Black Mirror III

Black Mirror III closes the trilogy that began with Samuel Gordon’s return to Black Mirror Castle. Darren Michaels, who now knows himself to be Adrian Gordon, walks out of the Willow Creek police station on bail he did not post, accused of burning the castle and killing Angelina, while the Mordred curse tightens around him. This walkthrough covers all six chapters, including the two-character finale as Adrian and the nurse Valentina, with the logic behind every puzzle.

How the game plays

Left click walks, takes, uses and talks; right click examines inventory items, skips dialogue and cancels. Move the cursor to the top right corner for four icons: the magnifier shows every hotspot, the floppy saves, BM opens options, the book opens the diary. Keys: E for exits, H for hotspots, D for the diary, Space for both. The inventory runs along the bottom once you own an item; in conversation it is replaced by topic icons. A tip that applies throughout: examine everything twice, and look at a character before the speech bubble appears. Saves live in Documents\BlackMirrorIII\Savegames.

Prologue: the police station

Someone has paid Darren’s bail. Talk the inspector out and note the photocopier on the right. Left to the cells: the locker holds a pencil; right click it to remember the diary, search the locker again, then talk to your cellmate Matt and the remains of the diary are yours. Back at the desk, sign the papers and take your lawyer’s card; you are on the village square.

Chapter I

Willow Creek

From the square: police station, Abaya’s shop, the pub’s front door, the cafe and the bridge. In the phone box between pub and station take the fortune-teller’s flyer from the door and use it on the phone; the reading is unsettling, and now you can ring other numbers: call Dr Jones, the lawyer, and cover every topic. A blonde passes the box during the call; she is the cafe waitress, and the cafe is open afterwards. Take the menu from the wooden table. Abaya’s shop: talk, then click the box on the table three times for the map (right click it in the inventory, or press M, to travel); look at the knife in its block. At the pub door take the dry sponge from the wall; wet it in the river, bottom right of the square. Cafe: Denise talks about the inspector’s personal doughnuts; note the counter and the storeroom door on its right. Station: the inspector refuses to copy your file. Across the bridge: Dr Winterbottom’s house, the museum, the forest, the hotel. Talk to the doctor, then back to the cafe: examine the display case, ask Denise for a coffee, and while she makes it slip into the storeroom: look at the freezer and the shelf left of the door, put the doughnut box into the freezer, wet the rubber seal with the sponge and the lid shuts itself tight. Watch the scene, then hurry to the station: Constable Zack agrees to send your lawyer a copy, but the copier is broken. Fix it: the power key and the green button to its left must be connected through every element of the circuit; leave plus and minus alone; remove the four burnt wires, connect the three terminals with three wires (drag with the left button, right click rotates 45 degrees), then power and copy. Zack still will not hand it over. Square: put the menu into the mailbox left of the grocery so the letter cannot fall to the bottom; watch Zack post it, take the envelope, open and read your police file (right click twice); it merges with the diary, whose icon now blinks on new entries. Murray has slandered you. Over the bridge and right to the hotel.

Hotel and castle

Murray hands over Samuel Gordon’s rucksack, the key to room 2 and a camera: he wants a photo of Darren with a bloody knife in front of Black Mirror to draw tourists to his hotel. Right click the rucksack for a lighter, a bloody plastic knife and a plastic mystic key. Left along the lobby: office door left, rooms right; read the hotel plan (Murray’s office adjoins your room), enter room 2 and hide the mystic key under the TV. Talk Murray out. Down the road, left into the forest: at the start you can go anywhere but left; right leads to a crossroads with a fenced path and a wooden sign (remember it), then a track and a road; the road ends at the lighthouse. Back, forward along the path to the fork, up twice to the castle gates, ring the intercom. Meet the nurse Valentina Antolini, talk, and go to Lady Victoria Gordon’s room: examine her, talk, and when the fire comes up she wakes and accuses you; another vision; the nurse throws you out. Camera on the castle through the gates: the knife appears in hand and the photo is taken. Hotel: Murray grumbles but accepts and withdraws his statement. In your room, an envelope on the floor: someone wants to help, and the first clue is on your father Samuel’s grave. Murray says only Lothar Gordon lies behind the hotel; the rest are in Warmhill parish. From the castle fork take the left path over the small bridge to Warmhill; note the fresh grave at the gate. In the church, a column on the right bears Bible verses; the gravedigger in the left confessional explains: William Gordon lies apart, the rest in the family crypt, murderers and suicides are not buried here, and only Father Frederick, back tomorrow afternoon, knows where Samuel is. Cemetery, left: the unmarked graves bottom left, William Gordon’s stone, the crypt. Heading back, wolves attack on the bridge; run down the forest path.

