(This is part of my journey playing through Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. You can follow the entire series on the Nostalgia Lane page.)

We rejoin our werewolf hunter-slash-pervert creeper as he casually breaks into people’s rooms to see what kind of undies they’re wearing and what scented oils they like to put in their bath tubs. I’m finding it harder and harder to relate to Gabe, which is a good thing when I think about it. Gabe, what you are doing is not normal. Then again, if it was, would I be playing it?

Gabe is initially elated that he managed to sneak into Von Zell’s room and find his personal ledger. I guess he’s a little deflated once he remembers that, oh yeah, he can’t read German. Seriously, Gabe, what were you doing for the past year in Germany? Be a man and pick up a Rosetta Stone or something!

Well thank goodness that the most important piece of evidence in this book was thoughtfully written in English from one German native to another. I like the newspaper clipping as a nice touch.

I guess we know why Grossberg bought the farm!

Gabe scouts out Von Zell’s bathroom and spies a muddy orange footprint on the floor. Hmm. Probably a totally innocent thing. Maybe the guy used the mud lodge! Or he’s got an odd fetish that is probably best to ignore.

Gabe returns from his snooping to go downstairs for a chat with the friendly Hennemann. Lots more character snippets here, but the most interesting reveal is that the club has another lodge in Altdorf — where many of the missing persons cases were.

Showing the wolf tags that Gabe took from the exotic animal dealer to Klingmann sets off a pretty interesting cutscene. Klingmann reveals that he helped to steal the wolves for Von Zell to get into the club but had no idea what they were for.

Time to gear up before we go exploring outside! Gabe picks up a lantern, matches, and a pair of shears. I like how Gabe always tests everything (does this match light? Oh yes it does!) before stashing it inside his Infinite Trenchcoat of Holding +1.

The woods are pretty in a Silent Hill-we’re-all-gonna-die kind of way. It doesn’t take much exploring to find more muddy wolf prints, all leading to a dense thicket. Fortunately, Gabe has matches and commences burning down all of this old growth in his pursuit to find justice. Well, he WOULD have if the game had let me. I guess gardening shears work too.

Gabe finds a cave and goes inside with the world’s tiniest lantern. I really regret not taking a picture of it, because dang it is small. Maybe the GK2 dev team ran out of money for its props, I dunno. Anyway, Gabe’s making a lot of noises about how bad it smells in there — and to the game’s credit, it does a really good job ratcheting up the creep factor as to what Gabe might discover.

In the darkest part of the cave Gabe almost falls into a hole and then shines his light down to see…

A naked Von Zell eating one of several corpses. Hey Von Zell! What up, my man! You didn’t tell me this was a BBQ! Save some ribs for me!

Can’t say this is a surprise. Gabriel Knight 2 might pay a lot of attention to details and backstory, but it also is quite ham-fisted with its foreshadowing. But that screenshot makes up for any shortcomings. I might even make that my new Facebook profile pic.

NEXT TIME ON GABRIEL KNIGHT 2: Gabe throws up.