The Archivist

A close up of the Archivist

**The Archivist** is a boss that appears during Act III of *Inscryption*. It is one of four Uberbots the challenger must defeat in order to enact the Great Transcendence.

## Behavior

### Phase 1

The Archivist's main form of offense comes in the form of Librarians. When a Librarian is killed, the Archivist first asks for access to your hard drive, promising that no harm will come of this action. Interestingly, if you hover over "No", the No button swaps places with the Yes button, meaning that No is not really an option. You are then able to choose a file from your hard drive.

The size of the file you choose directly correlates to a weight on the opponents side of the scale that will be created.

* B: 0 Damage
* KB: 1 Damage
* MB: 2 Damage
* GB: 4 Damage
* TB: 8 Damage

### Phase 2

At the start of the second phase the player is asked specifically to choose a file that is "dearest to your heart, and one that shows age." The player is then made to choose a file to create a card (Captive File). The power and health of the card is dependent on the date the file was created (The older the file, the more powerful). After the player has chosen a file, the Archivist will place it in your hand as a card, asking you whether or not the file was too dear to you. The card will contain the Hostage File sigil. The Archivist will then warn the player that if the card is destroyed the chosen file will be deleted from your disc. P03 assures you that it is completely serious.

In addition to this, the field changes as well, from Gravestones and Librarians in the first phase to Dead Trees in front of all of your cards currently in play, as well as playing various cards from the Filthy Corpse World including Librarians.

## Trivia

* The Archivist is meant to represent Grimora.
* At the start of the fight, beeping sounds arranged in morse code can be heard in the background.
	+ This is related to the ARG of *Inscryption*.
* The Archivist threatening to delete your files may be a reference to the game’s ending.
* If a file using an image format is chosen for the card, P03/Archivist will display that image, if an audio file was chosen, it will be played.
* In the original PC version, if a card bearing the Hostage File Sigil perishes in battle, the game will create a text file next to the file selected in your hard drive, requesting that the player manually delete the file:
	+ "At least... I tried to delete it. But it seems my powers of FILE ACCESS do not extend that far. Play by the rules you agreed to. Delete it yourself. Have an ounce of respect for the rules. Come on."
	+ If the player does delete the file, (or moves it to the recycling bin), P03 will acknowledge this, remarking his surprise that the player did delete the file: "Wow, you actually deleted the file. Haha. Did you expect a reward?"
* In the console version, the files and PC shown are meant to represent Luke Carder's PC, as a stand-in for the player's own files on PC.
	+ If a card bearing the Hostage File Sigil perishes in battle in this version, the game will actually delete said file, resulting in a black screen soft-lock if certain system files are deleted.
	+ Despite this, if the fight is lost in the second phase, the file will still be available in future re-fights.
* Certain file names will result in special dialogue:
	+ (pony.exe) "That poor soul...how sad"
		- This is a reference to Pony Island, another of Daniel Mullins' games.
	+ (hex.exe) "Lionel wanted...**WHAT**?!"
		- This is a reference to The Hex, another of Daniel Mullins' games.
	+ (inscryption.exe) "Wow. Be careful with that one!"
* When the Archivist is defeated, files of journal entries written by Luke Carder will appear around Botopia.

## Gallery

The Archivist's modelRank and File achievement iconAgonizing Remorse achievement icon