Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis Walkthrough

Switch to Max, take the cowl from Nina using the trash-picker and explore a bit. Either use the left-hand passage at the starting area or the right exit from the storage room to reach the courtyard outside Shelton’s command center. Take some wild garlic from the patch in the left foreground and have a look at the bench to the left of the guard.

As mentioned earlier, symbols have been carved into the wood here. Max can’t translate. Nina might. But being that she’s locked up, you’ll have to bring the symbols to her in snapshot form, using the camera from the storage room, and the stoic guard watching her door might become less stoic if he were to see Max snapping pictures. So you want him gone.

Easy enough. You already know from the footprints in the courtyard and the mousetrap passage that the guard periodically performs rounds. Talk to the guard about “patrol” to send him on his way. That buys you about 40 seconds — enough time to take a picture of the symbols but not enough to slip into the prison.

This needn’t slow you down. You can still detour around the guard and show Nina the photo through the barred window in the mousetrap corridor. It’s too dark in the cell for her to interpret the snapshot so first combine the picture with the bright window of the cart-less GameGirl and then use the combo (“illuminated photo”) on Nina. Nina says it’s Russian for “Snow White,” “Soccer” and “devil.”

Your mind may run to passwords, but Nina suggests it’s a mnemonic trick of some sort — in other words, a reminder for something else, with the “something” presumably being the combination to the electronic lock to Nina’s cell, operated by a keypad to the left of the interior side of the prison door.

Sure enough, each of these words conjures up numbers. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. A soccer team fields 11 players. And “devil”? The most ready association is 666. (In fact, this is the “Number of the Beast” in the Book of Revelations, and the Beast is distinct from the devil himself, though they are allied in the “unholy trinity.”) If you don’t make these connections readily, check out the books and magazine on the shelves in the storage room’s far left. All three numbers appear there.

But getting to the keypad presents a problem. Nina’s shackled in her cell and the region available for action by Max when he’s at the barred window is a zoomed-in one that doesn’t include access to the door area. In other words, Max has to get into the prison proper, You already know how to make the guard vanish for a time. Can that time be extended?

As mentioned, you can learn from the guard — via Nina’s “prisoner” and Max’s “Job” topic (the latter reached through “Prison” and”Prisoner”) — that he’s a soccer fan. (It’s also hinted at by the pictures on the bulletin board just inside the prison door and the magazines in the storage room.) And you know from the footprints that his patrol route takes him past the storage room window. Can you build on those two bits of knowledge?

Sure. Once tuned-in (with the addition of the wire hanger) and turned on, that little TV from the storage room displays a soccer game. The guard can’t see the game with the TV in its original position. But he could if you placed it on the lectern just inside the storage room window, as his rounds take him right past this spot. Set it down there now, turn it on and invite the guard to take another tour of the premises. He’ll remain out of position until Nina’s free and safe

Enter the prison. Use the keypad and the pass code 711666. The cell door pops open and Max leads Nina to the storage room. Despite proximity to the TV, it’s safe here. (The TV is now off — it will turn out the batteries are dead — and the guard is back on station at the prison door moping about letting Nina escape.)

However, this is just a way point and not a destination. The next step, with the player controlling only Max, involves getting Nina into the tower.

If you’re short on ideas, return to the courtyard, right-click on the padlocked hatch to the left of the tower door and talk to the newly-installed guard. His “hatch” and “prisoner” topics put you on the right track. Ask about “hatch” a second time for a more explicit solution: The coal chute to the cellar is opened only for a new delivery of coal.

In other word, you need to transform Nina into a coal sack. Just use one of the sacks retrieved from the shelves here earlier and put a bag over her head.

An oddity: Max doesn’t pick up the resultant Nina-in-a-sack, but she now appears both on the storage room floor and in Max’s inventory. “It’s safer that way for Nina, and better for my back,” confesses Max if you right-click on the inventory bag. A blow for realism: Carrying Nina around in inventory would be a bit much. But the inventory icon permits Max to try to use the sack on the tower guard and thus get a hint it’ll need to be further disguised to pass muster.

If only you had some coal. Perhaps you could cook up a reasonable facsimile.

Did you check out the charred doghouse beside Max’s would-be grave? Beat on it with the shovel. Max resisted this as too noisy if you tried at an early stage, and I don’t know why it should be any less noisy now with a second guard posted in the courtyard a screen away. But once he’s wearing the cowl, Max can bring off this demolition without attracting attention. The remains must bear at least a passing resemblance to coal, for when Max uses the remaining sack on them to hide the evidence, a “coal sack” appears in your inventory.

Now, you don’t really want to deliver faux coal to the tower cellar: You want to deliver Nina. So get back to the storage room and use the coal sack on the Nina sack. (This can also be done in inventory, in which case Max returns to the storage room automatically.)

Take the result — now “Nina in a coal sack” in your inventory — and use it on the tower guard. He’ll give it a once-over and the next thing you know, Nina is lying dazed at the base of the coal chute and Max is at the cellar window on the left side of the graveyard.

As Nina, take the wine, handkerchiefs and helmet from the shelves near the window and coal from the pile in the upper left corner.

