Haunted Hotel: Eternity

**Haunted Hotel: Eternity** is the eighth installment in the *Haunted Hotel* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

The player is a detective, and as the game opens he is finishing his lunch in a diner. The server brings his check, but the folder also contains a note asking the detective to meet someone at a park very soon. The someone is Professor Kevin Reynolds, a well-known philanthropist, and he's offering the detective $100,000 to provide extra security. After the contract is signed, the professor takes the stage and begins to make a speech. Almost immediately, someone shoots at him, narrowly missing his head and striking a nearby spotlight instead.

The detective manages to get the professor safely to his car, where they are joined by Tobias Irving, the head of the professor's security detail. He says he has a backup plan for protecting the professor, since the assassins are likely staking out his house, and they head for the Hotel Eternity. Tobias says he's used it as a safe house in the past. Upon arrival, he leaves the professor in the detective's care while he goes to turn on the lights and make sure there are no squatters in the building. The detective gets access to the car trunk from Douglas, the driver, who talks about how fond he is of the professor, and retrieves the professor's briefcase. They then enter the hotel.

It's clear that something is very wrong. Tobias is nowhere to be seen, there are barely any lights, and suddenly a door opens and someone drags the professor away. The room is flooded with some kind of knockout gas, which sends the detective to the floor; when he wakes, he's alone with an aching head. A nearby monitor comes alive with footage of his captor, a masked man, who shows him that he has the professor bound and gagged. But he knows that "helping nice people is the right thing to do," so he's giving the detective a chance to save his client. If the detective can win his "game" by finding the answers to certain questions, he'll survive. Tobias's jacket lies discarded on the floor, making the detective wonder if he's been vaporized somehow.

The detective's first task is to deactivate the poison gas blocking the exit. Once he does, the masked man comes on the monitor again, telling the detective that Reynolds isn't an innocent man. He did indeed contribute time and money to medical projects, as he had claimed during the car ride, but the projects were illegal and people suffered as a result of them. The door open, the detective is able to access the hotel courtyard, which is a disaster. He finds a recipe for anti-rust and is able to open a hatch, where he discovers the keys to the game room and a folder with Tobias's name on it, containing papers regarding a failed experiment. After a bit more exploration, the masked man compliments the detective on his success thus far and tells him he won't be so eager to help Reynolds once he learns the truth about Project Eternity.

The detective can now access the hotel bar, which had previously been blocked by a guillotine blade. Inside, he catches a brief glimpse of the tied-up professor and his captor, before the masked man seals off the entrance to the room where they're hidden. After getting a fuse from the nearby electrical box, the detective sees a vision of a man causing objects in the bar to levitate. Continuing to make his way through the ramshackle hotel by collecting and utilizing items, he finds an audio cassette recorded by someone who worked on Project Eternity. It seems that the medical breakthrough they were developing had a lot of promise, and seemed to be working, but all of the test subjects died rather abruptly; the recording ends with the speaker apparently being murdered himself.

Back in the bar, opening a secret cache reveals a registration book for Project Eternity, which reveals that Tobias may have been a participant in the project too. The detective collects the buttons needed to open a puzzle panel on the wall, in the same place where he saw the masked man and the professor. The masked man appears in the monitor next to the puzzle panel, politely inquiring as to how the detective is feeling, and promising that if he solves these puzzles he will be allowed to see the professor, who is in the next room. Solving the puzzles opens a door, and stepping into the corridor, the detective catches sight of Reynolds tied to a chair inside an elevator. Before the detective can reach him, the elevator closes and goes to the basement, then comes right back up. The masked man emerges and advances on the detective, but cries out that he doesn't want to die. He pulls off the mask to reveal that it's Douglas, Reynolds's driver, scared out of his mind. A blinding flash of light fills the hall, and as it fades, Douglas's outfit collapses to the floor, with his body nowhere to be seen. The real masked man appears on the monitor inside the elevator, welcoming the detective to "the next level."

The detective attempts to collect Douglas's costume, but the elevator floor gives way and the costume is underneath a laser trap. Returning to the hotel courtyard, he sees the masked man in an upstairs window, and watches as he fires a weapon into the courtyard. Using a ladder acquired in the hall, he climbs to the window where the man was and finds himself in a terrifying children's room, complete with broken toys and a maniacal jester figure with an axe. On a nearby television, the masked man comments that "children are such *nice* creatures." Continuing his investigation, the detective assembles a tool to let him retrieve the driver's costume from the boobytrapped elevator. This prompts commentary from the masked man that Douglas was not as nice as the detective probably thought he was; he was involved with Project Eternity too, unable to "resist the temptation," but that now it was fair because he'd suffered the same fate as his victims.

Back in the scary children's room, the detective acquires access cards belonging to Reynolds and Douglas, which will enable him to use the elevator. He experiences another disturbing vision in the elevator corridor before making his way to the basement, which houses the secret laboratory of Project Eternity. The masked man taunts him a bit, asking what's taking so long. In a nearby locker, the detective finds a list of "Eternity Project Management." It names Kevin Reynolds as the sponsor, with "all access." Tobias Irving is the security chief, Douglas Will is the driver, and Josh Fraser is the lead chemist; that was the man who made the recording found earlier. All three of them are listed as deceased. There is another name scratched out, the "project customer," listed as a patient.

The detective gets into the registry office, then engineers a gurney to break into the laboratory. Inside the lab, more poison gas is seeping from the ceiling vent. A gas mask from another locker protects the detective while he activates the ventilation system; with the air clear, he can continue his search. He finds the key to another of the lockers, which he opens to see Professor Reynolds staring back at him. The masked man appears and tells the detective that the professor misses him, then slams the back of the locker shut. In the lab, the detective finds another recording from Josh Fraser, talking about patient number five, Terence Irving. He interviews Terence, who talks about wanting to be as brave as his brother, a military man. During the course of the interview, however, Terence's breathing becomes labored and he dies. After some more searching, the detective finds a folder containing records about Terence; he was ill and consented to be given the trial vaccination of Project Eternity, but didn't make it.

The detective finally gets into the archive, where he's able to watch a videotape recording of Terence's records. In the recording, Terence is given an injection, which causes the veins in his arm to turn green; he seizes up and suddenly vanishes. The same strange figure from the detective's earlier visions appears in the room a few times, and then the words "Patient #5 deceased" appear on the screen.

After the detective solves more puzzles in the archives, the masked man appears on the screen, congratulating the detective for discovering the truth about Project Eternity. Its test subjects didn't just die - they disappeared. He removes his mask to reveal that it's been Tobias Irving all along; Terence was his brother, who volunteered for the project in hopes of curing his cancer, but he vanished like all the others. He engineered the entire event to exact revenge on Reynolds and Douglas for their part in the project; Josh Fraser was already dead, having been killed while making the first recording the detective found. Terence is the white figure who has appeared in the detective's visions. He alone did not die from the vaccine, but became something of a spectral figure. He appears from a side door and throws an axe at the detective, then seems to pass into the television as Tobias says goodbye.

The detective crawls through the vents to the ventilation room to try and figure out an escape plan. From there he can access the electrical room, and thence what was once Terence's room. Inside a locker in the ventilation room, he finds a photograph of the day Project Eternity began, with Reynolds shaking the hand of a man whose face has been scratched out; the inscription on the back identifies him as D.C., another sponsor of the project. Back in Terence's room, he finds a diary inside a pillow in which Terence writes about being proud of Tobias for entering the army, and being afraid to tell him that he failed his final exams because of being so sick. The next page reveals that Terence had terminal cancer. He joined Project Eternity because it was his only chance at survival.

In the area outside Terence's room, the detective opens a locker and finds Tobias's wallet, which contains a photograph of the brothers. On the back is the code that lets him open a locked panel, where he finds many of Tobias's notes about rigging the hotel to be a death trap. He gets into the security room, from which Tobias has been monitoring his progress through the hotel, and sees that Tobias has Reynolds at his mercy in another room. Tobias tells Reynolds that the detective is dead and he expects Reynolds to make a full confession; he has a number of medical tools at hand with which to torture him into cooperation. Before the detective can get to Reynolds, he encounters Terence, who throws a grenade at him. He puts out the fire, which causes an electrical disaster, and Terence is killed. The spirit of Terence leaves behind an item the detective needs to get into the rooftop room where Tobias has Reynolds strapped into an electric chair. As the detective confronts him, Tobias injects himself with the vaccine, which causes him to disappear just like the patients did.

A door opens to reveal backup - the Mystery Trackers have arrived to help wrap up the investigation, and Agent Brown compliments the detective on his excellent work, noting that he would be an asset to the Mystery Trackers if he decided to join them. Reynolds thanks the detective and hands over the promised $100,000. The game ends with the Mystery Trackers transporting Reynolds and the detective to safety.

### Bonus Chapter

This chapter is a prequel to the main game. The player takes on the role of Terence Irving, showing the experiences which led him to sign on with Project Eternity.

## Characters

* The Detective: The player character, who has been assigned to protect a well-known philanthropist but finds that the job is much more than he expected.
* Professor Kevin Reynolds: A philanthropist who may not be as noble as he appears.
* Tobias Irving: The professor's head of security, who brings the others to a safe house which isn't safe at all.
* Douglas Will: Professor Reynolds's chauffeur, who may have been more involved than it initially seemed.
* Terence Irving: Tobias's brother, who volunteered for a top-secret medical project that went very badly; he's the player character of the bonus chapter.

## Connections

* The Mystery Trackers agent who arrives to rescue Reynolds and the detective is Dorian Brown, who joined the agency after the events of *Mystery Trackers: Raincliff*. He also appears in the "Secret Room" feature in the bonus content section, requesting the detective's help in getting additional information about the case.

## Trivia

* This is the first *Haunted Hotel* game from Elephant not to have the same protagonist as its predecessor.
* This is the first time it's established that *Mystery Trackers* and *Haunted Hotel* take place in the same universe.
* According to the contract which the detective signs at the beginning, the game takes place on September 8, 1978.
* To judge by the license plate of Professor Reynolds's car, this game is set in Minnesota.

## External Links

* *Haunted Hotel: Eternity* at Big Fish Games
* *Haunted Hotel* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook