Anton Sokolov doesn't mince words with Emily or her father and Royal Protector regarding the Empire's complicity in what has befallen the Batista Mining District, stating that the "new Duke's misery has only been possible with Dunwall's support". This region has been the engine of Serkonan prosperity, but the avarice of Luca Abele means that the silver mines now work round the clock. The town and its population get no respite from the dust that gets blown through the area, and doctors' notebooks and citizens' journals found in Batista attest to the lethal toll it extracts from the workers.
The silver baron Aramis Stilton helped build Karnaca, but this is a walk through the centre of its silver mining industry without his direct influence felt any more. With only the profit-driven machinery of the mining business itself remaining, stripped of Stilton's management and his consideration of the workers (from among whose numbers he rose to his current fortune), unchecked capitalism has left the area in ruin.
Sokolov's recriminations show how he has come to if not rue, then at least face up to the individual cost of nation-changing events and actions. The Machiavellian physician once experimented on infected and uninfected people alike with untested and often agonising treatments in his search for a cure to the Rat Plague. Now, he points the finger at the Empire's erstwhile most powerful family for their tacit endorsement of a gluttonous, callous ruler. This conversation with the old inventor comes not only after the encounter with Kirin Jindosh and his weaponised creations two missions ago, but after the appearance of a Roseburrow Prototype in the mission immediately prior - Esmond Roseburrow, tormented by the legacy of the whale oil he industrialised and Sokolov militarised, eventually took his own life. This small reference to Roseburrow comes between two missions that, in their separate ways, examine the cost of innovation and industry.
Many of Dishonored 2's levels are very much about individuals - the main targets that need to be neutralised on the path to the Duke and Delilah. This one is about factions, groups of people and how their role and life in Karnacan society is changing due to Delilah's ascension to the throne and even before that, the rule of Duke Abele.
One way Batista has changed under the new Duke is that the dust clouds from the mining work are now nearly constant, causing many residents and workers to fall ill and some flats to be abandoned because of their vulnerability to the grit that regularly sweeps across the district. This creates a unique gameplay consideration for the player. On the one hand, visibility will be severely restricted on a semi-regular basis. On the other, the enemies are in the same situation. This allows the designers to present some dense guard arrangements that can be bypassed by memorising the desired route, waiting for the dust cloud to roll in and then quietly slipping past as it does. Alternatively, this can be considered a time at which enemies are vulnerable and you can get the upper hand, defraying the threat posed by teams of Overseers, Howlers or Grand Guard members by reducing their numbers before they have a chance to react. In combination with powers like Bend Time or Blink upgraded so that time stops as you aim it, this can be very advantageous.
Having passed an arrangement of guards at the Batista Overlook the first group of people encountered in town are the citizenry and workers themselves. Serving soup to a line of miners and their families is a character who has appeared in a letter to Dr. Hypatia if she survived the protagonist's infilitration of the Addermire Institute: Lucia Pastor. Pastor is the widow of a man killed in a mining accident and is organising alongside the Miners Family Committee to help the workers. If Hypatia is saved, she can help administer aid, while Pastor continues to ply her political connections. Lucia Pastor has made it her life's work to help others now, and represents a path that Emily or Corvo can follow if they choose Low Chaos.
The information you need is the solution to a Jindosh-designed lock that opens the entranceway to Stilton's manor. It is a logic puzzle, and you can simply walk up and solve it yourself if you are capable and so inclined, bypassing nearly the entire level.
The choices from this point are made more explicit; per the advice of Billie Lurk you can play the other two key factions off against one another. Both the Overseers and the Howlers are established in the district, and will assist you with the solution if you turn up with the body of the others' leader.
Vice Overseer Liam Byrne has run up quite the body count among his men attempting to suppress Paolo's gang, finding himself confounded by Paolo's ability to apparently cheat death as demonstrated in Lower Aventa's black market. The Abbey is embattled in Serkonos, and in Batista we find the Overseer outpost on high alert with an injured man being put out of his misery near Byrne's office. The dirty wood and makeshift appearance of their outpost, situated in an appropriated building near Corvo's childhood home, contrasts with the comparatively nicer if smaller outpost near the Addermire station and certainly the grandiose halls of the High Overseer in Dunwall. Meanwhile the Duke, disliking their Strictures, has withdrawn his support for the organisation altogether. No help is coming for the beleagured Liam Byrne, and the atmosphere at the outpost is tense.
On the contrary the Howlers can be found relaxing at the Crone's Hand Saloon as musicians play by the al fresco bar, Paolo busy chopping up a deal to help the mine workers by making it too expensive for Abele to run the mines full-time. What's more, word is that it is Duke Abele himself who relies on Paolo to get food to the reclusive Aramis Stilton. Mindy Blanchard can be encountered again if you befriend the gang and, in one of my favourite character moments in the game, will casually express a desire to tattoo you if you have the time. Despite being aligned with the black magic influence of the Outsider, who Paolo has drawn on out of practicality rather than any particular interest in the occult, the Howlers are presented as a more sympathetic faction than the ideologically inflexible Abbey, despite the fact they've tried to ambush, rob, trick and kill the player on various occasions up to this point.
Paolo's quarters house an Outsider shrine next to a Sokolov painting which Corvo will remark on. This is a portrait of Vera Moray otherwise known as Granny Rags, once treated at the Addermire Institute as was revealed earlier in the game, and whose connection to the Outsider gave Paolo influence beyond his machinations in the world of crime and intrigue. If you choose to kill or knock out Paolo you'll find that, once again, he will burst into a flood of rats. This time he'll come back for the second round however, and you can put him down for good. At this point, a mummified hand will run around your arm like a centipede. Although Granny Rags is long-dead, it seems her influence is felt throughout the game as she lingers in Serkonos... or at least, part of her does.
It is presented as a binary choice who to side with when you speak to Lurk, however in keeping with the norms of these games there are more ways to do it than that. As you explore, you'll also find a side quest that gives you the option of packing both Byrne and Paolo into crates and having them shipped off to work in the mines themselves for five years in a callback to the Pendleton brothers in 'House of Pleasure'. And finally, you can sneak round (or kill) everybody and simply take the solution for yourself if you find the right key.
In practice you'll be likely to play half this level the way you have the previous ones, and walk through the other being able to explore at your leisure once you've picked a group to side with. If you're sending the two leaders to the mines, you can end up friends with everyone, for a short time. If you managed to extract the snoozing bodies of both Byrne and Paolo and are taking them to the silvergraph studio where the crates await, you can easily drop by the base of the opposing group while you're carrying each and enjoy their complimentary remarks. Just don't get them mixed up or you'll be attacked.
There's a door in one of the later areas of Deus Ex that I really like, which has a computer panel you can hack, next to a security system you can bypass with the multitool, can be lockpicked and is next to a vent you can crawl into. It puts all the options you have in the game on show and just invites you to use the one you're comfortable with in a little doff of the cap to the player's mastery of one or the other approach. However in Deus Ex you will have levelled up one stat or another, so you'll use a small number of lockpicks compared to the number of multitools needed if that's how you've been allocating XP, for example. In 'The Dust District', three of the options are right up front - the Howlers, the Overseers, or the riddle itself - but you can uncover even more, and none of them have been locked off because the only customisation you're doing is your Outsider powers. It is one big puzzlebox that you can do as much as you like of, in any order. Also, it features the opposing factions and ever-unspooling side quests and intrigue of a favourite Deus Ex hub of mine, Hong Kong.
The level involves infiltrating at least one of two key buildings and their surrounding areas, both jutting off the path that leads into the Dust District from near the door to the mansion. The Crone's Hand Saloon is very open air, centre-piecing the bar where Paolo can be seen talking and washing glasses. Its upper floors are accessible from a Bloodfly-infested building or you can find your way in at the ground floor, but either way you'll inevitably come across the salubrious heart of the establishment. I find that the actual corridors and sleeping quarters of the Crone's Hand are very condusive to stealth gameplay however, what with the numerous doors and tight corners. The Overseer outpost by contrast seems more enclosed since it is all indoors once you get to the building itself, but enemies will have easy line-of-sight to you a lot of the time as there are decently sized hallways to contend with.
Like Paolo, Byrne is in his place of work talking with lieutenants. And like Breanna Ashworth, both have quite a bit of dialogue that a stealthy approach will provide the opportunity to hear in full. Paolo seems to hold the upper hand, as when you find him he is occupied with actively expanding his influence while Byrne seems obsessed with the fight against the Howlers. This seems fair, since the Howlers apparently enjoy more sympathy from the Duke than the Overseers, antithetical to Abele's decadent and licentious lifestyle.
In terms of narrative it uses this opportunity for convergence to show the results of the Duke's avarice, the actions of Lucia Pastor in response, the gang activity and the Abbey's in response to that, all coming together in the town where Corvo was born while setting the scene for the game's third act.
The choices from this point are made more explicit; per the advice of Billie Lurk you can play the other two key factions off against one another. Both the Overseers and the Howlers are established in the district, and will assist you with the solution if you turn up with the body of the others' leader.
On the contrary the Howlers can be found relaxing at the Crone's Hand Saloon as musicians play by the al fresco bar, Paolo busy chopping up a deal to help the mine workers by making it too expensive for Abele to run the mines full-time. What's more, word is that it is Duke Abele himself who relies on Paolo to get food to the reclusive Aramis Stilton. Mindy Blanchard can be encountered again if you befriend the gang and, in one of my favourite character moments in the game, will casually express a desire to tattoo you if you have the time. Despite being aligned with the black magic influence of the Outsider, who Paolo has drawn on out of practicality rather than any particular interest in the occult, the Howlers are presented as a more sympathetic faction than the ideologically inflexible Abbey, despite the fact they've tried to ambush, rob, trick and kill the player on various occasions up to this point.
Paolo's quarters house an Outsider shrine next to a Sokolov painting which Corvo will remark on. This is a portrait of Vera Moray otherwise known as Granny Rags, once treated at the Addermire Institute as was revealed earlier in the game, and whose connection to the Outsider gave Paolo influence beyond his machinations in the world of crime and intrigue. If you choose to kill or knock out Paolo you'll find that, once again, he will burst into a flood of rats. This time he'll come back for the second round however, and you can put him down for good. At this point, a mummified hand will run around your arm like a centipede. Although Granny Rags is long-dead, it seems her influence is felt throughout the game as she lingers in Serkonos... or at least, part of her does.
It is presented as a binary choice who to side with when you speak to Lurk, however in keeping with the norms of these games there are more ways to do it than that. As you explore, you'll also find a side quest that gives you the option of packing both Byrne and Paolo into crates and having them shipped off to work in the mines themselves for five years in a callback to the Pendleton brothers in 'House of Pleasure'. And finally, you can sneak round (or kill) everybody and simply take the solution for yourself if you find the right key.
In practice you'll be likely to play half this level the way you have the previous ones, and walk through the other being able to explore at your leisure once you've picked a group to side with. If you're sending the two leaders to the mines, you can end up friends with everyone, for a short time. If you managed to extract the snoozing bodies of both Byrne and Paolo and are taking them to the silvergraph studio where the crates await, you can easily drop by the base of the opposing group while you're carrying each and enjoy their complimentary remarks. Just don't get them mixed up or you'll be attacked.
The level involves infiltrating at least one of two key buildings and their surrounding areas, both jutting off the path that leads into the Dust District from near the door to the mansion. The Crone's Hand Saloon is very open air, centre-piecing the bar where Paolo can be seen talking and washing glasses. Its upper floors are accessible from a Bloodfly-infested building or you can find your way in at the ground floor, but either way you'll inevitably come across the salubrious heart of the establishment. I find that the actual corridors and sleeping quarters of the Crone's Hand are very condusive to stealth gameplay however, what with the numerous doors and tight corners. The Overseer outpost by contrast seems more enclosed since it is all indoors once you get to the building itself, but enemies will have easy line-of-sight to you a lot of the time as there are decently sized hallways to contend with.
Like Paolo, Byrne is in his place of work talking with lieutenants. And like Breanna Ashworth, both have quite a bit of dialogue that a stealthy approach will provide the opportunity to hear in full. Paolo seems to hold the upper hand, as when you find him he is occupied with actively expanding his influence while Byrne seems obsessed with the fight against the Howlers. This seems fair, since the Howlers apparently enjoy more sympathy from the Duke than the Overseers, antithetical to Abele's decadent and licentious lifestyle.
In terms of narrative it uses this opportunity for convergence to show the results of the Duke's avarice, the actions of Lucia Pastor in response, the gang activity and the Abbey's in response to that, all coming together in the town where Corvo was born while setting the scene for the game's third act.
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| Nice to see these two catching a nap together instead of always fighting. |
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