The cards are laid out. All we need to do is get this guy.
Duskwood Episode Nine
Go to the group chat and warn the friend group about the attacker’s call. Seems getting his lair discovered really cheesed him off.
Lilly will report that she reached someone at the police station and that they’ll be sending someone over. So, is this whole thing over? Of course not. We’ve got one last episode after this, after all.
Dan will propose grouping up together in the house that Richy rented. Jessy will refuse to leave unless Richy is with them. Poor Thomas gets drowned out by the drama, and it will take him a while to reveal what he found in that creepy room.
It’s Hannah’s phone.
The thing won’t turn on, so it’s gotta be charged. Jake will also (very strongly) caution against trying to turn it on without the rest of the group. He’s got a point as the phone could be bugged, and the kidnapper wanted us to find it.
You’ll need to do a bit of prodding to get Jessy to agree to move to the safehouse – remind her that Richy rented that specific house since it’s not too far from Duskwood and they can return any time. You and Jake will continue your investigation in relative safety, so it’s of utmost importance that the rest of your friends stay safe.
Before leaving though, Cleo wants to talk to her mom as the Pine Glade Festival is tomorrow. The Gate of Hope organizes the festival and Cleo wants to help as much as she can before retreating. Jessy also wants to go home to upload the pictures she took of Michael Hanson’s house.
Well Street 4
Jessy will send a link to the online gallery, but it won’t be accessible until all the pictures are done uploading though.
Hop into Jake’s DMs. He’ll say that while you’re close to catching the kidnapper, he still feels uneasy as you haven’t found Hannah yet. Jake will ask if you think the real Michael Hanson, aka Jennifer’s father, is your guy. I don’t think so. It all seems a bit convenient.
While Jake doesn’t share my doubts, he’ll propose assuming Michael Hanson is the culprit. This way, we countercheck every new piece of evidence we get against “Michael Hanson is the kidnapper”.
Jake will say he’ll try something, and you’ll see his screen. To reply to his messages, tap the chat bubble in the right corner.
Each picture Jake brings up will have circle markers. Tap on each of them to make observations and proceed with the investigation. Here are some of the important points:
- Michael Hanson’s house is at the edge of the forest. There are no nearby houses or buildings.
- The place looks oddly familiar to Jake.
- There are new barrels of a dangerous chemical inside the house. There’s indecipherable text that Jake says he’ll decrypt if you hit a dead end.
- There are raven feathers inside the kidnapper’s intel room – the one with the board.
- There’s a segment of Duskwood’s map on one of the boards.
- Except for Dan and possibly Cleo, the pictures of the friend group were taken in person.
- The picture of Richy is shot from the back.
- The kidnapper was following the investigation of Amy Bell Lewis.
- There’s a big “Revenge” banner on top of the board with all the kidnapper’s intel.
- There’s a letter with our name on it.
We’re almost at the end. Let’s not make any reckless mistakes now as they could cost us the case.
Jake will add Michael Hanson’s tack to our map app.
Four Digits
Cleo will leave a message in the group chat to inform everyone that she’s arrived at the hut. I checked in on her regarding her mom. She’ll also invite you to have a look around if – you guessed it – you have the multimedia pack. One more thing: Richy wasn’t kidding when he said this place was safe. It doesn’t even show up on Cleo’s GPS.
The rest of the group will arrive. Jessy will comment that it’s not the run-down shack she was expecting. Again, her pictures are blocked off by a star.
Jessy will DM you to tell you that her uploads got canceled part of the way through. You and Jake have more investigating to do once Jessy fixes her end.
Return to the group chat where Thomas will inform you that Hannah’s phone is at 22%. Per Jake’s instructions, Thomas will wait. However, he’ll point out that it’s most likely locked by a PIN. Jake has us covered, no problem. But while he works on trying to crack the PIN, he’ll ask you to try to decipher what it is by asking the others. He has a point – without a PIN, he has to breach security on each level.
One last thing before Jake gives you access to the phone: remember that you only have 3 attempts before it locks you out.
Now for the good news: it doesn’t matter what you enter because all the suggestions will be wrong anyway. However, asking around can get you some extra info, such as Thomas and Lilly’s birthdays, as well as a suspicious 4-digit code from Cleo. She won’t tell us what 8539 means.
Once again, you heard me right: there is no way to get Hannah’s PIN.
Return to Jake after your forced failure and inform him that Jessy’s done uploading the rest of the pictures. Time to have a look at the rest.
The Second Batch
Go through the images. You’ll find evidence that someone was being held captive. At the very least, it’s likely that Hannah is still alive.
If Hannah was being held captive in this room, why would Michael Hanson untie her and remove the duct tape keeping her quiet?
Next, another intel board. This is one we haven’t seen before – it has Hannah and Amy’s names on it, the words “guilty”, as well as a front picture of Richy. Last but not least, there’s also a map of Duskwood.
That’s all you’ll find here, so switch to Jessy’s DMs while Jake gets back to prying Hannah’s phone open. Jessy will want to explore the area, but Lilly will caution her in their DMs. I’d agree with Lilly, but alas, the plot waits for no one.
As Jessy explores, the conversation will drift towards Phil. While we haven’t found anything that will directly prove Phil’s innocence, we’ll keep looking. Jessy will be particularly curious about what Phil meant about him being arrested because of his ties to Michael Hanson.
Jessy will also muse about the time she used Hannah’s car to go to Iris Hanson’s house. One thing that bugged her is that she had to adjust the seat as it was too far back. Almost as if a man had been riding in it.
The topic will switch back to Richy. Jessy believes that he wouldn’t have gone to the safehouse if he were still around. He would have stayed to protect his parents as the faceless man takes everyone inside a marked home.
Hannah’s Phone
Jake will message you. We’re in. Partially. Jake will work on opening up more parts of the phone as we go, but we’ll need to scour it as best we can while he’s doing his job.
The rest of Hannah’s phone will appear as blue holographs. Those are the parts Jake needs to unlock, which will happen as you go through her phone.
Start by opening the available apps. There will be nothing of consequence there, but you can see she was looking up famous dogs. Once you’ve exhausted your options, Jake will open the chat app.
Go through each of her conversations and tap on the screen to reconstruct the chat history.
After you’ve read all of the available texts, Jake will decrypt the second one. It’s from Amy.
So yes, Amy and Hannah were meeting at Michael Hanson’s house. Hop off Hannah’s phone and tell Jake what you found. In Hannah’s own words, “I’m responsible for her death”.
There are a lot of points to go over here:
- Hannah felt that someone was stalking her, but Amy doubted Hannah’s visions.
- This was because only Hannah herself had seen the faceless man, and Amy suspected that Hannah was experiencing hallucinations due to her medication.
- To prove to Amy that she was being followed, Hannah set up a security camera in her room. Luckily for her, the camera caught some footage.
- Jake realizes why the woods outside Michael Hanson’s house looked familiar: it’s where Hannah was when she was kidnapped.
- We can thus surmise that the meeting between Amy and Hannah is the reason Hannah vanished.
Go to the group chat to share your findings. However, nobody will be online. That’s a first. Continue snooping through Hannah’s phone instead.
Guilt
You’ll get a text message on Hannah’s phone. I knew this was a bad idea.
Our friends will return, so get back to the group chat to discuss new info with them. Reveal to them that Hannah, in her own words, is responsible for Jennifer Hanson’s death. The scenario is as such:
Around 10 years ago, Hannah was driving an AMC Gremlin. Amy was riding with her. Hannah accidentally hit and killed Jennifer Hanson. As a result, Hannah is incredibly guilt-ridden and was taking antidepressants. Hannah felt the presence of a stalker, and she made a mental connection to the legend of the faceless man avenging his child. Amy, on the other hand, never saw the purported faceless man and thought that Hannah might be experiencing hallucinations due to her medication.
We can also assume that Michael found Amy guilty by association, hence her death and her presence on the “guilty” board.
Cleo will bring up the map of Duskwood on the board. Jake assumes it’s where the hit and run took place, but I’m not sold on that. Dan will interrupt by saying he’s been discharged from the hospital and needs someone to pick him up; Cleo will volunteer.
Watching Sinners
Return to Hannah’s phone to find the Gallery unlocked. What was that glitch just now?
Scroll to the end of the gallery. Jake will drop a message confirming what we saw: someone is meddling with Hannah’s phone. Jake can confirm that there are manual inputs – somebody just opened the chat logs. Any slight tampering with Hannah’s phone can cost us the entire connection, so go to the group chat and ask whoever it is to stop touching the phone.
Although no one will answer your message, the inputs will stop. Let’s hope whoever it was can refrain from doing so again. But because it’s so important to maintain the connection, Jake will set a trap for them – the next time someone touches Hannah’s phone, you can see who they are via the camera.
Go back to the Letter for Ted group chat where Lilly will say that she remembers something from long ago:
This happened when Hannah and Lilly were still living with their parents. One night, she suddenly woke up – Lilly already forgot whether it was for a drink or because she heard a noise. In the hallway, Lilly was startled by a figure staring out the window. It was Hannah, gazing silently at the forest. Lilly asked Hannah what she was doing, and Hannah replied, “There’s a man standing by the forest”. Lilly didn’t see the man that Hannah was referring to and started crying out of fear. The sisters’ parents woke up and interrupted the event. But that wasn’t the last time that Hannah watched the mysterious man. It happened again a few nights later. This time, Lilly didn’t talk to her sister and went straight back to bed.
The reason she brought this up is that, like Amy, Lilly didn’t see the mysterious stalker. This might also mean that he was already stalking her back then. While Lilly can’t remember precisely how long ago this episode occurred, it’s worth keeping in mind.
Jake will reupload the conversation between Hannah and Dr. Barret. In Hannah’s words, “He was standing in the forest, watching us”. And now that we have evidence of Hannah’s sins, we can surmise that this mysterious man was watching Hannah and Amy bury Jennifer’s body in the forest.
Lilly does bring up a valid point: if the faceless man, AKA Michael Hanson was watching them bury Jennifer’s body, wouldn’t he intervene? The only logical explanation for this is that the stalker back then was not Michael Hanson. That’s another piece of the puzzle we didn’t even know we were missing.
I also took the time to ask Lilly if she was tampering with Hannah’s phone. It wasn’t her; she knows how important it is to maintain Jake’s connection.
Gotcha!
Read through Jake’s DMs, then go back to Hannah’s phone.
You’ll get another threat from our culprit. Answer them, then switch to the camera to find who’s been tampering with the phone!
Even though you’ve got this picture of Thomas, the damage is done. We’ve lost the connection to the phone.
Switch to Thomas’ DMs and ask for an explanation. You’ll get no response.
Go to Jessy’s DMs. She’ll say that Thomas just ran past her with a dark look on his face.
Go to the group chat to look at the pictures Dan sent. These are from the place that Michael Hanson marked. It’s not important to us now, but these photos may help us down the line.
Cleo will also send you a DM asking you to look at her photo. Without the multimedia pack. Sigh. Anyway, it’s a picture of Dan’s wheelchair. He probably doesn’t want to be embarrassed about it.
Thomas will suddenly message you and you can talk to him about why he started touching the phone. It turns out he’s convinced Hannah is dead – Hannah wasn’t in the house, Amy is dead, and there were two barrels of a toxic substance in Michael Hanson’s house. Don’t give him hope. He can’t do this anymore.
He still won’t talk about why he touched the phone, though.
Thomas will muse over why Hannah didn’t tell him anything about the stalker, about being scared, about the antidepressants. He’ll even wish he was right and it was “just” an affair that Hannah was having. Cheer him up. It’s entirely possible Hannah was too frightened or too ashamed to bring up the accident with Thomas.
Thomas will finally come to his senses and head back. Go to Jake’s DMs and comfort him over the possibility that Hannah might already be dead.
The Last Hurrah
Cleo and Dan will arrive at the safehouse. After some back-and-forth between friends, Cleo will DM you to say that Dan didn’t just suggest going to the marked location in Michael Hanson’s map – he pretty much insisted on it. Cleo also picked him up two streets away from the hospital, without any luggage.
Go back to Jake’s DMs to find out he’s restored access to Hannah’s phone. Fingers crossed no one touches it anymore. Take this opportunity to tell Jake that Michael Hanson has been threatening you on Hannah’s phone.
Switch to Lilly’s DMs. If you have the multimedia pack, you can hear the chatting and Thomas playing the guitar. I do not have the pack.
Go back to Jake. If you didn’t already notice, Hannah visited the website of the Pine Glade Festival. Considering the connection between this case and Jennifer’s death, this can’t be a coincidence. Remember Michael Hanson’s testimony:
Jennifer Hanson was supposedly watching the fireworks at the Pine Glade Festival. Her father, Michael, was swamped with work at the Aurora Bar, so he couldn’t make time for her. Unbeknownst to him, Jennifer died that day.
…tomorrow is the day of the Pine Glade Festival. That bodes ill.
You’ll have to ask your friends about the Pine Glade Festival from 10 years ago. Any small detail they can remember might give us the time we need to save Hannah from whatever the kidnapper has planned. But that can wait a bit. Let your friends enjoy the fire and company a bit longer. Invite Jake to be a part of it, too.
Dan will message you. Get him to confess that yes, he did escape the hospital. I can sort of understand where he’s coming from; he doesn’t want to be helpless and be unable to help anyone stuck in that crappy hospital. Dan also feels that he needs to be there to protect his friends – especially after what happened to Richy. Your talk will be cut short by Cleo asking everyone to come in.
The kidnapper will message you again. Taunt them if you want. They’ll say they set a trap for you, and you didn’t even realize it.
Lilly will call you.
What Have We Learned?
Personal Information and Relationships
- Hannah and Amy were friends.
- Amy was riding with Hannah when Jennifer Hanson was hit.
- Dan escaped from the hospital.
Mysteries Solved
- Hannah accidentally killed Jennifer Hanson by running her over with an AMC Gremlin around 10 years ago.
- Hannah was attacked and kidnapped while she was outside Michael Hanson’s house.
- Thomas was the person tampering with the phone. He was on the verge of giving up Hannah for dead. We were able to talk some sense back into him.
Mysteries That Remain
- What was in the toxic barrels?
- Who drove Hannah’s car back to her house?
- Why did the stalker just watch as Hannah and Amy hid Jennifer’s body? On the heels of that, is it possible that there are two separate stalkers?
- What does the kidnapper have planned for the Pine Glade Festival?
- Who brought a gun?
- What was the trap?
The Finale
Every piece is now on the board. How will this end? Is Hannah still alive? What was in the barrels? Is the culprit really Michael Hanson? Most importantly, are our friends alright? Or have they finally paid the price for getting in the culprit’s way?
Join me and find out in the last episode of Duskwood!