Mystery Trackers: The Secret of Watch Hill

**Mystery Trackers: The Secret of Watch Hill** is the seventeenth installment in the *Mystery Trackers* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

The game opens with Amber sitting at a desk, filling in a report. The Commander enters and shows her a news bulletin - her hometown of Watch Hill is experiencing the same events which killed her family fifteen years earlier. She is shocked to see a little boy in the newscast who looks exactly like her dead brother. The Commander tells her that this case is her next assignment. Arriving in Watch Hill by boat with her faithful Elf, Amber finds the town under quarantine. The security officer who tries to warn her away agrees to let her in if she shows identification and puts on protective gear, so she has to find her ID badge - for the first time in the series, the player can see that her code name is Agent Amber.

Once she's given clearance and donned the gear, Amber enters her hometown for the first time in fifteen years. She watches a strange creature take control of a person and force him to crash his car; the creature then dissolves into black mist and flies away. Amber checks the crash victim, confirming that he's alive, and doubles back to inform the officer, who sends people to help him. Most of the other citizens of Watch Hill have fled, but those few who are still present seem to be standing around in a kind of trance. After clearing the way, Amber sets off in pursuit of the mist, only to find an impaired scientist and the boy who looks like her brother Will. She observes the boy running in the direction of her family home, but her own way is barred and she must first get past an electrified fence.

The stunned scientist is frozen in place; his ID badge says he's from a place called Mystic Labs, which Amber notes is unfamiliar to her. She takes his laser cutter and works to turn off power to the fence. This accomplished, she cuts a hole in the fence with the laser and makes her way to her childhood home, where she sees Will waving to her from an upstairs window. She retrieves the old spare key from the nearby arbor and makes her way through the house. Entering her father's study, she begins picking through the remaining items for clues. She finds the special lock for the family mailbox and discovers that it contains her parents' last will and testament, which includes a note saying that Watch Hill has a secret, and she can find it if she follows the clues. Back in her father's study, she uses the microscope to examine the ring that was taped to the note and discovers that it's engraved with the name Mystic Labs. The name of this facility is the secret passcode which opens a hidden cache on the bookshelf, where she finds a case file about a project on which her parents, Christopher and Nora Edevane, had been the chief scientific supervisors. The project had involved studying the Black Mimic, which is the black mist Amber has already seen; this black aeriform being has the ability to take on the shapes of small creatures, and it was hoped that they could learn something about it which would be beneficial to humankind. However, Project Black Mimic was put on hold due to potential dangers to the scientists.

Using a hex key that was hidden in the file, Amber removes a bookcase from the wall, which enables her to climb the badly damaged stairs to the second floor. She spots Will, but he runs away again. In her childhood bedroom, she finds a number of photos and old memorabilia, including her high school diploma and a scientific award she received (which confirms that Amber is her real name and not just her code name). After recovering a weird cane that her father had been given as a gift, she pulls open the ladder leading to the attic, where she finds a young woman in protective gear grappling with Will. They both fall and catch themselves on a ledge, but before Amber can help either of them, Will reveals himself as the Black Mimic and flies away. Amber pulls the young woman to safety. She introduces herself as Juliet and explains that she works for Mystic Labs, where they study supernatural beings in hopes of finding cures for human illnesses. They came to Watch Hill to capture the Mimic, which can absorb memories through touch and then leave the victim a hollow shell, which is why she had warned Amber not to touch the false Will. The Mimic escaped from their secret lab under the lighthouse fifteen years ago, and though Amber's parents tried to stop it, it went into hiding. Juliet wants to capture the Mimic and learn to use its powers for good.

Amber agrees to join forces with Juliet to catch the Mimic, since they both want to save Watch Hill, and sets off to try to find it. She finds another victim at the playground, then makes her way through the gate to the path leading to the lighthouse. Once inside, she works her way down to the hidden workspace of Mystic Labs, where she finally learns about the case of the Black Mimic. She finds the elevator leading to the secret level, but it malfunctions and she has to free herself before she's trapped forever; unable to climb while wearing the protective suit, she's forced to leave it behind.

On the secret level, Amber uses a memory card she found earlier to learn more details about the case. Among other things, she learns that Juliet was actually kicked off of the project due to an obsession with studying the Mimic regardless of the danger. Using ingredients she finds in the exam room, she's able to blast open the door to the panic room, where she finds the bodies of her parents locked in a final embrace. Not letting herself be overcome with emotion, she takes her father's multi-purpose tool and her parents' diary. Using a clue they inscribed on the wall, she opens the diary and learns that when the Mimic escaped and killed her brother, her parents lured it into the panic room and sealed themselves inside with it in order to prevent it from killing Amber too. They left some final instructions on how to trap and destroy the creature, as well as a last message to their daughter.

With the information and components left by her parents, Amber assembles a trap for the Mimic. Juliet arrives and uses a taser on Amber, who wakes up to find herself handcuffed. Working her way free, she releases Elf from a nearby cage and realizes that she's on a ship. After finding a map and the means to escape, she finds her way up to the middle deck, and breaks into Juliet's cabin, where she sees the Mimic starting to take control of Juliet's mind. Ransacking the room, she finds a taser and gets into the adjacent lab, where she uses the taser on Juliet before deploying the trap. The Commander arrives to personally remove the Mimic from Watch Hill; with the evil presence gone, the people begin to recover, Juliet is arrested, and Amber arranges for her parents to be buried beside her brother at last.

### Bonus Chapter

The bonus chapter opens almost exactly the way the main game did, except that this time, it's Dark Amber - Amber's identical counterpart in the Dark Trackers Agency - who is writing a report. The Grand Master of the Dark Trackers approaches with intelligence from their spy in the Mystery Trackers' world, and shows her the same news bulletin which Amber had been shown. He assigns Dark Amber to collect a sample from the Mystic Labs facility.

Dark Amber makes her way to the agency's lab, where her brother, Dark Will, is the lab chief. Brother and sister greet each other cordially, and Dark Amber explains that she needs a vaccine to protect herself from the influence of the Black Mimic, which the agency had developed years earlier. He gives her the directions and tells her she can find all the ingredients right there in the lab; once she assembles the vaccine, he inoculates her and her dog, Dark Elf. Making her way to Watch Hill, she meets Juliet and immediately discerns that she can use the other woman's eagerness regarding the vaccine. She agrees to bring Juliet anything she can find that the Mimic touched, and Juliet gives her a bound book of information.

At the Edevanes' house, Dark Amber startles a reporter named Kevin Walker, but he relaxes when he realizes she's not going to arrest him. She picks the door lock for him, and as he enters the house, she sees the Mimic leave, so she follows it to the garden. A short time later, the reporter runs out of the house, jumps in his car, and almost hits Dark Amber as he frantically drives away. She collects a Mimic sample for Juliet and delivers it, but Juliet needs more. Dark Amber sends her to where Amber is investigating, leading to their meeting in the main game; meanwhile, she takes the object Juliet gives her and works her way to the Mystic Labs research facility. Breaking into the secret archives, she's able to retrieve the sample the Grand Master requested, and is transported back to her own world without Amber having ever realized she was there.

## Characters

* Amber and Elf: A Mystery Trackers field agent and her companion animal.
* Christopher, Nora, and Will Edevane: Amber's parents and brother, who were killed in a terrible incident fifteen years earlier.
* Juliet Ricardo: A Mystic Labs scientist who is obsessed with a creature called the Black Mimic.
* Dark Amber and Dark Elf: In the bonus chapter, Amber's identical counterpart from the Dark Trackers Agency, and her companion animal.
* Dark Will: In the bonus chapter, the younger brother of Dark Amber.

## Connections

* Amber's tragic past was hinted in a computer file found in *The Fall of Iron Rock*.
* Dark Amber was previously the chief antagonist of *Darkwater Bay*.
* The events of Amber's past are briefly mentioned in one of the flashbacks in the next game, *Fatal Lesson.*

## Trivia

* Like in *Paxton Creek Avenger*, the player has the option not to bring Elf along for the adventure. Elf's popularity with *Mystery Trackers* fans means that very few players actually take this option.
* The picture on Amber's desk at the beginning of the game has a caption of "Watch Hill, Hometown, 2004." Amber then mentions that her family died fifteen years ago. This suggests that the game is taking place in 2019, the same year it was released, and would mean that Amber is approximately 32 years old.
* In Amber's bedroom is her diploma, which reveals that she graduated from Watch Hill High School on June 31, 2004. This is obviously a typo, because the month of June has only 30 days.
* Throughout the game, the player can collect miniature replicas of real lighthouses from around the world, as well as fragments of photographs.

## External Links

* *The Secret of Watch Hill* at the Elephant Games website
* *Mystery Trackers* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook