It’s sort of interesting how much the Nawab has been a non-entity in character terms: I feel like we haven’t gotten any reason to think anything of him as a person.
I did like that first line that he “generally dreams himself into something restful–a rock, or perhaps a tree” though.
This is the final part of your quest - enhance your Perception and collect Memories to complete it.
She is powerful, wealthy, and quite possibly much more wise than the young and cruel Nawab. You must admit, it would be a pleasure to report to someone of discernment for once.
A high-risk challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Perception 8 (you have 9). 
You need 9 x Memories (you have 30) Go
Ghaseti Begum may be influential, but she is still a prisoner. Bengal’s fortunes rise and fall with the Nawab, and you have pledged your loyalty to him. He must be told of this disaster.
A high-risk challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Perception 8 (you have 9). You need 9 x Memories (you have 30) Go
Perhaps not
You enter the dream of the drugged girl and reach for the window which should take you back through to the waking world. It suddenly grows a wreath of thorns. “I am busy. Return later.” You hear the Begum’s voice echoing around the girl’s dreamscape and stagger back: you have no idea how the Begum is able to control the girl’s dream in this way.
Perception is increasing…
Perception 9 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
You’ve gained 2 x Marked by Shadow (new total 7).
Onward
I was impatient, so I just went and failed this six or seven times until I got a success: the dice were not rolling our way. But oh well, we got two more levels of Perception out of it. And the success gives us one more level of experience as sa-ilu, so we only need one more to report to the Nawab and advance to March.
Hmm. I should also point out… it was in the intro, but since Mike mentioned a feeling of creeping doom: this game was never finished before StoryNexus shut down, so we don’t get the final month, unfortunately.
You return, and tell the Begum that the prisoners dreamed of no secrets, but water. Your voice cracks with dryness. Her guard hands you a cool tumbler and you drink the mint-flavoured water gratefully, thirstily. Your face must ask a question that you have not voiced for she tells you, rather regretfully, that she cannot send water to the prisoners.
“Don’t you see, sa-ilu - if they die, the British will go to war with my coward nephew. No more talk of allies, no more selling our honour cheap to these Europeans.”
She turns away, and tells you casually that she has poisoned you.
“A slow poison,” she clarifies. “Come to me each week for the antidote. If you tell the Nawab, you will die. I will never reveal the antidote, even unto death. I am sorry for this necessity. I trust no-one, not even my own sister who keeps me prisoner for her tyrant son.”
It seems the Begum can be cruel, too, in her pursuit of power - do you admire her for it? It does not matter; you are now in her grasp, and together you have brought Bengal into crisis.
Perception is increasing…
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve lost 9 x Memories (new total 21).
Your ‘Remembering the Black Hole of Calcutta’ Quality has gone!
You are a ‘Survivor of the Black Hole’. It will always be with you.
You now have 1 x Poisoned by the Begum.
You gain experience as sa-ilu: walker in dreams
Those early lessons have left a mark - you are your only true ally.
Onward
Now to see how long it’s going to take to get 6 more Desires: pretty sure the Lover card (dreaming or waking) is the only place I’ve seen those, and we need it to come up (and roll a success) twice. And there are a bunch of other cards.
Haha, of course it comes up as the very first card.
You’ve gained 3 x Memories (new total 24).
You now have 3 x Desires.
Onward
Hmm. What if I leave the two other cards there and just cycle through the final one until I find the lover again?
The Linga-Puranas - an ancient collection of scriptures - are one of the few Hindu texts in your collection, and therefore you treasure them particularly.
The words swim in front of your eyes.
Serenity 8 failed in a challenge!
Onward
Man. The Linga-Puranas doesn’t like us. I think this is the third or fourth failure.
An intriguing and curious poem written by the saint and mystic Kabir - more mystical than devotional. You have read it many times, and each time you peel back another silvered layer of meaning.
Do not go into the garden of flowers / O friend, go not there. / In your body is the garden of flowers. / Take your seat on the thousand petals of lotus / and there gaze upon the infinite beauty.
There is a strange tree, / which stands without roots, / bears fruits without blossoming. / It has no branches and no leaves. / It is Lotus all over.
A silence follows your performance and then raucous applause. You are handed a glass of bhang and encouraged to drink. “Clearly, my learned friend,” says the chastened poet. “You belong here with us!”
Curiosity has increased to 10!
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge!
You’ve gained 3 x Visions (new total 17).
You’ve gained 1 x Imagination (new total 14).
Onward
An ambassador from the Sultanate of Delhi graces Murshidabad with a visit, and the Nawab has ordered a magnificent feast.
You are invigorated by the pleasures of beautifully prepared food and many glasses of spirits: a feast of smells, tastes and textures. The mullahs and religious men of the court huddle over to one side, used to winking at the Nawab’s habitual indulgence in forbidden alcohol. Your senses are replete.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Imagination (new total 16).
Onward
The Linga-Puranas - an ancient collection of scriptures - are one of the few Hindu texts in your collection, and therefore you treasure them particularly.
Death is nigh if one dreams of travelling southwards in a chariot drawn by bears or monkeys. This is all the more the case if one happens to be singing or dancing while thus travelling. Death is also indicated if jackals greet one at the stroke of dawn.
The puranas catalogue death omens dispassionately. They propose prayer to Shiva as the only escape from death foretold, but - blasphemously enough - you think you could probably sort some of these omens out yourself.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Imagination (new total 18).
You’ve gained 3 x Visions (new total 20).
Onward
You’ve gained 3 x Memories (new total 27).
You’ve gained 3 x Desires (new total 6).
Onward
And then let’s clear the others. Although actually, I’m curious what this event looks like on the dream side. And we still haven’t checked out the other Frenchmen, and those are in the dream.
Onward
Onward
You moved to a new setting: The Dreaming.
Aw yeah, the first hand has the lover and the French.
Of course, your old teacher warned you that those who are not sa-ilu might see your healthy curiosity as an imposition – a betrayal even. She herself advised against watching the dreams of friends and lovers, but she is no longer here to censure or praise.
Do you enter the mind of your lover by night? Or do you judge the act a shade too indelicate for your careful sensibilities?
Your capricious lover dreams of weddings and bridal-red saris that drape like rivers across her sinuous, perfect body.
In her dream, the red sari falls from her body in sheaves of gold and she spreads her legs and guides your lips to her flesh; her body changes under your tongue. Whatever the shape, it is her, always her, and you twist and shift and fit yourselves to each other. You barely manage to keep breathing as she remakes you with her mind – and she does have the most devious mind.
She licks the tendons of your neck and laughs so bright and cool that she slips from your hands, her flesh rippling into a pool of water clear as crystal. A wind that carries the scent of her perfume encourages you forward and you strip off your silks and plunge your body into her transformed self. You are consumed by her.
She unpeels the layers of flesh and fear guarding your body and gives you iridescent fins and long wings made of chips of onyx polished sharp as knives. You cup your hand in the water, your lover, and lift it to your mouth and you drink of it deeply: memories explode behind your eyes, your skin burns and freezes and burns again, all in an instant. You have never been so close to another person.
She surges out of the pond in front of you: a woman shape of clear blue water, flashing violet-bright fish swimming through her torso, hair streaming lotus-roots, smooth pebbles for eyes. She licks her way into your mouth with a tongue that tastes of mud and forgotten magic until all you can do is shudder in her arms and pray fervently that morning never comes.
Curiosity is increasing…
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 17).
You’ve gained 5 x Desires (new total 11).
Your powers are political as well as sorcerous - it is wise to remind those around you of this.
Onward
…wow. I’m glad I didn’t skip that. Also 5 Desires instead of 3.
If you have learned anything from your time at court, it is this: the best way to guarantee a long and fruitful friendship is to know your friends’ unfortunate secrets.
It makes them so much easier to anticipate…and to control.
