Battle for the Regency

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The Battle for the Regency is the Match that encompasses the plot of the work of interactive fiction Varicella.

Context

King Charles of Piedmont has died, leaving his 5-year-old son as the heir. As the news spread throughout the palace, all the ministers start plotting to establish themselves as the Regent until the Prince has come of age.

Players

Notable Tricks

Self-destructing the Venetian weapons

Wehrkeit is engaged in a war with Venice, but will be returning to Piedmont as soon as he finds out that the king is dead. Varicella bribes Sierra about information on Wehrkeit and Venice. She tells him that Wehrkeit, who used to be Swiss mercenary, knew the location of the weapons caches used by the mercenaries hired by Venice, and has raided them for his own army. Varicella also bribes her for the phone codes to call Venice and, adopting a servile tone to get through to a Venetian minister, leaks to them that Wehrkeit has been using their own weapons against them. The Venetians then activate the self-destruct mechanism that they had fit into their weapons, destroying Wehrkeit's entire army and mortally injuring him.

Forming an alliance with Sierra

Rico bribes Sierra to form an alliance with him. If Varicella asks for the phone codes after this, she gives him the wrong code, which triggers a booby trap with poisonous gas.

Sending Sierra to kill Bonfleche

Varicella uses his surveillance system to record Bonfleche about to sexually assault Prince Charles. He shows the recording to Sierra, who had suspicions that the prince has been suffering abuse, in order to incite her to burst into the minister's quarters and shoot him in rage.

Using Charlotte to kill the ministers

Varicella frees Princess Charlotte from her restraints and takes her out of the palace asylum. Charlotte has been the victim of repeated sexual assault by Rico and Louis, knows that Prince Charles suffers the same from Bonfleche, and had her husband assassinated by Wehrkeit. Varicella slips her a knife in the presence of either of these men to have her stab and kill them without getting Varicella himself implicated.

Using Prince Charles' toy car as a murder weapon

Varicella steals a toy robot from Rico's office, giving it to Prince Charles to get his attention away from his toy car. He then takes the remote controller and drives the heavy toy car off a balcony, causing it to fall on the palace's courtyard when either Louis or Rico is there, crushing them to death in what seems like an accident.

Luring Louis into the green slime

Varicella takes Louis' bottle of malt liquor and throws it into the courtyard fountain, which is filled with a mysterious green slime. When Louis tries to retrieve it, the green substance spreads to his arms and causes his hand to fall off. In a panic, Louis tries to run away and falls, cracking his head on the marble floor.

Infiltrating Modo's laboratory

Varicella, knowing that the green substance filling Modo's room is dangerous, uses a hostile tone to threaten the cowardly guard guarding the room to enter and fetch the vials inside, causing the guard to be consumed by the slime in Varicella's place. Varicella then combines the yellow and pink liquids from the two vials to clear the green slime from the courtyard's fountain, allowing him to find a button that opens the entrance to Modo's secret lab. He takes an oxygen mask from among the medical equipment around the king's death bed to be able to enter the lab without breathing in the green haze coming from inside. There, Varicella finds Modo, almost entirely consumed by the green substance, and is able to easily kill him.