Previously on Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Seven Keys: Leo is missing! We tried to look for him at his office and ended up getting murdered like ten times by some weird ghost knight dude.
After we escaped the tunnels, we got a text from our boss, Adela, asking us to meet with her. However, I don’t particularly want to do that yet because Adela will probably get all snippy that we don’t have an update for her yet. Jesus Christ Adela, I’m kind of busy trying not to get murdered by an ancient Czech ghost. Anyway. Can I do anything else in the meantime?
Ooh, okay, we can call Leo’s secretary to see what’s up there. We ask why Oskar wants wants to meet with Leo so bad, and the secretary explains that Oskar is only the head of the gems exhibit, he has no authority over the cathedral itself — and the secretary is assuming that Oskar just wants “unfettered access to the treasures of the cathedral that he has no respect for.” The secretary admits that he never actually told Leo about Oskar trying to contact him; he just snides that it’s his job to “filter through priorities.” Oh, the secretary really is just stonewalling Oskar from doing due diligence for the gem exhibit because he’s petty. I am no longer on the secretary’s side.
Nancy asks if there really are precious treasures in the cathedral, and the secretary’s like, “Oh yeah, there are tons. Plus the crown jewels.” Nancy gasps that she didn’t know the crown jewels were actually in the cathedral. The secretary says that they’re kept in a vault somewhere underground.
We can also have a brief text exchange with Ned, wherein Nancy asks if he’s ever heard of the Rezidente, which of course he hasn’t. They muse over whether or not the Rezidente is behind the theft, but decide that it’s likely too small of a score for them. Then Ned’s like, “Well, if you’re going to go after a giant secretive organized crime ring, be careful :)” and then we hang up. Jeez. We can’t have had a little more dialogue here, wherein Ned Googles the Rezidente for Nancy, or they expand a little bit on why Nancy thinks they’re connected to the mystery? Like I’ve said a thousand times, I’m a Ned apologist and I hate the argument that Nancy ought to date someone less boring or more actively involved in her cases — but I also admit that Ned is frequently written really badly in the games, and he’s pretty useless in this one.
It annoys me because Ned could be well-matched to Nancy: he has more academic smarts that can complement her investigative skills; he could remind her how to behave normally and not to ask people about their dead parents; in some iterations, he’s a journalist and helps her find information for her cases. I don’t know, I like romance, and one of the things that appeals to me about the genre is mixing and matching various personality types and seeing ways that different people can still be compatible. The writing of Ned as lame and needy and useless because he isn’t the exact same type of person as Nancy bothers me — especially because it doesn’t seem like the games are going to actually break him and Nancy up, and it would be so easy to just write their relationship More Better instead of turning their romantic subplot into this annoying, dragging thing that half the audience isn’t even convinced by.
ANYWAY. Let’s see, can I check in with anyone else? Nope, I can’t talk to Radek. Or Oskar. Or Vladena. (Sidebar: one weird thing this game does is that sometimes, if there are no conversation options, clicking on a character will just have them say their usual I-have-nothing-to-talk-about line, without cutting into conversation mode. Other times, though, clicking on them will cut into a closeup, they’ll say their line, then it will immediately cut back to regular mode. I don’t know why the game doesn’t just pick one method and stick to it.)
Ah, but we can talk to Elka! We haven’t spoken to her since we saw that creepy puppet thing on our laptop. We ask her about Marek’s work, and she says she doesn’t know much about it — she’s not interested in puppets (RIP her and Radek, then) and Marek is weird and secretive about whatever else he does. She mentions her mother always told her not to disturb him — which means we can now segue into asking Elka about her dead mom! Hell yeah.
Elka says that she was told her mom was hit by a car while running errands, but Elka is suspicious — the accident was in the middle of the night, so why was she running an errand? See, Marek, this is why you shouldn’t mess up a lie with extraneous details. I learned that when lying about filling out my reading sheets in fifth grade. Elka asks how Nancy’s mom died, to which Nancy says, “Suddenly. Like yours.” I was going to be all, oh, are we not going to bond over our mom also dying in a car accident?, but then I remembered that game!Nancy’s mother was murdered by Scottish bioterrorists. I still can’t really deal with the entire premise of The Silent Spy, to be honest.
Anyway, Elka insists that despite her doubts, she doesn’t want to know the truth about her mother’s death, since it’s not like anything can be done about it now. Fair enough. Alright, let’s ask more about Radek. Elka insists she doesn’t know more about him, since he’s soooo mysterious and she gets shy when he’s around. I mean, is he that mysterious? I know way more about him and his puppet obsession than I want to already. Elka suggests that, if we really want to know about Radek, we should probably ask her grandfather.
Alright then, what up, Marek! Are we going to ask him about the seven keys myth that he promised to tell us about way back in part two? Nope, I guess we’re done with that line of questioning. In fact, we can’t ask him about Radek, either. Instead, let’s skip straight to asking about the Rezidente. “You are afraid of them?” Marek creeps. Uh, I don’t know, Marek, are you going to tell me what kind of criminals they are? Because if they’re, like, overly aggressive academics or wolf-hating cross-country skiers, I think we can handle them, but if they’re a bunch of murderous talent agents, we might have a problem. We ask if Marek might know anything more about the Rezidente, or how to get in touch with them (like they have an office), but he tells us “they don’t bother old men either.” OR DO THEY?
Alright, fine, I have to go talk to Adela now. Adela tells us that she too has recently gotten a freaky pop-up on her computer, and now it’s not working. I mean…that sucks, but why are you telling me this, Adela? Nancy does offer to help, though, which leads us into another game of Cyber Block. We have to clear two levels, then we’ll cut back to Adela, who’s suitably impressed by our new haxxor skillz. (Not to reveal myself as being a youth in 2007 or anything.) Adela notes that she’s never had such computer trouble before, and Nancy muses that the culprit is trying to scare them off.
Of course, Adela immediately goes back to riding us about not having an update for her. We tell her our theory that the theft of her necklace was merely a precursor to a bigger theft, perhaps of the crown jewels. Adela says that the jewels in her necklace are from the same era as the crown jewels, so perhaps they’d be used to replace the real crown jewels. I mean, if the gems in Adela’s necklace are real, and are the right cut/size to mistake for the real crown jewels…isn’t using them as a swap kind of pointless? I guess the gems in Adela’s necklace might be of slightly lower quality or something, but I feel like just selling those has a greater risk-reward balance than trying to pull off a second jewel heist. I don’t know, I guess this is why I’m not a jewel thief.
Nancy says that the culprit will probably try to steal the real crown jewels as soon as they have the seven keys, and Adela remarks that they don’t need the real seven keys — they could just make their own. Like with a 3D printer or something. Just kidding, she says the keys were made from alchemists’ plans, and the plans might still exist. If they do, they’d be somewhere around the castle complex (you know, conveniently, one of the two locations we’re allowed to go in this game), possibly in some secret alchemy lab somewhere. “You really know your history,” Nancy says. Does she? Or does she know this because she’s trying to lead us to the alchemist lab for nefarious purposes?
Speaking of, does Adela know anything about the Rezidente? Adela gets really aggro and tells us that they haven’t been active in decades, and we’re wasting our time investigating them. Sure, that’s not suspicious at all.
Our journal then updates and tells us to investigate the possible alchemy lab, suggesting that we should start by talking to someone who knows a lot about old Prague. Clearly that is a hint to talk to Patricie, so let’s do that. She corroborates that the crown jewels are in a vault under the castle complex, and adds that if we want to know more about alchemy, there’s a section on it in the castle exhibit. “Thanks, you’ve given me a lot to work with,” Nancy says. Has she?
Okay, so that’s a hint to A) read the alchemy book in the cafe and B) go read the alchemy plaques in the museum exhibit. Here’s me skimming the alchemy book (I think this is how I could’ve resolve dthe puzzle on Oskar’s artifact if I hadn’t already cheated my way through it); I already read the alchemy plaques earlier and if I need to know anything to solve a puzzle, I will simply cheat later on.
Alright! I still could not check off “Ask around about alchemy”, so I went to see Radek again. Nancy asks him if alchemy still has a place in today’s world, and Radek sighs that it’s a dying art. That’s…because it was replaced by actual chemistry, Radek. I swear. Radek ominouses that sometimes he thinks it would be easier to leave the past in the past instead of trying to preserve their traditions against the rising tide of globalization and [cough] American hegemony. Not in so many words. Nancy’s like, “Yeah…can’t relate, sorry.”
We bring up the seven keys and ask Radek if he knows how they were made by the alchemists. Radek doesn’t, but suggests that Marek might. We can also ask about the Rezidente script that we found — funnily, Radek doesn’t call us out on poking through his stuff in the caravan — and Radek says he’s not sure how to end it, because “the Rezidente haven’t finished yet.” He creeps that most people think the Rezidente don’t exist anymore, but he does. Finally, he asks us if we’ve read Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”, and adds that we should remember the message of that story, which is that “The real monsters in Prague, they don’t always look it.” Oh, is that the message of “The Metamorphosis”? Thanks, Radek, I guess I don’t have to actually read it now.
Can we ask Vladena about alchemy? No, no we can’t, which is a little odd given that she’s allegedly descended from the original royal alchemists. Alright, what about Oskar?
“More questions?” he asks when we approach. “What can I say? I have an interest in your history,” Nancy says. Oskar: “History is not the problem.” Hee. We ask him about alchemy, but he just directs us to look at the “alchemy exhibit” (really like one case of alchemy artifacts with a couple of plaques). We can also ask him about the Rezidente, but he blows us off and says we shouldn’t worry about crime in Prague.
So the alchemy plaque is over here; we can read it, but we haven’t encountered whatever puzzle its information is required for yet. And yet, I still cannot check off “Ask around about alchemy.” Who else am I missing?
Sup, Marek! He doesn’t really tell us anything new about alchemy; instead, he awkwardly segues into telling us that he has a trunk from the alchemists’ era, but even he, with all his mad mechanical skills, can’t get into it. Never fear, Marek! I know you probably want to open the trunk yourself to maintain your connection to your ancestors’ traditions and artifacts, but I’ll just crack it open with a hammer or something. You can thank me later.
What we can ask him about is the Seven Keys, again, some more. He tells us that the keys were forged from schematics; if the schematics still exist — say, if someone wanted to duplicate the keys, or some such thing — they would be well-hidden, “and not with a key.” Hmm. Nancy thanks him, and Marek grumbles that at least someone is interested in what he knows. Nancy interprets this as a dig at Elka and suggests that, even if he and his granddaughter have nothing in common, just spending time together is enough. Er…is this a cry for help, because every time Nancy’s needed her dad, he’s been in Africa for no reason? (Just kidding. One time he was in Australia!)
So, to the trunk. There’s a puzzle to open it, but in order to activate it, you have to click two hidden buttons on each side of the trunk (you can’t really see them, but the cursor will change indicating where to click on the side of the trunk). After you do that, you can then click on the buttons on the front of the trunk. They have to be clicked in order to open the box; there’s no puzzle to figuring out the order, you just have to guess and click on them until you get it right.
Once we open the box, we find a puppet inside (because of course we do), but then, we lift the puppet and see that there are these strange symbols beneath — which appear to match the shape of and symbols on the jewels in that weird artifact Oskar has.
Can we talk to Marek about this? No, not yet. However, we’ve discovered a third exciting way that the game will show you that there’s no available dialogue: we can cut to Marek, see all the grayed-out dialogue options that we’ve already done, and then say goodbye. Sure. Why not.
I still cannot check off the task to ask about the Rezidente, and the only hint the journal is giving me is “Don’t forget to use your phone!”, except I also can’t call anyone either. SIIIIGH. Alright, why don’t I just take the haunted tour for like the third time.
Once again, Oskar has just left these priceless jewels out in the open, overnight, during a tour in which a bunch of randos go tromping through his exhibit. Aren’t you afraid someone will steal them, Oskar? You should be, because that’s exactly what we do. Sorry, Oskar! It’s for the greater good!
So now we can go back to Aparat and put the jewels in the mystery box. Somewhat trickily, the jewel with the big alchemy symbol on it does not go in the center, where the matching symbol is — instead, you first place the blue jewel in the slot with the matching shape, and another layer of the box will lift off to show a place for the square red jewel and the triangular alchemy jewel.
Next, we have a puzzle: all the jewels have to be rotated so that they can be placed into the slots that match their shape. Pressing the big alchemy symbol in the center will push the jewels back into their slots. So all you have to do is keep moving the jewels around so that, when you push them into their slots, they’re all aligned with the right shape.
Once that’s done, a secret compartment slides out, revealing a key. We rush over to tell Marek this and he’s like, “Oh, yeah, the Czech resistance or whoever used marionettes to pass secret information. Totally unsurprised that that box has a secret compartment.” Huh. After all that buildup about not being able to open this super-secret box from hundreds of years ago, you could be a little more excited for me, dude.
Anyway, the solution to the key is not to be found in Aparát, so let’s move on. Back in the square, we can talk to Radek about the Rezidente again. When we bring them up, Radek gasps, “You’ve been reading my script!” Uh…yeah, Radek, did you not cotton onto that when we…asked you about the script earlier?
Radek suggests that the Rezidente are not really criminals — rather, they’re dedicated to the defense and preservation of the Czech Republic, which was considered a crime by Certain Political Regimes who are Too Spicy For This Game to Explicitly Name. And, well, okay, they still also committed actual crimes, but in a cool patriotic way, I guess. Nancy notes that Radek sounds like he’s rather sympathetic to the Rezidente.
Alright, well, that’s all well and good, but I still have not made any progress. Um, alright — okay, the walkthrough I’m using says that the tiny key we found at Aparat fits in the bottom of the snowglobe Patricie gave us, because why not. When we use them together, the image in the snowglobe turns so that it’s now showing the castle with a bridge. We can also now see that the bottom of the snowglobe says the floods below hide secrets lost.
However, I am dumb, and I had to keep clicking the hint button on the task list until even the game was just like “Jesus Christ you dumbass GO LOOK IN THE TUNNELS.” Oops.
So back underground we go! We find the carving showing the castle and the bridge on the wall, and using the snowglobe causes this puzzle to pop up. It’s pretty easy; we have to place and rotate the lights so that they form a path that illuminates the entire picture.
When we’re done, a secret door opens and we find ourselves in an alchemy lab. The very alchemy lab that Adela hinted might have the schematics for making the seven keys, perhaps? We wander over to this desk and pick up this black rock, and Nancy will immediately note that there’s something inside the rock. She’s like, “I have to get whatever’s inside this rock out!” and if you’re like, “Okay, but…why”, stop asking questions, because you are not going to get answers.
So we gotta do some alchemy to figure out what’s inside the rock. It involves some fuckery with figuring out the symbols from a book on the table and it was giving me war flashbacks to the Curse of Blackmoor Manor so I cheated my way through it. Here’s the finished product. (Sidebar: I wonder how many people didn’t even have to look at the alchemy symbols charts in this game because they already had that shit memorized from replaying Blackmoor Manor eighty times as a kid.)
Next, we want to use these symbols to open up a cabinet in the corner. The cabinet’s lock is made of three rings, which we want to rotate so that it aligns to make the symbols on the stone. It’s a classic moving-one-moves-the-others puzzle, so it will take a few tries to align the symbols.
When they’re aligned, the cabinet opens, and we find a book inside. Nancy notes that she can’t read any of it, but we take it with us. We also find some schematics, as well as a piece of paper that says “Forever sleep at a touch of the lips.” Wow, crazy how those medieval Czech scholars also spoke English. Nancy notes in her journal that the more she digs into the past, the clearer the mysteries of the modern day become. Hee. I bet she tells that to all her clients when they ask why tf she’s investigating a jewel theft from 100 years ago instead of finding out who’s sabotaging their home renovation.
There are also several jewels inside the cabinet that look rather like the jewels we’ve seen in the game. Suspicious, or merely the game reusing assets? You decide!
We can’t take the jewels with us (RIP, I bet we could’ve finally retired from detective-ing with those), but we can shuffle them around and take a Roman coin hiding underneath one them.
That’s all we can do in the lab, so we go back outside. Once we do, though, we find that the door we came through is locked. The only gate we can go through leads us to…another tunnel! (Insert your millennial joke of choice here: “I heard you like tunnels so I put a tunnel in your tunnel” meme or “Tunnelception.”)
As we run through the tunnels, we hear ominous clinking behind us. Ah, fuck, it’s that weird skeleton knight guy again >:( Why are you so obsessed with me, sir?!?!
There are also actual skeletons down here, so…that’s fun.
Fortunately, I have now gotten wise to this game: I amped up the brightness to 10 (although I would regret this later) and shoved my nose up against every exit, so I only got killed twice before I made it out. The exit is down this tunnel with a ladder; as you can see, I sort of overshot the ladder before finding it.
When we get outside, we see night has fallen, and we also immediately get a call from Adela. We tell her that we found an alchemist’s journal, but it’s written entirely in Czech and German. Adela offers to translate it for us, and we agree to meet in the morning at the cafe — except as soon as we hang up, Adela then texts us saying she can’t meet after all, and tells us to leave the journal with Patricie for her. This is…embarrassingly something I do with a frequency (I can’t keep track of my own schedule, okay? I’m a disaster, leave me alone) so I guess I can’t fault her for it.
We then get a text from Ned, asking if we still think Adela is sus. Nancy mentions that it’s super weird that Adela called us right when we escaped from the tunnels from that murderous ghost knight. “You’re burying the lede here,” Ned notes. Hee. Nancy also recalls that Adela was the one who brought up making keys from the alchemists’ schematics to open the vault with the crown jewels. She decides that tomorrow, we’ll have to “eliminate” Adela as a suspect once and for all. Are…are we going to kill her?
Adela gives us Patricie’s number to let her know that we’ve left the book with her. Before we do that, I tried to call some more people and managed to have a conversation with the Czech police. They tell us that Leo was logged as having boarded his flight to Rome, so everything’s fine, case closed. Nancy asks if anyone actually saw Leo boarding the flight, and the police are like, “Look, we already closed the case, so if you could stop asking questions, that would be cool.”
Alright, well, let this be a lesson about getting our hopes up because the police were kind of helpful one (1) time. We go back to the cafe, drop the book off, and text Patricie. With that, the day ends.
The next morning, we go into the cafe, and wow, Patricie is blinding me 🙁 Oh, well, better to be squinting here than murdered in the tunnels twenty times…I guess? Anyway, we ask Patricie to distract Adela for us so that we can snoop through her stuff.
Oof, Adela is also blinding me.
Patricie agreeably asks Adela to help her make coffee — I hope you’re good at making latte art, Adela! — and we take the opportunity to snoop through her bag. We find Adela’s receipt from Aparát, as well as a Koko Kringle bar, which Nancy straight-up eats. Hee. You can’t take her anywhere.
The main thing we want to look at is this box in Adela’s bag, which…okay, Jesus Christ, I can’t see what I’m supposed to be doing at all. Let’s turn the brightness down and pray I don’t get chased through the tunnels again.
Much better. The puzzle to open the box is pretty simple, you just have to slide the tiles over so they form the words jewel, spire, and clock. Inside the box, we find the necklace with the fake gems and insurance documents, which Nancy notes that Adela didn’t complete.
Adela comes back to the table, and we ask if she insured the necklace. She admits that she didn’t, because she thought her mother had insured it. She tells us that, in fact, she never wanted to sell the necklace or make money off it: you see, Adela’s family aren’t actually nobility; they had the necklace because a noble family gave it to them in exchange for hiding them after the war, when the commies a certain government regime that hates the bourgeoisie took power. Adela meant to reunite the necklace with whatever remained of that family, and asked for Vladena’s help, since Vladena has connections among the nobility. But they couldn’t find anyone, so Adela “got impatient” and sent the necklace to SecondShine, which was when Vladena eventually found a buyer for the necklace.
Okay, but like…how on earth was posting it on SecondShine supposed to help the family find it? And Vladena finding a “local buyer” doesn’t sound at all like she’d actually found the family the necklace is connected to. Also, was Adela going to make that family pay her to get their necklace back? This makes no sense, but whatever, Nancy buys it. She asks about the buyer Vladena found, but Adela admits that she doesn’t know who it is — only Vladena does.
We then switch gears into talking about the book. Adela’s already translated it for us, and tells us that we should work on this instead of finding the gems from her necklace — “My gems are already stolen. My necklace pales in comparison to the Crown Jewels.” You know, if nobody is actually trying to steal the Crown Jewels, everyone involved is going to be really embarrassed.
Anyway, I’m not convinced of Adela’s innocence, but Nancy apparently is, because she says she trusts her. And with that, we’re one suspect down. Or two? I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo turns out to have been hanging out in the tunnels doing knight cosplay this entire time.
Up next: we do a bunch of useless puzzles, confront our black-smoke-renfair-knight-cosplayer stalker, and do the fastest smelting of keys ever.
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