Case of the Golden Idol DLC walkthrough with full explanations

Hot on the heels of my in-depth walkthrough for the original game comes the same thing but for the DLC! This will cover each of the 3 cases in Spider of Lanka and Lemurian Vampire.

Spider of Lanka case I - The Overly Enthusiastic Card Game Tournament in the Yellow Lily (June 10, 1741)

Thinking scrolls:

1. Events

2. Who killed whom?

3. Pajack card order

4. Identities

Terms:

Man on far left: Pistol, Stiletto, Scalpel, Treated, Oberon, Geller
Man beside him: Zubiri, Kerra, Pajack
Sleeping man: Stiletto, Sword
Dead man with gold belt: Mace, Harpoon, Bill, Gabriel, Oberon
Dead man with blue coat: Dagger, Stiletto
Dead redhead man: Rapier, Ear, Pistol, Oberon, Knife
Dead man with red coat: Katar, Chakram, Sword
Dead man on far right: Dagger, Navaja, Oberon, Sri, Ruben
House rules on wall: Pay, Lost, Money, Cheated, Bill
Any Pajack board: Archer, Boar, Centaur, Peasant
Tournament card on wall: Carlos, Luna, Oberon, Geller, Sri, Thagson, Pandula, Senevi, Ruben, Hendriks, Gabriel, Hubert, Bill, Price, Zubiri, Kerra

Deduction:

My, what a lot of dead bodies and blood. There's plenty to deduce here!

The easiest starting point is the Pajack values. The only board with actual results on it is the far-right one; the rest have been erased or had ink spilled on them. We see from this that Blue won the first round, Yellow won the second, and Blue won the third. This tells us several things:

1. Boar > Peasant, Centaur > 2x Archer, and Archer > Boar.
2. It can't be the match between Bill Price and Zubiri Kerra because no result was recorded for that yet.
3. This has to have been the match between Carlos Luna and Oberon Geller, because it's the only one on the card that matches the result pattern. Oberon was the Blue player and Carlos was Yellow.
4. Given his position near the seat and his possession of a yellow rosette, the dead man next to the board is probably Carlos.

Point 1 tells us the rank order must be Centaur > Archer > Boar > Peasant.



We can now solve other matches, like the one at the bottom left. Round 1 went to Yellow, because Boar > Peasant. Round 2 was also Yellow because Centaur + Archer > Centaur + Boar, and round 3 was Yellow again because Archer > Peasant. A 3-round streak for Yellow doesn't match any of the recorded results on the card, meaning this must have been the match between Bill Price and Zubiri Kerra.

Now the sleeping man's table. In round 1, Yellow must have won, because we know that Boar > Peasant and Archer > Boar, so Archer must also be > Peasant. By the same token, round 2 went to Yellow, because if Archer > Boar, 2x Archer must be > 2x Boar. Round 3 went to Blue, because if Centaur > 2x Archer, it must also be > Peasant. This tells us that this match was between Ruben Hendriks (Yellow) and Gabriel Hubert (Blue).

Now the match to the right of that, though we already have its participants from process of elimination: 2x Centaur > 2x Boar, so Yellow won. In round 2 Centaur > Archer, so a Blue win. And in round 3 Archer > Boar, so another blue win. This must have been the match between Sri Thagson (Blue) and Pandula Senevi (Yellow).

We have a nice easy start for identities even in addition to having all the names paired up already because of the tournament card: the man on the far left has a business card naming him as Doctor Oberon Geller (who you may remember as the victim of the first case in the original game), so we can lock him in right away. This places him at the game on the far right, cementing our conclusion that the dead man next to that board is Carlos Luna.

The man beside Oberon holds a letter addressed to Zubiri, which mentions not wanting to besmirch the Kerra name, so we can safely say this guy is Zubiri Kerra. This places him in the game at the bottom left. It's a fairly safe bet that the dead redhead next to the seat was his opponent, making him Bill Price. This lines up with the letter to the Quartermaster he holds as well as point 5 of the house rules.

Going by positions and rosette possession, we can safely deduce that the man with the gold belt and dead man with the red coat are Pandula Senevi and Sri Thagson, and the drunk man and dead man with the blue coat are Ruben Hendriks and Gabriel Hubert.



Now for who killed whom in what order. As with most questions of chronological order, it's best to start at the end and work backwards. One thing we do know from Carlos's note is that he brought Sri and Ruben, and they're in league with Bill, the Quartermaster, so none of those people can have killed each other. We know Oberon was the last person to kill someone, because he has one empty pistol and is still alive. And we can see if we look closely that Carlos Luna has a bullet hole in his back, so the final kill must have been Oberon Geller - Pistol - Carlos Luna. Now both Carlos's navaja blade and dagger are clean...but Pandula has a harpoon sticking out of him and Carlos was the only one far away enough to have thrown it, so the prior kill was Carlos Luna - Harpoon - Pandula Senevi. Pandula's mace is bloody, and given it's a melee weapon his victim would have to be close, so before that Pandula Senevi - Mace - Sri Thagson. Sri's weapons are clean, but Gabriel has a chakram sticking out of his head and that presumably killed him, so before that Sri Thagson - Chakram - Gabriel Hubert. That leaves the first kill, the victim of which must have been Bill. If you look at Oberon's letter to Pandula, he suggests bringing Gabriel as a precautionary measure in case Bill loses his temper, so the first kill was Gabriel Hubert - Rapier - Bill Price.



