Previously on Nancy Drew: Labyrinth of Lies: We arrived in Greece, where we’ve been hired to help with the opening of a museum exhibit. Why this museum has hired a teenager all the way from the US with no background in museum work or art history and who doesn’t even speak Greek, I do not know. But crime is afoot, as usual: a bunch of pieces have gone missing, and the theater troupe keeps acting really shady about getting us to open up displays for them. Suspicious!
Okay, so after talking to Niobe, I want to follow up with Grigor, but as you’ll recall, he’s all pissy because we broke his fly system. So we have to fix that before we can talk to him. I’ll do that later, because fuck Grigor.
So let’s call Melina instead. We ask if we can have a key to the coin display, and Melina doesn’t even ask what for. Melina, you deserve to have shit stolen from your museum. She tells us that the key to the coin display is inside the filing cabinet, and the key to the filing cabinet is locked in a box, and the key to the box is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Okay, but for real, we have to solve a puzzle to get into the box first. SIGH.
Melina tells us that, since we might be dealing with theft, she needs us to learn about provenance. Nancy’s like, “Isn’t determining the authenticity of artifacts better left to an expert?” and Melina’s like, “Well, you’re the only one at the museum right now, so I need you to become an expert.” Or you could’ve hired someone with an actual background in art or museum work, Melina. Melina is certain that Nancy will be naturally awesome at investigating provenance, because it’s just like solving a mystery. Nancy is naturally awesome at a lot of things. I guess wrangling horses, cooking, and storm chasing are also just like solving mysteries.
Alright, so let’s do this puzzle thing. Each symbol and animal represents a god, so we have to match the gods’ symbols with the animal that they’re associated with. For example, the thunderbolt is obviously Zeus, who’s associated with eagles, so the eagle goes with the thunderbolt.
Solving the puzzle gives us the key to the filing cabinet, which we open up to get the key to the coin display. yo dawg i herd u like keys so i put a key in your key so you can solve puzzles while you solve puzzles Sorry, that was the years I spent online in the mid-2000s rearing its ugly head. Anyway, we also find a post-it on the side with the word “Kleroterion” written on it, which is the password for the computer.
In another drawer, we find a file containing all the employee’s timecards — and we can see that a bunch of them suddenly took personal time, quit, or were fired.
We also find the tags for the display, which we take because I guess despite all the crime happening, we’ve still gotta do these museum chores.
On the computer, we open up the Messenger to see messages from Melina. She tells us a little bit about the backstage area: apparently that elaborate underground structure is a set, which begs the question of why it isn’t…you know…on stage. YOU CAN’T TRANSPORT A RIVER UP TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, XENIA. Also, the River Styx guy — Charon — is coin operated, and only reacts to replica coins, so we shouldn’t try to pay him using actual museum artifacts. Why the F would we do that, Melina? She has so little faith in us. Then again, is Nancy above breaking into museum displays and stealing ancient artifacts to solve mysteries? No, she’s not.
The next message is about our provenance training, which weirdly starts with the phrase, “Welcome my dear Expert in Training.” Melina, we’re not that close. Anyway, she wants us to follow the instructions in the Provenance program — app? These games are getting too modern for me — to verify the gold leaf necklace in the coin display.
Then Melina tells us that she doesn’t think the pieces she’s looking for are going to be found, and we should start investigating the cast again. Oh my God, are they suspicious or not? Make up your mind. Also, Melina tells us that she just can’t get in touch with anyone who used to work at the museum. Suspicious! (x2) (This is actually extra ominous, in light of some information we find out later.)
Oh, and we also have to assign seats and put the tickets in the mailbox outside. Let’s do that first, since it’s technically the most time-sensitive.
This is pretty similar to the seating puzzle from Haunting of Castle Malloy, where you have to puzzle out the correct seats based on everyone’s varying requests. Once you’re done, the tickets will print out, and we have to put them in the mailbox outside.
