Unless one of you guys objects, I’ll henceforth be eschewing the use of spoilers. At this point in the game even tiny details are technically spoilers; and besides, we’re on page three of a Let’s Play…
Continuing with the Bloody Hawk main quest and its mystical twists and turns, Shrike wishes for me to visit one of the Old Watch’s ominously named Black Room. To be allowed entry in such a secret-shrouded place is a mark of confidence in me; still, the Old Watch are understandably the aldermost of cautious people whenas the subject of their most clandestines operations is concerned.
The first step of today’s adventure—as I’m sure Shrike would call it—leads us brothel girls exit Saint Gorfu. At which point:
Mirroring my assocation with the Stormbreakers and the consectary reaction of the Iron Cartel, getting cozened with the Old Watch makes me suspect we’ll soon be embroiled in some ruction or another with the Constabulary.
Given I am yet to give Kaywin the 5000 credits necessary for the car repairs, we then walk to the Industrial district, in whose vicinity we patiently wait at a certain pickup spot, this while the sun sets:
Ere long a black van brakes to a halt in front of us. Black-clad and balaclava-sporting men throw hoods over our heads. Sighing a sensual note, I jokingly tell them my safe word is ‘genethliacal’; but these are men of a serious stock, and they do not laugh. Instead, if the pulsating and wave-like hum of instruments is any indication, they busy themselves with the scanning and general inspecting of our persons.
At length:
Once there, we see Shrike, in company with some dude:
And for a second they talk, briefly mentionning this man’s involvement in the Zimalayan war, but also hinting at psy-ops ran by the Old Watch.
Oh that’s right, he was indeed at the clinic’s reception booth. Funny that; small world.
This Jack, then turning to me, says Shrike is trying to impress Revel. The game proffers me two questions: “You know Revel?” and “Who are you again?”. Unfortunately a third option is missing: “What manner of obvious yet surreptitious shit are you two cookin’?”
Thus, while coil about me the thickening volutes of mystery whose waftures I am constrained into ignoring, Shrike explains the Old Watch holds, on site, a certain Patsy Hughes, former bookie for the Iron Cartel, blackmailer to the Constabulary, and—more evilly—a child killer. “Jack,” she says, “I want you to see him, so you know how committed we are.”
Trying to impress Revel and his highly idiosyncratic sense of justice (he did crush a roomfull of men to death), by way of torturing a child killer and alerting Jack—who was present there, in the clinic—to said torturing? Ok. I guess I can more or less surmise where this is all going.
These wrongs inflicted onto the people thus being an ever-festering wound, to which talion law proves if not a pantagogue then at least a palliative.
When all of a sudden: intruders! Security lockdown is enacted; though a lockdown when the premises are already breached really isn’t much of a lockdown. Members of the old watch escort Jack to where Patsy is held.
So who do we fight? For the most part, fans of the Super Sentai franchise. Two Power Rangers, namely Purple and Yellow; two fans of Moltor; a writer of Predator x Flurious fanfiction; and a Hattori Hanzo wannabe who lost her friends somewhere in the cosplay convention and now hangs out with another crowd.
Three fights later, we emerge victorious:
Post-haste we dart to the incinerator room, where we find Jack. The assaillants, whose origin will evidently remain a mystery awhile, blasted their way in through the walls, evidently hunting for Jack; and he was forced to defend himself:
The reveal falls: Jack is Revel. And curiously enough, only now does the game present us with Jack in all his S.A.N.D. (Sexy Accessible Neighborhood Dad) splendor:
Sploosh. You just know that somewhere in the world, a forty-year-old mom bought this game for some reason, and is jackin’ it to Jack.
I say he is Revel, but that’s not exactly true; he plays host to Revel. The latter remaining dormant, so to speak, most of the time, somewhere in the inmost recesses of Jack’s mind. But occasionnaly Revel surfaces, more or less with Jack’s accord.
In the end, Jack agrees to work concomitantly with the Old Watch. Shrike asks what will Revel—who has not manifested himself—think of this, to which Jack replies in the vein of ‘my body, my rules’.
All right Shrike, ciao for today. Nah, no need to see me out, I’ll just leave through the wall:
But now for a funny aside. At one point during the first of three previous fights I made Kaywin use, for the very first time in my playthrough, her Skill called Incorruptible.
Here I am, about to use it during the second fight (do note the skill description):
Immediately upon using it, each of my affected characters becomes topped by a strange, cascading succession of +3/+10/+3:
And Kaywin finds herself imbued with repeatedly usable, unlimited movement:
When I finally ended her turn, an enemy took his own turn and the game contemplated suicide; the combat started chugging to a frankly worrisome, slideshow-worthy degree. Evidently, Incorruptible does not at all work in the intended way, and causes some problems.
And every character, upon using a Feature or a Skill, sees again this strange cascade of numbers above her head:
Said numbers even appear over my last character to have acted, when an enemy does something or other:
And contrarily to what the description would have me believe, Incorruptible does not grant ‘immunity to all negative effects’:
Finally comes Zafra’s turn to tour the room with unlimited movement:
And the final blow of that second fight, with a few too many unexplained numbers appearing on screen:
Heading into the third fight, Shrike is the only one to have somehow retained her buffs and debuffs, and the game gets confused enough the framerate drops to 0 for a solid ten seconds:
11/10, would Mechajammer again.
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