Detectives United: Deadly Debt

Detectives United: Deadly Debt is the fifth installment in the Detectives United series by Elephant Games.

Plot
The opening cinematic shows a mysterious hooded figure performing a wordless transaction, exchanging an envelope for a violin case. The scene then switches to a party in full swing, and the hooded figure rings the doorbell before leaving the violin case on the doorstep with a note addressed to 'the maestro.' A man opens the door and takes the case, reading the note, then goes inside to test the violin. Immediately something is very wrong, as indicated by the strange light in his eyes.

As the game proper begins, Dorian Brown is the player character, and the three detectives are in his office at Mystery Trackers headquarters. He greets James Blackthorne and Anna Gray warmly, saying that he's always glad to see them, but also that seeing them makes him think something must be wrong. They assure him that nothing is the matter; they've simply stopped in so he can sign off on the case notes regarding "the blue roses of Restville" (a reference to the case in the previous game). Brown briefly shows them a new gadget he's been designing, a wand-shaped detector which will help to locate sources of paranormal activity. After he signs the documents, the three exchange a few more pleasantries and then Brown's partners take their leave.

Brown's paranormal detector soon starts picking up something strange, and after he gets his information in order, he sets off for a location identified as 67 Back Alley. When he arrives, he encounters an unfriendly woman, a redhead in a black dress, who tells him that no such address exists and that he needs to leave because he's not welcome. Brown is savvy enough to recognize that she's up to no good, but he doesn't know exactly what her agenda might be. He calls Agent Shade to update her on the situation, and she urges him to please be careful. After some investigating in the alley, he manages to open a heavily locked door, only to be besieged by a fiendish spirit which emerges.

The perspective then switches to James, who is in his office. He finds himself going into a sort of trance, and begins receiving a vision of two women talking. One is a young brunette clutching a violin; she frantically explains that she can't revive someone named Henry and needs the other woman's help. The other woman, whose face James can't see but who has red hair, tells the brunette that she can restore Henry's soul, but the price will be the deaths of the ones who put him in that situation in the first place, as she requires their life force. The brunette agrees, and the vision ends.

James snaps out of his trance when he hears his phone ringing. It's Anna, sounding unusually distressed, as she explains that she just had a nightmare about a soulless man with a violin and that she thinks it might be significant. James tells her about his vision and agrees that they need to contact Agent Brown because something is very wrong and people's lives are in danger. They get through to Agent Shade, who tells them that Brown is already onto something and they should stand by for further updates. James retrieves one of the magical artifacts from his collection, a gemstone which can restore life to a failing body.

A few hours later, Anna is the player character and trying to watch television, but the signal is out. While searching for the remote, she happens upon a photograph of her father, Richard Gray, and muses that she wishes he were on hand to help with the new case. Once she gets the television working again, she sees a breaking news bulletin regarding the strange ritualistic murder of a prominent banker. Immediately sensing that this is related to her nightmare and James's vision, she gets in her car and drives to the murder scene, where she finds a newspaper clipping advertising the dark magical services of a woman named Agatha. She also finds a photograph showing four men and a woman, identifying them as "friends and partners forever." After investigating the room, Anna uses her psychic ability to travel back to the time of the murder. She finds a note showing that some friends of the man named Henry are involved in the plan to give him the enchanted violin, and picks up a stone emblazoned with a rune. But no sooner does she return to the present than she's accosted by two masked figures, who force her into the nearby closet. Once she's locked in, the strange rune in her hands begins to sap her life energy, undoing the magic ritual (performed by her father in the Grim Tales installment The Heir) which restored her to her youth. She pulls out her keychain, which has a 'panic button' gadget attached to it, and presses the button.

The perspective switches back to James, as Anna's panic button sends a distress call to his cell phone. He immediately gets in his car and starts driving to her location, but he has a vision of the red-haired woman which causes him to veer off the road. Fortunately, the only damage is to his tire, and once the spare is in place he's able to get to Anna. He's horrified by her condition, but luckily he chose to bring the right artifact and is able to return her to her usual appearance. She's still very weak from the ordeal, though, so he insists on driving her home and calling Agent Brown to join them there.

The scene shifts to a room in Anna's home, where she's lying in bed to try to regain her strength. James sits on a chair beside her while Brown paces a little as they go over what they know. Brown is quietly angry that his partners have been targeted, and tells James to stay and keep watch over Anna while he goes to continue the investigation. Brown then becomes the player character, traveling to the home of the second murder victim to search for more clues. He finds his way into a secret room, where a large board of pictures connected by strings catches his attention. After examining the board, he calls Agent Shade and tells her where to send James to hopefully prevent a third murder. It seems that the murder victims are the ones who tried to kill Henry by stealing his soul with the violin; they are all wealthy business partners, and the implication is that Henry knows too much about how they made their money.

James makes his way to the location Brown gave, and is able to eavesdrop on a meeting between three people. One is Henry, the violinist whose soul was stolen; another is the brunette from James's earlier vision, Henry's sweetheart Matilda; and the third is Agatha, the black magician whose ad Anna found. She is the red-haired woman who harassed Brown at the start of the investigation, and who appeared in James's own visions. Henry and Matilda try to say that their debt to Agatha is paid, and that they won't perform any more murders for her, but Agatha says that they will kill as many people as she needs killed to sustain her life force or else she will kill them.

James relays all the information to his partners and then tracks Henry and Matilda. He introduces himself and promises to help them; they don't think he can until he explains that he has a friend who can travel through time and make it so that the violin never stole Henry's soul, thus nullifying all the murders. They agree to go with him to the Mystery Trackers headquarters, where everyone gathers in Brown's office to go over the plan.

Anna needs an object to help her find exactly where and when in time to go. Matilda suggests using the scarf she dropped at the scene of the first murder, which Anna thinks will likely work. She retrieves the scarf and goes back in time to the day of the violin's arrival. Opening a hidden compartment in Henry's aquarium case, she conceals the violin and three runestones inside. Back in the present day, Agent Brown collects those items from their hiding place and passes them on to James. James lures Agatha into a trap by pretending he wants to enter one of her agreements to thwart his enemies, then uses the violin and the runestones to destroy her power and remove her own endless youth, resulting in her death. The game ends with Henry filing charges against the friends who tried to kill him.

Bonus Chapter
The bonus chapter opens with the three detectives watching the news in Brown's office, as a man named Alan Growley is recognized for his public service. They start discussing the recent case and the fact that none of them can remember very much about it. They decide they need to review the case file, and look into what might have happened. After investigating the matter, they learn that the ritual to banish Agatha included a slight mistake; as a result, she's still able to influence the physical world and is trying to find a way back. Meanwhile, people are going missing from that same back alley where Brown first encountered her.

Brown directs James to visit a friend of his, Professor Rodgers, for help. While he does that, Anna attempts to go back in time to fix the ritual, but to her distress, she learns that Agatha is already too strong and is able to prevent her from making the corrections. She returns to the present and contacts Agent Shade with an update, saying that she believes Agatha's spirit is now tied to the violin. While they have this conversation, Agent Brown returns to the back alley where the kidnappings have been taking place. After searching the area for clues, he finds a small drone, to which he attaches an infrared camera and scans the nearby alleyways. He spots another kidnapping in progress and is able to intervene in time to save the victim. He subdues the attacker, and retrieves a business card from his pocket with the name and address of Alan Growley.

Brown heads for Growley's home on Westminster Avenue, where he finds the man's journal talking about the charming voice in his head named Agatha. Brown manages to bypass the lock that lets him into a secret room. The room is set up for ritual magic, and another kidnapping victim is locked in a nearby prison cell. Notes in the room make it clear that Agatha has been influencing Growley and getting him to kidnap and murder people in order to help bring her back into the world of the living. Anna joins Brown and helps him disrupt the magical proceedings by destroying a wax voodoo doll they find. This breaks a magic barrier, which Brown believes will weaken Agatha's power.