So what on earth actually happened here? Well the entire sequence of events seems to have been started by Bill losing his temper. Looking at the results, Zubiri beat him 3-0, and given he was a newcomer it's probable that Bill thought he was cheating. And we can see what he was going to do: if you look at his inventory, he has a slightly bloody knife, but he didn't kill any of the dead people, so why was that? Well if you look closely at Zubiri, one of his ears is slightly bloody...and since Bill has a necklace made of human ears, it's probable that this is his usual punishment for cheating. And so, we can fill in the events:



Source of date: Letter held by Zubiri

Spider of Lanka case II - The Unfortunate Accident at the Raja's Court (October 10, 1741) part 1 (scrolls, terms)

Thinking scrolls:

1. Events

2. Identities

3. Lemurian delegation

4. City identities

5. Trial results

Terms:

Overlook:
Man on far left: Albert, Abhaya, Jaffna, Gamini, Vijaya
Man with parasol: Mouth, Albert, Cloudsley
Zubiri: Yupik, Kerra, Arri
Man with sword: Killed, Putra

Ritual room:
Dead woman: Loved, Secret, Jayan, Revealed, Succeeded, Yupik
Scroll on wall: Spymaster, Blademaster

Courtyard:
Statue: Statue
Dead woman: Tissa, Failed
Grieving man: Anula

Insect room (get "room" just for entering)
Tank: Spider, Scorpion, Cricket, Centipede, Beetle
Note on table: Putra, Seduced, Sukerra, Ji
Map on wall: Klusapur, Jambupur, Lankapur, Jaffna, Gamini, Vijaya

Throne room:
Raja: Zubiri
Note on table: Sun
Letter on table: Raja, Kerra

Spider of Lanka case II - The Unfortunate Accident at the Raja's Court (October 10, 1741) part 2 (deduction part 1)

Deduction:

As with many other cases, identities will be the easiest place to start since the other scrolls require some level of knowing who people are.

We can place the guy on the far left right away, since he has a letter with his first name on it and the guy with the parasol gives us the last name even if we don't recognise him from case 1 of the original game: he's Albert Cloudsley (and was the one who pushed Oberon Geller to his death in that case). And we know Zubiri Kerra from the first case, so we can do him too.

Albert has a letter from SSC saying they must "strengthen relations with Abhaya the Radiant"; this is presumably the name of the Raja, and this appears to be the man with the crown sitting in the upper room, so we can place his first name.

Now Zubiri has a letter that mentions "venerable Yupik" and says that he's Zubiri's father. The guy with the parasol is telling Zubiri his father committed a murder and that the Raja will demand Zubiri's life. If we go to the throne room, the man on the left is talking about "life for life" and the Raja says "For sharing this secret, I will allow your Zubiri to live" so the left-hand man must be Yupik Kerra.

The dead woman in the courtyard and the grieving man both have diary entries referencing rituals and being evaluated, and the man refers to the woman as his sister, so these two must be the potential heirs the scroll in the ritual chamber referred to. These entries also refer to each other by name: the woman's names the man as Tissa, and his names her as Anula. We can place their first names even though we don't have their last yet.

In the insect room on the table is a letter to Putra from Royal Blademaster Ji with a note in black ink saying "Seems dubious, can I trust him?". Putra is also mentioned in a note being held by the man with a sword where "Your Moonlight and soon your Queen" (which must be from Anula since she would have been Queen if she'd passed the rituals) mentions Putra having his dogs search her things regularly, and there's a note on the Raja's table written in the same black ink and signed by Master Sun. The "Important" section of Albert's travel guide says that the honorific "Master" is followed by the surname, so Putra Sun must be the Spymaster, but we don't yet know which of the remaining people that is. However, the dead woman in the ritual room has instructions from Yupik, meaning she isn't part of the royal household, so she can't be the Spymaster or Blademaster. This leaves the man with the parasol and the man with the sword, making it likely that the man with the parasol is the Spymaster.

If we want to be sure though, let's eliminate the other possibility. This man's dialogue mentions the "Dharma of the Warrior", and a love note held by the dead woman in the ritual room is signed "Your Warrior Jayan". The letter to Putra in the insect room from Royal Blademaster Ji mentions seducing a Lumerian servant girl, so that must be the dead woman and that means the man with the sword is Jayan Ji. From that note we can also place "Sukerra" as the dead woman's last name. For her first name, we can refer to Zubiri's note from Arri, which mentions she's a mere servant and can't be with him. And this ties in with her "The poor boy will be heartbroken" note in her diary entry, so she must be Arri Sukerra.

That just leaves the royal family's last name. Albert's travel guide says the three kingdoms are named after the ruler's family, so we need to figure out where we are. Luckily, he also has a navigation guide which explains that if you draw a line between the two points of the moon, the lower part will be facing south. If we do that with the moon outside, we'll see that there have to be two other cities and some sort of monument to the south of where we are. If you look at the map in the insect room, the only place that fits that is Klusapur in the Gamini kingdom, meaning our royals are Gaminis.



The other scrolls on the right aren't hard to figure out from here. The Lumerian delegation has to include Yupik since the letter on the Raja's table is signed "High Priest of Kerra Clan" and the other two have to be people who aren't either members of the royal family or part of the court, which means it can only be the servant and Yupik's son.


We also know the identities of the Raja, Spymaster, and Blademaster, as well as which city we're in, so we can fill those in from what we've already deduced.


For the testing procedure result, we need to know who had which papers. Our starting point for this is Jayan's note from Anula, which asks him if he found anything that can help her earn her rightful title, and to "leave it in the bush by the pyre". Sure enough, there's a note in that bush with advice to solve the three puzzles. The answer to the second one is to multiply horizontal lines by 6, which makes 18 the correct answer. We can figure out just from this that Tissa failed and used the Aphid ink and Anula succeeded and used the Usharic, but we can do the others to be extra sure. The first puzzle solution is "rotate the line, every fourth same colour, circle, circle, square" This means the next symbol in the sequence is a white circle with a horizontal line. And the third one is just a 3D visualisation puzzle. We can see that the aphid paper has all wrong, and the usharic has them all correct, so we can fill in this scroll too.

Spider of Lanka case II - The Unfortunate Accident at the Raja's Court (October 10, 1741) part 3 (deduction part 2)

That leaves the events. What on earth went on here?

The first thing to note is that Anula's diary entry implying she would gracefully step aside for Tissa in the trials is a load of tosh: she got Jayan to help her cheat to "earn her rightful title", so she clearly thinks she deserves it.

The insect room has an interesting note: a Titania Printing House page with a picture of a lion and several of the words highlighted, with the notes "Picture is the KEY!" and "This was not hard to decode but the method is curious." written in black ink (which we known Spymaster Putra uses)

Using the picture as a key, we can see that the highlighted words are all things associated with lions (yellow, ocelot, untamed, wilderness, impulsive, lion, leap, beast, emperor, hunter, eat, instinct, roar) and the first letters spell out YOU WILL BE HEIR.