But first, since we’re here, let’s look at the other stuff on the computer. One of the programs, Player, has a metric ton of audio recordings on it. They all seem to be from Grigor — there are a bunch of recordings of him ruminating on his role and shit, and then a ton of recordings of their rehearsals. Yeah…it’s not going well. Oddly, during one of the rehearsals, Thanos seems to have disappeared.
We can ask Niobe about provenance, and she gives us a book that I guess she was just carrying around. The books gives us a short rundown on what provenance is — basically the creation and ownership history of a piece — so we at least know the definition of the word now. See, Melina! We’re totally becoming experts!
We go talk to Xenia, and tell her that it’s a little weird that one of her troupe members is scaring the rest of them. (Thanos. We’re talking about Thanos.) Xenia tells us not to worry about Thanos. Yeah, he likes to threaten people with death, but he’s just kidding. That’s…that’s not reassuring, Xenia.
Then, weirdly, Nancy says, “I have proof you’re counterfeiting art.” Xenia says, “Sorry, I have to run.” Except she doesn’t, and then we just stand there, and then Nancy leaves. What the hell was that?
Seriously, what the hell? I think that conversation tree is supposed to trigger later.
Moving on from THAT weirdness, we go to the mailbox and see that the Hardy Boys have sent us a book about Greek vases. Not sure that’s exactly what we asked for, but whatever. The book tells us what all the different vases are, so we basically just use it as a cheat sheet to label the vase display.
The next thing we have to do is the temple building program. One of chores is to create images of the temples, which we can do by building them in the program and then printing them.
Apparently, the gods do not approve of my column choice. COME ON, DUDES. So anyway, you can find definitions of all the various temple parts and what the gods like in the display next to the program computer, and then match them to create the right temple.
After that, I call the Hardy Boys. I guess I should thank them for the book and everything. I GUESS. Bizarrely, the first thing Frank asks is how our flight was. Frank, we’ve already called you from Greece. You missed your window for asking about the flight. Nancy says she slept through it, and Joe, who apparently watched a movie about the Salem witch trials recently, is like, “Sleeping on a flight? Witchcraft, burn her! Gosh, I never knew reckless accusations could be so fun!” Heh.
We ask how their investigation into the cast went, and Frank and Joe warn us that something weird is going on. They weren’t able to even find any of the missing staff — they’ve just disappeared off the face of the earth. Suspicious! They’ve also found out that the cast is full of “dangerous people.” “You have to tread lightly,” Frank warns. Joe: “Tread lightly? But she’s so bad at that.” HA!
First off: Grigor isn’t Greek, he’s American — which we noticed from his accent, or lack thereof — and he’s using a fake name. His parents died young, and he was in and out of foster care until he aged out of the system. Pretty sad, but not an excuse for CRIME, Grigor! Frank and Joe muse that that might be why he changed his name, or maybe it’s just an actor thing — “Like a nom de plume,” Joe says. “Or it could be something more serious,” Frank adds. Joe: “Like a nom de guerre!” Oh, Joe.
Onto Xenia. She’s from New York, and grew up in an artsy community. She was put in touch with the production’s organizers at some point, and jumped at the chance to direct. Nancy thinks that sounds reasonable, but the Hardy Boys say that they’re going to keep investigating.
As for Niobe: Joe gushes that she’s an AMAZING artist, and okay, so she was accused of forgery that one time, but it was probably because everyone was so jealous of her amazing talent. Nancy’s like, “Back up, what was that bit about forgery?” Joe says that some of Niobe’s work is in the Met, and the docent wouldn’t explain why she would never be famous, but only that “her paintings will never bear her name.” Okay, but clearly some of her stuff is in the Met, so…whatever. Anyway, no one knows the reason why, but Niobe doesn’t have any credibility in the art world anymore.
Nancy brings up the possibility that it was an inside job, and Melina’s responsible for the missing artifacts. The Hardy Boys tell us that we should talk to her. Their advice just gets deeper and deeper, guys.
However, I called Melina, and there are no conversation options for her yet. So let’s talk to Niobe about this whole art forgery thing instead. She tells us that different experts notice different things about paintings, and it’s impossible to fool all of them — and in her case, she wouldn’t even be able to fool one. I mean, I guess that’s why she’s a failed art forger and not a successful one.
We ask, “Is the museum’s collection the real reason you’re here?”, and Niobe loses her shit on us. She snaps that everyone told her to move on with her life, and now that she has, we’re here, judging her. Maybe she likes art! IS THAT SUCH A BIG DEAL? Nancy’s like, “I…was just asking if you were like, really into Greek coins or some shit.” Niobe’s like, “Oh. Yeah. I’m really into the art here.” She apologizes to us for losing her shit, and says that she thought we meant…something else.
We all know what’s going on here, right? These guys are not good at covering up what they’re doing, at all.
We ask Niobe a little bit about her art background, and she babbles on about how art is the physical manifestation of people sharing their secrets across the centuries, blah blah later-era Nancy Drew philosophical babble blah. Cool. See you later, Niobe!
Let’s chat with Xenia some more. She emos to us some more about how she feels like she IS Persephone, and how she like, doesn’t see the meadow Persephone stands in when she’s on stage, she sees all the tragic moments of her life instead. I mean, either way, she’d be seeing something that’s not literally there, so whatever.
So Melina explicitly told us to use a replica coin instead of a real one to pay the ferryman below stage, but we open one of the display cases and steal a real coin anyway, because we love the thrill of stealing and Nancy Drew has a real problem.
We give the automated skeleton the 2000-year-old coin that we stole from the museum. I hope it at least gets deposited somewhere that can be recovered. Anyway, we get an animation of the boat moving along the river, and we eventually stop in front of this three-headed-dog. Oh, I know! We have to play a flute so he’ll fall asleep, right? Right?
No, instead we have to solve a puzzle. We have to do it three times, once for each head, and it gets more complex each time — but it’s still pretty easy, so that’s okay. We have to place blocks at the white circles to prevent the dog from sliding down the lines to reach the star circles. It gets a bit tricky when there are multiple directions the dog can go, but overall it’s not too hard.
The dog powers down, and we can pass through this skull door…
…to a hallway that looks like your average backstage area. WHAT IS THIS SET? WHO BUILT A THREE-HEADED DOG CONTROLLED BY PUZZLES TO GUARD THE BACKSTAGE?
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Look, when I said that this game is less insane than The Shattered Medallion, I was A) placing the bar really low and B) talking mainly about the crime plot. This whole backstage is completely bonkers and possibly, by itself, makes even less sense than the whole of MED combined.
Passing through that hallway, we somehow end up in this area, which is another insane set that they can in no way move to the actual stage area. Xenia, I’ve seen the lift. It’s not that big.
So to our left: a puzzle that we can’t do until later, which is fine because it is the biggest pain in the ass in the history of ever. I wanted to stab myself the first time I played through it. But we’ll get there.
To our right: the door to “Elysium,” aka the closest ancient Greek analogue to heaven. To our…other left, the door to Tartarus, aka hell.
Across the door to Elysium, we see this table with the three judges on it. Nancy will try to open the box, but we can’t do that yet. There’s a joke about Nancy being Pandora somewhere in here, but I can’t be fucked to think of it right now.
The door to Elysium is locked, because Nancy Drew has done way too much shady shit in her life to get into heaven. Instead, we go waltzing into hell, where we come across Xenia and Niobe arguing. Niobe is wibbling that she can’t get up on stage and act, and Xenia snaps that if Niobe doesn’t go onstage, “the whole thing falls apart.” Niobe begs Xenia to just let her do the job she was originally hired to do, and Xenia’s like, “I hired you to do art, but also act.” Then they notice Nancy and skedaddle. Hmm. The words were innocuous, but they were getting awfully upset over a janky amateur theater production.
We can keep exploring Tartarus, and look! In addition the river of water under the stage, they also have a river of fire! THIS IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Real talk, this whole extensive “set” under the stage is just such a bizarre choice. Like, even when Nancy games are completely nonsensical (~*~Shattered Medallion~*~) the actual setting tends to be fairly grounded in reality. Why is this…the way that it is? I don’t find anything fun or interesting about exploring this area — it doesn’t feel “real” or at all like part of the mystery.
A fiery boulder rolls toward Nancy, and I briefly consider letting it take me out of my misery, but we have to jump out of the way. Once it rolls on by, we can climb to the top of the HILL UNDER THE STAGE and find a pitcher with a bunch of holes in it.
We go exploring a little more and find this path, which has a cell at the end of it. We can control the cell from the keypad to the left, but we don’t know the code for it yet.
WHY IS ANY OF THIS NECESSARY. WHERE WAS THE BUDGET FOR THIS? MELINA, YOU DESERVE TO HAVE YOUR MUSEUM SHUT DOWN.
Alrighty, so somehow the door to Tartarus locked behind us, so now we have to do a bunch of puzzles to unlock the various doors in this area so we can explore and eventually leave. To unlock one of the doors, we have to use the pitcher we found. There’s a pool near the area where we came across Xenia and Niobe; we have to do a puzzle to block up the holes in the pitcher and then carry water from the pool.
So the pitcher puzzle is one of those moving-one-moves-the-others puzzle. Clicking on one of the holes will cover up some of them and remove the covers from others. You have to keep clicking around until all of the holes are covered. Then, when the pitcher is closed, use it to carry water from the pool to a nearby vase. Filling up the vase opens a door…
…which leads to a pit of lava. Sure, as you do.
Anyway, we can’t cross this. I mean, I tried to jump over the gap, because Nancy has totally done that before with no consequences, but it didn’t work 🙁 Alrighty, so back through the door we go.
We also find more of those mysterious plaques with half-formed letters on them, which we will come back to.
In order to unlock the door that leads back out into the real world, we have to solve this puzzle here. It’s on a panel next to the door, and the goal is to pull all the hands into a pile on the panel that has multiple hands. You want to click on the empty spaces between the hands to pull them together, and then keep clicking until they all pile onto the last piece.
Oh, thank God, we are back in the real world. Ish. Let’s see what’s behind that normal-looking door over there, shall we?
We find ourselves in a workshop, and as soon as we walk in, an alarm starts going off. There’s a keypad to turn it off, but we don’t know the code.
Thanos busts us in the workshop, and it’s kind of funny, because they basically had the voice actor yell “WHATAREYOUDOING?” really fast and then used the same recording every time they wanted to imply that Thano is upset. It’s great.
Anyway, Thanos catching us ends the game, so let’s try this again. As soon as the alarm goes off, we bail out of there.
We get back on the boat and make it back to the relatively-normal part of the sets, where Thanos yells — yet again — “WHATAREYOUDOING?” He demands that we fork over the remote, and that creeps at us that “the stage” wants us dead. Is…the stage a metaphor for…like, you, Thanos? I don’t know. He tells us that he can tell because of how the floor shakes. Nancy’s like, “Pretty sure that’s the hydraulic lift.” Heh. Thanos tells us that the sets aren’t meant to be kept so far off the ground usually, and it’s dangerous to be here. But…the sets aren’t off the ground? They’re underground? The only thing that’s above ground is like, half a stage and some curtains? CAN YOU GUYS PLEASE FIGURE OUT WHERE THE HELL YOUR SHOW IS?
So let’s just leave Thanos and his poorly managed theater alone. What’s up, Niobe!
Niobe thanks us for getting the display unlocked for her, because I guess Melina did that despite all her better judgment. Ha, what am I saying? Everything we’ve seen of Melina has told me that her judgment is terrible. Niobe geeks out at us about tooling methods for a bit, and Nancy’s like, “Wow, fascinating. Bye.”
I finally get around to fixing the fly system. The ropes are named after the same structures as the Greek temple architecture, but they’re listed as their literal translations in Xenia’s notes. So you want to recall what each word means, and then add the weight from the notes.
Now that that’s done, maybe Grigor’s punk baby ass will talk to us. He’s not here, though, so let’s take the opportunity to go through his stuff! We find his copy of the script, which notes that the lifts are designed to lift whole sets onto the stage instead of lowering them from the top/bringing them in from the wings. Oh. I feel like Xenia’s script also said this, and I overlooked it in favor of going on about how stupid the sets are. Although they all look awfully permanent, and I feel like you can’t easily lift a flaming river of lava onto the stage. Also, we stood on one of those lifts, and it’s like 3 feet by 3 feet.
Anyway. we can flip through his script, but he hasn’t written any notes or anything.
We can look at his tablet again — unlocking it is the same puzzle as last time (alternately clicking on the first and last letters of each word, until you form the word “Paleontology” at the bottom). He’s added more notes — the first one is about how weird and suspicious Xenia is about her notes; she’s so paranoid about them that she locks them up in a box. “Who does that?” he wonders. I mean…your notes are behind a password, Grigor. Let’s not get too judgy. Anyway, his notes also tell us the solution to get into the box where Xenia keeps her notes.
His next note is about how a casting sheet has been prepared for “Plutus.” Grigor’s like, “Even if they rip away the RED STITCHING IN MY BAG WHERE THE SHEET IS, they’ll never READ BETWEEN THE LINES and FIGURE OUT THE SECRET HIDDEN MESSAGE.” Grigor, never judge anyone for locking up their notes again. Clearly, it’s something you should start doing.
We’ll do that in a bit, but for now, let’s keep reading. Grigor notes that Thanos has probably killed people, and he’s associated with something called “Kronos”. Thanos is in the Greek mafia, dudes! And here I thought he was just going to wear that costume and enter Eurovision 🙁 Grigor also says that Xenia keeps giving Thanos’s lines to Grigor, and seems to want Thanos to stay backstage (under-stage, whatever) for most of the show. Suspicious!
Grigor also has a note about how doors have to be pushed back until after final curtain so that they can corral the audience into the museum — presumably for museum-promotional purposes. Fair enough.
He then writes about Niobe, and that Xenia made a mistake hiring someone that fragile. Apparently they “need” Niobe in the show, but if she fucks up onstage, they have “bigger problems than embarrassment” to worry about.
His next few notes are PRETTY INCRIMINATING. Grigor says that he fixed all of the troupe’s timecards, entries, and exits, and they’ve been cleared of everything. Now they can go back to doing crime! I mean, what? He also wants to make sure that Niobe is following all the rules in regards to the replica work.
So…the theater troupe is definitely our culprits. Can we have like, a collective culprit?
After reading all of that, Nancy derps, “Wow, Grigor’s tablet sure is interesting! I’ll have to keep an eye on it!” Nancy, I’m…I’m pretty sure Grigor just admitted to doing crime on that tablet.
Let’s call the Hardy Boys and see how they’re doing on investigating our suspects. Frank and Joe confirm that Thanos is a cold-blooded killer — although they mention that he was in private security, and was involved in a fatal shooting, which sounds much less shady than killing people for the Greek mafia. Still, they warn us that he’s not afraid to do some stabbing when the situation calls for it.
I also call Melina, but there are no conversation options for her right now, so I’ll have to poke around a little bit more before we can talk to her again.
The scene that we want to trigger is this: we go into Melina’s office to chill, and when we leave, we’ll see Niobe open a panel in the wall and slip inside. Hell yeah, secret passageway! I mean…oh, no, suspicious 🙁
Up next: Secret tunnel through the museum! We unlock everyone’s backstory, and take another trip down into hell, aka the improbable sets under the stage. Bad theater design is also my own personal hell, incidentally.
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