Higher Ground

You join Jody and Ellie Maxted on a run to Hemelstead Mansion, home of a collector of Dark Age antiquities, in whose collection you hope to find a copy of the Edda of the Wakened Warriors. The Edda is needed to help Veronica explore her theory that the origin of the V-Types lies in a unique fungal growth, and about which the Vikings may have known.

Jody, Ellie and Sam discuss the state of the ongoing peace conferences, and the likelihood of various factions taking over as leaders of the UK. Jody believes the Exmoor Militia will end up leading the efforts to defend against the V-Types.

You enter Hemelstead Mansion and find the library, after running through a long hall full of stuffed animals. The owner of Hemelstead Mansion was clearly interested in taxidermy. The library's records reveal that the Edda is not stored in the main library, but in the remote Bibliotarium, on the other side of the mansion. As you leave the Library, you spot a large portrait of the mansion's owner: Xenobia.

As you navigate Xenobia's mansion in order to reach the Bibliotarium, you encounter a strange zombie, which has been melded with a tree somehow. The twigs growing from its face prevent your headshot from killing it, so you are forced to flee instead.

Escaping the twig-zombie, you enter Xenobia's lab. What first appears to be a model of a human-cockroach hybrid soon reveals itself to be a real cockroach-zombie hybrid, terrifyingly. You flee, still in search of the Bibliotarium.

Ellie reveals she's carrying a grenade, which you quickly use to dispatch the Insect-Zombie. Unfortunately, the blast makes the cliff into which the mansion is built unstable. It's time to run!

Escaping the rock-fall, you finally reach the Bibliotarium to search for the Edda. To Ellie's dismay, it soon becomes clear that the rock blocking your way is highly toxic, contaminated with Burn Cube residue from the detonation at Mount Seneca, which lay above the tunnels you're in. The Edda and its vital information are inaccessible.