Now have we seen Titania Printing House pages anywhere else? Why, yes! Tissa and Anula both have one for Albion language lessons. There are notes on each: Anula's says "The best way to learn this language is by looking at the Seven Seas Company's gift to the Raja" and Tissa's says "I suggest you do your language practice while observing the Seven Seas company gift to Raja." What was the gift? Albert holds the answer: his letter from Central Office says "provided a gift: a statue appropriate to these devil-worshipping societies." Sure enough, in the courtyard is a giant devil statue with the Seven Seas Company logo on it.

Using this as the "key", we can highlight words related to devils or fire in the text: infernal, fire, yelling, ordeal, unenviable, fear, agony, infernal, limbo, lava, ominous, otherworldly, killer, ignited, nightmares, monstrous, yell, misery, odious, unclean, terror, horror.

Taking the first letters of each word gives us IF YOU FAIL LOOK IN MY MOUTH.

This ties in with Albert's note saying to "place the gift in the location as instructed on the wrapping paper" which shows a gift on a spoon being placed into a mouth; Albert must have put something in the statue's mouth for the loser, which in this case was Tissa. This shows that his diary entry was tosh as well, since presumably this was something to help the losing heir.

Solving Anula's death isn't very hard: if you look at the roof of the ritual room, what's supposed to happen is that the heir lies on the slab, a blade comes from the ceiling, the heir's soul ascends but is returned by "God" and they emerge unscathed. The inside of the slab has a lever that lowers the middle section, which is how the heir avoids dying, and their apron has a premade cut in it that's surrounded by red paint for "blood", which you can see if you look at Anula's. It's all artifice in other words, but Anula actually died because Arri wasn't able to pull the lever. Why? Because she was already dead in there during the ritual. But how did Arri die?

First thing to note is her hand: it's covered in what looks like blue ink and a couple of pieces of debris. The other thing to note is the shattered glass bottle next to her, which has a note on it on which "row me in he eye" is visible. It's clear that the full message was "Throw me in the eye" and sure enough the platform has stylised faces on the ends, so this bottle must have been thrown into the eye on it. But what was in it?

Back to Albert's letter, which tells us four locally-produced pigments, and bottles of ink around the place giving us their hues: Usharic (pink) is produced mines filled with toxic gas; Aphid (teal) is from silverback piranha-infested lakes; Laqua (blue) is harvested from nesting crickets; Sector (black) is gathered from sector spiders.

Looking at the insect summaries below the tank, we can see that sector spiders are fed twice a week, and that the bite of a Nesting Cricket stops the heart quickly. Laqua ink is harvested from those...and it's blue. The colour of the "ink" on Arri's hand. And the debris is bits of squashed insect (and possibly a raised bit from a bite). So we can see that Arri was bitten by a nesting cricket, which she squished in her hand before dying. This is presumably what was in the bottle, meaning Tissa put it there.

However, the Raja doesn't know that. He assumes that the High Priest was somehow responsible since he was the only other person in there with them, and subsequently demands Zubiri's life in exchange for Anula's. But Yupik instead shared some sort of secret to have Zubiri spared.

So we can now fill in the events:



Source of date: Letter on Raja's table

Spider of Lanka case III - In the Web of the Spider (November 22, 1741) part 1 (scrolls, terms)

Thinking scrolls:

1. Events

2. Events 2

3. Identities

4. Events 3

5. Identities 2

6. Events 4

Terms:

Boat:
Putra: Elara, Sun, Lanja, Sinha, Ambush, Spider, Kirthi, Bandara, Door, Hatch, Rebirth, Ritual, Siva, Udawatte, Albert, Cloudsley, Narcisus, Montalban, Revealed, Switch, Claude, d'Avreux, Clothing, Oberon, Geller, Concealed, Ruben, Hendriks, Instigated,
Left guard: Saved
Masked man: Mask

Printing house:
Youngster entry: Zubiri, Kerra, Yupik
Artefact entry: Golden, Idol, Location
Lemurians entry: Sabotage, Ritual, Life

Spider of Lanka case III - In the Web of the Spider (November 22, 1741) part 2 (deduction part 1)

Deduction:

The easiest scroll to start with is the first identities, and the easiest identity to start with is the dead guard.

Thanks to Putra's note, we know the guards are Jemadar Elara Sun, Havildar Lanja Sinha, Jemadar Elara Sinha, and Havildar Kirthi Bandara, and that Elara Sun/Lanja Sinha were hiding in a boat while Elara Sinha/Kirthi Bandara were at the front door with Putra. Presumably the dead guard is one of the ones that was stationed at the front door, but which one?

The printing house has a poster showing guards and their ranks: the dead man has a white uniform with grey tunic, meaning he's Palace Guard, and his hat has no plumes in it, marking him as a Havildar. This means in all likelihood he's Kirthi Bandara, but let's follow the other clues where they lead.

At the boat we have one person with a white uniform and grey tunic, with a dual-plume hat, marking him as a Jemadar. The other two have white uniforms with beige tunics, making them Special Guard. The one on the left has a single blue plume in his hat, making him a Jemadar, and the one on the right has no plume, making him a Havildar. If we assume guards from the same unit were stationed together (which is a fair assumption since the two Special Guards are on the side of the boat and Putra and the Palace Guard clearly came down the stairs), that means the Special Guards are Elara Sun and Lanja Sinha, the Palace Guard Jemadar is Elara Sinha, and the dead guard is Kirth Bandara, which matches up with our deduction so far.

But we're not done yet! Our dead guard has a note saying they're practicing an old Lankan code where you count to the word in a phrase matching the number you think the picture represents. His has two axes, five shields and a single flag. If we read word 2, 5 and 1 respectively, we get "guard front door", which tells us this man is indeed one of the ones stationed there. The other one's note has a single shield and five axes, and if we read word 1 and 5 we get "follow me", which implies that Putra had instructed this one to follow him from the front door he was originally stationed at. This, again, makes our survivor Elara Sinha and the dead guard Kirth Bandara, so I feel we can safely lock that in now.

Now who's in the mask? It's obviously not The Spider. The printing house contains a schedule for meetings with various people, which is great, but we don't currently know what time it is. However, it does also contain a poster showing tides with a marked stick, showing that the "12" is 8 in the evening and the "1" is 8 in the morning. If we go to the view from above, there's a hotspot in the water showing a measuring stick with the tide between 6 and 7. If we apply our knowledge that the 12 is 8pm, the current time is 1:30am. This puts us in the "meeting with the Old Butterfly" part of the schedule. Now there are two butterflies in the "Educational pictures for little Putra by Spider", with one looking visibly older. And he has a beard, which looks kinda familiar... if we look at the zoomed out screen, there's a hotspot next to a wooden plank, where we see a discarded scooter beside a large white cloak with green spots on it, and a fake beard with some remnants of adhesive. Where have we seen that cloak before? Yupik was wearing it in the previous case while talking to the Raja.

Putting all this together, we can safely conclude that the Old Butterfly is Yupik (making the young butterfly Zubiri, matching up with the "Youngster" entry in the book), and that was the last person the Spider met. We have a couple of interesting notes to look at: one held by Putra which mentions "my suspicions about the disaster of the rebirth ritual", a plan to meet the Spider at the printing house, and a private matter the sender wants to settle. In the printing house is a note in the same ink saying "I am ready to settle my debt to you. I will arrive on Friday at the time you specified. Please, be alone." So it seems that Yupik was somehow indebted to the Spider. The mask the man in the boat is wearing clearly came from the set of three in the house, meaning it must have been placed on someone who was there, and the last person there besides the Spider was Yupik...so it's a safe bet that he's the one in the mask, especially since the scooter implies that the Spider was disguised as him when leaving, and it wouldn't make sense to do that if Yupik hadn't been expected there.

Spider of Lanka case III - In the Web of the Spider (November 22, 1741) part 3 (deduction part 2)

But how did the Spider know? Well there's an interesting book list from the Master of library in the printing house. The books have a varying number of symbols on the covers, and if we apply the Lankan code to them, we read words 2, 1, 3, 4, 1 and 2. This gives us "guards will attack when Lemurian leaves", so clearly the Master of library was warning the Spider about the ambush. Even more interestingly, though, is that there's another note with the same logo and title: the one to Putra from Siva Udawatte! It seems we have a double agent on our hands.

The last one in identities 1 is the Spider himself. Who is he? We have five candidates. There's something we could look at that'll give it away immediately, but let's follow the other threads to eliminate possibilities.

First, let's look at the Spider's path. We can see the scooters next to the corpse, which is where he started. He went down the hill and across the bridge, bypassing the second bridge because of the guards, discarded the scooter and disguise, climbed the tower, rode down the rope in the basket, landed in the red paint, and walked down the dock to the waiting boat. Now for candidates.

First is Albert Cloudsley. We can pretty much immediately discount him: in case 2, he had a note written in the same green ink sitting on the printing house table (which is also the colour used for the notes on Tissa and Anula's coded messages) and these notes have been in both English and Lemurian, which Albert's note clarifies he didn't bother to learn.

Next is Narcisus Montalban. He's a viable candidate and could have made the journey...up until the tower, because it has a maximum load of 4 vases and a vase is 30 Ser, meaning it can't hold more than 120 Ser, and Narcisus weighs 200. Can't be him.

Claude d'Avreux has two things going against him: he's afraid of heights, so it's unlikely he'd have ridden the basket. And he has two late wives; this means he's almost certainly the "Double Widower" Spider met at 6pm, and if that's the case he can't be the Spider.

Oberon Geller is in the right weight range, could have travelled down that path, and seems dangerous enough from his file to be capable of murder. But we've got one more possibility to check:

Ruben Hendriks. Also dangerous going by his file, and fits the profile...except he has a wooden leg, and if you look at the red paint, the prints leading away from it were clearly two feet. So can't be Ruben.

It's official: the Spider is Oberon Geller.



We can handily fill in the second identities scroll now too, since we know who the butterflies are and we know what "magic thing" they were recently involved in; Yupik's note to Putra even mentions it by name:



So what really went on here? Well first thing to note is that Oberon's note on Zubiri mentions him having "amazing Pajack skills". And he clearly knew Zubiri had gotten into town before meeting him, so wasn't their meeting...fortuitous? Well, if you look at the first picture showing the Spider pouring something into the young butterfly's cup while the young butterfly talks about the rebirth ritual, there's a peasant, boar, archer and centaur in the background...the same as on Pajack cards. Think back to case 1 and recall that Oberon invited everyone who attended the game, so he basically engineered the whole thing. And that means saving Zubiri was all part of the plan. Knowing this, we can fill in the first event:



The second picture shows the Spider puppeteering a beetle as they pour poison into the magician's hat, with the old butterfly and another beetle at the side. Note that one beetle has a green crown and a moustache, while one has long blonde hair and a pink crown, implying that one is a man and the other a woman. Since we know the magic hat is the rebirth ritual, it's clear that this is showing that the Spider engineered Tissa's victory over Anula in the trial. What's interesting, though, is that he gave the coded messages to *both* candidates, so either one could have sabotaged the other if they'd failed. This shows that Oberon didn't actually care which of them won, and was more interested in the resulting chaos than putting a specific heir on the throne. What was the secret? Oberon's notes make it clear that the golden idol is thought to be ancient Lemurian technology, and giving up the "fountain of youth" would certainly be considered "life for life" so we can fill in that scroll too.



Keeping this in mind, we can make an educated guess at why Yupik was indebted to Oberon: he saved Zubiri's life in the Pajack game. Neither of them know that Oberon engineered that, so Yupik wanted to repay the debt before giving up the Spider to Putra. To this end, he shared with Oberon the same secret he shared with the Raja, and this fills another scroll.



Our deductions so far have led us most of the way through the last scroll. We know what Putra was planning, we know who tipped Oberon off, and we know what happened to Yupik and who went where. It's just a matter of filling the blanks:



And so ends DLC 1, The Spider of Lanka! Oberon's not looking quite such an innocent victim now, is he?

Source of date: Spider's schedule

The Lemurian Vampire case I - The Enigmatic Expiration in a Harmonious Island Commune (January 11, 1741)

Thinking scrolls:

1. Events

2. Identities

3. Commune roles

4. Story tile order

Terms:

Time I, Beach:
Zubiri: Ji, Tissa
Jayan: Death, Zubiri, Kerra
Tissa: Jayan, Gamini

Time II, Wall:
Woman picking fruit: Kula
Zubiri: Kruplu, Lifespan
Writing on wall: Incantation, Vaito

Time II, Outside hut:
Man pushing cart: Tissa, Zarno
Woman holding basket: Kula, Momgo, Reduce
Jayan: Vyrlis, Vaito
Woman with sheet: Mata
Child on left: Emerges, Dweller, Protection, Brute, Discovers, Ancestors, Lavu
Child on right: Community, From, Sentinel, Tower, Lemurian, Banishes, Stirna

Time II, Inside hut:
Man on left: Lavu
Woman on left: Sutul
Woman on right: Vyrlis
Man on right: Increase

Time III, Tower:
Figure in hole: Golden, Idol

Deduction:

For the first time, we have a case with multiple time points, showing a progression of events. The easiest starting point after placing the identities we know from the previous DLC is the chronological story tiles. There's a poem referenced by Zubiri in time II that relates to Lemurian history:

The exodus came first,
Then finding of accursed,
Last tragedy dispersed.

The tiles most likely to connect to "the exodus" are the ones showing people in boats. There are four tiles showing water, but what order do they come in? Well "banishes" clearly comes before "ancestors" and "Lemurian", since those show people on the island that's in the distance on banishes, and they're clearly arriving at the island rather than leaving it. It makes no sense for "brute" to come after it, because the island is surrounded by sand and that one shows a castle on grassy terrain. So "brute" is first, then "banishes". There's only one order that makes sense for the others, but we can deduce it regardless because one shows them arriving at the island and one shows them progressing further into it, so our exodus line is "Brute banishes Lemurian ancestors".

Next is "finding of accursed". The most likely thing for this to be referencing is the black monster in some of the tiles, but one tile, "dweller", is clearly directly following on from "ancestors" and some of the ones with the monster in it don't make sense until after the person in "discovers" puts the helmet on. "Protection" clearly shows that the monster came out of the red tower, meaning "emerges" must be next, "from" shows it coming out, and "tower" shows it killing Lemurians after emerging. So our accursed line is "dweller emerges from tower".

For "tragedy dispersed", we can pretty much see the chronological order, since the presence of the helmet has a clearly visible path: first it's nearby, then someone puts it on, then they're protected from the dweller's beam, and it retreats back to the tower. So our final line is "sentinel discovers community protection".



The next thing to solve is commune roles, because we can't figure out some of the identities without knowing who does what.

There are a number of clues dotted around time II. First is a woman picking fruits who says "Kula gave me a lot of tasks today." so Kula must be the first or last name of either the Guardian of Females or Guardian of Agriculture. Zubiri's diary entry says "Kruplu was very excited to tell me everything about the purple peas", so Kruplu is the first or last name of the Guardian of Agriculture.

The man pushing a cart says to Tissa "Zarno will not be happy if you continue to shirk your duties" so Zarno is the first or last name of either the Guardian of Males or Guardian of Agriculture. Jayan says "Yes, I did as Vyrlis asked and brought the repair materials to Vaito's dwelling" so Vrylis is the first or last name of the Guardian of Males. The child on the left says "I have to practice our history tiles or Auntie Lavu won't be happy with me", so Lavu is the first or last name of the Guardian of Children. The child on the right says "Stirna told my mom off yesterday and my mom cried", so Stirna is the first or last name of the Guardian of Females. The woman with the sheet says "Mata taught us that the children can play with these trinkets..." so Mata is the first or last name of the Guardian of Children.

Inside the hut, we can start to piece these together. The five voting stones are marked KS, KZ, VM, SV, and LM. Since there's an LM but no ML, the Guardian of Children must be Lavu Mata. And we can identify who that is because the woman on the left has a list of the commune's children, so that must be Lavu.

There's no K for a last name, so Kula must be a first one, meaning the Guardian of Females must be Kula Stirna. We can place her too, as the woman on the right says "Stop complaining, Vyrlis. I have more people to take care of than you..." and since we know Vrylis is the Guardian of Males, this must be the Guardian of Females (since there are 18 males and 25 females in the commune).

We also know by the same logic that Kruplu is a first name, and must be KZ. The only Z name we have is Zarno, so the Guardian of Agriculture is Kruplu Zarno. We can place him as the man on the right because he talks about experiments with yams, which is what they were voting on.

The man on the left must be the Guardian of Males, as he mentions the newcomers being his responsibility. But is he VM or SV? The woman outside says "Sometimes I think that Kula votes against Momgo just to spite him." Since that must mean Momgo isn't the tie-breaker, Momgo must be one of the names of the Guardian of Males, making him Vyrlis Momgo.

That leaves SV as the tie-breaker, which must be Sutul Vaito.




Now for the events. The dialogue from Tissa, the old man and the woman next to him make it clear he was the tiebreaker, making him Sutul Vaito. The writing on the wall says "Tomorrow your incantation expires, Vaito." and if you check the final time slot, the sentinel says "NAGANA BRIN GAD BOL-BAZUR" and then dies, so this must be the incantation and that means Vaito was the sentinel. Now if we look at the golden idol in the tower, it's set to a familiar set of symbols...it's the "decreased matter lifespan" Edmund Cloudsley used to age an apple. Vaito was an old man. Cast your mind back to the original game and you'll remember someone else who died after this: Gideon Bell. So clearly Vaito died because the idol took too much life from him.

And with this and our knowledge of the history and tradition, we can fill in the scroll:



Source of date: Zubiri's diary (note that this date cannot possibly be correct, as the DLC follows on directly from Spider of Lanka and this date would place it before the Pajack game)

The Lemurian Vampire case II - The Lemurian Vampire Strikes! (February 7, 1741) part 1 (scrolls, terms)

Thinking scrolls:

1. Events

2. Gifts

3. Gift modification

4. Debts

5. The night before

Terms:

Any time, Tower: Golden, Idol

Time I, Hut:
Lavu: Preserve, Practice
Kula: Returned, To
Zubiri: Dweller
Tissa: Tower, Dweller

Time I, Lake:
Jayan: Sahilia

Time II, Sentinel's hut:
Door: Door
Window: Window, Through

Time II, Lake:
Vyrlis: Basket, Gift, Deliver, Sentinel, Juice, Honey, Fish, Eggs

Time II, Lake hut:
Left wall: Cures, Sedated, Sedative
Back wall: Lake

Time II, Square:
Kula: Sahilia, Een
Wall: Flesh, Bones, Left

Time III, Sentinel's hut:
Door: Door
Window: Window, Through
Vyrlis: Punish, Tower, Dweller

Time III, Burial urns:
Guard on left: Afraid, Steal, Ancient, Sentinel
Guard on right: Tower, Dweller, Sentinel

Time III, Lake:
Sahilia's brother: Hid, In

The Lemurian Vampire case II - The Lemurian Vampire Strikes! (February 7, 1741) part 2 (deduction part 1)

Deduction:

We're thrown right in to a chaotic scene of the council in the Sentinel's hut with a skeleton on the bed! So first of all, let's look at what's going on in each time slot.

Early on, the golden idol is set to "reduced matter lifespan" with a red gem. In the council hut, it's established that Tissa is the new Sentinel and he and Zubiri have convinced the council that they can not only banish the Dweller, but completely destroy it, Zubiri being convinced he knows something about its nature that will allow him to provide Tissa with incantations to do so. By the lake, Jayan is talking to Sahilia: he is telling her not to do something, and she says Kula invents lies about her and she's found someone who will help her solve the problem once and for all.

Later, the idol is set to "increased matter lifespan" with a blue gem. The wall in the square reads "Dare not try, sentinel! I will peel your flesh until only bones are left!". Kula is talking to Sahilia about something Sahilia has finally agreed to cooperate with and Kula is assuring her the Een family name will not be tarnished; Sahilia says to tell Momgo to go to her hut for eggs, noting that she will do "this" once tonight and never again. There is a secret room with a keypad lock, with "Always follow your motto!" on the wall, and the message from the wall in the square written on some kind of sketch device with a candle beside it. Tissa is in the Sentinel hut drinking juice; he's surrounded by juice, honey and gems. By the lake, Vyrlis is fishing and talking about gifts, with Kruplu being confused that Tissa has been asking for "the shiny play-stones of children" and demanding fruit juice. A small area with a beehive contains a sack, some honey, some black-and-red pips, and the same candles that were in the secret room.

In the evening, the idol has the same setting as before. Some guards at the burial urns are discussing how the Dweller can't do anything from far away. At the lake, Sahilia's brother has caught a fish with a ring inside it and Sahilia comments on hoping "Tissa learned his lesson and both will leave me alone now." And finally, we have the chaotic scene we started on, with Tissa dead a skeleton on the bed, Zubiri saying he'd bolted the door from the inside while he and Jayan stood watch, with the council convinced the Dweller flew into the room, turned Tissa into bones and then flew away again. Lavu mentions missing the commotion because she was meditating.

The first thing we're going to do is fill in the debts, which we can deduce by the giving and receiving of promise cubes: the people of the commune have wooden blocks made of two uniquely-shaped halves; when one is indebted to another, they give half of their cube to the person they owe.

In the earliest time slot (weeks before the murder), we can see that Kula only has half of her cube, while Tissa has a full cube and a half that fits the half Kula has. Kula also has a note talking about this and saying the deal was that Tissa would vote against Momgo in the next 3 meetings, ending with "I want her!" implying that Kula's end of the bargain was to make some arrangement with a woman Tissa is interested in. We can already connect this logically to Sahilia's dialogues with Kula and her brother, as well as Tissa talking about meeting his "golden-haired beauty" in time slot II. And in time slot III, we can see that Sahilia only has half of her cube, while Lavu Mata has a full cube and a half that fits Sahilia's, which means she's the one who became indebted hours before the murder. Since Sahilia mentioned someone helping her solve her problem, she must have been talking about Lavu.



We can also solve the "night before" scroll fairly easily. In time slot II, the guard talking to Jayan mentions seeing "someone run down the stairs from the platform that leads to the tower" and that they were carrying a sack with something. As we've already seen, there was a sack next to the beehive, and an identical sack is present in time slot III in one of the baskets, but it's empty. What could have been inside it? Well, the platform leading to the tower is where the burial urns for previous sentinels are, and if you look carefully, in the second time slot the 4th sentinel's urn has been opened (the helmet is askew and there's some greenish substance leaking out). It can also be noted that Tissa's skeleton has some very discoloured teeth for his youth...because it's not Tissa at all.



Next we'll do the gifts. Vyrlis helpfully gives us the entire list: Juice, honey, tasty fish, and lots of eggs. Hours before the murder, the juice and honey have already been delivered. We know the juice came first because its basket is behind the honey one, and we know Kruplu was the one who was asked for it. We also know Vyrlis is the one delivering the fish, because he's literally in the process of catching it. And we know from the conversation between Kula and Sahilia that Kula was responsible for the eggs. That leaves Lavu for the honey.

But wait, if you put those in it says it's not quite correct! One interesting thing about this part is that the slots for the thing being delivered are dual-coloured, meaning they can take an object or a name. Why would that be? Well, first thing to note is that although there are juice, honey and fish in the sentinel's hut in the final time slot, there are no eggs to be found. Combining that with the dialogues of Tissa, Sahilia and Kula, we can see what the plan was: Kula was going to smuggle Sahilia into Tissa's room in the egg basket as part of her debt to him, which Sahilia had agreed to do "once tonight and never again". So now we can fill the scroll.



Now that we've sorted the gifts, let's look at what was modified and by whom. If we check time slot III, there's some juice and honey spilled next to Tissa's bed. The juice has small triangular pips in it, and the honey has plus-shaped black pips with red tips. Where have we seen these before? If we look at the fruits in the hut next to the lake, we can see that the black-and-red ones belong to the green fruit with light green spots (spotted gourd), and the red ones belong to the yellow fruit with green leaves (yellow short gourd). The yellow short gourd tastes bad but the seeds are used as a sweet spice for drinks, so Kruplu was on the level. However, the spotted gourd is used for insomnia or sedation. Tissa wasn't insomniac so what's going on there? Well it's clear he was sedated by the honey, because there's a rat in the corner of his room that's deeply asleep. It must have eaten some of the drugged honey.

The Lemurian Vampire case II - The Lemurian Vampire Strikes! (February 7, 1741) part 3 (deduction part 2)

That leaves us with the events. What happened here? Well the first interesting thing is the reveal that the messages from the "Dweller" are being written on a pad inside the secret room. But who's writing them? The keypad has several numbers that are marked from use: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. But do we see these symbols anywhere else to indicate the combination? You bet we do! Lavu Mata has a necklace that looks like a child's shape toy, but the shapes are Lemurian numbers and show the right order: 23164. This means Lavu's the one who's been writing the messages! But there's even more evidence against her: "Always follow your motto" is written on the wall. The mottos are "PROTECT THE WEAK" (Vyrlis), "WE LISTEN, WE PLAN, WE ORGANISE" (Kula), "THE DILIGENT SHALL HAVE FULL BELLIES" (Kruplu) and "ALWAYS PRESERVE THE ANCIENT PRACTICE" (Lavu). Lavu's is the only one that makes sense to need a following reminder in this context, and her dialogue in time slot I cements this: she voted against Tissa destroying the Dweller because it might put people in danger, and she says "My heart says we should preserve the ancient practice!". And finally, Lavu was responsible for the honey. Next to the beehive are the same kind of candles as are sitting next to the writing pad in the secret room. And what else is there? A sack, like the one someone was seen carrying by the guard...so Lavu also stole the sentinel bones. But how did she get the bones there? And where's Tissa?

Well we must first address one glaring hole in what we've deducted so far that doesn't make any sense: Kula wasn't delivering eggs, she was delivering Sahilia. But if Sahilia had actually been delivered to the room, she'd have been discovered there by the council because the door was locked from the inside. Sahilia wouldn't have been able to jump out of the window because as we can see, in all time slots the lake had a red snapper in it, and we know from the wall of the lake hut that they're vicious flesh-eaters that can rip anything apart in minutes.

So clearly Sahilia didn't go. And this is where we can see what her debt to Lavu was: Lavu went in her place, smuggled in the same basket Sahilia had intended to use. She must have told Sahilia that she was just going to have a word with Tissa to set him straight.

So Lavu was in the room with a sleeping Tissa. We can see that Sahilia's brother caught a red snapper with a jeweled ring in it...the same ring Tissa had on him in the previous time slot. So Tissa must have ended up in the lake...and it's clear that Lavu pushed him out of the window while he was sleeping, and he was eaten by fish. But with the door closed from the inside, why wasn't she caught?

Well, she never left. If you look at one of the baskets in the room in time slot III, the sack that had the sentinel bones is inside it, but empty. Lavu must have hidden inside it. And another thing to note is that those baskets are in a small foyer outside the main room...out of sight of it. So after the door was broken down and the council members went in, Lavu simply came out of the basket and "arrived" from her meditation, with nobody being any the wiser! And so with the last piece of the puzzle in place, we can fill the events scroll:



Source of date: Zubiri's diary (note that this date cannot possibly be correct, as the DLC follows on directly from Spider of Lanka and this date would place it before the Pajack game)

The Lemurian Vampire case III - The Less than Amicable Departure of Two Explorers (February 18, 1741)

Thinking scrolls:

1. A long time ago

2. After the arrival of the ship

3. In the tunnel

4. The tower and incantations

Terms:

Already known: Tissa, Gamini, Zubiri, Kerra, Jayan, Ji, Vyrlis, Momgo, Kula, Stirna, Lavu, Mata, Kruplu, Zarno

Time I, tower: Golden, Idol

Time I, prison:
Kula: Prison
Zubiri: Command, Hostage, Myth

Time I, secret room:
Essential verbs list: Take, Give, Destroyed, Tool, Heat, Lifespan, Matter, Mind
Book: Destroyed, Target

Time I, square:
Vyrlis: Tower, Dweller
Kruplu: Foreign, Visitors
Oberon: Albert, Cloudsley, Oberon, Geller
Albert: Albert, Cloudsley, Oberon, Geller
Blonde child: Voice, Speaker
Black-haired child: Villagers

Time II, cave top:
Albert: Albert, Cloudsley, Oberon, Geller
Oberon: Albert, Cloudsley, Oberon, Geller
Bridge: Stone, Bridge
Vyrlis: Found, Kill, Steal
Jayan: Riches, Obtained

Time II, cave bottom:
Pillar: Pillar

Deduction:

The obvious starting point is to fill in the incantations on the scroll, since we have a list of the words in the secret room. NAGANA is "take", TEGANA is "give", BRIN is "matter", GAD is "lifespan", and TREZNO is "tool".

As for the left side, the book tells us the answer. The "universal transfer device" is clearly the golden idol. It mentions that the device is out of reach but can be operated remotely, but the automaton points it only at the person issuing the instructions. And so we can fill the scroll:



Armed with the knowledge of what the Lemurian words mean, we can solve three things: what the sentinel was saying at the tower in case 1, the codes written on Lavu's note, and the automaton's command log.

Sutul Vaito said "NAGANA BRIN GAD BOL-BAZUR!" which we're now able to translate as "Take matter lifespan 36" (since bazur is 12, bol is 3, and the number section says to multiply bazur for larger numbers).

Lavu's note says the code to override the automaton is BI PROM BI PROM BI PROM which we can translate as "1 stop 1 stop 1 stop". Then the commands to destroy it are:

TERRI TREZNO (destroy tool)
TERRI NIP (destroy self)

Now the automaton's command log:

It alternates between NAGANA BRIN GAD BOL-BAZUR (take matter lifespan 36) and TEGANA BRIN GAD BOL-BAZUR (give matter lifespan 36) until the override code BI PROM BI PROM BI PROM, after which is TEGANA TREZO (give tool). The original commands were supposed to destroy the idol and then the automaton, but Lavu got it to give her the idol instead. So why was the automaton destroyed? We can answer this with the time slot I scene where Albert is preparing explosives by pouring gunpowder into clay balls; clearly they threw one at the tower and the automaton exploded, but this was after Lavu had already taken the idol from it.

So what is Lavu's deal anyway? She clearly betrayed both Tissa and Zubiri, and has been pretending to be the Dweller writing threatening messages to sentinels, even reminding them to use their incantation as in the case of Sutul. Ad we know she discovered the golden idol in the first place, since the book in the secret room is clearly one she wrote.

Well now we know what the sentinel was actually doing: unknowingly getting the idol to take their lifespan away. And we see from the log that the corresponding give command has been used afterwards each time, so someone's been taking the life that the sentinels were giving...and we saw this in case 2 as well, when the idol had switched from take to give in between time slots. We can deduce at this point that it's Lavu who's been taking the life, but this introduces an inconsistency. Aging someone 36 years and de-aging 36 years would be clearly visible...but what if it's not years, but *months*?

An age difference of 3 years is a lot harder to discern in adults. It would be easier in kids...but that's why kids are never made sentinels. As we saw from the book in the secret room, the idol didn't respond to commands given by anyone below the age of 15. And that tells us why Lavu was the Guardian of Children in the first place...so that she could guide the development of the kids. We can see an example of this in the "good and bad questions" poster held by the blonde kid in the square. The "bad" side lists "how old are you?" and explains that each villager is born under a different star, which grants a lifespan that can be shorter or longer. This isn't actually the case, but it's how Lavu has been explaining her longevity and the short lifespans of the sentinels, and because she was raising the kids and controlling their history lessons, nobody ever questions it. And with this final piece of the puzzle, we can fill the first scroll:



Okay, so now what happened after the ship arrived. While Oberon demonstrates his "mindreading" skills, Albert is preparing explosives, as we saw before. We know from time slot II that the tower was blown up after Lavu had taken the idol, and presumably the villagers thought this was the end of the Dweller. They were clearly celebrating this, which is why everyone had flower garlands (with the exception of Zubiri and Jayan, because Zubiri was in prison and this must mean Jayan was the one who broke him out. This is supported by Jayan having a rope in the previous time slot, which he got from Albert in exchange for a ruby (evident both from Albert's inventory and Jayan's dialogue). So we know what happened at the tower, what happened before, and what was "released":



Finally, the events in the tunnel. We can see at the bottom of the cave a container that must have had the idol in it, and the remnants of Lavu's garland, showing that there was a struggle and the idol had been taken from her. This is supported by Jayan holding Lavu. The pillar is also damaged, in the same way the bridge is. Looking at the idol, we can see that it's set to "take matter", so it's literally been removing material from the pillar and bridge. We can also see from the upper scene and Kula/Zubiri's dialogue that Kula had been a hostage and Zubiri gave Oberon the idol to save her, which must have been before the bridge got destroyed since Kula was clearly on it and jumped over to Zubiri. So now, we can finally fill in the last scroll of the game.



And with the game complete, enjoy the scene that shows the reason Albert killed Oberon in case 1 of the original game. :)

Source of date: Zubiri's diary

[chococake2024]

@e314529 she did not destroy machine because she just wanted the tool so she could resume her prank later and zubiri gave her destroy machine and destroy tool command and she used give tool on purpose like a big jerk

she didnt want to break machine because she was using the machine like troller for hundreds of years

i agree its jank level though :( like why obtained/found keep swip swapping >:(( and i think lavu mata is confusing like i figured out the puzzle door stuff on my own but why is she only EmortalMarcus and isnt just fly off the island instead and suck up all citizens of albions brains to become superimmortal

[e314529]

Lavu mata said im not good with old language if she was the one that did that how come she didnt know how to destroy the machine??? i dont get it

[deedlydeedlydee]

Very much appreciate the guide, but man I just do not follow the out of nowhere revelation that Lavu Mata is the big bad, rather than just a leader taking her role seriously. The logic of "Lavu created a taboo in children's that it's inappropriate to ask an adult's age, therefore no one in this village of less than 50 people has ever noticed that they have an immortal in their midst" just....does not work for me.

Plus, in my version, the automaton's command readout just shows a string of "Take" rather than "Take/Give," so that clue as to Lavu's scheme doesn't even work.

The moon logic, typos, and general lack of QC in this final puzzle really sourced me on what ought to have been a terrific game.

[6lancmange]

"But if Sahilia had actually been delivered to the room, she'd have been discovered there by the council because the door was locked from the inside." Well, wouldn't the same be true for Lavu? They just didn't check the baskets, I guess.

It's really annoying how some of the items come and go instead of being present from the beginning. They don't have to make sense at first, like the ruby rings in the base game. But it would have made sense for the code necklace and cubes to be in the characters' inventories, right? Lavu not having the necklace in the first chapter threw me off, because in the second chapter, I thought she must've stolen that from the urn - but how would she do that shortly before the second timeslot if she had already had it in the first?

[Madman]

@Great Wight Spark
That secret room has a series of buttons to open the door and you can see some of them are more worn than others. Lavu is wearing a necklace that matches those symbols so she knows how to get in there.

[middleagedavid]

Had a weird glitch where the word "The" preceded the name in the "In The Tunnel" section that completely threw everything even more out of whack. But I still don't really see the connection that Lavu Mata was behind the myth of the Tower Dweller all along.

[jakelol]

@Jesse Dylan same thoughts, the last vampire case especially had way too many blanks to fill in

[el tosico]

Honestly the vampire case 2 I cannot understand why they used the term "wanted" when talking about the gifts, that made it really confusing because none of them really wanted to do it. idk It feels weird. Should just only say who "delivered" it

[Kiri]

@Great Wight Spark
1.The Lemurian Vampire case II
2."Always follow your motto" is written on the wall of secret room.
3.Lavu is the 'guardian of children', and her motto is 'Always preserve the ancient practice'.
4.Tissa is trying to break the ancient practice.

[Great Wight Spark]

How do you know that Lavu wrote the book in the secret room? I'm not seeing that connection.