In which we visit the Lutece Labs, the Bank of the Prophet and the Photographer.
Additional notice: until now I somehow missed the fact that the armed forces of Columbia as well as the local law enforcement are referred to as “the Founders” (opposed to the Vox). I will no longer use “Comstock’s men”, but will refer to the Founders.
After pacifying Lady Comstock (for now), we a) see her footprints moving and b) run once more into the Lutece-“siblings”.
It is established that Lady Comstock seems to be both alive and dead (taking it much better (or worse) than everyone else in this situation). The Luteces tell us to follow her and to restore three truths which have been destroyed by Comstock in this Columbia. Maybe the First Lady will be a bit more cooperative afterwards.
I want to point specifically to the fact that this is the third reaction to being alive and dead at the same time but in different universes given by the game: the uncoordinated state of Comstock’s men, the fully conscious state of DeWitt and now the angry ghost capable of raising the dead. Lady Comstock may be an important NPC, but I really hope we’ll get a bigger lampshade for this. Anyway….
We follow the Lady towards her (or at least MY) first goal: the Lutece Labs. The building is now open. And has ghostly footprints in front of the door. Maybe we should enter.
Inside the labs we look for the tear, finding it in the middle of this contraption:
Inside the tear we find a furious Lady Comstock, screaming at Rosalind Lutece, accusing her of having seduced Comstock and of being Elisabeth’s real mother. Lutece answers that she feels absolutely no attraction towards Comstock and besides that, Comstock is sterile. The child comes from a tear.
We can learn some more things here, notably that Comstock did something with a device made by the Luteces, leaving them not dead but scattered over space and time (which explains their erratic schedule of appearance). And we learn that there is some unfinished business with “the girl”, but maybe someone else can finish it for them..? I’ve no idea whom they’re talking about.
We leave the Lab and head over to the Bank of the Prophet, following Lady Comstock’ footprints.
On our way there we get the friendly remainder that Elisabeth can in fact pick locks. In my opinion, it’s a BIT late for that tip, but hey: maybe some players overlooked this until now.
Outside of the bank we fight our way past two crowmen and more than a few goons. The interior of the bank is now filled with corpses. Founders’ corpses. Something might have happened while we were away.
We take the elevator downstairs and stand in a big hall. On the other side is a gigantic metal door – that’s how you make these things, as big as possible. Okay, this is at least theoretically possible: there are bunker doors this massive which can be opened by hand (and we don’t now if Mr. Fink (of Fink Mfg) didn’t add some kind of automation). However, I usually wouldn’t place the giant metal door covering the vault directly in the main hall.
We fight our way through the building towards the back entrance of the vault. By looking over some of the paperwork lying around, Elisabeth learns that 50% of all income of Columbia’s citizens goes directly to Comstock as a tithe. That’s an awful lot of money…
The bank gives us much to see, the interior is quite big and mostly makes sense. What didn’t make much sense was the hidden Vox-vault in one of the accountant offices. How… what… why do they have this here? How did they get it here? I mean.. what?
On we go to the main vault’s back entrance. Which has been blown open.
How did they do this? And why did no one open the gate to Comstock House this way? I don’t get this. Why blow open a bank vault which should be of no immediate concern to anyone, when nobody even tries to get to Comstock? It’s.. maddening. There are armed men inside this vault. They went through great pains to gain entrance. But NOBODY fights over the gate leading to the Vox’ main target. “The plot demands it” is an explanation, but not a good one.
The vault contains a big piece of art and the tear we’re looking for:
On the inside we find another piece of history:
Mr. Fink (of Fink Mfg) is persuaded to sabotage the device used by the Luteces in order to kill them. All of the Luteces patents would fall to him. Why he’s got to do it? He’s the only one who can make it look like an accident. Why kill the Luteces? For the same reason Lady Comstock had to die: the child.
After this insight, Elisabeth tells us that she thinks that the ghost of Lady Comstock combines both Lady Comstock’s memories and Elisabeth’s feelings towards her, resulting in her current behaviour. We also find a voicelog by Comstock where states that Columbia can only survive when a Comstock sits on the throne.
Then we fight the dead – again.
On our way towards Cunningham Photography (which I totally passed before – I didn’t miss exposition, there was none) we find some more voicelogs. Lady Comstock is devastated that her beloved husband and prophet killed his political enemies and Miss Lutece states that she dislikes the word “levitation” for her anti-gravity-magic – after all, only magicians make thinks levitate. She made an atom refuse to fall. Why are you doing this to me?
Here’s the tear in Cunningham’s store:
No shooty times here. The tear tells us that the Luteces revealed themselves to Mr. Cunningham to a) complain about their funeral photos and b) reveal to him that Mr. Fink (of Fink Mfg) was responsible for their deaths as well as the death of Lady Comstock.
Back at victory square we have our final confrontation with Lady Comstock. There are no pictures. I’m still new to this. We have some more shooty time against animated corpses and a conversation between Elisabeth and Lady Comstock, resulting in mutual forgiveness.
The ghost of Lady Comstock breaks down the gate (which I have to admit is a lot cooler than somehow get the Lady’s fingerprints) and thus opens out way to Comstock House.
Where we will continue the day after tomorrow.