When we left off, we were just leaving Harlan's office/whale-space. On the way out, Nancy briefly tries to snoop around in his locker, but Harlan notices and asks she -please- not snoop in that. "Sorry, bad habit!" she chirps back. Naturally I am already making plans to set off an alarm somewhere and come running back here to shove my face in his personal things. It is the Way of the Detective. The building "Joy" is in is naturally marked on my map, and I want full access to all areas, so I tromp out there to say hi.
Joy is one of those people with IRONIC NAMES. The first thing she does is glance at Nancy and declare she doesn't know who Paula is fooling. The only reason she'd have a "cursed" ride is to get more foot traffic in the park when it re-opens. You see, her father used to be half-owner of the park, but Paula bought him out, and then he died penniless not too long afterward. She suspects Paula only hired her because of guilt, but she knows the truth: Paula will do ANYthing, even ruin people's lives, to make more money. The only person who can GET money out of her is a guy named "Lance", who is suing the park for damages to his neck from an accident.
"Rrrright." Nancy says in very careful "let's not provoke her or my head will be on her wall" tones. "Uh, you had a card for me?"
Access card GET, but if Nancy has any accidents, she's to leave Joy alone and find the engineer or art director instead. The engineer I can understand, but what, I'm supposed to get a painting of Nancy in mortal peril, or...? Oh well. Joy doesn't seem to give a damn. She has work to do. Go away, Nancy.
Naturally I attempt to have Nancy poke around her office. What I didn't expect is that Joy just calls out unilateral permission for Nancy to go file-diving. WELL OKAY. The one and only drawer Nancy is willing to open has this in it:
(I can zoom for a closer view, but it's -really- close and would've taken more screenshots. If it's imp-- WHEN it's important, I'll do that.)
Nancy declares this "STEGANOGRAPHY!" and stuffs it away to look at later. She also expresses interest in finding out which horse was being sold. I try to ask Joy, but she gives exactly 1/10th of a rat's ass, so I move on. On the wall is a framed newspaper headline about a jewel heist. Apparently the thief ran through Captain's Cove, and a few years back some tourist found a cache of jewels and turned them in to the police detective investigating, one Detective Perris. Nancy muses aloud that she should call him, because MAYBE someone stole that horse looking for MORE JEWELS. Eh, it's a worthy train of thought.
There's also a framed photo of some dancers on the wall. Noticing Nancy checking it out, Joy offers "The Haunted House USED to be a ballroom. How's that for irony?" ... Well... I don't know. It doesn't sound very ironic to me. Maybe I don't understand irony? MAYBE this just isn't IRONIC AT ALL.
Right, that's Joy's place exhausted. Let's see.
I've met Harlan and Joy. Let's try dropping in on the other two employees stuck here. I stop in on Elliott first. Nancy knocks, then pushes the door open a little. "Hello?" The door swings wider open and whacks into a desk, knocking over a paint can and spilling bright blue paint all over the floor. "Out." Elliott demands. "Do not come back unless or until Joy Trent calls me. Okay?"
...Well, we're... locked out of visiting him! Uh. Oopsie.
Okay! Let's see Ingrid and see if we electrocute her by accident or something. Happily, we do not. Ingrid seems nice, although she's very enthusiastic about Nancy's "vibes". Is that an engineering term? Oh. No, she thinks because of Nancy's "waves" she has vitamin B3 issues and needs some peanut butter on whole wheat toast. I elect not to throw down or get confrontational with her on the subject and just pick the very polite, businesslike replies.
Unfortunately, Ingrid doesn't believe the park needs a detective. "What's to detect? Someone stole a horse off the carousel. Now, the park is cursed." Again, Nancy avoids this subject and asks about the roller coaster instead. Could she maybe see on some blueprints where it stopped? No, Ingrid doesn't have the blueprints. She can't find them and has too much other work to do, so she can't go looking.
This is a supervisor? Well, I suppose things do get misplaced. Sigh. Other conversational choices tell me she loves working with machines, the card readers in the park can be tempermental, she believes the horse was stolen for its resale value, and that Harlan is an ex-bouncer from Trenton, New Jersey and he always gets upset that he doesn't have a key for the engineering building.
Speaking of the engineering building... LET'S CHECK IT OUT. As I leave, Ingrid calls out that "One open mind sees more than two open eyes!" ... Okay, I'll blindfold myself and use "waves" to echolocate around the room and you use your eyes, and we'll see who walks into MORE WALLS, Ingrid.
Sadly the engineering building is pretty sparse on hotspots. I do find a very expensive-looking car brochure, and a bag Nancy tries to peek into, but Ingrid is too watchful to let me dig through all her stuff. Damn. I'll have to break a card reader, set off an alarm, and THEN hit this place and the security office.
Right now, let's see about the rest of the park. To the carousel!
Before Nancy starts her investigation, she sticks in the Fun Card (4 charges left) and happily mounts the carousel. It's... kind neat, I guess! Spinning in a circle on a horse and all. "Here comes the brass ring!" she shouts, and I glance at a sign on the wall. Free rides for holder of the brass ring. Naturally, I try to grab that sucker! ...and click too early because Nancy hurls herself at the ring, tumbles off the ride entirely and rolls onto the concrete.
Cue phone call to Paula from the emergency room, where Nancy is waiting to have her hand X-rayed. She's officially off the case.
Okay, you know what, that didn't happen. Reloading a save, I do a few things again and then I CATCH the brass ring, so there. And then I keep it in my inventory. Forever, I guess.
This time I just walk onto the carousel and explore it properly. I find the hole where the missing horse was, and confirm that it is in fact missing. It has not turned invisible, or retracted down into the machinery. There's also the "Rolfe Kessler" maker's plaque, and a slide-away section revealing two doors. One into the center of the carousel, one set lower in a fold-out bit. Both are locked with card readers, and my card doesn't open either of them. Dangit.
Back to talk to Ingrid. Hey, am I doing something WRONG here? Ingrid blinks and apologizes. She forgot to mention that she took most of the card readers offline to work on the network. She'll put them all back up as soon as she's done with what she's doing. Oh, and if Nancy sees any pliers, they're hers and she would like them back because someone walked off with them.
Normally I would think that statement accusing, but I haven't had time to walk off with any neat crap yet. Give me a couple hours. Oh well. My adventurer's kleptomania will work for you, Ingrid.
Thank goodness the card thing wasn't just me, though.
This time as Nancy turns to leave, Ingrid chips in with "Always remember: NIACIN." Uh, right. Riboflavin to you too, lady. Live long and phosphate.
Well, with the carousel out of service, how about the roller coaster? That's the other place where we have REAL ULTIMATE MALFUNCTIONS. Unfortunately, the card reader there is out of service as well, and it has a big red "danger" tag on it. When I click that, the panel swings open to reveal a handful of wires. ... Yeah, I'm totally gonna stick my hand in there. How about not? I move on to the Haunted House.
The Haunted House door goes BOOP encouragingly when I swipe the card, so that unlocks, yay! Let's see what's inside... A long wooden corridor. Okay. Nancy's also complaining about "Weird sounds", so I trudge in further. There's also a computer keyboard tossed off in the corner, which Nancy collects because Nancy does things like that. Finally, way in back, I discover... an old radiator? Oh. Well, now obviously I get ambushed and knocked ou-- Huh. Nope. Nancy walks all the way back out without getting whacked in the head. I even walk back in and out a couple times just to be sure. Nothing.
WHAT A LETDOWN.
Let's check out the arcade games! Eee! Okay what've they got... "Squid Toss", which is some kind of ball-throwing game. "Swimmer's Itch", which... ew, I don't know... "Barnacle Blast", which is out of service, and a token redemption machine. ...maaan I could not be less enthused by these arcade games. But you know what? A TRUE GAMER PLAYS WHAT'S GIVEN TO THEM! Let's try these out. For Squid Toss, you set aim and power and try to toss stuff through hoops. It looks like it'll be all about memorization, saving, and reloading since the hoops are in the same place every time you play. BORING. How about Swimmer's Itch? (Ew.)
OH COME ON. This is not an ARCADE GAME. But it is. It's a timed version of the sliding-stuff puzzle you may remember from Castle Malloy and Secret of the Old Clock. Happily I can solve three rounds of this crap in my SLEEP at this point. I win a Seahorse Token. What does that get me from the prize machine... A red thing. Nancy plays with it a bit and... it's like a telescope, except it's a soft padded telescoping stick that you can poke things with.
Great. I got a collapsable ten-foot padded pole. POWER POLE, EXTEND.
Looking over the prize machine, for a shell token I can get a toy shark, for a yellow token of a sort I can't make out I get a boat, and for a seahorse, yellow, and anchor token I can get a harmonica. I bet all of these are critical to solving the case somehow. If you don't have the harmonica, you can't reharmonize Ingrid's vibes in the endgame and she kills you with her pliers, or something.
With every location in the park exhausted, I return to Nancy's hotel room and check-a her e-mails. Not a thing.
Nancy's to-do list is lookin' pretty hardcore though. Oh well. Let's ring out to the Dynamic Duo.
*ring*
Bess: "HI!"
Nancy: "Only me, Bess."
Bess: "Awww."
George: "Wow, you're probably making poor Nancy feel horrible. Maybe I should answer the phone from--"
Bess: *HISS*
George: "Okay. Or maybe not. Uh... how's it going in Funland, Nancy?"
Nancy: "Well... The accountant here blames Paula for her father dying poor..."
George: "Could be sabotaging the park."
Nancy: "The chief engineer is incredibly smart but also really weird..."
Bess: "Better keep an eye on her."
Nancy: "And I found some notes written in shorthand that I don't read."
George: "Well that sounds a lot more interesting than waiting for Bess's latest crush to call. Why don't you let us look up some reference material on secretarial shorthand for you, and we'll call you back once we can give you some help?"
Bess: "...it does NOT sound more... what's this WE business, George Fayne?"
Nancy: "I think that sounds helpful! Thanks, you two."
Bess: "...you two? ...oh, ALL RIGHT."
Nancy: "Oh, one last thing. Do either of you think an amusement park engineer could afford a... what was the car... A Pandora 2 XS?"
Bess: "AHAHAHAHAHA."
George: "What my esteemed cousin is trying to say is, not on that budget."
Nancy: "Curious. Okay, gotta go!"
NEXT TIME: We call the Hardies, the Police, and ... hell with it, everyone else in the phone book too!
This entry was originally posted at http://xyzzysqrl.dreamwidth.org/322766.h