Mission # 8: Undercover

            After Garrett steals Constantine's sword, he's taken by Victoria to meet her client. Her client, as it turns out, is Lord Constantine himself, who recruited Garrett to steal his own sword, as a test. The test was to see if Garrett could do Constantine's real job: steal a gemstone known as "the Eye." The gemstone lies within a long-abandoned and very haunted Hammerite Cathedral in an area of the City known as the "walled-off section." It's an area of the City that was walled off after a catastrophe befell it. Whatever the catastrophe was has become a part of the City's urban mythology; all that matters now is that no one goes to the walled-off section, and it's haunted. This is the lead-in for the mission after "The Sword" called "The Haunted Cathedral."

           

            "The Haunted Cathedral" is a great mission, though I don't cover it here. Garrett makes his way through the walled-off section's ruins to the haunted cathedral, only to discover that it's been sealed off by four talismans. The Keepers did this to keep a great evil force held within. Garrett, though, only cares about nabbing the gemstone; so it's off to find the four talismans! The final talisman, the talisman of air, is locked away in a Hammer Temple (a non-haunted one). This is the basis for the mission I'm covering here: "Undercover."

            The missions to obtain the Four Talismans are all brilliant, but “Undercover” has a neat twist. The Hammerite Temple Garrett must infiltrate is too well-guarded and well-lit for the standard thieving approach. So Garrett goes in, undercover, as a Hammerite squire. (He has the underworld connections to get him both the necessary garb and credentials.) This allows the players to walk about freely, but there are forbidden areas, and once the player decides to start nabbing loot it won’t be long before the real Hammerites discover that the newcomer is causing trouble.

            The item Garrett’s after here is the “Talisman of Air.” To get it, Garrett must press five switches, hidden through the Hammer Temple, within five minutes. (The player learns of this from reading a scroll describing the process.) Once you start pressing switches and running around to hit all of them, the Hammers are likely to smell something fishy. So, as soon as Garrett hits the first switch, it’s only a matter of time before Hammerites become alert and start chasing him down.

            It’s a fun process, finding the switches, planning out a path, hitting them all in tandem, and claiming the Talisman of Air. Everything in this ‘run’ must be planned ahead of time. I plan out my exact route each playthrough before executing this portion.

            “Undercover” gives the player a different approach to a mission as they do not need to sneak, and the goal is to plan out the little ‘running game’ described above. It’s a slight change of pace and makes for a very well done mission.