The Risen 3 Report, Day 2: Voodoo Matt Berry

The good news is that I do now have Risen 3 working on my games PC, and I only had to disable half of the cores in my processor to do it. The bad news is that the events of this second part of the diary were played on crappy laptop integrated graphics before I'd found the fix, so the ugly screenshots will once again destroy your will to live. All will be visually well from part 3 onwards, however.

Part 1 of this series is here, and the Risen 1 Report is here. Plot spoilers in this one, btw.

My freedom did not last. Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty - I'm not sure yet if I'm Selma or Marge - is back at my heels, scoffing and bragging and bellowing impolite assertions about the parentage of passing monkeys, and I've got a terrible dilemma on my hands.


That dilemma is that I've run out of things to do other than head off on the quest that Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty wants me to go on. The last thing in the world I want to do is a favour for this most appalling of siblings, but other than sunbathe or get messed up on rum that I'm probably going to need later on, I'm out of options.

Okay. Okay. Maybe if I do what she asks, Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty will stop being ghastly to me and to those poor monkeys. Maybe she'll even put on a damn jumper. We head off down the Path Of Destiny - in fact a small sandy trail guarded by a couple of genuinely ferocious and therefore perhaps slightly bastardly monkeys - and there's a temple and a big lizard and a tree I have to push over to form a bridge, and that kind of thing.

Clearly, Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty doesn't help as I strain to topple the massive old tree. She also claims not to have noticed anything when a Ghost Pirate appears before us, plain as the nose on her nightmarish frozen clown face, and implies I'm being weird. Come on, Patty, we all know you saw him too. Nothing is gained by denying a legitimate supernatural occurrence purely to humiliate your brother, especially when there isn't anyone else around to hear you do so. Oh no, wait, there's another monkey. I'm sure he thought I was right prat, right before we stabbed him to death. I shot him a bit too, just to make sure he couldn't tell his hairy friends.

Standard pirate adventure stuff follows. We find a corpse with a treasure map. We go into a temple. We find some treasure. It's a suspiciously large amount of treasure - 1080 gold coins - which immediately has me worried I won't get to keep it. People don't tend to strike it filthy rich right at the very start of an adventure, you know. Even the best case scenario is that Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty will demand half of it, despite my having done all the legwork. Anyway, we fight some naked rats and some dessicated zombie things, then Patty stubbornly refuses to accompany me as I explore another part of the temple rather than head straight for the exit, because for some reason she's now decided that lost treasure isn't very interesting.

We find another temple. We fight some pirates, we fight some rats, we fight some dessicated zombie things, we lower a drawbridge so we reach yet another temple. Honestly, it's a little dull, it seems arbitrarily murderous, and the only good thing to come out of it is that I find a nice earring which makes me a little more charismatic. I try to make Patty wear it, but no luck there. She probably needs to wear at least 75 of them in order to solve her Truly Awful Person problem anyway, and as far as I'm aware, I am not a qualified ear-piercer.

Then this happens:

Actually, these ill-tempered Ghostbusters cast-offs aren't particularly tough. But then this happens:

Unfortunately, she isn't dead. Then this happens:

Unfortunately, I am dead. Well, gee, thanks, Patty. You actually got me killed. Presumably you're over the moon now?

Oh, wait, she's crying over my grave. I think those are tears, anyway. The eyes are like jet-black abysses and are bone-dry, but she's making the sort of noise that someone grieving would, plus she's made the effort to stick some boulders on top of my corpse.

Well, her apparent distress is somewhat unexpected given how badly she's treated me until now, but it does at least backup my A Wee Bit Incesty / Negging theory. Whatever her true motivations, she buggers off and sets ship for who knows where after a few (crocodile, surely) tears, and I'd be jumping for joy if only I wasn't dead.

To be honest, I'm not buying this whole I Am Dead business for one second. Although I do have a brief moment of overwhelming fear that I will somehow continue this adventure as Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty. But no, sure enough, after a few moments Basil Plot Device wanders up to get things back on track.

I am resurrected, although there are some alarming references to a missing soul, and I have a new friend. His brief spot of deus ex machinery completed, he is Basil Plot Device no longer, he is now Voodoo Matt Berry. Pray prepare yourself for what you are about to witness:

There can be no doubt. This is he.

Voodoo Matt Berry, you might sound like an out-of-work Thespian half-cut on tramp juice, and I suspect that listening to you will stop being hilarious and start being unbearable within about 219 seconds, but because your voice and your face seem to belong to two completely different people, I already like you a whole lot more than Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty. You shall be my Amazing Adventures Buddy! So, er, where we going? Oh, right. Only to find my lost soul. That's great and everything, but do you mind if we go shopping first? I've got pockets full of rat meat and half a dozen rubbish swords to get rid of, you see.

Suddenly, I realise something. Evil Pirate Porn Star Sister Patty is gone. Death is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

More to follow.