objects, but it can be done. I could not get the water arrows in the water basins because of the splash noise alerting the guards.
- Getting down the tracks through the lower portion of the mines requires a bit of timing and scooting into side tunnels to let them go by. In one side tunnel is a trap where boulders come crashing on your head. However, you can approach the ceiling trap and pick out the boulders sitting atop the boards. Then when you walk under the boards, the boards fall without any boulders and you don't get hurt.
- In the upper mines are guards with lanterns. I timed it so the guard that came all the way down to the side tunnel was walking back towards the central area and would then turn to go down a side tunnel where a worker carried a pick axe. The other lanterned guard had to have recently turned at this spot and was heading back to the central area for this to work. I would then hide in the dark passage leading to the spider room so that the lanterns would not light me up. I was a bit surprised at how fast I could walk on the crunchy ground without being heard.
- I could not get the gold nugget in the pool next to the elevator due to the splash noise and being too well lit in that area.
- At the top of the mines and at the top of the elevator is a wall panel. You have to frob a torch that never lights up to indicate it is frobbable to open the wall panel. Once this wall panel closes and you are on the other side (for the basement of the house), you cannot go back through this wall panel. It is a one-way route. Because the warehouse elevator to the mines doesn't work anymore (its doors won't open) and because this wall panel won't open (there is nothing to frob on the house side), you can never get back into the mine section of this FM.
- Once you get inside the house and reach the top of the basement stairs, you are dragged through a series of scenes. This catches you off guard but no AIs are alerted to your presence during this show.
- I had to nudge a male servant in a small room where there is a chess set atop a table. I could get into the room from the back hallway with only a 1st alert but couldn't get out the next door (towards the kitchen) without getting spotted. I spent a long time nudging this guy into the corner. On a later reload, he was facing towards the door rather than against the wall. I could nudge him enough into the corner to squat and scoot out the door with just a 1st alert. On later reloads, I simply bought lots of water arrows at the shop and doused the torch in this room and ran out and around to the kitchen before Brian ran over to relight the torch.
- I could not get from the kitchen to the dining room. There is a wall panel but it opens only a crack. You can toss an object at the panel which makes the panel disappear but that seems equivalent to property damage and would bust the ghost. The noise from whatever collides with the panel also alerts the kitchen gal so that would be a bust, too. I later got into the library, mossed the tiled floor for the hallway, doused the hallway torches, and ran across before Brian showed up to relight the torches. There was just a single gold plate on the big dining table. I doused the torches again to run back to the library.
- To get to the library, I would douse a torch at the backend of the hallway that runs along the room where Brian sleeps and where there are 3 standing guards. I'd be past his backside door and would douse the frontend torch when he was running to the back one. During this time, I was crouched and hidden in the dark on the farthest wall from the patrolling guard. The guard from the front hallway had entered and I followed behind him as he turned to go back to the front hallway. I closed the door behind me so Brian wouldn't spot me when he came running to the frontend to relight that torch. There is a dark spot in the front hallway behind a wall pillar where you can get completely dark and where the guard will pass you without incident. I then mossed the tiled floor and dashed into the library. This was after I had already gotten the sceptre from the 2nd floor secured rooms area (so I could get the ankh, an objective).
- I used the dumbwaiter to get from the 1st floor kitchen to the 2nd floor. There is a wall posting about this being a security breach but it's on the 2nd floor (where you can read it after breaching their security). As soon as I got to the 2nd floor, I ran full speed towards the door while the servant there was turned away; she will turn to serve the dumbwaiter call shortly after it arrives. She then wander over to the table room (between the dumbwaiter room and the upstairs hallways). You can douse the torch in there without Brian coming to relight it which allows you to be on the correct side of the door to open it and watch the hallway guards to time when to waddle on their heels to circle around and scoot into the office. I had 2 of the keys needed to enable the security gate but had to tail the guards to get to the master bedroom to get the masters key; it takes 3 keys to enable the switch. The 3 keys and switch can be frobbed through the banner but you'll probably have to do a quicksave, slash the banner to see where are the latches and switch, and then reload to know where on the banner to frob the keys. A tiny bit of the red end of the switch shows through the banner so you can figure out where to frob for it through the banner.
- Once you get past the security gate, run quickly to either end of that hallway. Running to the right as you enter is best since that's the room with some loot and a surprise; the other room has nothing. When you reach the door, start lockpicking right away and get inside the door where it is a little darker because soon after you open the gate and enter this hallway, 2 guards get spawned. The first one remarks that something is wrong, comes in, scans down both directions of the hallway, and goes to patrol in the next room. The 2nd spawned guard comes in and patrols that hallway.
- Moss arrows would be handy here to follow the patrolling guard in the hallway but I didn't have any. I would wait in complete darkness midway in the doorway and start trailing on the heels of this guard as he walked away. You have to crouch, hit the Run key with the speed toggle and angle into the wall to give you the maximum waddle speed to trail behind this guy without getting too far behind to prevent him getting to the end of his patrol and turning around to see you. However, you also have to get lucky that when you get to the intersection that the other hallway guards don't happen to be passing the security gate and spot you through the gate. Then you still have to quickly get up to the next door and get midway in the doorway to get in complete darkness before the patrolling guard in the hallway hits the intersection and without the patrolling guard inside the inner room from also spotting you. Moss arrows would definitely had made this easier and with fewer reloads.
- I doused all the torches in the inner room where there are 3 doors. In the door to the left is the gravity well room. Close the door behind you, pick open the panel, slash the wiring with your sword (the power must be off or you get electrocuted), and flip the switch. Explosions occur but the guard outside won't hear them. Flip the switch off. Although you could lean into the gravity well and be hovering right over the gold egg, you cannot frob it until the explosions occur and the gold egg appears on the floor outside the gravity well. Getting across the room is hairy because gravity is screwed up now. Squat and waddle across the room but only by tapping the walk forward key. Occasionally you will float up and land a ways away when you hit a negative gravity pocket which occur randomly. You don't want to be walking to fast or you'll get slammed into the ceiling and get stuck there permanently with no control to move.
- If you get to this 2nd floor secured area and to the room with the eye AND the force field is still enabled, you're screwed by a bug in this FM. Once you get here and if the force field is still on, you won't be able to turn it off. You must FIRST douse the fire underneath the pedestal with the eye on the 1st floor before making it to the 2nd floor secured area. However, there are no writings anywhere in this FM telling you how to disable the force field before you get to it. When you are next to the force field, you can hear a fire crackling noise but then it is too late since the bug will occur. When you look upward from the furnace room over the fire, you only see the bottom of the pedestal and will never recognize that the eye is atop it. So you need to douse the fire before you get to the 2nd floor and before you get any clues regarding the force field.
- There is one clue but I only recognized it on something like the 4th replay of this FM. When the series of scenes play when you exit the basement to get into the house, the drunk guard says at the end something like, "The trick is to not stand on the ...". After several replays, you might catch the last word which sounds like "hee". It turns out he was saying "heat". So you have to turn off the heat by dousing the fire BEFORE you ever get there.
- At one point, I was stuck inside the house. I didn't have enough water arrows, moss arrows, the force field was still one (and no more water arrows to douse the fire underneath), and I had the safe key but needed to get back to the shop to get the stethoscope for cracking the safe (the key is a trap). I also wanted to get a deer leg from the shop since I wasn't sure if the deer legs in the kitchen would work (they do) for swapping with the orb. There are 2 outside guards at the front door and a guard in the foyer just inside the front door. I suppose I could nudge the foyer guard and one of the outside guards but I would be nudging 2 guards and for a very long ways. I didn't have anymore water arrows to douse the outside torches so the remaining guard would've probably spotted me trying to nudge the other two guards, and Brian might come a'running to relight the torches, anyway. You can smash out the middle attic window with 3 whacks of the sword, the outside guards don't hear the noise, but that would be property damage and a ghost bust. I can't get back through the basement wall panel (it doesn't open from the basement side) to go back through the mines to take the elevator (which also doesn't work anymore since its doors don't open) to get through the warehouse and back outside. I was stuck in the house. There are cellar doors in a basement gardening room but bashing them open would be property damage and a ghost bust, and they can't be bashed open, anyway. However, there is a "big heavy hammer" in the basement at the foot of the ladder going to the cellar doors. This hammer goes into your inventory, like a key, not like a hammer that remains temporarily in your grasp until you throw or drop it. So I "used" the hammer on the cellar doors and they opened. There was no bashing noise; the cellar doors just opened normally as if a key had been used. Not all "keys" have to look like keys so this looks not to be a ghost bust. This got me back outside where I could go to the shop and back to the warehouse (to open the safe safely).
- The instructions on the table on how to open the safe are overly complicated. You need to use the stethoscope on the safe dial to hear when they click into place. Ignore the left column of levers and focus only on the right column. Click the top and middle levers one at a time. This keeps the big wheel (bottom one) from resetting because you are turning the middle wheel along with the big wheel (but not more than the number of turns where the middle wheel will reset). Once you hear the big wheel click in, now click the bottom level (for the top wheel) and the middle wheel together. You'll hear the middle wheel click in. Then click the bottom lever to turn the top wheel until it clicks in. As I recall: (1) Click top lever (for bottom wheel), click middle lever (for middle wheel), and repeat twice more together so the bottom wheel has moved 3 positions and clicks in; (2) Click the middle lever, click the bottom lever (for top wheel), and repeat 4 times together so the middle wheel has moved 5 positions; (3) Then click the bottom lever until the top wheel clicks in (I think it was 3 times). You don't need to do any right-left-right-left turns of multiple wheels. The safe key opens the safe immediately - and then you die from the trap.
- There is another bug back at the shop. When I bought a rope arrow, the purchased items do not go into your inventory but instead get dropped on the table block in the middle of the shop. The first rope arrow purchased dropped INTO the table block and disappeared. I had to buy another one so it would stop ATOP the table where I could frob it into inventory.
- I wanted the rope arrow to get into the church. Get atop the roofs; easiest is to head to street by the shop and mantle up onto the sloped roof. Get atop the starfield rooftop (where the rest of the roof is red). Jump over to the church wall and rope up to the bell tower. There is no loot inside but there are 10 water arrows (worth 500 in loot if you purchased them back at the shop), so the 250 you spent on the rope arrow (which you can't take with you) is recompensed by the 10 water arrows. You can't take the rope arrow with you because there are no slowfall potions and no way to get off the bell tower without taking damage or dying from the fall. The only exit is the way you came in, via the bell tower by rope. I had missed finding the basement before because it is at the back end of the confessional rooms and not easily seen, but there's nothing down there. I did find a "secret" in the fireplace in the reading room. There is a pushbutton that rotates the back wall of the fireplace. Nifty but there's nothing behind there, either.
- The "get out of manor" objective is a hard one to get checked off. You can get out of the manor but then you have to find out where the author really wants you to get to. I wandered all over town trying to find where this objective would get checked off and the mission would end. The spot is at the vee in the road at the outside backside of the manor where there is a fire. However, just getting there doesn't work. I had to walk up and down the streets to trigger that objective. I had exited the manor by the cellar doors, the only nondestructive exit, which takes me to the outside garden and up the side street along the manor. It appears you are supposed to walk down the street alongside the shop and then head back to the manor. It's not enough to get to the spot. You have to walk past it and come back to it.

There were many times that I thought I was stuck and that the rest of the mission couldn't be ghosted. Thanks to help from other taffers and also from having to restart a fresh replay of the FM (to avoid the force field bug) then I was able to complete all objectives without busting my ghost. This was a really hard FM to ghost.