Rule of Rose Mysteries

In Jennifer’s forgotten past, the orphans were killed by Gregory Wilson, a. k. a. Stray Dog, at the Rose Garden Orphanage, with Jennifer being the sole survivor.

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And in the “Orphanage World” of Jennifer’s dream, the orphans are again killed by Gregory Wilson, a. k. a. Stray Dog at the Rose Garden Orphanage, with Jennifer being the sole survivor.

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In the “Airship World” of Jennifer’s dream, however, Jennifer relives the last days of the orphans through the distortion of the fantasy that the orphans had used at the Rose Garden Orphanage during their last days: pretending to be on an airship flying to India.

Jennifer’s dream recreation of this fantasy-play of the orphans is colored by her own experience, during her forgotten past, of having actually been on an airship flying to India that crashed (with Jennifer being the sole survivor).

As Jennifer dreams the “Airship World” she remembers (partially) that the orphans are doomed and are inevitably going to die… so the dream reflects this by having the airship of the “Airship World” moving toward a destiny of coming apart (hence the need for rope everywhere to try to hold the airship together and secure the things within the airship) and inevitably crashing (which we will not be shown, but which is implied to be coming). When the orphans die in the real world, their fantasy of an airship voyage to India will die as well.  So Jennifer’s dream of the “Airship World” recreates that approaching doom in airship-terms: an approaching crash.

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During the “Rag Princess Sews” chapter, after the lights are restored, go to the Sector 8 Cargo Bay area and take Jennifer to the door nearest the area where Xavier and Nicholas were earlier in the chapter, when they were asking Jennifer if she knew where a stick could be found for their game of “knights in shining armor”. Go through this door into the Engine 3 Maintenance corridor, turn to Jennifer’s right, and go up the stairs. There is a very small sign on a post to Jennifer’s right. If you press “x” next to it, you get a close-up of the sign, which reads “Engine 3 / Engine 3 Maintenance Passage” with an arrow pointing down. The subtitle says “Engine 3 down below”. Take the ladder down to Engine 3.

When Jennifer reaches the bottom of the ladder, the sound of an imp banging on the engine with a sledgehammer can be heard.

If Jennifer doesn’t get too close, you can watch the imp hammering away indefinitely.

If Jennifer gets close, the imp screams and throws the sledgehammer at her. This sledgehammer can be acquired as a weapon for Jennifer. Once it is in your inventory, if you select “look” the subtitle says “Sledgehammer. One swing will break most objects.”

The imp itself can’t be harmed by attacking it. I tried to block its path of escape by having Jennifer run to the other side of the imp, but the imp walks right through Jennifer, and her attacks pass right through the imp. The imp ends up crawling under the engine and disappearing.

I can’t recall any other imp in the Rule of Rose game that can’t be killed by attacking it, but I think that it makes a lot of sense that this particular imp can’t be killed by Jennifer if this imp has the symbolic significance that I think it has (I will discuss the symbolic significance I propose for it at the end of this post).

I have decided to call this imp the “gremlin imp”.

I want to thank Gauntlet for informing me of its existence. In all of my considerable time spent on Rule of Rose forums, I had never heard of this imp before. So I was very surprised and pleased to learn of it from Gauntlet.

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