I head straight from my house to the rendezvous with the Keepers. I’m asked to follow the guy I meet and he opens up a ghostly blue doorway which leads straight to the home of the keepers. A lengthy cutscene follows where I don’t learn a huge amount except that the Keepers are still worried about the coming Dark Age and expect me to help somehow. The Dark Age is basically where all their prophecies stop so they don’t know what the inevitable threat I’m going to have to face is. I’m allowed access to their library to find some clues.

I notice in this cutscene that a gargoyle is panned over in the background. This happened in the first scene where I met the Keeper in the plaza and I could have sworn that one moved. I’m suspicious that we are being eavesdropped on but I may just be paranoid.

It’s straight off to the library where I get to read a few select books and overhear some conversations between Keepers. I quickly learn that there is a lost glyph key and a book it opens that tells all about the Dark Ages and the clues that the Keepers have been looking for, are sat out in plain sight which is very convenient for me but you do wonder why no one noticed before.

There is a rumour that the glyph is to be found in a sunken citadel. The Keepers decided it wasn’t worth the effort of investigating which is where I will come in.

There is another Keeper who thinks that the book was brought in on the plague ship that I heard about earlier but another Keeper talks him out of it when I overhear their conversation.

One of the Keepers has a note for me from the Hammers. They have learned that about the little theft I made and are now all hostile to me. I can redeem myself by killing undead or rust mites. Rust mites are the beetle things I’ve seen scurrying around occasionally in the city levels. I also have to avoid killing Hammers or stealing from them. I get an arrow upgrade so that I can accomplish the mite killing. My faction button now works on my menu as well. It’s not quite what I expected then about choosing a path to follow and is simply a sub quest in effect to make the city levels easier.

Another keeper makes me go through a glyph touching ritual and I now have the ability to walk through Keeper doors in the city which I previously couldn’t see. This will handily open up the quarantined areas for my upcoming missions.

I set about shooting rust mites while making my way to the docks.  I’m back on neutral ground with the Hammers in no time without really trying.

I spy a glyph near the quarantined area and use this to open up a doorway.

I don’t explore thoroughly but I have a bit of a look around the docks and find a note from the Pagans detailing what they would like me to do for them to redeem myself for stealing their paw. I never actually see either of the things mentioned here in the letter but I’ll have a look later. I do run around the Pagan area with them chasing after me Benny Hill style for a bit and there is a fountain that restores my health in full. This could be useful if I get the Pagans on my side although dashing in and out worked as well.

Nearby is the dock and the plague boat. This is a creepy looking place full of zombies. I have to get to the bottom of it to find the ships manifest.

The further down I go, the creepier this place gets and I don’t find enough holy water around the place to deal with all these zombies so I end up running past a lot of them as best I can.

I find the manifest and this gives me the next mission – finding a boat to the secret boathouse of the ship’s captain.

The boat is about 15 seconds walk away and walking into this glyph starts the mission.

It’s taken a good bit of gameplay to get to the actual mission. Maybe the game isn’t going to be too short after all. My aim is simple anyway, grab the golden book although I get the usual added goals of 90% treasure + some special items.

I start off in some stereotypical smugglers caves but soon make my way to the secret (and extremely large) boat house.

I set about exploring the place and overhear one of the widows relatives planning to rob her of a certain spyglass. I’ll have to see if I can’t get there first which I do when I find it in the middle of the rotunda.

Knocking the three of them out in this room proves to be a challenge but I manage it in the end. There isn’t much penalty for getting caught in this game. The guard notices the body when I club this guy but I just run away, hide, wait for a bit and then when he gets bored looking for me I know he will head straight back to his starting point and I just have to ambush him.

The second part of the level is built around a giant hall with various rooms attached to the sides. There are a few servants around who I try to take out one by one in the usual fashion.

This gramophone plays the captains message to his wife that he left in case anything happened to him. I switch in on straight away of course and it mentions a secret switch in his study which I’ll have to find.

His wife doesn’t seem to have taken to his death well and is talking and singing to herself in a very creepy fashion at the top of a tower with lightning flickering all around. She is blind and thinks I’m one of his friends and asks me to bring some wine which I do (grabbing a bottle from the kitchen) but it doesn’t appear to get me anything other than another creepy monologue about her husband.

Some more exploring and I find the secret switch I learned about before under the desk in the library.

A quick dash to the display room later and I get there in time to see this new door open and take the lift down.

The book I’m looking for as well as a load of treasure is in here. I grab it all and make my way out of the level after getting a few missing bits of treasure.

This was another great level. I especially liked the lightning in the house as you had to allow for the possibility of being lit up when trying to sneak around. I’ll need to try to find the sunken citadel next but I’m away over the weekend so it’s probably going to be the middle of next week before I get chance to have a go at this.