Mystery Trackers: Nightsville Horror

**Mystery Trackers: Nightsville Horror** is the eighth installment in the *Mystery Trackers* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

Amber and Elf have been dispatched to Willowsville, Louisiana, to investigate the existence of a character known as an "owl man," who seems to originate in the neighboring community of Nightsville. Amber is asleep on the boat as they arrive, having a strange dream about a hooded figure with a face like an owl, but is woken out of it by the captain informing her that they've reached Willowsville. She reviews her directives from the Commander on her tablet computer, then starts investigating her swampy surroundings. Breaking past the locked pier gate, she encounters a blind seer who says that he anticipated her coming. He bestows upon her the gift of Foresight, lending her his special ability for the duration of her investigation, and begs her to restore peace and order to the area. After the seer disappears, Amber tests her new ability and realizes that it allows her to see clues and details she would otherwise miss, so this will help her a great deal. She has a vision of some searchers looking for a missing person named Oliver.

Crossing the bridge into Willowsville proper, Amber comes across a small crowd of people with torches and pitchforks. She interacts with a woman named Lorraine Johnson whose son, Oliver, has gone missing during the Founders' Day celebration, and she believes the Owl Man may have kidnapped him. The sheriff tells Amber that they've already cleared the fork between Willowsville and Nightsville, but he'll continue the search, and meanwhile Lorraine begs Amber to "do whatever you need to do to bring back my boy." Lorraine and her daughter Mary will wait on the street while Amber investigates. Entering the Johnsons' house, Amber utilizes the Foresight to determine that Oliver was kidnapped from the house, and there was a struggle; the kidnapper dropped something by the cabinet next to the door. Elf retrieves this clue, which turns out to be a bottle of chloroform. Back on the pier, she opens a hut and finds a diary which talks about the Owl Man; the diary writer calls him the protector of Nightsville, and says that the people of Willowsville have always avoided the "strange" people of Nightsville. Amber realizes that it's a distinct possibility that the Owl Man may have kidnapped Oliver, but she needs more evidence before she can do anything.

Returning to Lorraine and Mary, Amber receives the key to a locked door in the Johnson home, which leads to the office that had belonged to Oliver's father Marlon. In the office she finds a ruler, which enables her to open the latch on the cabinet by the front door; as she does, a young man leaps out and tries to attack her, but she disarms him easily and handcuffs him. He identifies himself as George, a maintenance worker from Nightsville, and explains that he hid in the cabinet because he was out for a walk and didn't want to be spotted by the locals, who don't like him. He protests that he knows nothing about the kidnapping, but Amber believes he's lying and starts examining the cabinet for clues. She finds a pair of items which belong in Marlon Johnson's office, and upon returning them, her Foresight shows that George had been in there and had moved a bookshelf in order to access a secret room by pressing bricks on the wall. Following the same steps herself, she finds a staircase leading to the basement; there, she locates a note talking about a hidden cassette of instructions and a plan to be enacted on Willowsville's Founders' Day. Opening a safe, she finds a statement that a painting owned by the Johnsons is an original piece of art and not a copy, but the painting itself seems to have been stolen. She travels to the spot where the note said the cassette was buried and retrieves it, then returns to the Johnsons' house to listen to its contents. The voice on the tape advises the listener to enter the Johnsons' home while the town is occupied with the Founders' Day celebration, break into the safe, and take the *Lone Wolf* painting.

Amber goes back to the main floor of the house and confronts George with the evidence. Sure enough, he's got the painting hidden under his coat. She pieces together the clues thus far; George was stuck in the cabinet because Oliver came home before he could escape with the painting, and he's guilty of the theft, but he wasn't involved with the kidnapping. She reports this to Lorraine, and then Sheriff Connors arrives with the mob. They've captured a young man, whom the sheriff identifies as Sam from Nightsville, and says that he's sure the young man knows something but is refusing to talk. He tells Amber that they caught him at the fairgrounds in the abandoned district, but he doesn't appear too enthused about her wanting to continue investigating, and only relents at Lorraine's insistence. Making her way to the fairgrounds, Amber uses the Foresight to determine that Sam was ensnared in a rope trap and cut himself loose, but then the sheriff arrived, and the boy threw something into a cart in order to hide it. Finding a token, she opens a coin-operated mechanism and discovers Marlon Johnson's monogram, which will open the case in the cabinet back at the Johnson house. Returning there, she finds that George has gotten out of the handcuffs and escaped through a window. She opens Marlon's case and finds a lens and the missing hands for the clock in his office; replacing the hands and setting them to the time indicated on a nearby note opens a cache from which she gets another lens. Putting these into the nearby microscope, she's able to read the tiny print on a note Sam wrote to Mary Johnson, arranging a meeting.

She returns to the fairgrounds and repairs the coin-operated mechanism, which tells the story of Nightsville and Willowsville. She learns that some time earlier, the homes in Nightsville began to sink into the swamp, so their sheriff rescued them and brought them across the river to establish Willowsville. They lived there peacefully until an unidentified villain came among them and lured some of the townspeople away; he was possessed by the spirit of an owl, and directed his followers to terrorize the people of Willowsville. The sheriff drove them out of town, and they have lived in Nightsville ever since. Using an owl emblem she receives from the mechanism, Amber opens a nearby cache and finds ferry tickets for Sam and Mary; they were planning to run away together to Shreveport. Back in the Johnsons' house, she finds Marlon's diary, which reveals that he learned about Mary being involved with Sam and not minding it, as he believes Sam to be a good person, but lamenting that his wife would never accept it. With all of this evidence, she realizes that Sam had nothing to do with the kidnapping, and she goes to reveal what she knows to the sheriff and Lorraine. Lorraine is aghast that her daughter has been seeing someone from Nightsville, against her explicit orders, but the sheriff says it hardly matters now in light of Oliver's abduction. Before they can make good on their plans to go to Nightsville and start asking questions, however, a figure dressed as an owl emerges from the mist at the edge of town.

To everyone's surprise, it's not the Owl Man. He removes the costume head to reveal himself as Robin, a local boy, and says that he fished a briefcase out of the river and found the costume inside. He protests that he was only having some fun, but Sheriff Connors scolds him for interrupting a serious investigation. Sheriff Connors then encourages Amber to check out the briefcase and also to visit Nightsville for herself, and Robin gives her the item he used to unlock the briefcase. Returning to the bridge, she collects a few useful items from the case, including a hacksaw which lets her cut through the chains on the gate to Nightsville. Passing this, she comes across a much larger gate on the fence around Nightsville, and a group of children collected in front of it. One boy, Jack, tells her that the Owl Man stole his dog, and that the children avoid Oliver because he has telekinetic abilities. He asks that Amber help find the dog, and gives her an unpleasant drawing he made of Oliver (labeled "Owliver") with the Owl Man. Amber uses her Foresight and realizes that the dog was not stolen, but broke loose in order to chase a rabbit. After fixing a broken bridge, she's able to follow the path they took and finds the dog, whimpering with her paw caught in a trap. A pair of coyotes are menacing her, but Amber is able to drive them off with the gun she took from the briefcase in the river. While looking for something to free the dog, she finds a note in the mailbox from Oliver to the Owl Man, saying that the children in town learned about them being friends and that Oliver will stop coming to visit for a while. Once she releases the dog and bandages her leg, Amber takes a look at a videocassette she found; it shows Jack bullying Oliver, but being chased off by the Owl Man. Amber realizes that Oliver was the only one who didn't fear the Owl Man, and the other children gave him trouble about it.

Amber confronts Jack, who thanks her for returning his dog safely and promises they will never bully Oliver again. He gives Amber a key to help her get into Nightsville, and she opens the gate to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun. But Sam is also there, and explains Amber's presence to the woman, Bernadette, who lowers her gun. Sam and Bernadette explain that the people of Nightsville are reclusive and mistrustful, but they would never harm anyone, and that the Owl Man is their protector and he would never kidnap a child. Bernadette gives Amber a note she found in the village that she thinks might have relevance; she believes someone in Nightsville is a traitor. The note says that someone will be paid handsomely for a collection of samples. At the Nightsville salt mines, the Foresight shows Amber that someone locked another person inside the mine and blockaded the door, then tossed evidence into a tree before leaving. The item in the tree turns out to be a note to George Porter, telling him that he needs to pay $100,000 before the end of the month or medical treatment will be stopped for his wife. Amber also finds a box of mineral samples, with a note that suggests it was also left by George. She now understands what's happening in Nightsville - the reports of the Owl Man became more pronounced as suspicious activity began happening in Nightsville, and someone was ordering George to commit crimes, which he did because he was desperate to pay for his wife's treatment. She returns to Bernadette, who confirms that George's career as a repairman didn't pan out and he went bankrupt. Bernadette tells Amber to search the mine, but before she can get inside, there's a terrible explosion and the door is barred worse than ever.

