scottyd on 1/9/2013 at 17:54

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help
I have Azura's Key, Thief's Key and the special lock pick. I've ko'ed all the thief guards etc.
This is a nice mission, but kind of a key hunt mission. ok have the wrench/ How does one get into the north mansion part?

MrMunkeepants on 7/9/2013 at 05:52

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There is no book in Areona's round room... maybe this is why I've needed to check this thread for more answers than I usually like to :(
I see a journal on her writing desk, but it is unfrobbable.

I eventually got everything done on easy (and found all secrets) but missed 3000+ in loot :o
Sounds like there's more areas/objectives on higher difficulties, but I'm not sure it's worth it to play the whole thing again for a while

ticky on 8/9/2013 at 16:11

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I've even been to Aerona's personal quarters, found the wand and the bed, I also have the keeper lady... but.. where is Taffy and where is the broom?

jiansonz on 10/9/2013 at 22:37

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Big thanks to Beltzer for providing 5+ hours of taffin' fun. I will surely replay this mission eventually (I still miss a couple of hundred loot).

I am going to try to describe how it played out for me. I'll put the rest of the post under spoiler cover:

Outside: looks nice, but uniform, and with quite boring gameplay. Ouch! Spiky plants.
Huge distances to cover. Still, I wanted to knock out those thieves in case I'd need some place to flee to later. The two stationary guards outside the front door required a flashbmb, and the commotion attracted the attention of a third thief-guard. OH CRAP HOW FAST HE IS! Is he the elite guard or what? Another flashbomb used and I gulped a healer because he had hit me. Just one flashy left. This 'virgin run' may get ugly in a hurry...

Front door key, huh? I did not find another way inside, so in there I went.

Saw a guard halfway up the main stairs to second floor so I went up there and konked him then contined exploring the second floor. Very impressed by the beauty of the halls and with all those paintings, several I had not seen before. And WOW, the overview of the (quite crowded) ballroom is magnificent! Some of the classic OM and FM dance moves being used on the dance floor (including the Seven Sisters Macarena) - nice!

Most doors are locked and I have no keys or lockpicks so I just grabbed the loot I could and got rid of nearby guards. Nicely shaped music room. This place just breathes a combo of class and over-the-top (bordering on obscene) luxury.

Another exploring route took me to a glass floor over the chapel, and I could see what I presumed to be the Keeper lady on the altar. This does not bode well. Lots of locked doors this way, so I went back to the little dining room next to the music room. Roped up to the third floor balcony using the small wooden strip on the wall. The jump from the rope made far too much noise, which spooked the guard close by, but luckily, he had his back turned and I was fast with good ol' Jack so he soon slept.

Highest floor has a couple of guards and a locked door with a lock that looks special.
'Father's skull' on a pedestal, isn't that a bit gross?

Seems to be no good way out of this area. Maybe I wasn't supposed to enter this way?
Best option seems to be down the rope again. I have barely been on the bottom floor so I suppose I can make progress there. Ouch! Rope slipped in my hand. I have not yet gotten used to this "feature" in NewDark that you should not crouch before you walk down ropes or ladders. Just two hitpoints left now.

I now explored the rest of the bottom floor except for the ballroom. Many locked doors so I could not see all that much of it, but I eventually found the smaller exit to the inner garden (the exit that does not have the two guards). The large dining room (that could be darkened completely) close to this door became important later, because I would lure many chasing guards here. Mantling on top of one the armoires in here would force the guard into search mode and make him lose sight of me (unless he was right on my tail).

As I entered the next building, found the kitchen, etc. and then looked at my maps again, much fell into place. THIS is the building the left half of the maps show, and the right half of the maps show the building I had been in up to this point! No wonder I was confused by the maps earlier when I tried to match what I saw with the leftmost maps...

A lot of progress was made now. Several keys found, all three lockpicks, some secrets leading to loot, etc.

I solved the wrench business but that only led to a passage to an area I had already been in. What a major letdown...

On my way to that elusive lock on the top floor, my 'virgin run' ended when I touched one of the statues in the great statue hall. Not fair, how was I supposed to know they were deadly?

Bagged the gold, found Aerona's study and bedroom, figured out that opening the chimney "gate" was going to be important, so I did that, and tried to learn the path leading to this roof from outside.

