Horizon of Wishes

**Grim Tales: Horizon of Wishes** is the twenty-second game in the *Grim Tales* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

As the game opens, Anna Gray looks at a photo of herself and her twin sister, Luisa, with the ghost of their father Richard between them; she's clipped a photo of their mother Anastasia to one edge. Touching the image of Richard, she admits that while he's a handful, she misses him, and wishes she knew where he was. Removing the cloth cover from his skull, she sees that it is suddenly active for the first time in a long time. Touching her mother's cameo causes Anastasia to materialize; she greets her daughter affectionately and says they need to talk about Richard, because his skull is sending out odd signals. Anastasia used to travel extensively with her sister, so she thinks she has some items from her travels which might help. Examining the skull, Anna is shocked to find herself pulled inside of it. This is her father's eternal prison, and there is a statue of him here, but it's unclear what's actually happened. Exploring the room reveals a runic map, which allows for travel to anywhere, and a bottomless chest, which provides infinite storage space. She also finds notes which indicate that he traveled to the 1920s, where someone can "help me stop this for good," so she decides to find what she needs to use the runic map to follow him.

Arriving in the 1920s, Anna thinks how weird it is to travel without using her own powers. She consults with her mother, whose cameo confirms that Richard went into a nearby building. She sees her reflection and realizes that the map didn't change her appearance; she's still dressed like she's from a hundred years in the future, which could be a problem if anyone sees her. Sure enough, once she gets inside the bar where Richard went, she encounters a detective named Conrad Matthews. He immediately figures out she has something to do with "my new friend Richard," but advises her to get a change of clothes so they can speak without being noticed, and gives her a bill to get into the tailoring shop next door. Using what she finds in the shop, Anna puts together a flapper look; but when she starts to go back to the bar, she realizes there's a robbery taking place. Rushing back inside, she finds everyone gone, but a note suggests that the responsible party may have been a vigilante, and a large pile of debris is on the spot where Conrad had been sitting. Dislodging this, she finds his business card, so she makes her way to his nearby office and searches for clues as to his connection to Richard. She finds interesting information about a local group of robbers called the Elusive Gang, who use some kind of mysterious substance on their victims, and also a note from Conrad which mentions that Richard offered to help him catch these people. In the safe, she finds a contract between the two men which states that Richard's only request was to have a conversation with the gang's leader once they were caught. Finding this leads to a vision in which the leader was apprehended, but Conrad went back on his agreement, so Richard used magic to break the leader out of his jail cell; Anastasia comments that it seems to be a family trait to not allow anything to get in the way when they have their sights on a goal.

Assembling clues from the crime scene at the bar, Anna comes up with the name Benny Carson, and an address; she 'borrows' a car parked outside and drives to the address, startled to find the door standing wide open. Investigating, she finds that Benny Carson is trying to avenge the murders of nearly his entire family, and that both he and Richard are searching for the same artifact. She also finds information stating that Conrad Matthews was preventing Carson from succeeding, but before she can do anything else, a young girl appears and scolds her for interfering; she then blows a strange dust on Anna, which causes her to black out. She wakes up behind bars, not far from Conrad Matthews, and realizes that this must have been the same substance from the crime report about the Elusive Gang. She manages to get out from behind the bars, but then Benny Conrad and the girl - his daughter Brianna - enter. Anna has to prove to them that she's not "one of them." Assembling the fragments of a note from Richard does the trick, and Carson gives Anna a photograph of his family. She travels back to the day that gunmen broke into their family home and murdered everyone except Carson and Brianna. A note reveals that the thing both Carson and Richard are trying to acquire is a magic object called the Artifact of Wishes, created by a witch in the Middle Ages. She disarms the gunmen and traps them both, thereby saving the Carson family. A pair of portals open and she watches Richard run from one into the other; before she can react, she is pulled out of the past and back into the room inside his skull.

Interacting again with the bottomless chest, Anna retrieves a magic staff, which she puts into the hand of her father's statue. This opens his jacket and lets her pull out a note about traveling to the Middle Ages in search of the creator of the Artifact of Wishes. Determined not to make the same mistake, she decides to change her clothes before heading into the distant past, and acquires a medieval-style dress. Anastasia is delighted to be in the time period, and her cameo confirms that Richard has been there, conferring with a witch. But Anna then sees the witch, Octavia, being marched into the castle by a pair of knights; she's being arrested for something that happened to the princess. Another witch Waltrude, explains that she needs to release her friend before she's executed, and begs Anna for help. Anna manages to get into the castle in time to see the king sentencing Octavia to death; once he leaves the room, she finds information explaining that the king's sister was turned to stone by something the witches did. Octavia never meant to harm the princess, it was entirely an accident. Making her way to the dungeon, Anna is able to incapacitate the guard and use his keys to open the cell. Octavia remarks that Anna reminds her of Richard. She can't leave the cell on her own, but thanks Anna all the same. After some more investigating, Anna finds her way to the witches' lair, and gathers ingredients for an enchanted basket of fruit with which to put the guard to sleep. Entering the house, Anna brings Waltrude up to speed, and they return to the castle and smuggle Octavia home. Using instructions and ingredients she's gathered, Anna brews a healing potion for Octavia, but just after she takes it, the king and some guards break into the house. He almost arrests all three of them, but Octavia explains that Anna is from the future and can undo everything; the king, apparently deciding that it's worth a shot, gives Anna what she needs to go back in time, and she goes to the moment when the princess was turned to stone. She can't prevent it from ever happening, but she is able to undo it swiftly enough that the king doesn't seek retribution. She also finds a note about the Artifact of Wishes, which will grant exactly one wish if stone petals are inserted, and she has the shell of the artifact in her possession already.

Anna is returned again to the skull prison, where she has a vision of her father gathering petals from the Stone of Morning Leaves. Interacting with the bottomless chest once more, she acquires a beautiful hanbok, which she dons before activating the runic mirror and traveling to feudal Korea. Anastasia's cameo presents a vision of Richard helping locals in a swordfight, which Anna can't help thinking is unusual for him. A young man lies unconscious on the ground, so her first order of business is to revive him. A nearby note reveals that a woman has been selected to join the Emperor's court as one of his concubines, and Anna thinks this has to do with the fight she saw. Sure enough, when she brings the young man around, he explains that he is Kim In Chol and he was fighting to prevent his beloved Lee Soo Yeon from being taken to the palace. He asks Anna to help him rescue her. Anna repairs a nearby boat and they row to the palace in time to see the ladies entering the court; Soo Yeon spots In Chol and pleads with him to help her. The heavy door closes behind her. Anna finds a note which explains that the Emperor chose his concubines by selecting women he thought would have knowledge of the Stones of Morning Leaves, because a stranger - Richard - told him about the Artifact of Wishes. They get inside the palace in time to see the Emperor lock Soo Yeon in a cage for refusing to tell him about the stone flowers. Anna finds another note indicating that the Emperor wants the Artifact of Wishes to save his people from starvation, but she observes that noble goals don't justify evil means. She locates the key to Soo Yeon's cage and releases her; Soo Yeon reveals that the Emperor took the girls from the village because one of them knows the location of the stone flower, and that she is the one. She promised someone called the Keeper that she would not reveal the location, and gives Anna something to help her find her way to the sanctuary; almost immediately, the Emperor's guards drive Anna and In Chol out of the palace. They find a map and travel to the Mountain of Eternal Silence, where inside the sanctuary the Keeper demands an explanation. In Chol explains that they were sent by Soo Yeon, and when his walking stick is returned to them, the Keeper accepts that they are telling the truth. Unfortunately, the Emperor's guards have tracked them; they break in, knock In Chol unconscious while the Keeper vanishes, and the guards steal the flower. They drop a scroll which enables Anna to jump back in time to fix things. She changes the herald's document so they think that Lee Soo Yeon is not one of the Emperor's chosen.

Returning to the sanctuary, she finds the stone flower restored - and Richard standing before it. Anastasia's cameo lights up, and she comes out to speak to her husband. They greet each other affectionately, but Richard explains that he's tired of being trapped in his own skull like a genie in a bottle, and asks his daughter to please not refuse his final request. Taking a restorative elixir from a nearby statue, Anna gets the needed parts from the stone flower and assembles the Artifact of Wishes for Richard. He tells her that he's deeply proud of her and Alice, and that he's sorry for all his past misdeeds and he hopes he's made up for it. Father and daughter share a tender embrace before he bids her farewell. Back in Anna's living room, Richard's skull crumbles to dust.

### Bonus Chapter

It is the 1920s and the Elusive Gang has claimed another victim. Conrad Matthew is assigned to the case and is driven to an abandoned house belonging to the Conrad family; several members of the family were murdered earlier, but the new murder case seems unconnected. The constable on the scene does observe that Benny and Brianna Carson are still missing since the murder of their family members; the victim this time, meanwhile, is actually a serial killer whom the police have been trying to find, and the constable notes that the Elusive Gang frequently did kill other rival killers. Investigating the premises, Conrad finds a mask and determines it was made by a tailor on Victoria Road, but en route his driver is killed by mines in the street. Richard Gray is there, and offers Conrad a deal - he'll help Conrad catch the Elusive Gang in exchange for the chance to get information from their leader. Conrad agrees, mostly because he feels like he has no choice. They take a nearby motorcycle to Victoria Road to visit the tailor, who recognizes the mask as one he had made for a young blonde lady at the pub next door. Getting into the pub, Conrad sees the girl run out through a secret passage behind a shelving unit. Once he's able to follow, he and Richard track her to an abandoned railway car. Richard assures Conrad that he can get the job done, but Conrad needs to remember the agreement they've made. Investigating the car, Conrad finds the blonde girl's diary, which talks about a magical artifact that will help the Elusive Gang members save their family; he guesses this is what drew Richard's attention to the gang. Opening the door at the back of the car reveals the Elusive Gang - the blonde woman and her father, who is actually the driver that Conrad thought was killed when he met Richard. Conrad fights them and ties them up, then moves to call Scotland Yard. The girl escapes, but arriving constables arrest the man, much to Richard's irritation because Conrad went back on their deal. He snaps at Conrad that he's "tired of dealing with traitors," and he'll just go to the prison and set the Elusive Gang's leader free so he can interrogate him.

## Characters

* Anna Gray: A time-traveling detective.
* Richard Gray: Anna's father, a ghost who has been bound into his own skull. He has been missing for quite a while but Anna thinks that she might be able to find out what happened to him.
* Anastasia Grim: Anna's mother, who is also a ghost. Anna communicates with her through her old cameo locket.
* Conrad Matthews: A detective in 1920s London. He promised to help Richard, but went back on his word, though he does help Anna (a little) when she comes looking for her father. He is the player character of the bonus chapter.
* Benny and Brianna Carson: A father and daughter whose family has been murdered, and now they're out for revenge as killers known as the Elusive Gang. Anna is able to prevent the murders so they never turn to crime themselves.
* Octavia and Waltrude: A pair of witches in the Middle Ages. Octavia is sentenced to death for having accidentally turned the king's sister to stone, and Waltrude begs Anna to save her.
* Kim In Chol: A young man in feudal Korea, who asks Anna to help him rescue his love from becoming a concubine to the Emperor.
* Lee Soo Yeon: In Chol's beloved.
* The Keeper: An ancient guardian of the Stone of Morning Leaves.

## Connections

* The first part of the game heavily references the previous installment, *Echo of the Past*, as Anna begins by having a conversation with her mother's ghost.
* It was previously revealed in *Trace in Time* that the Gray family emblem is a gray fox. In Richard's skull room, one of the shields Anna has to place in the base of his statue has a fox head on it.
* Near the very end of the main game, Richard tells Anna that he is very proud of her and also of her daughter Alice Gray, who was first introduced in *Guest From The Future*.

## Trivia

* The hint and map buttons are on the opposite sides of the screen from where they are normally positioned.
* Richard does a lot of thinking about his daughters in this game, including having some clearly cherished photos of them and their mother. However, there is absolutely no mention of his adopted son Thomas Gray, nor of The Twins or their mother.
* The bonus content for this game includes the Expedition Room, which allows the player to go back and locate any collectibles they missed while playing the game; this lets them earn the achievements related to collectibles without having to replay the game.
* Alaina Wis, who voices Anastasia, is also the voice of Brianna Carson.

## External Links

* *Horizon of Wishes* at Big Fish Games
* *Grim Tales* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook