I drank almost half a litre of iced coffee yesterday and I felt all sorts of coffee-induced anxiety. I don’t recommend this. Unless you’re very used to coffee.
Last time Olle went through an abandoned town that’d been taken over by bramble. Lemus was there to help him out. ❤
Afterwards, Olle makes it to the swamp area of this game. Because, you know, a video and horror game. Swamps are mandatory. As are sewers.
I really like the swamp area because I like water areas in video games. But this is also the chapter where the bosses become — well, not difficult or anything but more annoying?
There’s a bit of a trek before Olle gets to the swamp, though. He comes across this — rest stop? — and there are warnings and imagery of infanticide and devil worship. As you can already probably tell, this isn’t going to be pretty.
The actual swamp area starts with this. The midwife(?) is probably supposed to bring to mind crucifixion but I just keep thinking of them as scarecrows. *shrugs*
Also, I have no idea who that undead crucified lady is so I’m just — going to go. Byeeee.
This place looks really pretty in spite of it all.
Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve once seen an actual name for these wooden walkways but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.
One name is duckboards, though, but I don’t think it was that?
Those little dots? Are eyes. Of the souls of the children who have been ritually murdered in this swamp. They’re called ‘dark souls’. I wonder if that’s a reference to, you know, Dark Souls or am I just thinking too much, ha ha?
Olle goes through the boathouse, jumps over the boat to another wooden walkway, and makes it to a house. On the left side of the screen and under it is the next wooden figure.
Well, the pictures are getting kind of too dark to see anything but it’s there in the middle of broken cradles. This is the sixth wooden figure. Maybe I’ll manage to find them all this time? *knocks on wood*
This figure is called Kärrhäxan, by the way, which most likely comes from the Swedish words ‘kärr’ and ‘häxa’, which translate to ‘marsh witch’. So, ‘swamp witch’.
Let’s peek inside the scary house first through the window. I’m sure nothing bad will happen! (Nothing bad will happen. At least not in the house.)
Inside the house, there’s a cauldron boiling away in the hearth, an assortment of bottles and powders, a couple of skulls… You know, normal stuff that you would find in any household.
MAKE SURE TO PICK UP THE TOY DUCK. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.
Olle needs to make it through the door. This one’s a puzzle, I guess, you just need to pick up the correctly labelled ingredients. I’m not sure if the order matters?
Then you just toss them in the cauldron and one whoosh later, baby’s first potion. And some think that witchcraft is difficult.
After the second puzzle (I forget if they’re the same ones every time?), Olle goes through the door and ends up in the bedroom. There’s an empty….. I have no idea but you need a crank for it.
On the bench in the bedroom is the third book and if I recall correctly, this is the only book you need to read because under it is the crank.
Olle climbs up the ladder to the next room where a lady is handcrafting a noose. We shouldn’t shame people for their hobbies. Unless they involve ritually murdering children.
The lady leaves with a crying baby and Olle immediately climbs into the room and tries to go after her. He’s a smart kid and knows what she’s going to do and wants to stop her.
The door is locked, though, and Olle needs to pile huge books on top of each other to climb up to the open window. I do this too actually when I need extra height on a ladder. (The problems of being tiny.)
…..don’t try it at home.
Oh, Olle. His kindness makes my heart hurt. And he thought he isn’t as brave as his sister.
If I still remember correctly (I have a five-second memory, okay), past the light and a bit to the left is the graveyard. You don’t need to visit it but… you know.
After some submerged walkways, Olle comes across the second raft. He needs to pull himself across but there’s another scarecrow blocking the way.
So of course, he needs to drop her in the water. Aaaand this starts the boss fight.
As I said above, it’s not difficult. Just kind of annoying. You need to listen to the water and follow the trail before she pops up. But first she’ll send up cradles as a diversion.
This game is honestly so pretty. *sighs*
After making it across the water, Olle follows the lady to a hut. She draws an inverted triangle with a dash across it. I didn’t find anything conclusive about it after a rudimentary internet search but most of it seemed to be positive symbolism so? Who knows?
Anywho~ The lady locks the door behind her and Olle has to go through this bit of swamp, jump on a boat and on the roof of the hut. When he jumps off the roof, there’s a short chase sequence with bramble and then he makes it to another area of the swamp.
I don’t have pictures of this because I only have two hands.
This is sort of a… reservoir area? I think there’s something in the water — which I didn’t realise the first time I played, ha ha, oops — because there’s this foamy trail following Olle if he takes too long to get to the next safe spot.
In the last pool, there are more dark souls. You need to shoo the poor things away with the stone to make it across.
He finds the lady who has already hanged herself. Even though I feel so bad for Olle, I also like the detail of how he huddles in on himself. Because it just — it feels so real.
Olle finds the baby, drowned in a puddle surrounded by candles behind the lady.
The first time I played this I was like, noooo, don’t cry, Olle, you’re making me cry too. It was not better this time either.
I really wish I could’ve saved the baby but I guess there wasn’t a realistic way for Olle to carry him around as he runs away from zombies and fights Skogsrås and giants.
Olle huddles in on himself until the end of the chapter.
Olle is making me cry again.
I really need to write a post-game fic where he and Lillemor just hug each other for an entire day.
Hiraeth 