Mystery Trackers: Raincliff's Phantoms

**Mystery Trackers: Raincliff's Phantoms** is the sixth installment in the *Mystery Trackers* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

The opening cinematic shows a reporter inside the community of Raincliff. Though the community is believed to have been abandoned ever since the departure of Dorian Brown's family, she confirms that there are still people living there and states her intention to interview some of them. A man walking nearby rebuffs her attempts to talk to him, shouting at her to go away and seizing her camera.

When the game begins properly, Amber and Elf reach the gates of Raincliff, and Amber listens to a radio transmission from the Commander about strange activity in the town being once again on the rise. The journalist, Emilie White, has disappeared, and the primary urgency is to find and rescue her. The duo begin by searching Emilie's abandoned car for clues before forcing their way into the locked community. They find a videocassette player, which will come in handy.

They enter the outskirts in time to see Emilie run through a gate leading into the center of Raincliff. An invisible person hurls a stone ball at Amber, and the gate through which Emilie ran slams shut. Peering through the gate, she sees Emilie run into a bar called the Flying Knives, and an invisible person pursues, leaving footprints in the snow. The door to the bar shuts violently, causing a pile of snow to fall down from the roof. Amber manages to get the gate raised enough that Elf can retrieve Emilie's dropped purse, which contains a videocassette; using the player found earlier, they watch as a terrified Emilie records the invisible man sabotaging her car, making it impossible for her to escape.

The recording then prints a photo, which enables Amber to access a hidden cache left by Emilie. Inside, she finds another cassette; this one shows Emilie meeting one of the invisible people in the town. He wears a gold mask and speaks softly, urging her not to be afraid because he won't hurt her. The same can't be said for the other invisible people, whom Amber hears discussing her own presence; they clearly have no benevolent intentions toward either her or Emilie. Another photo prints from the cassette player, this time providing access to a hidden compartment in the side of the bar; Amber retrieves the lever concealed there and uses it to raise the driver's seat in Emilie's car, gaining access to some useful items.

Back at the bar, Amber examines a snowman with a note written by someone who is apparently the only child in the community of invisibles. She repairs a broken ladder and climbs to the roof. Elf collects a hand saw for her from a nearby room, but is then captured by a pair of invisible hands and a furious Amber has to find a way to save him. She uses the saw to cut a new handle for a broken snow shovel and removes the pile of snow in front of the bar door. Entering the bar, she finds an unconscious Emilie on a bench, but narrowly avoids being hit by a glass bottle thrown by Emilie's invisible guard. He breaks a second bottle, and Amber has to flee because she can't fight back.

Breaking into the window where Elf was taken, she finds a room with enough toys to suggest that this is where the child who built the snowman lives. Exploring the room, she finds another note from the child. *My brother says you might be a good person, even though you're an agent. I felt bad about taking your dog. I didn't hurt him.* The note is attached to a cage with a complex lock, and Elf - unharmed as promised - is inside. She starts looking for a way to get him out. In the process, she opens a safe and finds some curious items, including a news article - the once-peaceful realm of Esola has suffered an insurrection, with the king and queen being publicly executed; their son and daughter fled and are believed to have escaped. A royal passport in the safe belongs to Andre Vettori, whom she recognizes as being the prince of Esola. She also finds another cassette. In this one, the golden-masked man is revealed to indeed be Prince Andre, and he introduces her to his little sister, Princess Simona. He tells Emilie that her presence puts them all in danger, so he will escort her to Main Street where she can escape. The tape ends with her waving goodbye to her new friends, but something clearly went wrong before she could actually get away.

Assembling the complicated key, Amber is able to get Elf out of his cage. She uses a rock and a wedge to open a can of paint, then takes it to the bar and throws it on her invisible attacker, forcing him to flee. After finding the key to the ambulance parked inside the town gates, she returns to try and get medical supplies in order to revive Emilie. But a man - visible except for his head - appears on the balcony above her and uses an axe to dislodge several heavy icicles. Amber is knocked to the ground, and falls unconscious.

When she wakes, she finds herself looking at Prince Andre, who rescued her. He apologizes for being unable to stay with her any longer, but urges her to save Emilie. She resumes her efforts to get medical supplies, collecting a stretcher and using it to bring Emilie from the bar to the ambulance. The revived girl thanks Amber for the rescue, but before she can tell her anything about her ordeal, someone sneaks up behind Amber and hits her over the head. She wakes in time to see Emilie, locked in the ambulance, being driven into a different part of Raincliff. In pursuit, she breaks into the souvenir shop and finds Prince Andre and Princess Simona. The prince tells her that Emilie has been taken to prison, but he can't go with her for fear of leaving Simona; he provides her with a net gun and another cassette.

This one was not filmed by Emilie, but instead is a weird commercial featuring the headless man who attacked Amber earlier. He invites all criminals and persecuted persons to become citizens of "the New Raincliff, free from the rules and regulations of authorities." He will provide them with the means to be invisible, letting them hide from the police, and meanwhile Raincliff is a completely lawless town. She also reads Andre's notes about invisibility; he's been studying the way it affects a person's DNA, and how it will even cause their clothing to become invisible if worn for too long. The Headless One, meanwhile, monitors his "subjects" with thermal surveillance, so even completely invisible people can't hide from him.

Using gunpowder found in the room, Amber assembles a few fireworks, with which she blasts apart the ice wall that has prevented her from following the ambulance. She reaches the police station, which has no actual police, and uses the photo that printed from the latest cassette to access a hidden cache. Inside is a note saying that escape attempts are severely punished, which explains why Emilie couldn't leave, and another cassette. This one shows Andre and Simona watching a news brief in which the tyrant who overthrew Esola claimed that they were dead. In exchange for the prince's loyalty, the headless man agreed to make them both invisible and let them stay in Raincliff to hide from the insurgents in Esola. The Headless One then offers to return to Esola with Andre and wrest control back from the tyrant. He urges Andre to consider the idea.

Continuing to work to rescue Emilie, Amber manages to get inside the police station, where a guard warns her to get out because "you know what happens to anyone who crosses the Headless One." Thanks to the net gun and a pair of heat goggles, she's able to get the guard to leave his post, but she still needs to get the weeping Emilie out of her cell. In the short term, Amber sends Elf into the cell to comfort Emilie and help ease her shock. Eventually she finds the key to unlock the cell, and manages to get Emilie's hands out of the cuffs. Emilie tells Amber that Andre is the only one who can be trusted in Raincliff, and that she's worried he'll be hurt for helping them. They return to the souvenir shop to find it ransacked - Emilie's fears were well founded. A nearby television comes on to reveal the Headless One, who mocks them for thinking they could hide from him "in my own city." An invisible man bursts into the scene and seizes both women, throwing them into a bus and driving them someplace, but the bus crashes before they reach their destination.

While Emilie tries to call for help using the bus's headset, Amber sets to work getting them out of the damaged vehicle. She finds a note from the Headless One directing that the bus was supposed to have been pushed off of a hill with them inside it, to silence them as witnesses. The prince, meanwhile, is being given one chance to make amends for helping them. Emilie gives Amber another cassette, telling her it will show where Simona would hide, so they can at least rescue the princess. The cassette reveals that Emilie and Simona became friends during Emilie's time in Raincliff, and Simona showed her a secret hiding place where she was to go in the event of danger. Returning to the bar, Amber discovers that a manhunt has been declared for herself and the prince, so she needs to find Simona fast. "Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."

Climbing into Simona's room, Amber accidentally triggers a booby trap and an explosion nearly kills her. She finds a fire extinguisher and puts out the blaze, then uses the photo printed from the latest cassette to access Simona's hiding place. Instead of Simona, she finds a television on which the Headless One taunts her again. He shows her Prince Andre, tied up with blue roses, which will slowly destroy his memory and ultimately leave him a mindless shell. Returning to the police station, she breaks past the gate and lowers the bridge that will let her access the old Brown family greenhouse, where the roses are grown. Inside she finds Andre, and another cassette; this one is of Andre's "trial." The Headless One offers a handsome reward to whomever captures Amber, dead or alive, and meanwhile sentences Andre to torment by rose.

Amber finds evidence that the invisibility can be reversed. This makes sense, since the invisibility of those in Raincliff is not a natural occurrence (as it was for the Brown siblings) but a result of chemical experimentation. First, however, she has to put together a chemical that will destroy the roses binding Prince Andre. As he is released, he gasps his gratitude, but tells her that Simona is being held in the Headless One's broadcast tower; he is weakened from his ordeal, so he begs Amber to save his sister. Locating the tower, Amber can see the Headless One patrolling with a shotgun. Making her way up to the top level, she finds him standing in front of a shackled Simona. Before he can shoot Amber, however, Andre - who has managed to make his way there as well - breaks through the stained glass window and takes out Headless. Amber finds one last cassette, which shows how Andre put himself into the Headless One's mercy because he was so desperate to protect Simona from the tyrant who killed their parents. Headless tells him that everyone in Raincliff is equal, and he can hide them as long as they follow the rules. One last photo prints, which provides access to the hiding place of the invisibility cure.

Amber finds the means to unlock Simona's strange handcuffs, then works open the cache. Andre uses the antidote on Simona, but Headless wakes and tries to kill Andre before he can cure himself, so he instead forces the cure on Headless. Now visible, he will be taken to prison. Emilie has successfully contacted the Mystery Trackers headquarters, and Amber's backup arrives to take Headless into custody.

### Bonus Chapter

Prince Andre, Princess Simona, and Emilie are still in Raincliff, because Andre is still researching the cure for his invisibility. The people of Esola have defeated the tyrant who overthrew their monarchy, and want him to come back and take his father's place as their king. He's almost reached a breakthrough, but he still needs some ingredients, and he asks Amber to help him finish the project.

As they start searching for what Andre needs to make his solution, Amber observes that the Mystery Trackers have sealed the town and evacuated all of the inhabitants that they could find, but it's possible that they missed some of the invisible people. She finds the key to the nearby pharmacy, where Andre reasons the Headless One may have written down the formula for the visibility serum. He asks Amber to hunt for the villain's hiding place while he continues his chemical work. Her search takes her all over the town, even into the sewers; the formula is written on a large piece of parchment which has been torn in two, but she eventually locates both parts and joins them back together. Returning to Andre, she gives him the document, and he admits to being impressed by the Headless One's research. He says that a few rare ingredients are still missing, so they'll need to find those in order to complete the serum. He draws a map and gives it to Amber, along with some photographs Emilie had given him from her video camera, so she can try to find the concealed stashes of the ingredients.

She scours the town to gather the three ingredients. Her search includes breaking into the Brown family mansion, which Headless took over after Agent Brown left Raincliff. In his basement laboratory, she finds a high-security vault requiring his palm print and voice. Luckily, he left a handprint in some sand so she's able to create a mold, and she locates a cassette recording he made during his research. Inside this vault is an important component for joining the three rare ingredients. With everything in hand, she returns to the prince in the pharmacy, where he completes the formula and regains his visibility right before her eyes. But before he leaves Raincliff forever, he has one more objective. As Amber watches from a distance, Andre proposes marriage to Emilie, with whom he has fallen in love. Her response is apparently a yes, since Simona delightedly exclaims, "Now we have a queen as well!"

## Characters

* Amber and Elf: A Mystery Trackers field agent and her companion animal.
* Emilie White: A news reporter who disappears while trying to investigate the new phantoms of Raincliff.
* The Headless One: A crime boss and distant relative of Dorian Brown's family; he has found a way to make people invisible on purpose, and has set up headquarters in Raincliff.
* Prince Andre Vettori: The crown prince of Esola, who fled when insurrectionists murdered his parents.
* Princess Simona Vettori: Andre's much-younger sister, whose brother is desperate to keep her safe.

## Connections

* The title is a reference to the second *Mystery Trackers* game, *Raincliff*. The Brown siblings were known as "the phantoms of Raincliff," and now there are new "phantoms" in the village.
* On the wall in the main room of the Headless One's broadcast tower is a large painting of Mortimer and Dorian Brown, in the plague doctor and mime costumes they wore during the events of *Raincliff*.
* Headless, the crime boss who is the villain of this installment, is also responsible for the events of *Detectives United: Origins*, until Anna Gray is able to go back in time and have his henchmen arrested before they can commit the murders which prompted the plot.

## Trivia

* This is the first game in the *Mystery Trackers* series to be fully animated.
* A sign at the gates of Raincliff identifies it as "The first golden city" and gives it a foundation year of 1663. However, the sign is in such disrepair that it's almost impossible to read.
* Several instances of Amber's internal monologue throughout the game erroneously identify the community as "Rainfall" rather than Raincliff.
* This game has an optional "Frost Mode." Throughout gameplay, a thermometer on the left side of the screen monitors the conditions. Raincliff is frigid, and Amber has to periodically find items to keep herself from freezing to death. Completing the game in Frost Mode unlocks an extra achievement, but it isn't required and can be turned off if the player prefers.
* According to Amber's inner monologue during the bonus chapter, the Headless One is "the last of the Browns". This suggests that, apart from Agent Brown and his siblings, the rest of the family has died out.

## External Links

* *Raincliff's Phantoms* at the Elephant Games website
* *Mystery Trackers* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook