Blood Mist

A well-lit cobblestone hallway, with rooms to the left and right.

I chose the right first, and found a small room detailed with mystical symbols and writing, as well as a small table.

Beyond some basic supplies, the room contained little of interest. My tinderbox collection was hearty and my lantern full. I was prepared for whatever lay ahead of me and motivated to see it through.

The room on the left was a different matter. It contained a similar layout, but one key difference - there was a corpse on the table. Wrapped in cloth with strange designs carved into its flesh, it was obvious this victim was recent. Suddenly, I became aware of how recent.

The world shifted around me as some of Daniel's memories came flooding back. The man on the table was alive and the carving were now bright green. By his side lay a red, jagged dagger. Try as I could, I could not force Daniel to leave the room. These were his memories - what happened happened. With no other choice I picked up the blade and plunged it into the nameless victim; I became a murderer as Daniel remembered that he was one.

Daniel screamed out to the Guardian of the Orb, The Shadow. He had done all this, killed this man, for it. To appease it. The blood of another kept The Shadow at bay for a time, but even as he had taken this life Daniel knew the blood offerings were failing. Each time he killed it lasted less and less time so he was forced to murder more and more. The prison only held so many criminals.

Worst of all, as I was about to learn, was that the warding ritual didn't just consist of death. Simply extinguishing a human life didn't produce enough of the vitae needed to keep the Orb's Guardian at bay. Something else was required, something that pushed Daniel far beyond the realm of a killer.

Disturbed by what I'd witnessed I left the room as soon as possible, only to find I wasn't alone.

The empty hallway was replaced by two hanging corpses - probably Daniel's latest victims. They weren't alive, they just hung there. Their scars bore the remnants of the vitae extracted from them. I proceeded with haste to the next staircase that would lead me down to The Choir proper and turned around just long enough to notice the hanging men had disappeared.

Once in The Choir I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating - or in Hell.

The picture doesn't do any justice - It's pixilated from having the brightness turned up. The Choir was a huge room, ceiling at least 20 meters high. It was held in place by thin pillars spread across the entire area, with several waterways spread across connected by decrepit bridges. But it was the fog that got me, the fog that made this place nightmare-ish. It was sickeningly red, a blanket of crimson spread across the expanse like the darkness within The Prison, or Storage. It was thick enough that seeing more than two meters ahead was difficult, but you could still make out shapes in the distance. Quiet cries reverberated off the walls all around me - everywhere was shrouded in fog and noise. Yet as I began to explore one noise stood out -

A Brute. He wasn't close - perhaps across the next waterway. In these conditions it was unlikely he could see me until I was very close. Regardless, I had to be careful. I always had to be careful.

It wasn't long until I came across a room free of the mist. In there I learned the truth behind the warding ritual and vitae. Vitae is a mystic energy produced by all living things, something not understood by most. Of course, Alexander is not like most. Normally you only get a small amount of vitae from killing some even as large as a human, but the Baron found a way to increase this amount and he shared it with his new companion in order to buy them more time. In order to extract more vitae the subject needed to be scared, hurt and wounded.

The subject needed to be tortured.

In front of me was an Iron Maiden, one of many devices Baron Alexander had created in order to extract vitae. The inside of the device was still stained with fresh blood, possibly from the man I'd been forced to relive murdering earlier. The process seemed clear now -

• Criminals were incarcerated in The Prison.
• Alexander eventually called for them and The Gatherers brought them to the entrance of The Choir to be held.
• Once he was ready, Alexander would send for The Gatherers to bring him one of the prisoners.
• He would then torture him - but not kill him - to increase the vitae gained.
• The noises of the victim's suffering would be carried through steel pipes to the chambers where the other prisoners waited.
• The man/woman would be wrapped in sheets to disguise the horrible scars and wounds the torture had caused.
• Alexander would ritualistically murder them to appease The Shadow.

Of course eventually Daniel was introduced to this. Though he initially put up rejections, Alexander convinced him they were criminals who deserved death. Soon enough, Daniel was obsessed enough with saving his own life that he was willing to do whatever it took.

In the corner of the room I found what I was searching for - a piece of one of the Orbs. As stated, one of the orbs had broken during a former ritual. It seems the pieces had gathered in the torture rooms, naturally attracted to the scent of vitae. I now knew I had to visit each one and relieve the memories of the monster Daniel had once been.

The next one was a short distance away. Again I heard my metallic friend, further away this time. He was patrolling but without rhyme or reason. If things went well we wouldn't have to exchange pleasantries.

The next room was the same - a torture device and a piece of an Orb. This time, it was the rack.

Undaunted by his past I moved onwards. My immediate route to the final room of The Choir was blocked, so I had to find another way around. As I turned I heard the familiar rusty creaking of the metallic monstrosity that almost had me in the sewers. I hid behind a pillar and watched as it came within touching distance. If it turned its head only slightly, my journey would have ended there. Instead it quickly turned around and made towards the torture chamber I'd just been in. With haste I left the area before he became any the wiser.

Around the blockage I found the entrance to the next chamber and something interesting too - some poison fungi and one of their roots. Using some basic tools I cracked it open and received a sample. This was another part of the potion Agrippa had requested. Though it was optional I decided to help the poor soul. If anyone deserved vengeance against The Baron, it was him. Besides, I was running low on allies these days.

Inside I found yet another device and another piece of the orb.

A brass bull - the subject is placed inside the bull and a fire is started underneath. The man or woman is then cooked alive from within. The difference here was that Alexander and Daniel wouldn't let him/her die. Instead they'd put out the fire and pull the man out of the the bull, his seared flesh ripping apart from the brass in chunks, and drag his horribly charred body to the ritual chamber.

As I finished my work in The Choir it became clear to me why Daniel had chosen to drink the amnesia potion. He'd been transformed by his desire to survive, seduced by Alexander's promises and turned into a monster himself. Yet even at this point, so late in the hour, I had yet to fully comprehend the magnitude of the horror Daniel had visited upon his own soul.

Of Barons and Potions

I know why Daniel chose to drink the amnesia potion.

I've seen true evil, as Alexander himself wrote in his journal to his wife. Though perhaps Alexander did not understand that he himself was a perpetrator of far greater evils. It was he who served as the catalyst for Daniel's downfall. The Shadow sought the Orb, and the Baron used Daniel's fear of death to mold him into something dark, something sinister. A sociopath and a murder; perhaps Alexander didn't just corrupt Daniel's soul. Perhaps he turned Daniel into something like himself, something other than human.

How I came to know this and understand began as I entered the inhuman domain of The Choir. The term "Choir" refers to a part of a church, near the nave. Indeed, the area I'd just come from was referred to as the "Nave". But this was no church I found; instead I came across something less holy and more akin to the depths of Hell itself.

Upon first entering I found a note detailing a certain potion to try and help Agrippa channel his student, Weyer. Alexander has hoped to create this in order to communicate with Weyer in hopes of learning how to use the Orbs in order to travel back to his own world and to his wife.

Whatever The Baron was, he wasn't human, or from Earth. His life spanned centuries, and he took on the role of a succession of Barons over hundreds of years. He has ties to great leaders across Europe and Asia, and had his fingers in various organizations, both political and occult based. All this seemed to serve one purpose - gathering the orbs. He hoped to use them to escape from our world, his prison. Everything he did was to obtain them and learn how to use them. What they truly are I still cannot say.

Regardless, this note laid out the ingredients for the potion he spoke of. Poison fungi, vitae, and something called "tampter". He wrote that writing the word seemed wrong somehow as it didn't belong in our world. Apparently it came from the water dwelling "Kaernk" which didn't exist on Earth. It was something so alien is could not be described or even understood by human eyes.

My time in the castle had introduced me to such a creature though, one which chased me through the water and which I could not see. I found a well and attached a hunk of meat to it, lowering it into the darkness in hopes of getting something in return.

My hopes were realized. Lowering the meat into the well produced a disturbing roar and shaking of the general area. Pulling the rope up I discovered I'd exchanged my leg of meat for "Tampter" remains. Don't ask me how the biology works.

Moving on I went through the direct entrance to the Choir. It was the room where they kept future victims after transfer from the prison. Ghosts seemed to haunt the very cobblestone of each cell - though perhaps it was Daniel's old memories bubbling to the surface and causing guilt. An interesting note about the cells - they all contained a small pipe extruding from the wall. For what purpose at the time was anyone's guess. The real answer though, only further enraged me to both The Baron, and Daniel.

Agrippa

I exited the well to find myself in a small room, surrounded by four doors. One of them held only rubble, and another was locked. The third contained a small chamber with some more lantern oil (yippie!) and some strange levers. Or interest in the room was a note with small details of the "Warding Ritual". This is, the method by which Alexander helped Daniel keep The Shadow at bay up until now. The ritual was held in the dungeon and itself involved one thing -

Spilling the blood of another.

The Shadow would be kept at bay as long as Daniel continued offering up regular sacrifices. Alexander brought men and women from the prison for Daniel to slay, claiming all of them were worthless criminals. Despite his initial reservations, Daniel's fear of death overcame his moral compass.

With this new information in mind I went through the fourth door; this led me to a large spiral staircase, taking me further and further into the horrible depths of the castle. With every step I inched closer to find the Inner Sanctum and Alexander; I knew I was close. At the bottom of the stairs I found a boarded up laboratory - none of my items could force it open, so I left it.

At the other end of the hall I found myself above a strange shape, something that looked human.

This looks promising.

I descended the stairs on my left and found myself looking at some form of tortured man, though its face looked more akin to The Gatherers than this. It slowly looked up at me with its horrible visage and spoke from a machine on the left. Its voice didn't match its body, being lighthearted with a British accent.

The man's name was Agrippa (remember the note from the morgue?). Though not mentioned I believe this is Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (an ancient alchemist, magician, and occultism of some renown). He introduced himself and stated he was a former friend and partner of Alexander. He'd helped the Baron long ago discover the nature of the orbs and how to use them. However, Alexander has betrayed Agrippa and used the orb to bind his soul to a dead husk, forcing him to stay alive in order to continue using him for information. Agrippa theorized that he'd been like this for hundreds of years, meaning of course Alexander himself was at least as old.

Agrippa informed Daniel that Alexander was using his orbs to open up a gate "beyond the stars". He stated that he had a student once, Johann Weyer, who had done the same thing. Agrippa stated that in order to advance to the Inner Sanctum, Daniel would need an orb to power down its defenses. Apparently, an orb had been shattered into various pieces and left around The Choir and The Transcept. He also pleaded with me that I bring him any works created by Weyer - though this was totally optional.

After opening a couple of gates I proceeded out of the area to The Choir. My mission had been set - find the pieces of The Orb, reassemble it, and use it to penetrate the Inner Sanctum. If I could also find a way, I'd help Agrippa - though how I could help a dead man was beyond me at this point.
 

Water Horror 2: Rust and Fungus

Who knew the sewers of Castle Brandenburg would be among the best lit areas in the game?

Multiple manholes and cracks in the canopy of the corridors provided ample lighting; reflected from the dirty water, mushrooms, and mold it enveloped the location in an almost pleasant green. It was something familiar, something aside from the cold dead walls and hues I'd become used to. Small waterfalls formed over drainage pipes and large areas meant plenty of corners to hide and plenty of areas to run. I almost felt optimistic.

This feeling lasted for the whole of 5 seconds before a creature passed by my field of vision directly ahead.

It's there, in that photo on the left past the water. Sadly my image capture program somehow managed to turn off the 'Repeat' function during my playtime. As such, many shots I went to great lengths to get (such as front views of monsters) weren't taken properly and I'm left only with what I could salvage from the wreckage of what should have been greatness (seemingly like Daniel himself).

Regardless I moved on (ignorant of the fact that I wasn't getting the shots I thought) to the main room of the sewage system. I needed to pass by a large turbine, but it was rotating at far too great an interval for me to do so. I set off in search of a way to shut it down while remaining aware that I wasn't the only one down here.

My journey quickly brought me to a room that seemed to fit that exact bill.

This looks legit.

Entering I found a strange but simple enough contraptions that controlled the gears of the turbine.

Thankfully, all contraptions in the castle were designed to be usable by toddlers.

Of more interest to me though was a barrel of oil in the room. I'd been sorely lacking for a while and in fact had not found a single source of oil since my escape from the prison (if you recall me mentioning a lack of supplies back then). With great excitement, I greedily filled my lantern.

O RLY?

OMNOMNOM

With the turbine slowed and my lantern filled, I prepared to leave the room when I heard the same horrible noise from the morgue, and saw the water splash from something approaching. With haste I closed the door and hid. Thankfully it only seemed to be passing by, as only seconds later the monstrosity seemed to have vanished. With great caution I left my safe enclosure and examined the sewers - whatever had been there had gone.

Minus being terrifying and nightmare inducing, everything looks OK!

I moved back to the turbine and used a metal pipe to finish slowing it down and allow me to move past it into the next area. This place was, obviously, still partially flooded; but every step I took brought me one step closer to the exit of this place and one step closer to the inner sanctum. There I would kill Alexander for better, or worse.

I was met with a bared steel gate, and so was forced to turn to a small room to the left up a set of stairs. The outside of the door didn't inspire much confidence.

Though dead rats may not seem like much to you, they meant a lot to me. Every detail had to be accounted for, no matter how small. A small pile of rodents might as well have been a giant sign saying "COME IN AND ENJOY YOUR MURDER YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOT.". Of course I was playing Amnesia, so I'm obviously slightly damaged in the head to begin with.

Inside was small and seemingly uninteresting - A tiny room with a broken wooden ceiling, exposing some light. At the end of the room was another, smaller room, partially buried my rubble. I was unimpressed, until I took a good look at the debris on the ground.

Confused by the images? I'll explain: that's a fucking Gatherer. The top photo shows it's torso and face. That huge gap it has? That's its mouth, stretched and contorted to an impossible shape.The bottom picture contains the stomach and legs, resting above The Shadow's growth. Something had ripped this monster apart, something even more terrible then The Gatherer itself. Judging by the flesh-like growth around the body parts, I assume The Shadow managed to grab hold of it and rip it in two. Either than, or my new friends had done it.

Of note when I entered this room was a message that filled my mind - I don't believe it to be a flashback, but rather a  message straight to Daniel's head. The voice of Alexander appeared, imploring me to turn back that instant as I carried The Shadow with me. Indeed, the further I progressed towards the Inner Sanctum the more the castle became infected with the evil. It seems Alexander is aware of my progress and is trying everything to stop it.

Including sending his "servants" do to his dirty work mere moments after he tried negotiation.

As I left the room the bared gate burst open just down the stairs from me. One of the rusted beings - now referred to as Brutes, emerged. I quickly hid in the darkness of the rubble filled room and held my breath as it came in to search. I could hear the sound of it a mere meter away from Daniel's hiding place, glancing over the area for his prey (I.E me). It was the closest I'd come to an encounter since the prison and it unnerved me. I whispered to myself my desire for it to go away and after what seemed like an eternity it did - only to take up watch at the exit of the sewers.

Quickly thinking, I picked up a nearby rock and threw it against a far wall. The distraction worked, as the grotesque Brute left his post. A word on this creature - it's quite unique. It has a body size and shape similar to the Gatherer and in fact may be an evolved (or devolved) form. While The Gatherer possessed a large and unsightly mouth, The Brute's entire face is little more than a wretched hole of flesh, waiting to devour. It has a sickly appearance, with darker skin and rusted metal protruding from its skin. In addition, one of its arms has been replaced with a cleaver, making it a far deadlier foe.

With the aforementioned being distracted I moved quickly down the passage to freedom. Somehow though, it heard me. The sounds of anger and rusted metal bellowed across the walls behind me and a splashing terror approached; I didn't dare look back. A door impeded my way which I swung open and quickly shut, catching on a glimpse of the sheet metal arm that was a second from severing my spinal cord and was now breaking down the obstacle with impressive efficiency. Another door stood in my way and I repeated the action, this time not looking back as I could hear it even closer behind me. A ladder loomed in my distance and I threw myself at it as a last measure of escape and began climbing for dear life. I could practically feel the cold fingers of the demon grasping for me feet as I ascended upwards towards a light. It shrieked in defeat and left me be (though I dared not go down and check). With the sewers behind me I proceeded up to whatever monstrosities and terrible secrets lay ahead.

Things can only go up. Right?

 

Vaccination, the Amnesia way.

The morgue had a completely different feel from the rest of the Cistern. Gone were the hues of blue, the light, and the comfort. Claustrophobic hallways, low ceilings, and darkness thick enough to cut were the subjects of my new environment.

This house of the dead reminded me all too much of the prison.

Investigation revealed several important messages and notes. I learned Alexander was trying to help Daniel throw off The Shadow via some ritual in the Inner Sanctum. It seems Alexander himself had gone through the same terror once, or perhaps still did. Regardless, banishing The Shadow required extraction of "vitae" (the energy Alexander himself had been murdering animals and people to obtain).

The hunt for vitae had its toll, and not just on the mind and soul of Daniel. Rather, those that suffered because of it. Though I couldn't confirm how they died, I found my first insight into what may have happened to those taken from the prison.

Something had killed these people - bodies don't just drop and then scatter everywhere.

Progressing through the morgue I came across a corpse on a table, seemingly being prepped for examination... or for harvest.

No doubt this cadaver held some secret - Amnesia wasn't exactly abudent with corpses. Or so I thought until I entered the next room, where the bodies were to be kept and the incinerator was.

This scene shocked me more than any the game had provided for a while.

A pile of corpses lay in the middle of the room, stacked neatly. These men weren't long dead when they were put like this - the blood pool under suggests either they'd been brought here right after death or killed on the spot. A single lone man seems to have escaped the fate of the others if only for a moment - his cold body lay on the stairs leading to the incinerator. Either he died of his wounds as he slowly crawled away, or something finished him beforehand.

Notes I gathered told me all the staff of the Castle had been vaccinated against the fungi so they could transfer prisoners through. It also mentioned that few servants survived the procedure, and that Alexander would have to make more of them. This comment led me to believe that The Gatherers that now chased me might have looked human once before degrading to their current state. Regardless my mission was clear - I had to obtain the antidote from inside of one of the corpses, and the body on the table was the perfect subject. I went to work looking for tools and managed to find the last one when the eerie silence of the morgue was shattered.

I entered a room and found yet more death and just as I obtained the final piece needed, the door to the morgue entrance exploded in the room behind me. A noise unlike anything I'd yet heard - different from The Shadow and The Gatherers, erupted. Frightened I hid, waiting and hoping for this new threat to pass. It growled like a mix of man and machine and I could hear it move; its movements sounded to me like a machine long past its time being forced to move, rusty metal scrapping and contorting.

After what seemed an eternity it left, clanging down the hallway. I emerged from my hiding spot and, after making sure the coast way clear, got to work drilling a hole in the skull of the poor man who lay before me.

Following this I placed a tube in the hole and collected the blood that came out. With great disgust I downed it, hoping it would serve as some form of protection against the poison below. Though after that last encounter I doubted that mushrooms would top my list of worries in the sewers.

One final note before I descend into water horror yet again - I found an additional note in the morgue, though the way I found it made it seem more like a memory or message. In it, I learned Alexander believed The Shadow had tainted Daniel; he claims to have seen evil in his friends eyes, and believed that he would not be capable of passing through "The Gate". I have no idea what this gate is, but Alexander went on to say that he was sorry he would have to do to Daniel what an individual named "Aggripa" did to himself.

Alexander's Cistern

I've begun to doubt the intentions of my friend Daniel.

The more I learn of him and his past, as well as his deeds within the walls of Castle Brandenburg, the more I begin to suspect that he may be the true villain. I still no little of the orb, but I do know that the desire to rid oneself of The Shadow that attempts to kill those around it has driven Daniel to mad deeds.

But enough on that for now. The evidence to this will come to light as you read.

Following my escape from a Gatherer, I found myself in a large cistern connected to the main sewer system. The sewer system were the only way open to me in order to proceed to the Inner Sanctum, but it was flooded. As usual, nothing could ever be simple.

The first order of business was to lower the bridge to the flood control. After some careful engineering  (I.E random fiddling) I managed to earn my degree in Bridge Lowering.

Multiple choice test answers.

 

This entire section had been devoid of any creatures, hallucinations, of bumps in the night. The cistern itself was, naturally, filthy. But the light from above bounced off the walls and created a soft blue light that filled the area. In a way it was comforting, having an elevated position and light enough that I don't have to fret about terror in the darkness just out of sight's reach. Regardless, the peace couldn't last. Sure that the brief respite I'd been handed was only that, I proceeded to flood control only to find...

Nothing.

