Gotham Knights Diaries Part Seven

This is my exploration of Gotham Knights where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. I’ll point out all of the Easter Eggs that I can spot in the footnotes at the end of each part. Now let’s continue Gotham Knights…

Having convinced Penguin to spill the tea, I had a lead on what he claimed was the secret headquarters for the Court of Owls…

As I reached the Powers Club, Robin warned that the house was so old that the blueprints on file were basically useless, as there was no way of knowing what kind of renovations had been done. Entering an office, I found a book titled Gotham By Gaslight, a Virginia Creeper potted plant, and two large security guards.

After silently knocking out the guards, I scanned some blood trails on the floor. That led to me discovering a mechanism, and realising that I’d need to power it from two nearby rooms. Entering a parlour on the upper floor, I quietly incapacitated three more people, then found the first switch inside a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Down the hall, some more goons were complaining about the meaning of “gentleman’s club” until I knocked them all out without being spotted. The second switch was inside an oversized book, and upon pushing it I returned to yank on a sconce.

A spiral staircase opened, leading into a deeper candlelit stairwell. Something jammed my comms, so I couldn’t communicate with Belfry, but I pressed onwards. Entering a room with no other doorway, I decided to press the buttons and rotate parts of a statue, which created a shadow on the far wall. Frustratingly, even after making it resemble an owl in flight, it was apparently facing the wrong way, so I had to rotate each piece some more.

A recording read out the poem about the Court of Owls, for some reason, while I was solving the puzzle. “The Court of Owls is watching, from inside of Gotham’s walls. They lurk in every shadow, and they rule us one and all. But no one talks about them, not a whispered word is said. For if you try to cross them, then a Talon strikes you dead!”

The wall opened, revealing two members of the Court, and I had a fight with them and their buddies who quickly turned up. At one point two of them did something and became surrounded by green mist, in a way that seemed familiar: Ra’s al Ghul during his fight with Batman…

In the next chamber, I saw someone in a wheelchair being pushed around, clearly an important person given the reverence shown to them by others present. I just couldn’t get over the taxidermied dog they were holding… They commented that they were glad that they no longer had to manoeuvre “around that Wayne boy”, and that some senators had been bribed to not get in the way. They left, and I silently took out all five sentries left behind. Unfortunately, I then had to beat up the eight that appeared seemingly from out of nowhere.

Exiting into a tunnel, I could see the person whose blood trail I had followed this far. Honestly, I had to agree when Batgirl commented on how much blood this poor person had lost… Going to free them, however, got me trapped in a cage with them. Court members came from the shadows, saying that the trapped person was a traitor, and we would both be put to death. Someone called the Voice of the Court approached, their voice masked behind an electronic filter as well as the very ornate mask they wore. The Voice dictated that my punishment would be the same as the last trespasser, over 100 years past, and the floor opened, dropping me and the traitor into a pit.

Batgirl’s grapple saved me, but not the traitor, not that it mattered as I was forced onto a conveyor belt by some rotating spikes! I had to avoid flame throwers, spinning blades, more spikes, and mixtures of all of those things, eventually reaching a pit at the end where a mountain of charred bones broke my fall. How many skeletons do you even need for a vaguely right angle triangular pile over three metres tall and over four metres wide? Yes, I calculated it using Batgirl’s apparent height of 5’9” and photo editing software.

There was a machete buried in a skull, a key with an owl face on it, and bits of fabric dating back well over 100 years if not more. Fortunately, there was also a handy tunnel out to freedom, where I finally regained contact with Belfry. Unable to put into words what had been going on, Batgirl said that she’d explain everything when she returned. However, I saw an Armored Truck Robbery on my map, and set course.

Unfortunately, I happened to be closer to the final server that required some chicanery, so I went and uploaded some of Batman’s files to it, first. It was the Iceberg Lounge store room, and I found a bottle of Galonian wine. Once I was done, it seemed that Penguin wanted to speak on the roof, so I grappled up to see him. He offered a partnership: I stop crime, he gives me resources. That the crimes happened to be his competitors’ work was just speculation, as he was just a regular business man now. In my Contacts menu, he seemingly needed me to clear two Criminal Strongholds, and stop two Criminal Deals.

After rescuing the armoured truck, I fast travelled to Belfry. It had been a long night… My patrol summary said that I had stopped 12 crimes, completed 10 bonus objectives, and rescued seven cops and nine citizens. That involved defeating 198 enemies, 40 of which were silent takedowns…

The team discussed what happened at the Powers Club, though unfortunately some of the recordings had become corrupted, so they were unable to discover who anyone present really was. Dick Grayson mentioned that he heard stories about the Court of Owls at Haly’s Circus, and how a bad performance would get them to kidnap him. Apparently, the poem had been around since the 1700s, and legends included the Court searching for the Fountain of Youth. The key that I’d found had “an isotope embedded in the metal”, according to Tim Drake, presumably that meant that we could scan for it.

Going over to the Batman memorial wall, Barbara Gordon got the idea to use her cape as a glider, which would help me get around town. Then, over near the 3D printer, Barabara was recreating a crime scene of a cold case, featuring a painted doll of (at the time) Detective Gordon. Since the Court of Owls was definitely real, she told Tim that it might shine a light on some unsolved murders. Time offered to help, but she gave him the brush off, which Jason Todd noticed as the dejected teen walked away.

With Batgirl’s Knighthood ability branch unlocked, I upgraded her with Drone Firepower (as apparently she now had a drone), then updated her loadout. Putting on the Owlbuster Suit, and the Vigilante Basic Tonfa and Batarang, I quickly changed that to the Momentum Batarang once I’d crafted it as it was more powerful.

Upstairs was an objective marker to resolve the ongoing thread of my having hidden Bruce Wayne and Batman’s connection through server uploads across the city. A GCN news report began, showing footage recorded of Bruce Wayne before his death, dancing in the Iceberg Lounge in his underwear. It was supposedly recorded at the same time that Batman was fighting Two-Face elsewhere, though the gathered protegés knew that to be untrue.

Checking Barbara’s emails, I found one from Jada Thompkins saying that she’d help deliver any stolen organs I managed to get back to where they were needed. A second was from Barbara herself with an attachment showing us who Dr. Langstrom’s assistant was — though I couldn’t access the attachment… A third was an exchange with Dick about an interview he had with a reporter, and a fourth was from Dick about how he didn’t track some guy? Jason emailed about a grave where he spotted Court of Owls symbols, Montoya told us about a faceless mugger, someone calling themself The Watch wanted to see us, and there was some spam.

While I was at Belfry, I decided to check everyone else’s weapons and abilities, so swapped to Jason Todd. In his emails, Tim had suggested starting a podcast about their night time activities, which Jason vehemently refused. His therapist, Dr. Rosemont, rescheduled their appointment, there was a recipe for lemon chicken, and spam from someone claiming to own a mine in Markovia. Two emails were from Wilde’s Books, it seemed that Jason had ordered the entire The Endless series by Jade N. Craig. The most notable email was from Roy Harper who offered to go to Miami with Jason and Kori to crack some skulls, and get away from Gotham. Oh, and there was an email from the Dr. Q&A Podcast, which was obviously Harley Quinn.

I put Jason in the Owlbuster Suit, and gave him Vigilante Basic Pistols and Vigilante Basic Rounds. Then, in the kitchen, Dick made a comment about something that happened while Jason was dead which kinda soured the mood, but Dick apologised. Upstairs, however, when Jason started playing a videogame called Dance Moves! Horror Classics with Barbara, he had a panic attack when his character started to become submerged. It also caused some green mist to form around his eyes and hands, suggesting that the Court of Owls had access to a Lazarus Pit… Barbara stopped and attended to Jason, because it was okay to not be okay about dying and coming back to life…

Before I swapped to Tim, I noticed that Clark Kent had emailed Jason, offering to be someone he could talk to, as he was for Bruce. Not that Tim didn’t have problems of his own…

FOOTNOTES

Gotham By Gaslight is the name of a comic from 1990 which reimagines Batman as living in the 1800s. It was also adapted into an animated movie.
Virginia Creeper might be a reference to the superhero Creeper, or it could just be in the game so that you read the note attached that mentions Slaughter Swamp (covered in a previous footnote).
The bust of Abraham Lincoln is an obvious nod to the bust of Shakespere that had a hidden button inside, in the Batman TV show from the 60s.
Galonian wine? As in Galonia from two issues of Action Comics in 1940? I take it back, this is the most esoteric thing in this game.
Haly’s Circus AKA C.C. Haly and Norton Bros. Circus was where Dick Grayson grew up, until his parents were murdered during a performance, and Bruce Wayne took him in as his ward.
The Fountain of Youth in the comics most notably had Detective Chimp drink from it, which caused him to become the world’s greatest detective.
Markovia is the country that Bat-fam adjacent character Geo-Force is from.
The Endless is definitely a nod to the group of Vertigo comics Sandman characters who each represent an aspect of the universe.
Roy Harper AKA Arsenal used to be Green Arrow’s sidekick, but in more recent years was part of a super team with Red Hood and Starfire, called The Outlaws.
Kori is short for Koriand'r, who is the superhero Starfire, member of the Teen Titans, Titans, and The Outlaws.