Alundra - Part 44: The Sanctuary's Secret
Written on Tuesday, March 1st, 2016
Posted on Sunday, July 14th, 2019
4 min read
Cephas says that Ronan is "a bitter, humorless lump of anti-humanity." He loves it.
I meet up with Septimus, who's trying to get in the Sanctuary.
Septimus says he can't go through the front door, as it's locked...he tells us that one of the windows in the upper floors can be broken. Though he thinks breaking and entering is really a desperate move and that "eternal damnation" is to be expected. Let's do it!
He tells us to climb the moat wall in the back and from there, we'll break the window...
But where is the moat wall?
There might be a tunnel underneath the Sanctuary though.
After searching the whole area, and the area around Magyscar for a while, I jump over Lyman's headstone and make it on to the moat wall.
Septimus bids me good luck as I smash the window to pieces!
The infirmary's got nothing suspicious...
I head for the main hall. Septimus bangs the front door, asking me to let him in.
He goes to examine the altar, and tells us to examine Ronan's quarters upstairs in the east hall.
The Sanctuary looks a bit different the last time I visited it...
I check the library. Nothing.
Septimus finds a tome above on a pillar, where below that is a switch. I tell him to press it.
A shake and a rumble, which opens a door west.
The south room in the west wing is open, where two levers are.
After switching on the two levers, another shake, and a press switch drops down on a high block!
I head up to the infirmary, but Septimus calls me and says that he found another switch.
He presses it, and a spiked ball drops from above!
This Sanctuary really is getting more suspicious and a bit frightening...
A big gaping hole is at the infirmary, which I jump down, and press the switch below.
It opens the door north.
Coffins!? And a book appears!
I try to get it, but the book disappears and reappears on one of the other coffins!
The layout looks like this:
1..2..3..4
5..6..7..8
The book appears at 4, 6, 8, 1, 7, 5, then back to 4.
How do we get that book?
I go back to the altar and see Septimus, who finds that the shrine table moved a bit, and we ask him about the vanishing book. He goes on ahead.
Septimus tells us that we have to chase after the book and he'll take it when it appears in front of the coffin he's at, which is coffin 5.
Septimus has the book!
I get the Book of Runes!!
I use the book and place it on the bookshelf with the gap in the library.
I love this dungeon! So much mystery and tension behind its walls...
The bookshelf below moves out of the way.
I see another bookshelf with a gap between books.
Septimus finds another switch on the east side of the altar!
He's tempted to push the switch that could be a death trap.
I tell him to go for it. Another rumble comes from the east wing!
The confession room's door above is now open.
I go in, and grab the chest at the end of hall, containing a Life Vessel!!!
I head upstairs, seeing nothing.
I then go back to that room where the chest was, and push two of the three wooden stools there.
After pushing them into a straight line, a lever drops!
A rumble, and the door south is open, which is a classroom!
The classroom rumbles and the stools there move out of place.
Another shake!?
I move the stools back to their places.
I get a Book of Verse!!
The mysteries of this Sanctuary are getting deeper!
I place the Book of Verse in the empty gap in the southern bookshelf back at the library.
Another bookshelf east of us moves, and a press switch is there!
I press it, and Ronan's quarters open!
Oh great, the lever vanished!
I try again and I make it to the lever in Ronan's room, which makes a chest drop from the ceiling!
Oh I see! By touching the carpet, the lever and the chest vanish!
I jump on the furniture in his quarters to get the chest, which has a...golden, oddly-shaped key.
I head back to Septimus, who's noticed the keyhole on the shrine table.
We give the key to Septimus. He turns it...
Oooooh, a secret staircase!
Septimus bets that Ronan knows what he's doing with what's here.
Ooooh, the tension is so...tense here. I breathe deeply as I head down.
The stairway and the hallway is so deep and long...
At the end of the passage...oh my god, it's a huge statue of Melzas, and Ronan is praying at the base of it!
The King, Septimus says, made it illegal for idols to be worshipped.
Ronan says that the gods are angry for being neglected, and claims he is a faithful servant of them. He has broken the law since it was formed, and the villagers are well aware of his "crime."
Ronan implicitly accuses Meia for saying that the nightmares were the work of evil, and probably accuses us too. What a deceptor. I don't trust him...
After the law was placed, the village learned to control their dreams, and he blames mankind, himself too, for their problems.
Septimus: "A merciless god is a demon!" He leaves.
Ronan laughs since the gods, according to him, are now laughing at Septimus's "ill-timed blasphemy!"
We leave, getting nowhere with this argument.
"There could be no doubt. It was a portrait of Melzas in the basement of the sanctuary. Is Ronan the one who worshipped his image? Or had other villagers knelt to his soul as well?"
Wait a minute. Since Ronan told Alundra near the beginning of the game to pray, had we also unknowingly prayed to Melzas's image too?
Is this what Jeal was trying to warn us about, where he said that by threatening Melzas, we are also threatening reality?
If all of this is true, oh my god...oh my god...this is deep...this is getting too deep...