You’ll have to wait a bit to take the gold medals on the wall to the right of the bird cage. The big Amazon parrot in the room’s right side freaks out whenever a stranger enters its view, just as pet birds in the real world sometimes do. You’ll need to first shield Nina from his view.

The handkerchiefs are the only item in either character’s inventory that you can even try, and they’re not big enough to obscure the parrot’s view.

But wasn’t there a pedal-operated sewing machine back in the storage room? Hand the hankies up to Max and, as Max, use the handkerchiefs on the sewing machine to knit them into a sheet. Bring this back to Nina.

Simply using the sheet on the cage won’t work — Nina can’t step into the critter’s line of sight — so have Max hand Nina the trash-picker as well. Combine it with the sheet in inventory either at Nina’s or Max’s end and use the combo on the cage. The bird lets out a curious peep and Nina can safely take the medals.

Naturally, the door at the far end is locked and the other side guarded. But Nina’s not here for the door. She’s here for the stove beside it. Use the coals on it and it lights right up.

What’s for dinner? Well, the only guidance you have is from the Russian guard, who can confess to Max now (or pre-escape via the “prison,” “prisoner” and “job” topics) that he likes cheese soup.

Max has cheese and garlic. Nina has wine. Mix it all together in the helmet as “potential cheese soup” and use the helmet on the stove to realize its potential. The helmet doesn’t fit between the bars, so have Max hand down the plastic vase and transfer some of the soup into it and pass it back up. (If Max already handed down the cheese and garlic in the vase, use the vase on the helmet to transfer the contents. ) Pass up the gold medals as well.

The next step almost goes without saying: Give the cheese soup to the prison guard. He’ll take it inside the prison — meaning out from under the eye of the guard at the tower door.

The tower guard’s already given us the way to pull him off his door duty: Set off the alarm in the prison. That’s the red button just below the keypad. But that’s not going to happen with the guard slurping his soup right here.

So you’ll need to distract him again, and that’s where the gold medals come in. (You can always count on soccer, cheese soup and plain old greed.) Plant the medals in the straw in the cell, ask the guard about “straw” and once he’s occupied with his find, slap the alarm button. The guards from the tower door and cellar come running.

In the resultant confusion, Max slips into the tower and releases Nina from the cellar. You’ll find the two just inside the main door. Max hands off any remaining inventory to Nina — she should have the camera, shovel, trash-picker and helmet soup — and runs off to keep the guards occupied.

Nina finds herself at the top of the tower with Shelton. Throw the soup at him. (None of the other stuff has any use, except as unworkable alternatives in this confrontation, so why the hand-off from Max? ) He’ll hold his face, stagger backward and fall to the floor below and Nina automatically moves to the console.

Take a cue from the presence of a guide to Zandona’s prophecies to the right. Hit the red button to activate the self-destruct mechanism and use the buttons on the telephone at the left to translate the letters in “Zandona” into a numeric code: 9152551. (After all, what else could the code word be?) Hit “Enter” on the keypad and Nina automatically removes the keycard and exits the console to find Shelton pointing a gun at her. (Oddly, he refers to her twice as the “prodigal daughter.” A translation issue or a Star Wars-like plot artifact?)

Escaping, Nina automatically drops down to the tower’s middle level. Shelton will follow via the stairs in 15 to 20 seconds. (If Nina fails to leave a level before Shelton’s arrival. she’ll drop down a level automatically or, on the entry level, climb a level using the shaft to the right.)

Drop down again when you resume control of our heroine and you’ll find yourself back on the starting level. Take the can of oil beside the crates to the left and use the shaft twice to climb back to the control room.

You want to slow down Shelton and run out the clock. But if you try to use the oil on the stairs at the left, you’ll find the lid too rusty to open.

There’s another way into the can. If you use the left of the two windows flanking the console, Nina draws fire from sharpshooters down below. Give them something to aim at: Use the oil can on the left window. The guards outside target it and, back in your inventory, you’ll see it’s now “oil canister with holes.”

Shelton’s reappearance will prevent any further action for the moment and Nina drops down a level again. Once again, use the shaft at the right to climb to the top. This time, pour oil on the stairs at the left,. This expands to about 40 seconds the delay in Shelton’s reappearance on any tower level — and push over the Statue of Liberty at the left to close and block the trapdoor. Then Nina automatically cuts the rope in the shaft at the right (using what, I’d like to know!) and, with the countdown to self-destruct reaching 60 seconds, begins to moan about her impending death

Cue the helicopter, Nina’s removal to the ledge outside (irrespective of the sharpshooters who drilled the oil can) and the last-moment appearance of Shelton and the bartender/assassin above the trapdoor. Shelton cries, “Nobody can escape their destiny!” Nina jumps and grabs the copter’s underpinning just as the explosions begin.

Odds & ends: In the cell, Max and Nina can examine the straw on the floor, the cowl on the far wall and the stove. Max alone can examine the barred window, try to squeeze through the window and to use the trash-picker or the stove and cowl. In the graveyard, he can also examine his grave, the dog’s grave and the cellar window to the left. In the storage room, he can examine the lectern, the shelves at the center of the room and the table at the right rear. In the tower cellar, Nina can also examine the closed hatch. On the entry level of the tower, the door, the crates to the left of the door and the scales to the right. On the second level, the world map in the background. On the top level, the right-hand window and the telephone on the console.

Max can try to use the shovel on the grave, the dog’s grave and both courtyard guards, the trash-picker, cheese and coat hanger on the imprisoned Nina; the cheese on the prison guard; the two separate sacks (Nina and coal) on the tower guard, the Nina-in-a-sack on the remains of the demolished dog house, and the straw in the cell (but only in the final visit). In the final confrontation, Nina can try to use the telephone and Zandona book, the trash-picker and shovel on Shelton, the keycard and oil-can-with-bullet-holes on either of the windows, the leaky can on stairs other than the top-level ones and any inventory item on the scales on the first level.

There’s a third option for placing that little TV: atop the storage room shelves. (It’s out of the guard’s view here.) You can also try to use the set directly on the guard himself and on the bench near his post. Once the guard’s distracted, you can visit him in the mousetrap corridor. (Max leaves rather than give the guard ideas about returning to his post.) And once the TV’s off again, Max can try to reclaim it. (He refuses: “I’m not a diver who needs to carry ballast around with him”)

There’s a map of the compound on the right rear wall of the storage room. No real revelations here. You’re in the room in the upper left corner. It seems designed to focus the player on those rooms they haven’t visited — namely those pictured within the tower at the lower right. (Note that the room in the upper right portion of the tower can’t be visited. That’s beyond the door to the right of the stove.)

Have Max ask the guard about “prison” and he’ll offer that Nina seems familiar to him. Ask about “prisoner” and “job” and, if you’ve played Secret Files: Tunguska, you’ll put 2 + 2 together. Like the homeless man, the guard’s another recurring character from the earlier game. In that game, he guarded the lobby of the Russian hospital in which Nina was imprisoned (and from which, with Max’s help, she eventually escaped).

You can get an explanation for the dog’s grave from the prison guard. It’s a strange story that seems to suggest either that Shelton does have god’s ear … or that his gadgetry is as elaborate as his temperament is sketchy.

As at the stone face in the Indonesian jungle, the swap meet at the cellar window allows the exchange of (and thus alternate takes on) most inventory items. A curiosity: Max refuses the coal. He doesn’t want to get dirty.

If Nina examines the handkerchiefs before she hands them off to Max, she’ll identify the embroidered initials, “L.N.” Do we know an L.N.? No, but the possibilities are limited. Only three of the five sect members/hirelings at the base are identified: Shelton, Calypso bartender/assassin Eastman and the prison guard (finally identified in the epilogue as Spivak). So, by the process of elimination, L.N. must be one of the other two: either the bald, bearded tower guard or the guard in the cellar room adjacent to the one with the coal chute. (He’s seen only when you hit the alarm button in the prison or if you ruffle the parrot’s feathers.)

By the way, the parrot’s name is “Polly.”

When Nina first appears at the top of the tower, don’t go straight to the solution. Instead, for a bit of fun, try to either interact with Shelton either directly or by using the trash-picker, shovel or camera or move to any of the discrete locations: the two windows, the shaft or the drop-off to the middle floor. (You can’t use the statue or the stairs at this stage.)

Shelton shoots Nina dead, the game will appear to end … and then immediately rewind to just before Nina goofed.

The green button on Shelton’s console allegedly changes the radio frequency used to detonate the bomb while the purple one deactivates the alarm at the main gate. You can use both of these and plug in any number of up to nine digits, but neither has an impact on the game.

Epilogue

Nina and Max wind up lounging on a beach and bickering happily over who saved whom. Here we learn that Max apparently shaves his chest and that Sam was never a serious rival to Nina. “I’ve forgotten her already,” says Max.

The developers haven’t. Stick around for an elaborate “what happened next …” sequence, with status updates that touch upon even the most minor of survivors. Followups cover the UN’s General Assembly; Nina’s father Vladimir; the Puritas Cordis henchmen Wedge and Biggs; travel agent Fleming Olsen; paparazzi Feng Li; obnoxious kid Oskar and the Calypso porter Sidney; Max’s gal pal Sam Peters; the anonymous temple guard and the frog who terrorized him; the snack-stand operator from Gatineau; the homeless man; the surveyor from Gatineau; the police officer from the Paris jail; Alessandro Rossi; the zoo keeper; and prison guard Spivak. The 10 casualties also appear in what seem to be security uniforms from the original Star Trek.

At the end, you’ll get a certificate (saved to the game directory as a .png file) that confirms completion of the game and provides esoteric data such as left and right clicks and meters walked.

Odds & ends: Did you notice that the homeless man also strongly resembles the German actor Klaus Kinski? This is semi-confirmed in the epilogue, where you’ll learn that, after recovering his identity as Detective Kanski, he went on to bang his head on the fountain in the Paris park, lose his memory yet again and became “a famous, eccentric actor.”