I had gotten BAMF'd into that weird realm by the crystal ball (and reloaded) earlier, but now I took my time to explore it better, found the key (thanks to the hints), the end room loot and saw the floating broom. Those crystal beasts looked ominous, so I stretched out and grabbed the broom and quickly darted to shadow. Great, just a first alert from the awakened beast. Now I tried to use the broom. I mean, the wand has a use, the crystal ball has a use, but the result now was just a tossed broom that spooked the beast some more. Oops. :rolleyes:

I waited for it to calm down, then I snuck over and backstabbed it. Figured it might be immortal but I *had* to know. Also, would I be buried in a giant glass pile? Nope, it died just a like a good old treebeast (even had the wooden 'get hit' sound).

More progress, more keys found, explored the chapel, the lab and finally took a stab at clearing out thieves in the ballroom. Chaos of spooked guests ensued and it became a BJ fest. Ah, that must be Aerona! "Hm, I probably need that dagger", I thought, and went back to that dark dining room so she lost sight of me and returned to the ballroom.

Found Taffy stuck in the ballroom doorway close to the bar. I opened and closed the door (in an attempt to help him pass) and the mission failed. Hm, maybe I touched *him* instead? OK, reload, move away and do other stuff. I later found Taffy back inside the ballroom. (Weird thing: he had, at one time chased me, so clearly he had been on full alert and the mission did NOT fail becuase of that)

I had a couple of loose ends now:
- hadn't found the Keeper medallion (not a biggie since it's optional)
- hadn't found the key to the generator switch
- had not been able to enter most rooms in the attic
- hadn't found "the spooky thing" that was supposed to open the library doors if given the tarot card. I (correctly) thought I needed to get in here to get the required book.
- had everything I needed to perform the whole Taffy business except something to drug him with. I really thought the lab would provide this, but no go there.

Next progress move was with the attic. On my second visit to the storage room I noticed a grated window high up. Jumping from a large crate and frobbing it revealed it was locked. I got curious and fired a broadhead into the celing. Nope, it does not take a rope arrow. So I built a crate staircase with the large crate as base (and four small ones) so I could get a shot at lockpicking. Worked out well, but I needed a fifth crate to be able to get high enough to actually squeeze through the window. The improved NewDark mantling helped a lot because I found out you can often mantle up a crate stack (something I have always wanted to be able to - whee!). But that only helped get me some more loot. OK, now I met the loot objective but since I was so close even before the succesful attic venture I figured that would have been solved in the library anyway...

I have forgotten how, but now I had the generator switch key. When I could not find any ghost by that dining room the librabrian mentioned, I figured "maybe the ghost will show up if I switch off the power?" so I did. That did not help.


Totally stuck now for about an hour, and TTLL came to the rescue.

Final tally without help:
10422/11920 loot
5/9 secrets
Aerona's four items found and destroyed
Keeper lady rescued
Book objective not solved
Taffy objective not solved



- Missing the switch in Taffy's bathroom was probably an oversight on my part, but was there really something that pointed to this bathroom being more interesting than the two dozen or so other ones? Well, other than the unusual size of it...

- I see two reasons why I failed to find the way into the library.
1. I expected a frobbable spooky looking AI to give the card to. Taffy is a frobbable AI so I thought this would work much the same.
2. The description of the interesting area is something along the lines of "the door to the dining room". IMO, there are only two doors to the dining room and they are the toilet doors!

By the dining room, there are also
- a stairway leading up
- a large open doorway leading to the statue hall. Here is where I was frantically looking for a ghost or something similar. That hall is quite spooky, so I figured the ghost would feel at home there.
- a hallway leading to a library door

So you really have to picture the "thing" as being actually *in* the library in order to find the correct place from the description 'the door to the dining room' because the correct place is several meters (at least 5) from the dining room, as I see it. If I were to give directions to that place (say, if I was making a lootlist) I would have written 'by the library door close to the dining room'.



Funny thing: for a long time (before looking for hints here), I was concered how the heck I was supposed to get Taffy to where he should be. I seriously doubted that Garrett could carry that behemoth! :cheeky:

jiansonz on 11/9/2013 at 19:42

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You definitely need the lab key. Exit the NE door in the chapel and have a look.