Voodoo Priestess

Fan art of Mz Ruby from Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus! Done for the SlyGolds Events speedrunning community art contest! I originally joked I was gonna make a pinup of Mz Ruby for giggles cause my lady deserves only the BEST. Her boss fight was my FAV as a kid! I would replay it over and over again. Love her~ I'm very happy with the lighting on this!

The Mission “Descent into Danger,” in Mz Ruby’s level, takes place entirely inside the broken corpse of a massive monster.

You can see the skeleton of the creature from the outside:

And on the level map (see the gold vaguely turtle-like thing?)

And when you go inside the mission, look up! 

from the moment you walk in, you can always see the creature’s spine twisting along the ceiling of the level:

I almost wonder if the massive serpent you encounter in “Lair of the Beast” is supposed to be an infant version of this creature.

But THIS GETS EVEN MORE INTERESTING!!

We’re repeatedly told that the green “water” around Mz Ruby’s hub is NOT REALLY WATER. Bentley frequently tells us that it’s.....something else....he refers to it as “sludge” and “soup” because he doesn’t know exactly what is, just that it’s “very unsanitary.”

We’re also shown that Mz Ruby uses semi-magical machines to manufacture her zombie army-- like the “headstone generators” that produce ghosts around her hideout.

SO-- -Mz Ruby has magical zombie-making machines + a lair full of mysterious  sludge that isn’t water (but what is it?)

Then as we’re going through one of Mz Ruby’s “factories,” Bentley discovers that the green sludge is:

is “ectoplasm,” a mythical substance that allows spirits to take form. 

Bentley goes on to say that this magical ectoplasm “has just got to be” the raw material Mz Ruby uses to manufacure her zombie army.

At the heart of Mz Ruby’s hub is a giant “eggbeater.”  We destroy it in order to reach the boss battle! 

 This machine’s job is to stir all the ectoplasm, moving it to the factories and generators, so that it can be used to produce ghosts.  The eggbeater is heavily guarded because it’s so important.

 So Mz Ruby’s Evil Plan(tm) centers on using the magical green ectoplasm to power her zombie-making machines.

But where does the ectoplasm come from? And what does this have to do with the giant dead monster of Descent Into Danger?

The giant corpse is “the source” of the ectoplasm!

The magical sludge around Mz Ruby’s level is actually the decaying, liquify-ing body of this dead magical creature (and the creatures it ate.)

TL;DR

What is Mz Ruby saying in her boss battle song??? 

"In Sly 1, on the Vicious Voodoo level, the boss fight with Mz. Ruby, ya know how Sly does those movements? I memorized and performed those exact same motions every time I did that 'Deadly Dance'. That was 8 years ago...I can still do them today!! XD"