Still no Gatherers or nightmarish visions. The dank water contained no bodies, and no whispers moved with the wind. I counted my blessings and got to work on draining the sewer system.

Hinder my movement will you?

Puzzles fell one by one to my new found courage and crystal clear sanity.

I think not.

Poor ventilation in your scary castle?

Rue can help clear those problems right up.

Despite all this I was under no illusion that it would last. Sure enough, once I began opening the valves to drain the water The Shadow managed to locate me.

The fleshy substance began to consume the walls and exit to my current area. In addition, my old friend from the water long ago had returned. An invisible force moving through the water, attempting to drag me under to join it forever. Thankfully it was simple to avoid - the splashes it made as it moved allowed me to easily predict its movements and exit back into the safety of the Cistern.

Despite my recent victory over the looking Shadow, one task remained before I could enter the sewers. The sewers themselves stank beyond normal, and were in fact infected with a mysterious poison fungi that predated The Shadow. With no other options I entered the one area I believed might hold the answer to how I might get by - The Morgue.

Prison

Darkness begets darkness, and fear begets horror.

I survived my descent from madness only to find myself in a place far worse, a location that made me wish I'd stay behind and been destroyed by The Shadow that so relentlessly pursues me.

The Prison.

As warden of the surrounding land, Alexander was in charge of maintaining the local jail. Whatever it used to be, this was no longer a jail. It was a maze of pain and suffering, unlit terror awaiting around each bend. The worst of it was the darkness. This wasn't like any place I'd been before, or even like storage. This to me, as a player, actually felt unnatural. There were no lights at all, everything had to be lit by me. The blackness was suffocating, working its way inside my mind and corrupting my every thought. Noises came down the hallways - half whispers and the dying thoughts of men and women past. As I slowly worked my way through, I had a close encounter with one of the Gatherers. I was JUST about to light a torch when it came around the corner and if there had been only a second difference in the timing, I would have been a dead man. Thankfully the lack of light aided my escape as I pondered my next move and came to a horrible realization.

Unlike previous areas where the monsters were drawn by certain events, here they actively patrolled. It was no longer a simple matter of avoiding one then being safe for a time - it was an active game of cat and mouse. a mouse who could barely be called sane by this point.

As I progressed, I began to suspect that this prison wasn't just for criminals. This must have been where Alexander kept his subjects, the ones he killed for his "essence". More disturbingly, it seems Daniel may have had a hand in this. The young girl I believe Daniel murdered in storage seems to have escaped from here. The more I learn, the more I believe Daniel didn't give himself amnesia to wipe the memories on terror stalking him or done to him. I believe he chose to do so in order to forget the horrors he committed himself.

My plight and near misses forced me to move at a faster pace than I was comfortable with, inadvertently leaving behind valuable lantern oil. At one point I even let one of the Gatherers out of a cell by mistake, and again just barely avoided death.

Close enough to touch.

My vision is frosted in that image because I'm losing my sanity. That Gatherer came closer than any had before and still didn't find me. My years of playing Thief served me well, but it changed little. My lantern oil was starting to diminish and my sanity was comparable to a Scientologist.

Several times I was forced to hide from the monsters, but each time I made it out alive.

Rotting pig carcasses = cardboard box of Amnesia

Each time I made it - until I was finally attacked by one of the creatures.

I had made it close to the end and managed to use an acidic compound to force open a door. Unfortunately, the noise alerted a nearby Gatherer. I thought it didn't see me so I hid in the shadows beyond the door. Fate however, was not so kind.

It DID see me, or saw me, and so came at me. These things don't run - not like you or I. When they move, they seem to waddle. The way they look supports this, as they look like something wearing human skin and not used to moving in it. When alerted though, it moved so unnaturally - it still shifted its weight from one side to the other, but at such a speed as to seem physically impossible. It a moment it was one me as I turned. It let out a shrill noise - less of a roar and more of a demonic cry of joy, and let loose its claws on my back. It only got one hit in those, for as it turned out the exit to the prison was directly by me. I took it and fled with what little sanity and health I had left.

I left behind the searing pain as I applied ointment to the wounds, and found myself in a far different area, one very well lit and seemingly devoid of the Gatherers. This place was the sewer system of the entire castle and despite its innocent appearance, the memory remained.

After all, I'd met things in the water of the castle before.