Just after they accomplish this, James arrives and congratulates Brown on his detective work. He brings another enchanted instrument, a harp, which Professor Rodgers has powered using "esoteric practices from the past." Brown is just saying that now they need to find Alan Growley when the man himself enters the secret room and stands in the middle of the ritual circle.

Growley tells the detectives that he expected them sooner, but it doesn't matter, because they're there now. A shadow passes over his face and his eyes turn green, with catlike pupils. He then begins to speak with an otherworldly voice which is clearly Agatha's, expressing pleasure that she didn't even have to look for the detectives in order to destroy them. She also informs James that she will save him for last, making him watch Brown and Anna be killed before he dies as well. The heroes deploy the magic harp from Professor Rodgers and a battle ensues, in which Agatha becomes increasingly in possession of Growley's body. She is finally defeated, and disintegrates, presumably killing Growley in the process.

With Agatha truly defeated, Anna returns to the past one last time. The ending cinematic shows Henry opening his door to receive not the cursed violin, but a basket of flowers with a card from the Detectives United. Back in the present, James and Anna watch as Brown seals the cursed violin in a special safe where it can never harm anyone again. The case is closed.

Characters

 * Dorian Brown: Mystery Trackers special agent from the Mystery Trackers series.
 * James Blackthorne: paranormal expert and detective from the Haunted Hotel series.
 * Anna Gray: private investigator from the Grim Tales series. She can time travel using personal objects.
 * Agent Shade: Agent Contact of the Detectives United. According to her dossier seen in this game, she is responsible for security and intelligence within the Mystery Trackers, and serves as contact agent and psychologist for the Detectives United.
 * Agatha: a master of black magic, who relies on life force garnered through murder to sustain her powers and youth. She tricks people into performing the murders to sustain her by forcing them into contracts.
 * Henry: a violinist whose soul is stolen through the use of a cursed violin.
 * Matilda: Henry's sweetheart, who enters one of Agatha's contracts in an effort to save him.
 * Alan Growley: a local public servant, widely recognized and admired for his work.

Connections

 * Richard Gray is once again absent from this game, apart from his brief mention when Anna finds his photograph.
 * In Agent Brown's office at the beginning of the game, he finds a note from a fellow Mystery Trackers agent called Triptych, warning him that blue roses are being spotted in Louisiana. He remarks that he'll need to look into that. This is a reference to the previous game and may also be foreshadowing for an upcoming installment.

Trivia

 * Beginning in this game, Agent Brown's partners (including Agent Shade) address him exclusively by his first name, rather than the more formal 'Agent Brown' of games past.
 * At the start of the game, the player can view a large bulletin board of papers in Agent Brown's office. Among the pages posted here are dossiers of the three detectives and Agent Shade. These provide more details than given in previous dossiers in this series, such as the fact that James is 30 years old and the nature of Dorian's invisibility. The wording of Dorian's dossier is remarkably similar to his biography on this very wiki, which delights the admin to no end.
 * Alex Robertson, who voices Henry in the main game, also voices Alan Growley and the unnamed mugger in the bonus chapter.
 * Most of the usual collectibles have been removed from the collector's edition of this installment. The player can still assemble fragmented pieces to form pictures which can be used as screen savers, but the only other collectible this time is a series of morphing timepieces. Clicking on the notes underneath each watch, clock, or other item reveals information about the item and, in some cases, its owner.
 * Among the timepieces collected are watches belonging to Agent Brown and Agent Shade. Brown's watch is a very high-tech gadget capable of many functions; Shade's is a more old-fashioned and intricate piece, and its note claims that it keeps as many secrets as Shade herself. There are also watches belonging to Anna, Richard, and Brown's father Rafael. Another timepiece is a clock shaped like a rocking horse, stated to be a favorite possession of Anna's daughter Alice.
 * Returning from the previous game is the Expedition Room. After both the main game and the bonus chapter have been completed, players can use the Expedition Room to access any scenes where they missed a collectible, in order to complete their collections without having to redo the entire game.