The forest hut

Light the oil lamp with the lighter; a woman’s ghost looks in at the window. Take the rake left of the chaff cutter, examine the bed twice, rake out the cardboard box: Ralph’s doll, a sticker and a cork. Take the petrol bottle from the shelf; a key-shaped shadow left of the lamp: move the lamp for the rusty key, unlock the chest by the door: priest’s clothes, a scorched note, a corkscrew, a chainsaw and a folding rule. Petrol into the saw, cork onto it. Take the file from the wall, examine the hall floor: measure with the rule, saw a hole, drop through.

Chapter II

The village again

Dr Winterbottom: childhood memories, then every topic again. Square: your cellmate sits on the right (optional); Abaya’s is shut; Zack at the station. The barrel right of the mailbox: a parcel for Murray and some medicine, leaving your prescription. Call the fortune-teller: someone will cut the light, beware firearms. Cafe: talk to Bobby wiping tables and the waiter Edward. Hotel: knock at the office, put the parcel on the desk, snoop: a bail receipt. Murray bailed you? Warmhill, right round the church, iron gate to the vicarage: garden shears against the wall, firewood under an old door by the right fence; talk to the gravedigger. Map to the fork, right towards the lighthouse: a flash of memory, a pill taken; shears on the barbed wire, over the gate to Dr Hermann’s house. Bushes left of the door, the bin, GORE over the door, a dark patch on the left with Ralph’s glowing sticker. Ring, knock; look in the old car, the clearing on the right, the hole in the fence left of the bin. Back to Warmhill: Father Frederick gives the list of those in the unnamed graves.

The unnamed graves

Five graves, seven names. William Gordon has his own stone (cross him off; if not, examine his grave first). Miss Valley’s grave by the gate: little Vic lies beside his sister, cross him off. Left: Dr Hermann, Henry Stanton, Dr Robert Gordon, Samuel Gordon and James. Ask the priest about each except your father; he knows nothing of Stanton; the gravedigger does. Gather more from Dr Winterbottom, Denise and Inspector Spooner, then double click the graves. Back left: “Mihi enim vivere Christus est et mori lucrum”, to me to live is Christ and to die is gain; James was experimented on by Robert Gordon, whose death was gain to Robert, so this is James. Front left: fresh flowers, someone tends it lovingly; Dr Winterbottom’s first love was Hermann Heinz, and there is a dreamcatcher, so Dr Hermann. Front right: “Voller Mutterliebe fur deine Seele, voller Verachtung fur deine Taten”, a mother’s love, contempt for the deeds: Samuel was Victoria’s grandson, James illegitimate, so Robert Gordon. The neglected back grave with no relatives nearby: the gardener Henry Stanton. The back right grave is Samuel Gordon. No message on it, but a Latin verse: the priest says it is John 1:15-29, the plaque on the church column; under the plaque is a hiding place with the letter. Accept its rules and go to the forest fork.

Dr Hermann’s house

The old car is here; Phil under the bonnet slams it on your head (the letter did say beware people who need help). You wake in a mortuary drawer: click the ceiling twice, corkscrew on the stretcher above, slide the lid. Throw the switch with the red lamp: Dr Hermann’s morgue. Examine everything, switch on the projector, take the skull and a bone from the skeleton, open a body drawer. From the desk: cigarettes, an empty ammonia bottle; top drawer: a chemistry book and a scalpel; note the Bunsen burner and the coded metal box; read the archive files for Ralph’s dates. The skull holds a film reel: into the projector, raise the screen (double click), project onto the wall and find the colour filters, put them in, lower the screen. Six buttons and two switches: right switch left to rewind until the picture stops, back to pause; second button, yellow filter; sixth button, orange; left switch left, right switch right for slow play; watch for the number 2180 and pause. The box opens: Murray’s letter to an unknown. The middle drawer with a padlock: someone breathes inside. Scalpel on the tape recorder’s cable, cable onto the intercom by the switch. Save. Aim the projector at the door, press the green intercom button, and the moment you regain control hit Phil with the bone. Search him: a rifle and keys. Unlock the drawer: Ralph, asleep, needs smelling salts. Upstairs: an empty flask from the case, an empty bottle from the table, a diskette by the computer; keys on the desk drawer for a pistol, bullets and a necklace; a wired hiding place under the case; combine the little bottle with the chemistry book: smelling salts need antler. Take the antler from the far end, downstairs, file on antler for powder, into the flask, flask on the burner, lighter, and it fills the bottle. Salts on Ralph, then give him his doll; he bolts. Upstairs, the arrow to the morgue reads RGUE and the computer’s reminder says it is the password: lock Phil in with the keys, type MORGUE: the cache opens, a videotape into the TV shows Ralph’s torture. The diskette runs a shooter, optional. Outside: the car’s fuel tank (a can would help); keys on the bin: a wrapper and a cast-iron letter M; pistol and rifle go into the bin.

Murray’s safe

Hotel: after the row Murray flees; in the office the steel cabinet needs a code; the drawer holds the manual: a forgotten code can be recovered by phoning 01473, the serial number on the back, and the owner’s birth year’s last two digits; the diploma says 1942. Rule on the wall to measure; take the wire cutters from the toolbox past room 2; in your room, rule on the wall, scalpel on the wallpaper, letter M through the crumbling wall, read the serial 8528173. Office phone (not the lobby one): 01473-8528173-42 gives 4 right, 8 left, 15 right, 16 left, 23 right, 42 left, entered automatically. Inside: photos, including yours; examine Angelina’s photo, the negatives, and a page from last year’s diary. To the castle: the White Lady again; the gate is open; workers’ voices behind the front door, so round the right side, look at the rubbish, go in, take a candle, peek at the hall and retreat. A firecracker: cutters on the bullets for powder, powder into the cardboard tube from the bin, light the candle and seal both ends with wax, a cigarette as fuse, into the broken lantern right of the front door; hurry back through the side door into the hall and up to Victoria’s bedroom; talk everything through.

Chapter III

After the cutscene with priest, doctor and inspector, talk to the two workers at the gate; you now own the castle keys. Mailbox: a letter and Murray’s newspaper. Courtyard: the lunchbox gives toothpicks; ask Steve why he drills the walls. Inside: the roll of builder’s foil behind the globe, the globe, the old cache; library left of the globe (nap in the armchair); tea room bottom right: bank statements and an empty envelope; upstairs, the locked door right of Victoria’s room; in her room the jewellery box and the White Lady portrait (touch it); the study on the right; kitchen, keys on the cellar door: pipe brackets, a can of foam, the red extension lead. Greenhouse with a key: leaky bucket, green hose, wooden rake handle; roll the red carpet, lift the tiles and the hatch: a black case in the pit. Brackets on the handle, letter M as a hook, fish out the case: Henry Stanton’s notebook tells of Victoria’s cache in the horse statue. Study: three signed paintings, Lillian, Garmor, Lothar; the library family tree says Lillian married Dergham; Lillian’s portrait is dated 1662, so the 1659 one is Dergham Gordon. Pull the right piece of its frame: seven holes of differing depth; toothpicks in, frame piece back on: a wooden key. Tea room, the horse’s plinth: seven holes, insert the key, click the spot, press the button on top: cash and Pope Innocent III’s letter to Marcus Gordon about five small portals; the menhir must stand in the hall, and the menhirs round the castle link to the demonic gate. Pay Gregory, question him, examine the facade if you have not, and set him to work on it. The phone rings (if not, examine every hotspot including the White Lady portrait).

After Dr Winterbottom, the constable takes you to the castle: the stone skull on the ground, the worker at the mixer, the cleaner and brush under the broken lantern, Zack, the inspector storms out, the doorbell rings for nobody; take the empty jerrycan, note the drill you cannot take yet. Mailbox: Murray demands his hotel bill; sort it at the hotel. Dr Hermann’s: hose on the tank fills the can; the cellar door is open and Phil is dead. Castle: map on the menhir left of the gate, on the second facing the castle, the third under the balcony round the right side, the fourth by the tree; in the greenhouse clean the statue in the far corner with cleaner and brush, map on it as the fifth; pencil on the map, join the five crosses. Petrol into the drill, take it; in the hall, map on the globe for the sixth; pencil, link the five to the central one; then a line from the centre to Warmhill and on through the other four menhirs for the four remaining sites (Adrian approves each correct line). Warmhill: a round glass on the old door over the firewood; the priest confirms a portal under the church. The constable’s bicycle at Dr Winterbottom’s door: repair kit. Hotel: fill the bottle at the fountain; the riverside right of the hotel: read the warning, look at the picture, talk to Bobby wading, give him the necklace for Denise; he leaves his waders; patch them with the kit, right click to wear them, wade to the menhirs, glass in the bucket, look down: a stair silted up by the river. Lighthouse: the hotspot above leads to the academy ruins, the third portal buried. From the sign at the fence take the path north to the east marsh: the portal is sunk; take the metal detector. Dr Hermann’s: Phil’s keys on his car, take the battery from the bonnet and a pack of glow stickers; the scrap heap indoors gives a transistor radio; detector plus radio plus battery. Forest fork, left at last: hunting season, traps; a stick on the bear trap, detector on it and on the left path: the last portal, intact. Drill the slab between four menhirs; three hours later the petrol is gone; fill the holes with water and foam. Walk to the castle: Bobby, beaten by his brother Tom.

Chapter IV

Spooner calls; on the way you can ring the fortune-teller and your lawyer. Cafe, then with the inspector to Dr Hermann’s: Phil’s keys open the door; everything is cleaned out but the tape in the VCR; show him the drawer with the corpse; Tom runs in and out, Spooner chases. The slab has split: down the ladder, a portal across a chasm; gauge it, fetch the stepladder from the castle garden, cross, photograph the stone with the bracket. Dr Winterbottom’s book on hieroglyphs does not match, but its last page names Edward: he reads it as druidic writing and becomes your butler. Spooner allows a visit to Miss Valley’s house with Zack: blank notepad by the stairs, tear a page, charcoal from the fireplace on it, read; her term paper from the bookcase: a mass grave in the marsh, one body headless; underline Sector 13, Marsh, Animal bones. East marsh: the stone pile where the detector lay holds an envelope for you; the bones; right to the open barrow: dry branches, the stone circle drawing, the empty graves, and the idea of inducing a vision. Dr Winterbottom: right click the pills, tell her they were weaker; she asks about valerian, St John’s wort and antacids. Abaya: Antacid. Cafe: Edward’s strongest coffee. Greenhouse: dried mountain valerian; kitchen: the pot, water added; hall: the foil. Barrow: small stones build a hearth, branches, lighter (if Adrian refuses, something is missing); pot on the fire, antacid and coffee in; valerian in, but the smoke escapes: foil over the entrance, valerian again, click the pot: monks placing a sphere. Wake, and in the black mould on the left wall is the black sphere. Set it on the bracket left of the portal, double click: the academy’s secret room from Black Mirror II. Search Louis’s body twice: Angelina’s letter; the buried stair; a crack in the cliff, camera on it: the sphere lies in a dead man’s hand beyond; click Louis to break off his arm, arm into the right hole, sphere from the left, onto the bracket, through the portal. Ritual hall: try the book in the pentagram twice.

Chapter V

Castle: photos of Samuel and Katrina in the cupboard, glass shards under the chair, a note, Mordred’s book; pick up the shards. Warmhill: read the Keeper’s Book Valentina gave you, enter the church by the side door, back for Mordred’s book: Edward waits at the gate and takes Angelina’s letter; bedroom, take the book from the desk and the rope from the window. Give Father Frederick the book: the exorcism kills him; Mordred cannot leave because this is not his world and the place is wrong.

Chapter VI: Adrian and Valentina

The library column

As Valentina, examine your things, phone the archbishop, insist the ritual be held at the Shadow Portal. Examine the family tree, carpet, shelves and the column between them; matches on the column reveal a keyhole. Hall, tea room (dark stain), Victoria’s bedroom: adrenaline syringe and the small jewellery box; talk to Adrian (switch characters with the icons top left), show him the box: he kicks it open for a key like a golden sword hilt. As Adrian: grave candle and cutters from your wardrobe, give Valentina the rope, examine the keyhole. Both to the library; she inserts the hilt: a ruby is missing. Adrian recalls the ruby bracelet Victoria gave Angelina, in police evidence: Spooner hands it over; sunglasses in the castle mailbox; the hut’s door is smashed and what is inside is grim; tell Spooner; cutters on the bracelet, ruby to Valentina, into the hilt, into the column: a spiral stair. Note the four statues: house in a circle, family property, pairs with the amphora; the early torch symbol pairs with the flower; the bird, a death, pairs with the head; the fish, first day after the new moon, pairs with the hand.

The cellar and the well

Adrian, kitchen cellar: extension lead into the socket, other end thrown down; road salt from the bucket; light the candle, descend. Lead onto the lamp on the floor; the ceiling cable into the puddle; the pump has one pole: open its cover, tie the wire rope on its right as earth, clip the cable; the chain from the well onto the pump; the red cable onto the grating under the well; lever left of the well down; salt on the puddle; red button. Valentina ties the rope to the well. Adrian tries the cage: pulling the rope signals her to work the winch. Down: a round slab under a house symbol, press the jug; arrow left, the fish slab, press the hand; the bird, press the head; the torch, press the flower (pull the rope whenever bubbles rise). Pull again and drop through.

The hall of glyphs

Press the sacrificial bowl; chains move. Open the four sarcophagi together: a fish-shaped gem, a round shield, an arrowhead, one empty; a sword on the ground by the second; the statue, the glyphs on the right, the three-part relief on the left; a boat model by the drop; six chains, and a capsule right of the second sarcophagus holds a key. The lever under the statue is a scale: load arrowhead, boat, shield and fish; the chains shift; a second key in the capsule left of the golden sarcophagus. Both keys into the left door, not enough yet; the niche left of the stone gate holds the labyrinth hint. Valentina reads the relief and the Latin on the right gate: beware the shadows, Keeper.

The labyrinth

Roman numerals on the map say how many doors must be open for a room to light; shadows fear light and attack you in a dark room when you open a door to theirs. Three levers per room open and close the stone doors. Room 1: lower lever opens 5 and lights 1. In 5, lower lever to 8, the sarcophagus room; bring Valentina to 8 too and together take the crown. Right lever to 9, both to 9, through 10 to 11: an empty sarcophagus. Leave 11, in 10 close it (right lever), in 9 close 10 (right lever). Open 7, then 10, with 7, 9 and 10 dark; enter 10, upper lever opens 4, 10 lights. In 7 open 3; in 5 open 6; Adrian into 6, Valentina in 5 closes 6 behind him. Valentina to 1, close the entrance, open 2 (the shadow), out to 5, close 1. Adrian opens 6 to 2 (upper lever): the shadow moves to 1. Into 2, take the plate from the upper niche, close 2 to 1 from inside 2. Right lever opens 3; in 3 open 4, where the shadow and third sarcophagus are; in 7 close 9. Valentina closes 9 to 10. Adrian opens 7 to 4; the shadow goes to 10. Adrian opens 7 to 9. Both to the sarcophagus in 4: the staff. Both to 7, Adrian closes 4; Adrian to 2, close 3, open 2 to 1: 2 lights, safe. To 6, close 2, out to 5; Valentina to 5; with both in 5 close 6 and 8, then open 1: the shadow moves to 2; in 1 close 2, open the entrance, both out.

The altar and the Black Mirror

Valentina reads the relief a third time: king, priest, hunter among the four figures. Adrian, the bowl: something of the hunter’s and the priest’s, arrowhead and staff, plus two commoners’ things, fish and plate; the bowl levels, six capsules line up, six keys, all into the left door. Colonnade, then the underground chapel: Mary’s sarcophagus right (take the broken sword tip), Mordred’s left; the altar reads that at sunrise the king sent his warriors against the darkness. On the relief’s 7×7 table the crown column holds the king’s symbols and the axe column the warrior’s; on the altar step from the sun: crown, bread, house, ship, shield, cup, axe, head, sword, arrow, shield, bow, moon. Alchemical laboratory: the swords, everything else; as a child the right door was open with a mirror behind. Valentina examines the book and the table; Adrian asks for her dagger, cuts his hand and opens the way with Gordon blood to the Black Mirror. Valentina examines the mirror and altar; in the lab Adrian reads Mordred’s notes: his heartbeat must be slowed so the shadow leaves; poison and Mordred’s sword are needed. Chapel: Adrian photographs Mordred’s bones and gathers them; on the altar before the mirror rebuild the skeleton from the photo (right click flips, join at the white marks; skippable). Valentina in the tea room: blade on the black mould, Mordred’s sword; back at the mirror talk, in the lab take the poison from the alchemical table, and use it on Adrian. When control returns, inject the adrenaline. Watch the credits and the final scene.