Broken Sword II - The Smoking Mirror [Model SCES-00798]

Broken Sword II - The Smoking Mirror © 1997 Sony Computer Ent. Europe.

The Mayans had an incredible civilisation which flourished for centuries until, almost over night, it mysteriously ceased. Great cities were abandoned as the Indians retreated to the jungle. No one has been able to explain what went so catastrophically and so suddenly wrong. At that time, all peoples of Central America practised human sacrifice - tearing out the beating hearts of victims as an offering to the great sun god - believing that the mortal blood of man was needed to feed the immortal gods - and that without sacrifices the sun would not rise each morning.

Mayan legends tell of Tezcatlipoca, the evil god of sacrifice and destruction, who was entombed inside a "Smoking Mirror". To ensure he never escaped, three shields were crafted which, when brought together, could project Tezcatlipoca's evil back on himself and destroy him. The legends also tell of how Spanish Conquistadors stole the shields when they first discovered the New World. The Mayan survivors knew that one day, Tezcatlipoca would rise again and that without the shields nothing could stop him from invoking a new age of Armageddon.

As a journalist, Nico has been investigating a cocaine smuggling ring. She suspected a high class Mayan art supplier of using his gallery as a front for drug running. Nico followed a lead and came across a package which she assumed to contain cocaine. But when she got the package from the safe drop she found, to her disappointment, that it contained a Mayan artefact - a perfectly smooth curved onyx stone in the shape of a shield, on which appeared unfamiliar symbols.

She decided to contact Professor Oubier, a world expert on the Mayan civilisation, to try and find out more about any connection.Oubier sounded delighted to hear about the artefact - and invited Nico to visit as soon as possible - asking her to bring the shield. Being slightly suspicious and apprehensive, Nico asked George to accompany her.George has not seen Nico for many months. Having defeated the neo-Templar conspiracy at the end of Broken Sword I, he had had to return to America to tend his father who was seriously ill. His father subsequently died after which George returned to Paris. On his return, he found Nico uncommunicative and unfriendly. He later found, to his horror, that she had struck up a relationship with her ex-lover Andre Lobineau.

When George and Nico arrive at Oubier's house, they are met by Pablo. Although suspicious, they enter the house, and walk up the stairs to Oubier's study. Here George is knocked unconscious and tied to a chair. Nico is shot with a poison dart and collapses. She is then carried away from the house by Pablo who knocks a lamp onto the floor. George regains consciousness to find himself bound, the room alight, and being approached by a tarantula...