[THIEF ANNIVERSARY CONTEST]

-

WEAK LINKS

 

LOOT LIST

 

 

‘Weak Links’ was my next to last anniversary mission. It had been a nice journey through the contestants’ creations, but I still had a couple of gems left. This was the 5th place entry, made by Ghost in the Shell. I had to steal Lord Victor’s exhibition valuables, 1,250 in loot and figure out what happened to my contact, honest Timmy. An optional objective to break into Victor’s safe was also included. The hardest difficulty was called ‘Noiseless’, due to the built in Ghosting requirement.

 

There were several ways into Victor’s manor. I started by way of the armory. Multiple patrollers covered the near vicinity, but gaining entrance wasn’t too hard. Both armory doors were pickable. I found the secret vault early on by frobbing an unlit torch, but I needed to return to complete that objective later. Unlocking it required a 4-digit code that I was sure could be picked up somewhere.

  Made my way to the basement instead. Here, the kitchen was the biggest deal. Sporadic patches of light and two patrolling servants made it a fair bit troublesome. Flipping the light switch behind the crates would have helped, but Supreme doesn’t allow removal of light sources. Cleaned the barracks and found Timmy dead in the dungeon. That objective ticked off and a new one appeared. I was to avenge Timmy’s death, which ultimately meant killing Victor. Soon after I found some rat poison on the kitchen shelf. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. The kitchen counter had a couple of dark spots where I was safe from both servants (left image below). From there I could calmly steal the various pieces of loot off the shelves.

 

      screenshot3.jpg      screenshot2.jpg

 

The two patrolling guards at the top of the basement tended to get stuck. Either that or they really liked each other. Luckily they always untangled themselves after a while. I snuck upstairs between their patrols.

  The dining hall at the top was rather intimidating at first. On the top floor was a plateau with a camera staring in my direction. From this distance it was tough to tell whether it gave alerts, so I skipped crossing the room from the west side. I knew of a different way around anyway. Instead I cleaned Hannah’s and Victor’s rooms. The Lord’s wine sat on the nightstand ready to be poisoned (right image above). Just beside it was a button uncovering an alcove with a diary, some loot and the armory key. I also found a dungeon key on the dresser. Seeing as I had recently picked open those doors, I figured these keys were needed to relock them. Supreme requires relocking doors even if they’re pickable. The readable also proved Victor’s involvement in Timmy’s murder.

 

I got to the east side of the second floor by ascending the northern balcony. Stole the valuables from the dining hall fairly easily from this side (left image below). The upper guard seemed oblivious to all activity below. I had a hard time even getting a first alert out of him. Sometimes he gave settling remarks, but overall he didn’t pose much of a threat. Perhaps the fence beam blocked his view or something.

  My biggest problem upstairs was retrieving Victor’s artifact collection without alerting the security camera. The upper guard had a key that turned it off, but that isn’t allowed. I felt this was the last bump in the road towards a rare Perfect Supreme, so I wanted to experiment. I quickly realized the stairs to the gallery couldn’t be climbed normally. The camera had a fairly short swing to the south, so coming up around the railing was out of the question. Fortunately, I had 3 rope arrows in my possession, and the ceiling was deliciously wooden. I fastened two ropes as shown below and clutched on to the nearest while timing the camera. As it swung away, I climbed up and leaped forward. I could grab hold of the second rope and drop below the camera off the marbled table without any alerts. From here I could snag all the artifacts. Occasionally the patrolling guard below gave a grumble, but the sentry across the dining hall remained silent. I even repeated all the moves with the security system off just to listen for alerts, but he kept utterly quiet through everything. Returning to the stairs required a well-angled jump over the railing. With a little luck I got a soft landing. I ascended the ropes again to retrieve the arrows, but all in all I was home free.

 

      screenshot3.jpg      screenshot9.jpg

 

I found the vault code in one of the library books. The vault itself contained the rest of my loot. Relocked the armory and the dungeon before returning both keys to Victor’s bedroom. I even returned the rat poison to the kitchen shelf alert free!

 

Statistics:

Time: 39:06

Loot: 3224 out of 3224

Pickpockets: 1 out of 4

Secrets: 3 out of 4

Locks Picked: 4

Damage Dealt: 0 Damage Taken: 0

Consumables: None

Ghost: Success!

Perfect Thief: Success!

Supreme Thief: Success!

Perfect Supreme Thief: Success!

 

 

LOOT LIST