Amber gets the mine unblocked as quickly as she can, and can hear someone calling for help inside, but a cave-in prevents her from getting to them. After putting out a fire, she gets further into the mine, where she discovers a young man using telekinesis to keep debris from crushing him. Amber helps to pull him free and they narrowly escape the mine in time. The boy thanks her for the rescue and introduces himself as Kevin, Bernadette's son. He explains that he had followed George to see what he was doing, and George trapped him in the mine in retaliation. He also confesses that all of the people in Nightsville have strange abilities like his, and that's why they are so mistrustful of outsiders. But he trusts Amber, and gives her a map to the Owl Man's home, which turns out to be an abandoned mansion in the swamp. There, she finds another note from Oliver to the Owl Man. Entering the house, she uses the Foresight to see that two people were recently there; one hid something near the stairs. In the next room, the Foresight reveals that someone heard her coming, and positioned things just so before escaping through the ceiling. She takes a photograph from an album which proves that Oliver and the Owl Man are friends, then opens the ceiling hatch. A voice warns her that someone is coming down, but she shouldn't be afraid because he's not dangerous, and a moment later the Owl Man is before her. He tells her that he had nothing to do with his friend Oliver's kidnapping, and that Oliver's gift is similar to those of the people in Nightsville. He explains that Nightsville was really founded by people with special abilities, who left Willowsville so they wouldn't be mocked or tormented for their gifts. And yes, he really is an Owl Man - once he was human, but for reasons unknown he mutated into a half-owl hybrid. His ancestors were guardians of Nightsville, so now he guards it too. He gives Amber a notebook belonging to Oliver, in which the boy observed that Sheriff Connors seemed to be following him a lot. Amber realizes that the Owl Man has been framed by the true kidnapper, and that Sheriff Connors himself is now a suspect. But before either of them can act, George Porter breaks into the house through a window. He shoots the Owl Man, then knocks Amber out cold.

When she wakes, Amber realizes she's in grave danger. George apologizes and tells her it's not personal, it's just that he really needs the money. She's tied to a rock, which he then pushes into the river to attempt to drown her. Luckily, she finds a knife underwater and cuts her bonds, and upon resurfacing she finds Elf unharmed. Escaping from the pier, she finds Sheriff Connors whipping the crowd into a frenzy and planning to lead an attack on Nightsville. Oliver's sister Mary is not with the group, however; she greets Amber and expresses relief at her return, saying that Sheriff Connors is acting oddly and seems to blame Nightsville for everything. She offers to hold the crowd at bay while Amber searches the sheriff's house for evidence. There, Amber finds a pager with a message from George, informing the sheriff that he did everything he was asked to do and stating that Amber herself is no longer an obstacle. In the basement, the Foresight lets her see that Connors put Oliver in a secret room, where she finds the outline of the sheriff's plan to destroy Nightsville. She finds Oliver behind a bookcase; he thanks her for the rescue and tells her that his kidnapper dressed as an owl - in that suit which Robin found - in order to make it look like the Owl Man was responsible. He managed to grab a letter, which reveals that Sheriff Connors has found a mining who wants to buy the Nightsville property; this is why he's so desperate to drive the people away. The samples George found were of valuable minerals, and the mining company promised Connors a lot of money if he could get the Nightsville residents to evacuate.

Amber takes Oliver back to his grateful mother and presents all the evidence implicating Sheriff Connors. Lorraine is outraged, and Amber moves to arrest Connors, but he grabs Oliver and threatens to shoot him if he's not allowed to leave. Oliver's telekinesis activates and throws Connors against a tree, prompting some of the Willowsville residents to claim the boy is possessed by a demon. Bernadette arrives and invites Oliver and his family to come and live in Nightsville, since the people of Willowsville will never be able to accept Oliver. As Amber takes Connors into custody, she sees the Owl Man watching from a distance, having survived his gunshot wound.

### Bonus Chapter

One month after Oliver's kidnapping, the Owl Man (who is the player character) has a vision of the boy calling to him for help. Moments later, he sees Oliver come running out of the bridge to Willowsville, which all but collapses behind him. Oliver explains that a mysterious fog has enveloped Willowsville and the people are in trouble; he begs the Owl Man to help them, since they have no one else, and promises to hide in Nightsville. As the boy runs off to safety, the Owl Man begins searching for a way to get past the ruined bridge. He spots a barn owl with a net on its wing, and after he frees the bird, it joins him as a helper. With the bird's assistance, the Owl Man finds what he needs to clear the bridge and enters Willowsville, where he finds the blind seer entangled in the grip of a prehensile tree. A strange, angry creature with long greenish hair appears on the street, and the Owl Man knows that he's not going to pass easily. He breaks into the Johnsons' former home in search of something to help him release the old man from the tree, eventually cutting him loose with hedge clippers. After being revived, the seer thanks the Owl Man and tells him that a great evil has overtaken Willowsville; he says that the boy Robin followed the mysterious smoke and must be rescued, and gives the Owl Man something that will help to disperse the fog. The Owl Man uses the item to assemble a magic lantern, which lets him get to the abandoned district, where he sees Robin calling for help before disappearing.

After making his way across the abandoned district, the Owl Man finds Robin struggling in the swamp water, but a group of will 'o the wisps won't let him touch the boy. He drives them off with the magic lantern, then uses boards to create a bridge that allows him to reach Robin. They are joined by the old blind man, who warns the Owl Man that some of the villagers are hiding in the sheriff's old house and the evil presence is closing in. He gives the Owl Man a detector that will help him locate the pieces of a light amulet, which will let him vanquish the angry ghost in the street. This accomplished, he reaches the sheriff's house in time to see enormous monstrous hands break out of the ground and clutch the house, trapping the people inside. Assembling a runic charm, he sends the arms back into the ground and the people come out. The boy Jack explains that he and his friends were walking in the swamp when they found an old fort, and the fog appeared after Jack took something from the fort. He gives the Owl Man the artifact he took, and the old man arrives to explain that removing it from the fort cause a very old force to awaken and threaten the town. Nightsville was founded by the original Owl Man, the ancestor of the current one, who guided people from Willowsville with special abilities to make a new home for themselves where they could live in peace. But some of the Nightsville people instead banded together under the leadership of a man called the Swamp Master. During the American Civil War, the Swamp Master was on the verge of destroying the Union Army, but the Owl Man trapped him and his followers inside the old fort with a powerful spell. When Jack removed the artifact, the spell was broken. The old man gives the Owl Man something to amplify the power of the magic lantern so he can get into the old fort and defeat the Swamp Master once and for all. After a magic battle, the Swamp Master's spirit is banished forever, and the people of Nightsville and Willowsville greet each other in peace for the first time in centuries.

## Characters

* Amber and Elf: A Mystery Trackers detective and her companion animal.
* The blind seer: An old man with magic abilities. He lends Amber his gift of Foresight in the main game and provides useful items to the Owl Man in the bonus chapter.
* Sheriff Connors: The law enforcement in Willowsville, who has his own agenda.
* Oliver Johnson: A young boy from Willowsville who has disappeared.
* Lorraine Johnson: Oliver's mother, who is beside herself with fear about what happened to her son.
* Mary Johnson: Oliver's sister, who has been secretly dating a young man from Nightsville and intended to elope with him.
* Sam: Mary's sweetheart from Nightsville, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
* George Porter: A thief from Nightsville, who robbed the Johnsons. He turns out to be in desperate need of money.
* Bernadette: The village elder of Nightsville.
* The Owl Man: A mysterious figure who is said to protect the people of Nightsville, and is suspected of having kidnapped Oliver. He is the player character of the bonus chapter.
* The Swamp Master: An evil former resident of Nightsville, who has been sealed inside an old fort; he attacks Willowsville in the bonus chapter.

## Connections

* This game is referenced by a note found in *Paxton Creek Avenger*, which reminds a group of paranormal researchers to look into the legend of the Owl Man.
* Amber's computer in *The Fall of Iron Rock* mistakenly lists this game as being her first successful case. Amber and Elf actually debuted in *Black Isle*.

## Trivia

* Although Amber does not have voiced dialogue, she does narrate the game during certain sequences.
* Throughout the game, the player can collect gold coins for use in a special shop.
* The player can, in certain conversations, select from multiple reactions in order to determine what Amber will say when asked a question or given information. This does not impact the overall gameplay, as all of the items on the dialogue tree are eventually chosen.
* This is one of the few *Mystery Trackers* installments to contain no references to any of the others.

## External Links

* *Nightsville Horror* at the Elephant Games website
* *Mystery Trackers* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook