I set the Heart to work, and instantly I’ve got a raft of
judgements to make. “At the gaming table, he keeps
cheating cards in his boot,” the Heart tells me of one
dockworker. I’m not killing someone for that. At the end
of the jetty, a woman is taking photographs of the ocean.
“She tells them it’s whale meat, but it’s not,” the Heart
whispers. I’m ready to spring upon this cannibal-by-proxy,
when I realise the Heart was not specific about what meat
was being served. Now that I’m out of the treasonous
mire of Dunwall, I don’t want to kill someone unless I’m
sure they deserve it. If the Heart says something
ambiguous like that, I’m going to ignore it.
With this rule in place, I move further into the docks.
Interestingly, my next couple of targets don’t come from
the Heart at all. At a jetty farther down the dockside, an
altercation over money ends in a man openly bludgeoning
two people to death with a length of pipe. We have a
winner! I slit his throat and drop the body in the ocean. I
then turn the corner and head up the street, where I catch
a guard pushing a man into an electrified wall of light. I’m
too slow to save the poor fellow, but I can at least give him
justice. I swoop down, choke out the guard, and throw his
unconscious body into the wall of light. Zap!
I return up the same street when the Heart delivers its
first proper target. A woman is leaning on a balcony on
the floor above. “She tells the children it’s just tea, and
when they’re asleep, she puts them on boats bound for
Morley.” Crikey, that’s nasty. Frankly I can’t think of a
punishment harsh enough, so I plant a springrazor on her
back, and blink away before it triggers.
It’s interesting how the Heart’s stories tug and pull at
my own sense of ethics. I quickly decide that I’m not
killing anyone for stealing. Partly because it’s excessive,
and partly because I’m practically hoovering up stuff that
doesn’t belong to me as I explore, and I’m not comfortable
with that level of hypocrisy. At one point, the Heart
whispers a story to me that I really struggle with. It
relates to a man tending a ramshackle dockside tavern.
“He took her books, and made her watch as he burned
them.” The thought of it makes me genuinely angry, but
cruel and nasty as such an action is, in the end I stay my
blade. If I’m giving thieves a pass, it would be wrong to
kill for destruction of property, however vindictive.
I continue up the hill, judging as I go. The Overseer’s
Headquarters proves particularly fruitful. From a rooftop,
I drop blade-first onto the shoulders of someone who had
a woman dragged to her death for witchcraft. Inside, the
Heart hisses of another, “He’s not a believer, but he
tortures them anyway.” Wow, champion of the world here.
I use a flame dart for this one.
By the time I jump into a carriage bound for
Addermire, I’ve relieved another 16 people of their vicious
lives, and those were just the really bad ones. All-told, I’m
feeling pretty bleak about Dishonored’s world as the Art
Deco bulk of Addermire looms into view.CAT PERSON
Mercifully, Addermire appears to have sensed my ailing
mood and prescribes a remedial sprinkling of decency. As
I arrive and explore the area surrounding the carriage
station, I find guards who for once are more kind than
cruel. “He’ll never be a rich man, but he is honest,” it says
of one watchman. Of another, the Heart whispers “He
gives part of his rations to two street urchins.” I love the
colour the Heart’s oral vignettes add to the world, but it’s
a relief to use a paint that isn’t black.
I sneak by this little cluster of wholesomeness. Upon
entering Addermire proper, Karnaca’s ugliness rises to the
surface again. “He crushed her fingers and told her she
needed a permit to fiddle on street corners.” Grim, but I
grit my teeth and move on. “She dumped them in the bay.”
I draw my sword, but for all I know the Heart could be
talking about fly-tipping, so I settle for a sleep dart and
head to an outdoor terrace.THE PIE OF
JUSTICETre ason: 22%Murder: 34%Getting in my way while I
escaped Dunwall (but also
probably treason): 16%Human
trafficking: 3%Animal
abuse: 3%To r tu re: 8%Attempted
murder: 6%Conspiracy
to murder: 8%By the time I left
Addermire, I
killed 36 NPCs.
Here’s why
they died.PERSONAL ADVENTURES IN GAMES
DIARY
Mortimer Ramsey was
always a pain in the neck.Is there another game that is
this beautiful and grim?