Every successful action in the dream world uses up Imagination - if you use up all your Imagination you must go back to the wake to gain more.
Monsieur Jean Law is the chief of the factory in the nearby town of Kasim Bazaar; the closest representative of the French East India company.
A very modest challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 80% chance of success). You need Perception 4 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 17) Go
During his time at nearby Chandernagore, you grew to respect Dupleix - and that respect grew when you saw the bitter enmity between Dupleix and that British upstart, Robert Clive.
A very chancy challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Serenity 4 (you have 8). You need Imagination 1 (you have 17) Go
You have wondered about the power controlling the French East India Company - the King of France, Louis XV himself. You know that he is not likely to know anything particularly relevant to the Nawab’s mission, but you are seized with curiosity. This is a particularly arduous task for your Imagination, and will tax you more than usual.
A modest challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 70% chance of success). You need Curiosity 4 (you have 10) You need Imagination 2 (you have 17) Go
Perhaps not
To your shock, Dupleix’s dream does not have the atmosphere of Pondicherry - where you had thought he was serving. Instead, you step into a winter-whipped dream of piercing hunger and unlit fires. Dupleix, it seems, has been shipped back to France and fallen heavily out of favour: you wonder whether the French desire for battle against the British in India has disappeared with him.
Do you spare a prayer for poor Dupleix the next time you visit the temple?
Serenity has increased to 9!
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 16).
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 21).
You’ve gained 1 x An Enemy of the British (new total 3).
You’ve gained 1 x Memories (new total 29).
Onward
Though Robert Clive seems to hold no official position in local governance, he commands the British armies, and is a veteran of the wars across India.
Clive’s dreams are all of gold and power, but they have a robust, stark quality that warns you not to underestimate him. He dreams vast battles, moving men in impersonal swathes. All his dreaming ends in victory. Clearly, he is an opponent not to be underestimated.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 22).
You’ve gained 1 x Visions (new total 21).
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 15).
Onward
Monsieur Jean Law is the chief of the factory in the nearby town of Kasim Bazaar; the closest representative of the French East India company.
Law dreams of writing pages and pages of cramped text, arranged into untidy piles on top of an ornate desk. You peruse them at your leisure, for he is wholly occupied. You find the Nawab’s name, and see the many of the rumours of the town repeated in them - did Law hear of them, or start them deliberately?
You are cautiously optimistic at the concluding words: It is true he was a profligate, but a profligate who was to be feared, who could be useful to us, and who might some day be a good man. Well.
Perception has increased to 12!
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 14).
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 23).
Onward
I drew again without thinking, so here are the couple outcomes that we hadn’t seen: the holy men, and a failure on Dupleix.
They are, perhaps, most openly disdainful of the Nawab’s - excesses - of opium, gambling, and wine. But then again, they dislike you for no other reason but your birth.
Skipping through the dreams of the alim of the Nawab’s court you notice they all dream of water, trickling away in glittering spirals. A sure symbol of hidden wealth. This is no great surprise, but you resolve to scrutinise them further. Enough money can buy an army, and even that most precious of things, a man’s loyalty.
Onward
Dupleix must have overindulged last night. Perhaps the last several nights. You stumble away from his dream muggily; the taste of sour wine ruins your next meal.
Serenity 9 failed in a challenge!
Onward
Let’s finish this month.
You step out into the wake, careful not to make too much noise and wake Cani. You feel strangely light, possibly an effect of tiredness. The waking world opens itself up before you.
You moved to a new setting: The Wake.
Onward
You scour the palace, and easily find the room she was consigned to. A few workmen break down the wall. Inside are the bones of a woman, strung with the threads of silk she was buried in.
Her story seems truthful - and yet, you do not know what to do with her words.
A venerable man, with silvery hair and a graceful affect - he is the worst gossip in the Nawab’s court, and vicious besides. He will spread the story of the dancing girl, without anyone tracing it to you.
The court gossip listens to your tale with his eyes growing ever wider. “Allah be praised!” He exclaims. “I had heard rumours of this - but you - you have her bones.”
He trails off. “I became her friend when she came to court here. Did you know that? Beautiful girl, and far too clever to live a simple life. Her fate was…” He looks at your face, eyes lingering on the amulet proclaiming your service to the Nawab, and takes a breath. “It was undeserved,” he finishes, with deliberate emphasis.
You consider nodding: this is the closest you have ever come to open treachery to the Nawab. You wonder whether Faizen will still be there when you enter the dream-world, or whether her silk-clad body will dance itself into nothing but brittle bones and air, dissolving like ash on the wind.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve lost 6 x Desires (new total 5).
Your ‘Hearing the echoes of the dancing girl’ Quality has gone!
You cannot keep the dancing girl’s horrible fate a secret - you prize honesty.
You gain experience as sa-ilu: walker in dreams
Onward
And indeed, there’s the 5th level of experience as sa-ilu.
Others would fear to tell the capricious Nawab of the difficulty of his position, but your value is not dependent on the Nawab’s regard: he needs you, perhaps even more than you need him. You need not fear his reprisals.
This card will progress the story to the next month, March. To unlock it, you must increase your ‘Investigating the Situation for the Nawab’ quality, and complete the quests ‘Remembering the Black Hole of Calcutta’ and ‘Echoes of the Dancing Girl’.
“Thank you, my sa-ilu,” he says stiffly. Then he proceeds to break every fragile object in his audience chamber.
He curses, creatively, blasphemously, and at length, before gesturing imperiously for you to kneel.
You dare to look up at the Nawab’s face and you see the fear in the line of his mouth - he looks much older than his twenty years. He has only been the ruler for two of those twenty, but he has not had an easy reign. Reporting back to the Nawab will move you forward to March 1757.
The Nawab thrusts a letter penned in the distinctive script of General Robert Clive, Commander of the British armies. An ambitious man, and an effective one. In it, Clive very politely asks the Nawab for permission to attack and capture the French-governed town of Chandernagore - a thriving trading town that is not all that distant from Murshidabad. Clive claims his enmity is toward the French alone, and reaffirms his friendship for the Nawab, and all of Bengal.
The Nawab seizes the letter from your hands as you are reading and rips it into shreds. The paper falls around your knees like a fall of snow in the dreaming.
“I told them no,” he sneers. “But Clive cannot be trusted. You must go to Chandernagore. Support my man there. Offer the French any help they require against this British aggression. I will not be crossed.”
You accept your mission with all required formality though your heart beats faster at the news - after all, if the British take Chandernagore, how long will it be before Clive casts his eye towards your home, the prosperous capital city of Murshidabad?
It is March, 1757 - the British and the French go to war in Bengal. Can you avoid being crushed between them?
‘Investigating the situation for the Nawab’ has been reset: a conclusion, or a new beginning?
You gain experience as sa-ilu: walker in dreams
An occurrence! Your ‘The Principal Players’ Quality is now 1!
An occurrence! Your ‘An unusual collection’ Quality is now 1!
An occurrence! Your ‘Shadow-marks’ Quality is now 1!
Onward
I do love the descriptions of the dreams, even if some of them are fairly perfunctory. This story feels a lot more grounded than Fallen London or the other StoryNexus games I’ve seen, and the dreams do a lot to inject fantasy back into it.
I am curious why Shadow-marks got set back to 1. I was wondering when that was going to come into play, but it seems like accumulating it didn’t really do anything…
The poem you read is actually two poems, or really one and a half poems:
The first one is certainly apropos to the whole dream-walking conceit; I’m not quite sure why the author tacked on a bit of the second, though.
It’s sad to hear that the game is incomplete, although I’m definitely still glad to have the opportunity to see what there is of it. The dream of your lover in this update was a particularly impressive bit of writing. I’m also interested to see what if anything comes of the Dancing Girl storyline.
Waitaminnit… we still have Marked by Shadow 25 (the dreaming can be more treacherous than the sea, crueller than the gods - do not let this quality grow too high). Shadow-marks seems to be a new thing. There’s a Shadow-marks section under Items that is currently empty.
I think that was the end of it: we have an accomplishment Faizen’s honour (You allowed the truth of Faizen’s death at the Nawab’s hands to emerge - you upheld her honour). But we’ll see!
I should definitely take some screenshots and go through and list the descriptions of all the qualities that we have.
There are much older Hindu temples dotted about, attended by the various clerks, administrators and labourers needed by the French colonists to do their menial work.
You should be able to investigate the town of Chandernagore and continue your activities in Murshidabad - after all, the towns are physically close. And if you are very pressed for time, you could always take a risky shortcut through the dreaming.
Despite the urgency of your mission, it would be prudent to arrange your lodgings, and get settled in. You have rented rooms near the trade quarter - they are clean enough but hardly befitting your grand status. However, the landlady is a habitual drunk with betel-stained teeth.
Your gift of a crate of honeyed French brandy will keep her, if not quiet, then at the very least too mazed to mark your activities with any accuracy. A most satisfying situation.
You do not travel lightly, but thoroughly. It is wise to have a variety of costumes and implements of your trade. You place your pressed yellow paper and bottles of inks in teakwood boxes on the small escritoire.
Your one sentimental item is a small bronze pearl-encrusted box that never leaves your vicinity. Its insides are mirrored. Within are your most treasured mementoes. You secret it away in the small room, reasonably confident of its safety.
Your mission will not be simple. Apart from your normal investigations for the Nawab, you must bolster the defences of Chandernagore against possible British threat, and seek out the Nawab’s man in the town, a large-moustachioed courtier by the name of Nandakumar.
This is all, of course, aside from any personal matters that you might pursue. At the very least, you will have to travel back to Murshidabad to refresh your mind, and keep your skills as sa-ilu sharp.
It is rather lucky that you are so resourceful. You cast a critical eye about your rooms. You are well settled. Now it is time to venture into the town.
Explore both Chandernagore and Murshidabad in the wake, and investigate the dreaming, to progress in March.
You gain experience as sa-ilu: walker in dreams
a Pearl-Encrusted Box: its insides are mirrored. You keep your precious mementoes safely locked within
You must find Nandakumar, the Nawab’s man in Chandernagore
The walls are crumbling in parts, & Renault has hardly enough men to mount a decent patrol - Chandernagore must be further fortified
An occurrence! Your ‘Investigating the situation for the Nawab’ Quality is now 1!
Onward
We can still access Murshidabad, but we now have a new deck for Chandernagore.
10 Imagination, 10 Curiosity, 12 Perception, 9 Serenity (guess we should work on that). 3 An Enemy of the British, 1 Investigating the situation for the Nawab. Now we have 1 the Defences of Chandernagore: Crumbling walls and not enough men, and 1 Exercises of Power: You rest on the myths of the sa-ilu.
Two new pinned cards:
The Nawab’s Man I: A Meeting at the Mint
- Unlocked when 1757 is March - Anglo-French rivalry threatens Bengal (you have this)
- Unlocked with Seeking out Ndakumar 1 - you have 1
The Maratha Envoy I: An Invitation
- Unlocked with A lost heritage 0
- Unlocked when 1757 is March (you have this)
And our first hand (drawn from Chandernagore) is
- Inspect the Defences of Chandernagore
- Investigate the Memsahibs of Chandernagore
- Attend a party at the French Residence
You met him once on a tour of the Murshidabad mint, amongst the stacks of silver and old currency waiting to be melted and struck into fresh new coins bearing the face of your Nawab. A small maker’s mark proclaims their Murshidabadi origin – there are many different mints striking these flashing coins in prosperous Bengal, but Murshidabad’s mint is known to be the finest.
It was a loud, clanging, banging place – fitting for the beating heart of the Kingdom, pumping gold and silver through the veins of Bengal.
This is a multi-part quest - enhance your Perception and collect Memories to progress.
Yes. He had a grandiose moustache, and his turban-pin was set with the sternly smiling face of Lakshmi – the Hindu goddess of wealth. You had something in common there, separated from the mostly Muslim court.
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 10 (you have 12). You need 3 x Memories (you have 29) Recall your meeting
Perhaps not
Your memory is shot through with the smell of molten silver and the heat from the furnaces. You can recall with perfect accuracy the shape of Nandakumar’s moustache, the way one section of it wobbled away from the rest and curled gently toward his nostril each time he exhaled, but sadly, very few of his words.
Perception 12 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
Onward
Yeah, we’re going to be failing a lot: many of these cards have much higher requirements. But this one should be passable: let’s try it again.
You remember you gave him a particularly warm smile, and in response he cracked open with almost pitiable speed. He marvelled at the machines of the mint, and laughed as he handled sharply shining silver coins still warm from being struck. Yet he also watched the liquid silver pouring like a thirsty man, and drummed his fingers in time with coins striking. His greed could be troubling – although it will make him predictable.
He made one or two very careful comments about the – complications – of finding oneself a Hindu in a Muslim court. Though he was quick to praise the Nawab’s name straight after, you doubt his loyalty.
He took your hand when you were taking your leave, and slipped you one of the new coins with a wink. At the time, you thought nothing of it. Now – you are less sure. Perhaps it would be useful to gain another perspective on Nandakumar.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve lost 3 x Memories (new total 26).
You recall meeting Nandakumar; he makes you uneasy. You must seek out more information on the man.
Onward
You play a dangerous game here, but the Envoy intrigues you.
This is a multi-part quest. Increase your Serenity and spend Traumas to progress.
You check the corridor carefully and blow out your candle before making the last turn. The Envoy is the only person in this section, and it would not do for the Nawab to hear of this late night visit. He is a paranoid man at the best of times - your best hope if he finds out is to pretend a passionate if ill-advised affair with the aging Envoy. You have a rhyming poem about the Envoy’s luxuriant moustache stashed in your pockets for exactly this reason: it is almost too embarassing to be false, and you sincerely hope you will not have to use it. You approach the door carefully, feeling your way in the darkness.
You need 1 x Maratha Envoy to play this - encounter him in the Murshidabadi court in the wake, or in the dream, to unlock this card.
A very chancy challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Serenity 6 (you have 9) You need 3 x Traumas (you have 20) You need 1 x The Maratha Envoy (you have 0) Locked
Perhaps not
Incredible.
Our Serenity is our lowest stat, so I think I’m going to arbitrarily choose the Serenity options first for a bit. Especially since we have a whole wealth of new options that we’ll likely get to eventually but no real reason for a particular order yet.
You remove your amulet of office and change your clothing: you judge that it would be best to observe the preparations being made for the British attack unseen.
The Nawab had warned the French to bolster their defences last year, when the British marched to take Calcutta back from his invading force. Have the French heeded his warning, you wonder?
A high-risk challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 20% chance of success). You need Serenity 8 (you have 9) Go
The grand gates leading to the lushly-leafed avenue outside the Fort are beautiful, but defensively weak. They must be shored up if the city is to hold against British bombardment.
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 8 (you have 12) Go
While the walls are being strengthened, and the houses surrounding the fort demolished to prepare for a land assault - the British have formidable ships of war that must be halted.
A high-risk challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Curiosity 8 (you have 10) Go
You will gain 1 x Pierre Renault, 2 x The Defences of Chandernagore and 5 x Desires
It appears that the soldiers of the British East India company grow discontented in the peace - and now clamour to join the French against their old masters.
[This branch is now free to play] Go
The Fort D’Orleans stands on the banks of the Hughli river, and as far as you can see the east of the fort has been entirely ignored. Do you wonder why? Go
You step lightly across rubble, avoiding the bolts of silk and scatterings of pepper and spice that litter the now half-demolished trade quarter. A girl with blue-stained hands up to the elbow looks intently at your lips. You suddenly remember they are blue with indigo dye. She pulls you round a corner, down an alley and then into a shop still mostly intact. A crowd is sipping chai inside - they look up at your entry.
Explore the town of Chandernagore to gain Indigo-Stained Lips, which unlocks this branch.
A very chancy challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Curiosity 8 (you have 10). 
You need Indigo-stained lips 1. You need 3 x Traumas (you have 20) Locked
Perhaps not
Many of the deserters are British, but there are Portuguese, Dutch, Swiss, and even some French men in the lines. The British East India company hires cheaply, and without national bias. Pierre Renault recognises you as you converse with the soldiers, and draws you aside, his mouth twisting in a perpetual half-sneer. “They are curs and honourless men, wishing only for blood and gold. I can give them blood, my friend, but there is no gold in the vaults under Fort D’Orleans.”
He looks at you significantly. You see maybe thirty men. Trained grenadiers, footsoldiers, artillerymen. Thirty could make a difference, added to the five hundred troops Renault commands. You promise to speak to the Nawab about a gift of funds.
Renault bows, though it clearly pains him to do so to a barbarian such as yourself. You take a great pleasure in bringing your hands together, and even touching his feet in a traditional gesture of respect that sets his pale face aflame. Ah, yes, simple pleasures.
You’ve gained 5 x Desires (new total 10).
You now have 1 x Pierre Renault.
The walls are crumbling in parts, & Renault has hardly enough men to mount a decent patrol - Chandernagore must be further fortified
Onward
You wonder whether the French traders have been trying to conceal the impending siege from their wives and and sisters and mistresses – European men have such strange and complex notions of propriety, and the women so often have entirely different ones.
Yet it would be useful to know if the women are eagerly bloodthirsty or fearful, ready to throw themselves at the mercy of their enemies. It would be even more useful to know who exactly the Frenchwomen consider to be the enemy.
Both the British and French Companies persist in their strange tradition of arranging for cargoes of eligible white ladies to be sent to their outposts like so many unripe mangoes – a cause of much jocularity in the Nawab’s court. You manage to engage one of these uprooted ladies in conversation over a particularly fine enamelled comb at the picked-over bazaar.
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 7 (you have 12) Go
One of the chief factors of the French Company here in Chandernagore maintains quite the household, with a French Housekeeper who took ship with him. The way a man treats his servants reveals much, and you resolve to investigate this oddity of a woman, who is white yet plainly a servant; subordinate and yet purportedly superior.
A high-risk challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 20% chance of success). You need Serenity 7 (you have 9) Go
You will gain the character Madame Molloy: she will unlock more content this month, and in upcoming episodes, as well as 2x Defences of Chandernagore and 5x desires
You have been investigating a certain Madame Molloy in the Dream, wife of one of the French Company factors. You have heard repeatedly that she is a memorable, even formidable woman.
You manage to find yourself across from Madame Molloy at a local teahouse through the careful application of a childhood spent slipping away from lessons in dreamwalking to try your hand at games of chaupar.
[This branch is now free to play] Go
The town’s wealthiest trader has a young daughter, normally kept battened up in the schoolhouse with the nuns. You could not imagine a less appropriate time to begin venturing out-of-doors, but the approaching siege has thrown all kinds of domestic arrangements into disarray.
A high-risk challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Curiosity 7 (you have 10) Go
Perhaps not
The cursed woman must never sleep, and seems to spend all her waking hours in the marketplace haggling over shards of cinnamon, and dubiously sniffing shipments of precious European potatoes. She keeps glancing over at you with suspicious eyes, even though you are trying your utmost to be discreet. You must try to catch her at an unwary moment.
Serenity 9 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
Onward
The breeze picks up the scents and the occasional stray petal and trails them gently through the manor, ruffling the men’s silk wraps and the largely decorative fur stoles flung across the bare shoulders of the ladies. A sharp-faced Russian pianist plays a gentle melody, and waiters circulate with glasses of bubbling champagne on lace-covered silver trays.
Do not fear failure - it can often be rewarding.
You will gain 3 x Dreams of Distant Shores and 5 x Desires
You categorise a certain group of partygoers with one look: they are the particular breed of foreigner that loves all things Indian. The women wear garish saris and all have elaborate hairstyles threaded with jasmine, presumably carefully pinned by their servant girls. The men wear silver-embroidered sherwanis to the knee, and smoke homegrown, handrolled tobacco which purples the air.
[This branch is now free to play] Go
They move silently amongst the throng wearing pristine white: the colour of death. The only relief are the bands of yellow silk wrapped around their waists. It stands to reason that the servants - ubiquitous and yet below notice - would know the most useful gossip.
A high-risk challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 20% chance of success). You need Serenity 7 (you have 9) Go
At their centre stands Pierre Renault - the Governor of Chandernagore - holding a glass of milky pernod and watching his compatriots brangle with a half-smile.
You need 1 x Pierre Renault to unlock this branch - find him through exploring the dreams of the French
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 7 (you have 12). You need 1 x Pierre Renault (you have 1) Go
The most brightly dressed birds in the gilded cage. They wear doublets of violet striped silk and hats of scarlet studded with yellow topaz. You hope they sing sweetly.
A high-risk challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Curiosity 7 (you have 10) Go
Perhaps not
The women in white saris all look like widows and the men in white turbans like mourners at a funeral - and they have the same deliberately bland affect. Clearly your rich clothes and emerald jewels have marked you as an outsider. They smile with strained politeness and ask you whether you would care for another drink in the most courteous French, pretending they cannot hear you greet them in Bengali.
Serenity 9 failed in a challenge!
Onward
Despite its slightly disturbing beauty, the town is far from peaceful - its streets are clogged with eager young soldiers jostling each other and tradesmen packing up their shops. The people walk the avenues with tight, expectant faces.
Bengal is famous for its Indigo, and Chandernagore produces, sells and exports a huge quantity of it. You follow a worker carrying a bundle of blue-flowered plants to the factory.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Curiosity 9 (you have 10) Go
Frequented by the Governor of Chandernagore, Pierre Renaut, and the officers of the regime - it is no surprise that the Sacre Coeur is the most beautiful church in Chandernagore. Its twin towers fresh-painted white and green, casting cool shadows over immaculately maintained lawns threaded with marigolds and shining pebbled pathways.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Serenity 9 (you have 10) Go
The temple is a fine example of do-chala architecture: its roof is impossibly sloped, joining like the vertices of a hunting bow. Priests move hurriedly through the gathered throng, directing devotees and workers as they pass. You venture closer, hoping to hear why they have gathered.
A high-risk challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Perception 9 (you have 12) Go
A figure wrapped in a drab brown shawl brushes past you. You almost keep walking, but you are arrested by the memory of the most remarkable eyes you had ever seen. An enchanting figure at one of the innumerable parties at the French residence. The warm invitation in those shockingly dark eyes, a chance missed. What business could anyone like that have darting through the ill-lit streets at night?
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 9 (you have 12). You need 3 x Desires (you have 10). 
You need A missed connection 1 Locked
Perhaps not
Your slippered feet slide along the pebbles, and you fall: clearly you need European shoes in order to navigate these treacherous paths. You curse inventively in French, then Portuguese and English. A woman nearby gasps, and draws her children away from you with a glare. You are tempted to laugh despite your undignified sprawl.
Serenity 10 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Traumas (new total 21).
Onward
The Nawab had warned the French to bolster their defences last year, when the British marched to take Calcutta back from his invading force. Have the French heeded his warning, you wonder?
The ramparts of the Fort D’Orleans look recently repaired, with platforms hastily assembled and field-pieces mounted in place. Sailors of the French East India company ship, the Sainte Contest, practice loading and firing with speed and efficiency. They are full of brittle martial energy and curses for the British: you feel strangely soothed by their precise action, and by their cool and sharp hatred.
You’ve gained 1 x An Enemy of the British (new total 4).
The walls are crumbling in parts, & Renault has hardly enough men to mount a decent patrol - Chandernagore must be further fortified
Onward
At their centre stands Pierre Renault - the Governor of Chandernagore - holding a glass of milky pernod and watching his compatriots brangle with a half-smile.
You need 1 x Pierre Renault to unlock this branch - find him through exploring the dreams of the French
A hand on your arm arrests your progress. You look up into the most arresting pair of eyes you have ever seen, like river-water running across granite. They issue an unmistakeable invitation to take - shall we say - a turn in the garden. You do not have time for such diversions, but by the time you have murmured the required niceties - in somewhat halting French - the bureaucrats have moved to Renault’s private rooms. The enchanting creature is gone too, leaving nothing but the memory of a strangely cool imprint on your arm.
Perception 12 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Desires (new total 12).
You now have 1 x A missed connection.
Onward
Aha, and there’s the “missed connection” we need to unlock A familiar pair of eyes under Explore the French town. It’s kinda neat that we got something useful for failing a storylet…
Let’s take a quick look at the Dream here too.
You moved to a new setting: The Dreaming.
We have a new pinned card in the Dream:
The young French surgeon lies on his cot, the snow falling through the walls and mounting up like ash against the damp and knotted sheets. He dreams himself into his own cell, even as snow from the mountains of his faraway home buries him alive amidst the whole town.
You need Dream of the Fever-Tree x 1 to play this multi-part quest; gain it through exploring the dream.
You recognise the scent of pitch and ordure, the uniform hung on the wall, the gloomy framed engraving of a sainthood. The air is rank with a taste of bark, chewed and spat out. Books rot on the shelves.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Curiosity 12 (you have 10). You need 3 x Desires (you have 12). You need A Dream of the Fever-Tree 1 and A Dream of the Fever-Tree no more than 1 Locked
Perhaps not
You know little of the Marquis De Bussy-Castelnau save two facts: he is widely considered the French military genius of his time, and Cani crosses herself at the mention of his name.
De Bussy dreams of sacking forts, and soldiers screaming in the pre-dawn light. You have heard rumours of de Bussy’s alliance with the Rajah of Vizianagar against his British-allied enemies in the Deccan. It seems that Bengal is not alone in its strife.
Strangely, you are heartened by his dark-drenched dreams of blood and cannonfire: he would be a formidable opponent to the British, if he could be tempted into an alliance.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 9).
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x An Enemy of the British (new total 5).
Onward
Here are minds at their most unguarded – it is easy to uncover their secrets, and perhaps even to manipulate their dreams. If you are willing to endure the risk. The teachings of the sa-ilu warn against being caught in the dream of a dying man. There are no accounts that describe what it is like, and that tells you enough to be wary.
A few families defiantly occupy their homes despite the Governor’s decision to tear them down for fortifications. One such house, a baker’s, caught fire in the dead of night. Some whisper that the French set the fire, in order to evict the baker’s family. The baker’s son will survive – and his account will influence the attitude of the locals towards the French, and their enthusiasm to defend Chandernagore against British attack. You could perhaps influence him yourself…
An almost impossible challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Serenity 8 (you have 10). You need Imagination 1 (you have 9) Go
You have noticed that in the dreams of the gravely injured, the dreamer’s bodies are often strangely distorted. They can swell to the size of a city, fire and plague playing out in the precincts as their flesh knits or rots. Other times the mind is so distended by sickness and sensation that the dreamer almost disappears altogether. You will have to be especially cautious as you explore the dreams rising hotly from the fever-wards.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Perception 8 (you have 12). You need Imagination 1 (you have 9) Go
What is it that draws you to one dream above another? Amidst all the the fear for the siege, the plans for escape or manipulation, one dream is bright and musky as a lantern fresh with moths. In his cell in the hospital, the young French surgeon dreams in vivid, unmistakeable colour.
Success will unlock a multi-part quest: A Dream of the Fever-Tree.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Curiosity 8 (you have 10). You need Imagination 1 (you have 9). You need A Dream of the Fever-Tree 0 and A Dream of the Fever-Tree no more than 0 Go
Perhaps not
Somehow you miss your mark, and end up in the baker’s dream instead of his son’s. A dream already sliding towards death. The baker dreams himself as a coal-black skeleton leaping free of its puckered wrapping and cavorting in the streets. His hands slough off like ladies’ gloves and he pins his horrified wife in a burning, leering embrace. He reaches for you with molten hands, and you slip out of the dream while you still can - though he has left a burning mark on your skin.
Serenity has increased to 11!
Serenity 10 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 3 x Traumas (new total 24).
You’ve gained 2 x Marked by Shadow (new total 27).
Onward
Find a dream of escape and blue-drenched sky. The risk is falling. But that’s what makes it fun.
You find yourself clutching slick rigging, with tendrils of moist cloud swirling into your face. You are on a galleon decorated in pinks and reds, its bow thickly crusted with with grotesque sea-monsters and slant-eyed mermaids. The dreamer stalks the decks and orders about the crew, dressed in a richly brocaded sherwani and tall plumed hat. You look down but instead of the blue of the ocean you see a cloud-stippled sky. Strange birds swoop around the hull, scaled iridescent like fish, with wings made of translucent ribbons. You are flying - a bright, pure, mad joy flashes through you.
Curiosity has increased to 11!
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge!
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 8).
You’ve gained 3 x Desires (new total 15).
Onward
I’m loving this story more and more; the little storylets of description really work for it.
I didn’t recognize the term do-chala style, but it looks like this:
It’s apparently a distinctly Bengali architectural style; the name means “two sloped roofs”.
Also, good to know we shouldn’t get caught in a dying dream! I wonder if the Begum knew that…or cared?
I’m very curious about this Dream of the Fever-Tree and our Missed Connection, for next session! Getting a special unlocking quality through failure is neat.
Visit the dreams of your lover kept coming up, and after the writing in the one option I was curious about the others…
Your bejeweled lover dreams of mirrors, all looking back at him with dark eyes and flushed faces and smiles of impossible mockery.
You slide into the dream through a mirror-door, stepping right through one of your lover’s images. You nudge at the dream gently and all of the mirror-lovers turn to you, rubies glistening wetly on their necks. Your lover catches your lips in a kiss and then glances laughingly at his jealous reflections, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
It appears your languorous, pampered lover is competitive, even with himself – how delightful. You smile back at him and whisper a few suggestive words and the mirrors all shatter with a musical sound that echoes radiantly. The reflections step out from their broken mirrors and into the dream, covered in silvered dust and eager to prove themselves. And you let them.
You are scrupulously fair in your attentions, losing yourself in the slide of golden skin and dark hair and the perfectly formed thighs all spreading before you like an obscene banquet. At the moment of crescendo the mirror-lovers turn to exquisitely blown glass in delicate hues of blue and gold with eyes of curved mirror that distort you in the reflection. By morning you and your lover lie sated in a rippling field of glass-shards that touch your skin as gently as a kiss.
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 7).
Your powers are political as well as sorcerous - it is wise to remind those around you of this.
You’ve gained 5 x Desires (new total 20).
Onward
The imperious convert to Christianity dreams of six-armed fire-eyed Hindu goddesses tying her to gold crosses and flogging her with whips of rosary-beads the colour of blood.
Her dream is so riven with guilt that it flows thick and solid; you cannot manipulate the direction of her thoughts gently, and you dare not intervene too directly - you could fracture her mind. The dream quickly slips from edging on pleasure to outright punishment, and you slip away, slightly horrified at your discovery.
Curiosity 11 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 3 x Traumas (new total 30).
Onward
You step lightly into your lover’s dream and watch for a while as the whips stripe her once-smooth back with dark red wounds as your lover writhes in pain laced with delirious pleasure. Kali – the goddess of power and destruction – wields the whip, flicking out her long serpentine tongue to catch the droplets of your lover’s blood before they hit the ground. Clearly your newly Christian love is less than easy with her conversion.
You step forward and – disconcertingly - find yourself with four extra limbs, clutching phantom-fingers around tridents and lotuses. You drop these unnecessary accoutrements and hold your lover in an encompassing embrace, your extra hands multiplying the sensation of her soft skin under your fingers. You slide a palm up her thighs and squeeze her breasts and knot your hands in her hair and slide a finger into her mouth and still have a hand free to pleasure yourself.
You almost regret that you will have to ask Cani to dream you back into two-armed form once you are done. But those thoughts are for later – morning is still hours away.
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 5).
Your powers are political as well as sorcerous - it is wise to remind those around you of this.
You’ve gained 5 x Desires (new total 25).
Onward
Fascinating that Cani can control our form…
Here are minds at their most unguarded – it is easy to uncover their secrets, and perhaps even to manipulate their dreams. If you are willing to endure the risk. The teachings of the sa-ilu warn against being caught in the dream of a dying man. There are no accounts that describe what it is like, and that tells you enough to be wary.
A few families defiantly occupy their homes despite the Governor’s decision to tear them down for fortifications. One such house, a baker’s, caught fire in the dead of night. Some whisper that the French set the fire, in order to evict the baker’s family. The baker’s son will survive – and his account will influence the attitude of the locals towards the French, and their enthusiasm to defend Chandernagore against British attack. You could perhaps influence him yourself…
An almost impossible challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Serenity 8 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 7). Go
You have noticed that in the dreams of the gravely injured, the dreamer’s bodies are often strangely distorted. They can swell to the size of a city, fire and plague playing out in the precincts as their flesh knits or rots. Other times the mind is so distended by sickness and sensation that the dreamer almost disappears altogether. You will have to be especially cautious as you explore the dreams rising hotly from the fever-wards.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Perception 8 (you have 12). You need Imagination 1 (you have 7). Go
What is it that draws you to one dream above another? Amidst all the the fear for the siege, the plans for escape or manipulation, one dream is bright and musky as a lantern fresh with moths. In his cell in the hospital, the young French surgeon dreams in vivid, unmistakeable colour.
Success will unlock a multi-part quest: A Dream of the Fever-Tree.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Curiosity 8 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 7). You need A Dream of the Fever-Tree 0 and A Dream of the Fever-Tree no more than 0 Go
Perhaps not
The surgeon’s dreams toss like a sea. They are impossible to get hold of. Whatever it is that torments him, it smells of guilt and something else, acrid and medicinal. You will have to try again…
Curiosity 11 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 3 x Traumas (new total 27).
Onward
Oh, huh. If this is a different version of the British card, then the French one from last update must be as well. Of course it is; the general wasn’t Dupleix. But the skill checks were (I think) so easy that I assumed it was an old card without thinking. I’ll have to quote the whole thing the next time it comes up, and we’ll have to see what new we find out about the other French.
You decide to investigate the minds of your enemy, to better understand their weaknesses.
Every successful action in the dream world uses up Imagination - if you use up all your Imagination you must go back to the wake to gain more.
Robert Clive - or Colonel Clive, as you should call him - commands the armies that threaten the French town of Chandernagore. Knowing his mind will be of great value.
A high-risk challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 30% chance of success). You need Perception 6 (you have 12). You need Imagination 1 (you have 7) Go
Charles Watson commands His Majesty’s Navy in the East Indies. His ships recaptured Calcutta, and now he plans to sail to Chandernagore.
A high-risk challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 20% chance of success). You need Serenity 6 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 7) Go
The wife of William Watts, she is - surprisingly - well liked by the Bengalis, court and citizenry alike. Even the Nawab’s mother, Amina Begum, appears to like her. Curious.
A high-risk challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 20% chance of success). You need Curiosity 6 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 7) Go
Playing this branch will give you 2 x The Defences of Chandernagore and 2 x An Enemy of the British
Clive’s map of Chandernagore is accurate. Too accurate. It would be so easy to disturb its layout in the dream, and perhaps cause confusion in the wake too…
[This branch is now free to play]
You need Imagination 1 (you have 7) Go
Perhaps not
You open various doors in Clive’s dream until you find the command tent, with its carefully coloured in map dotted by blue and yellow markers. You must be judicious in your alterations: too much, and Clive will reject the dream, too little and it will not be of any use.
He clearly has intelligence of the fortifications. You remove the markers representing the French guns at the approach, alter some of the fortifications. If it causes him even a moment’s hesitation, it could change the tide of the battle.
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 6).
You’ve gained 2 x An Enemy of the British (new total 7).
The deserters are being trained, the barriers are growing slowly higher - will it be fast enough to stop the British from seizing Chandernagore?
Onward
You have noticed that in the dreams of the gravely injured, the dreamer’s bodies are often strangely distorted. They can swell to the size of a city, fire and plague playing out in the precincts as their flesh knits or rots. Other times the mind is so distended by sickness and sensation that the dreamer almost disappears altogether. You will have to be especially cautious as you explore the dreams rising hotly from the fever-wards.
You step into a damasked bedroom: the hospital orderly eagerly makes love to a woman. The gently fluttering curtains flicker and become bandages and soiled sheets. You leave the orderly to his - desire? Fear? You do not care to know.
Perception 12 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 3 x Traumas (new total 33).
Onward
At night you step inside their stiff court masks and disassemble them from the inside out. Their most delicate joys, their sweetly secret sorrows, their most venal ambitions – you must know them all.
Every successful action in the dream world uses up Imagination - if you use up all your Imagination you must go back to the wake to gain more.
The ladies of the Nawab’s court have excellent imaginations. In the wake their smiles are hidden behind the purdah in their guarded apartments, but you may walk amongst them freely in the dream.
A tough challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 40% chance of success). You need Curiosity 5 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 6) Go
You have suspicions of Mir Jaffar, the Nawab’s general. Perhaps it is time to investigate them more thoroughly?
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 5 (you have 12). You need Imagination 1 (you have 6). You need 1 x Mir Jaffar (you have 1) Go
The Nawab raises men up carelessly and drops them with as little ceremony. You are not the first of low birth he has honoured, but you are the only one who has remained so.
A very chancy challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Perception 5 (you have 12). You need Imagination 1 (you have 6) Go
A recent addition to the Nawab’s retinue is an envoy from the warlike Maratha empire, which threatens Bengal from the West. You do not know what he wants, but his appearance at this time of crisis cannot bode well.
Success will unlock The Maratha Envoy quest.
A tough challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 40% chance of success). You need Serenity 5 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 6) Go
Perhaps not
Trying to read the Envoy’s dream is like trying to read a ciphered letter without the key. The Maratha culture is more alien to you than that of the Europeans, and the Envoy seems to dream particularly - perhaps deliberately - obscure dreams.
Serenity 11 failed in a challenge!
Onward
The French do not have the military might of the British in Bengal, but perhaps they have…other advantages?
Every successful action in the dream world uses up Imagination - if you use up all your Imagination you must go back to the wake to gain more.
Monsieur Jean Law is the chief of the factory in the nearby town of Kasim Bazaar; the closest representative of the French East India company.
A low-risk challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 90% chance of success). You need Perception 4 (you have 12). You need Imagination 1 (you have 6) Go
You know little of the Marquis De Bussy-Castelnau save two facts: he is widely considered the French military genius of his time, and Cani crosses herself at the mention of his name.
A very modest challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 80% chance of success). You need Serenity 4 (you have 11). You need Imagination 1 (you have 6) Go
The Nawab has negotiated with Pierre Renault, the Governor of Chandernagore, in the past. He makes little secret of his dislike for Indians.
A very modest challenge (Your Curiosity quality gives you a 80% chance of success). You need Curiosity 4 (you have 11). You need Imagination 2 (you have 6) Go
You will gain 2 x The Defences of Chandernagore and 5 x visions
The dreams of Chandernagore are unstructured and shifting. Underneath the bravery and drum-beating of the young soldiers is blue-white fear like fire, and visions of death. You could smooth their troubles slightly, and leave them refreshed for the morning.
[This branch is now free to play] Go
Perhaps not
You slip from one panting vision to the next: you see a soldier’s legs powder into gritty red dirt, a man’s throat torn out by a falcon with jeweled claws, a boy’s musket turn to a four-headed snake with glittering yellow eyes and poisoned fangs. Finally, you find what you seek: the dream of an old soldier, callused as his gun-hand, thick with anticipation and bloodthirst and a worn, hardy patriotism. You pick gently at the seams of his dream - carefully, very carefully allowing the sense of calm and pride to leak out like warm syrup, hardening over the brittle courage of the young soldiers like lacquer. The drum-beat shifts to something steader, more true - a heart beating while the body marches on - and you slip out of the dream, your work done.
The deserters are being trained, the barriers are growing slowly higher - will it be fast enough to stop the British from seizing Chandernagore?
You’ve gained 5 x Visions (new total 27).
Onward
Foiled again.
The Envoy is sitting on a low cushioned bench sipping a glass of lassi flavoured with roasted garlic and cumin - the smell makes your mouth water. He smiles at you, unsurprised, and conjures a second tumbler. “I wondered how long it would be before you visited me,” he says, as you try very hard not to swallow your own tongue in surprise.
“You look shocked. Surely you did not think the Nawab of Bengal alone in his possession of a sa-ilu?” His expression shutters. “Ah,” he says softly. “You did. Such a shame. So much of your own history is lost to you, poor child.”
He turns away sharply as the dream begins to waver. “I am not skilled in dreaming. Meet me in my rooms. I have much to tell you.”
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 4).
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 3).
You now have 1 x The Maratha Envoy.
Onward
And again! To be fair, the chance is really low. But now we can go back to the wake and talk to the Maratha Envoy.
You moved to a new setting: The Wake.
You play a dangerous game here, but the Envoy intrigues you.
This is a multi-part quest. Increase your Serenity and spend Traumas to progress.
You check the corridor carefully and blow out your candle before making the last turn. The Envoy is the only person in this section, and it would not do for the Nawab to hear of this late night visit. He is a paranoid man at the best of times - your best hope if he finds out is to pretend a passionate if ill-advised affair with the aging Envoy. You have a rhyming poem about the Envoy’s luxuriant moustache stashed in your pockets for exactly this reason: it is almost too embarassing to be false, and you sincerely hope you will not have to use it. You approach the door carefully, feeling your way in the darkness.
You need 1 x Maratha Envoy to play this - encounter him in the Murshidabadi court in the wake, or in the dream, to unlock this card.
A modest challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 70% chance of success). You need Serenity 6 (you have 11). You need 3 x Traumas (you have 42) You need 1 x The Maratha Envoy (you have 1) Knock on the door
Perhaps not
The Maratha Envoy opens the door with a grumpy look on his face which clears as he recognises you. His clothes are rumpled, his turban sliding a little toward the right.
“I hoped you would come, sa-ilu, but I suspected you would not. What a pleasure to be proved wrong in my old age.”
He offers you some flatbread and spiced powders as you take your seat. Simple fare, compared to the dinnertime feast. He notices your hesitation. “I brought these from home. I find that Bengali court dishes often contain the meat of the sacred cow, often in the most unexpected of places. In honour of my visit, no doubt.”
Yes, you too had noticed this insult couched in hospitality; it required you to take some precautions of your own, given your own issues with eating cow-meat. He tears off some of the bread, and you find yourself tongue-tied all of a sudden. No matter, the night is long.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
An occurrence! Your ‘A lost heritage’ Quality is now 1!
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 4).
You’ve lost 3 x Traumas (new total 39).
Onward
Just when you are about to ask him a more penetrating question, the door bangs open. You leap to your feet and throw yourself into what you hope looks like a passionate embrace with the Maratha Envoy. It was, after all, your plan to pretend an ill-considered affair if you were caught. The penalty for such a lapse will be less than treason. If the Nawab believes you.
The Envoy chuckles softly and you dare to look up. The intruder is not one of the Nawab’s men, but rather one of the Envoy’s own retinue: an angry-eyed Maratha princeling with a wildly beautiful face.
You gather yourself, and smooth out your clothes. The princeling gives you a hot, suspicious glare, and stalks out. The Envoy pats your shoulder before slipping out into the corridor to confer with his countryman, holding a lamp.
This is a multi-part quest. Increase your Serenity and spend Traumas to progress.
The door is open just a sliver. If you are cautious, you could just about observe them without being seen yourself. It would not be entirely honourless; the Envoy did not close the door, after all.
A very chancy challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Serenity 8 (you have 11). You need 6 x Traumas (you have 39) Go
You could quite easily search through the Envoy’s desk while he is out of the room. It would be a greater violation, but you might discover something hidden and of value.
A very chancy challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 50% chance of success). You need Serenity 8 (you have 11). You need 6 x Traumas (you have 39) Go
Perhaps not
Tamping down on your curiosity about the conversation in the corridor, you search the desk. It is scattered with scrolls of paper tied with tasseled gold thread, or loosely held under a paperweight made of rich amber that glistens in the candlelight. The scrolls are in Marathi script, so you must choose one to take at random. By the time the Envoy comes back, you are once again seated comfortably. The stolen letter burns against your ribs as he tells you he that duty calls him away. You leave his apartments, resolving to decipher the scroll at the first opportunity.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
An occurrence! Your ‘A lost heritage’ Quality is now 3!
You now have 1 x A Marathi Scroll.
You’ve lost 6 x Traumas (new total 33).
Onward
Interesting that this relieves us of even more Traumas…
One of the philosophers at the palace is renowned for his knowledge of languages. He even translated a few of the ancient Assyrian texts in the library of the sa-ilu. He is eager to help when you explain your needs, and spreads the scroll across his desk with reverence.
The Maratha Envoy departed the court this morning with little fanfare. Do you feel a brief pang for all the knowledge that goes with him, and the potential for a friendship? He could have told you much, and seemed to imply that there may be other sa-ilu in India. Still. He is gone now, and you doubt you will see him again in pleasant circumstances.
This is the final part of your quest. Increase your Serenity and spend Traumas to progress.
The philosopher translating your stolen Marathi scroll asks for you to return later in the afternoon; it seems this will not be quite as straightforward as you imagined.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Serenity quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Serenity 16 (you have 11). You need 9 x Traumas (you have 33) You need 1 x A Marathi Scroll (you have 1) Locked
Perhaps not
Huh! This makes sense—she seems to be trained to consistently have lucid dreams, and when we’re in someone else’s dream, we can only do what the dreamer imagines us capable of. So she’s probably the one who had to dream our hair back after it was cut short in the funeral dream.
If these sorts of changes persist into the real world, though, we should ask her to dream the Begum’s poison away! (And if they don’t, why not stick with six arms for a while? It’s not like anyone living in Bengal will be shocked by dream-imagery of a six-armed figure, right?)
I also missed this earlier. Quite a diversity of religions around this Nawab!
I really do love the dream-writing in this story. The lovers’ dreams were another high point. The concept could probably be easily overplayed, but dreams seem to be a perfect fit for the QBN storylet format.
(Have I said all this before? Probably. I’ve been throwing myself into thesis work and losing track of what’s happened and what hasn’t.)
Oh my! Perhaps we will need to start the embarrassing rumor of an affair, if we’re going to be visiting him frequently.
Ooh, so maybe those shadows will be coming into play soon! Rakhyesa is a Marathi descendant of the famous Sanskrit rakshasa; it looks like the Bengali version would be rakkhosh. (I’m getting all of these from dictionaries—I unfortunately don’t speak any of these languages myself.)
I’m also curious how this quest would go differently if you failed to steal the scroll, or if you listened at the door instead. I didn’t expect this sort of branching in the quests until the very end (like with the dancer).
Oh, good point about the poison! Although I’m not sure about six arms – we’d have those in the waking world too, right?
I almost commented about the writing of using the old soldier’s emotions to shore up the young ones. So much good stuff in here.
I kinda wonder if the other option is extra, that you have to come back for the scroll? Or if this is a different branch? Yeah, very curious.
Anyway.
Whoops, meant to post these last night but I got distracted. A few more bits that didn’t fit in the previous update. We can take the second step of the Nawab’s Man story, but then the third one is locked (we need more Perception):
You are considered – prudent – by the Nawab’s court; a high compliment amongst the habitually paranoid courtiers and flatterers. A prudent choice of action is to seek out more information about Nandakumar before you attempt a meeting with him.
The Silk Sahib - as he’s known by locals and foreigners alike - used to be a well-regarded, starchly-trousered British representative at Bombay. About ten years ago, he’d converted to Islam, married a sixteen year old Muslim girl from a noble family, and – when the Company attempted to politely recall him to England – had upped and moved to French-held Chandernagore.
He lives in a large villa towards the south of the Fort, with an outhouse covered in honeysuckle where his harem of seven well-kept ladies sleep.
This is a multi-part quest - enhance your Perception and collect Memories to progress.
Usefully, the Silk Sahib’s first wife, the young Muslim noblewoman, does not keep purdah. She frequents the salons of risque Frenchwomen who dare to mix with the locals and rich Bengali wives. Her family is large and excellently connected with both the British and the French; you have no doubt she would have a few things to tell you about Nandakumar. More so than her besotted husband.
A high-risk challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 20% chance of success). You need Perception 12 (you have 12). You need 6 x Memories (you have 26) Go
You spot her quickly in the crowd: she is dressed in the latest French aristocratic fashion, outshining the French ladies in their more sober cuts. Her black hair is pulled back, curled and powdered, and her patterned pale silk dress is cut dangerously low in the bodice. Layers of delicate lace ruffles threaten to knock over the thin-stemmed glasses of wine on the tables every time she gestures.
You manage to engage her in conversation – in Bengali, no less. Despite her foreign style and noble background, she does not seem particularly affected or dismissive. You can perhaps see what drew the Silk Sahib to abandon the land of his birth to marry her. “Nandakumar,” she laughs darkly, voice growing taut. “That little bastard. He has been selling an ‘escape route’ from Chandernagore, you know. No faith. No loyalty. Tried to extort money from me. Didn’t have the courage to try it with my husband, no?”
A little bit of gentle prying is all it takes before she shakes out her dress and gives you a knowing smile. “You want to know where it is, no? My cousin mentioned a tailor’s shop near the west wall of the Fort. Apparently there are many tunnels under the city. Maybe you search there.”
You bow low to her before you leave, slightly clouded with wine and sweetly floral perfume – but in possession of an excellent lead.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge!
You’ve lost 6 x Memories (new total 20).
You resolve to investigate Nandakumar’s secret escape tunnel, under a tailor’s shop to the West
Onward
You slip inside and look around. The trap-door is barely hidden under a worn blue-and-yellow carpet, and you descend the rungs of the ladder in your embroidered court shoes.
The tunnel is dusty but clearly recently used, covered in footprints. A few lamps are scattered about the floor, some blankets, even a single abandoned shoe. Intriguing. You wonder what exactly Nandakumar has been up to.
This is a multi-part quest - enhance your Perception and collect Memories to progress.
In a dark alcove to the right is a locked trunk under a pile of well-used blankets. You are reasonably certain you could pry it open. You are even more certain that you would find the contents quite interesting.
An almost impossible challenge (Your Perception quality gives you a 10% chance of success). You need Perception 15 (you have 13). You need 6 x Memories (you have 20) Locked
Perhaps not
And now that we’ve seen more sources of Desires we can see what it looks like to trade them for Imagination to spend in the dream. Actually, I’m just going to run through all of those options in one place. It’s funny to me that I failed the dream of flying enough times that I then got distracted by the other options and never found out that it gives Desires until one of the last couple updates.
Yes, the bite of failure urges you on, but so does the sheer joy of exploration. You are drawn to the new, but you know that you will never entirely remake yourself. Your motivation is multistranded.
What you seek most is to be true to yourself. The Gita tells us: better to fail in following your own destiny, than succeed in someone else’s. You look for your pleasures everywhere, and you are rarely disappointed.
You’ve gained 1 x Imagination (new total 5).
You’ve lost 1 x Desires (new total 24).
You’ve lost 1 x Traumas (new total 32).
You’ve lost 1 x Memories (new total 19).
Onward
You are drawn to novelty and exploration - how can your spirit feel too taxed when there is so much wonder yet to be discovered?
You run across a group of boys playing a game of chase near the mango grove. You join in their laughter, inventing new rules and cheating cheerfully. The baker has a new sweet garnished with powdered pearls - it tastes very novel but absolutely disgusting. You wake at dawn and swim in the river. You have never done that before, and it is miraculous.
You’ve lost 3 x Desires (new total 21).
You’ve gained 1 x Imagination (new total 6).
Onward
You remember what it was like to be hungry, and dirty, and illiterate. No matter how exhausted you are, you are lucky to be sa-ilu.
You leave Murshidabad and travel back to the little village that you were born in. Nobody recognises you. You slip gold into the pockets of the beggars and use your wealth and amulet of office to instruct the temples to provide free meals for the children. As you are leaving, you see a man bent over, pulling weeds from the ground. You think it may be your father; you turn your face and hurry away.
You’ve lost 3 x Memories (new total 16).
You’ve gained 1 x Imagination (new total 7).
Onward
You have seen much pain and disappointment - the sting of misery keeps you honest, reminds you to do more and better.
Karma is all about balance, and you seek to achieve it. Bad actions and miseries rebound upon you - you document them scrupulously, and plan good works to even the ledger. Your life - all life - is a constant spiritual struggle, and you relish it.
You’ve lost 3 x Traumas (new total 29).
You’ve gained 1 x Imagination (new total 8).
Onward
Perhaps it it just tonight, perhaps it has been building for a long time - but you feel unsure of yourself. Of your purpose.
You remember how it used to feel, to wield power. You were so certain you would never tire. You were so young. No matter. Perhaps tomorrow will be different? Perhaps you need to find yourself a new mission?
Those early lessons have left a mark - you are your only true ally.
Onward
I kinda like that this card has an authored “nope, don’t buy anything” branch as well as the engine-supplied “Perhaps Not.”
That’s the last of the remnants from the previous update: I’ll try and get in some more this afternoon/evening. Need to step up the pace a little bit if we’re going to get through this, although I seem to recall that the back half goes quicker… But worst-case I’ll just run through the rest of it before the deadline and post it in chunks afterwards, I guess.
I ran through a couple hands of cards from Murshidabad just to check, but it seems like nothing has changed there. Though there were a few options we hadn’t seen. Interesting how much more lushly described the dream version of the lover options are…
A simple ritual; you spend fifteen minutes, maybe twenty at the temple in the morning.
The camphor burns smokily as the priest describes a circle around the idol of Shiva with the brass plate. He rings a bell. You hold out your cupped palm, and the priest pours a spoonful of sacred water into it - you put it to your lips and swallow. It tastes thin and metallic, but the smell of camphor reminds you of your mother; it is comforting.
Serenity has increased to 12! You’ve gained 1 Visions and 1 Memories.
Onward
She is imperious and lovely, a Christian convert thrown out by her family and – it appears – into your tender care.
She doesn’t care for your trinkets, but she flaunts your protection as she walks through Murshidabad with a Coptic cross around her neck. You spend an evening telling stories of the court and feeding her sweets, tasting cashew and almond when you kiss her skin. You leave sticky trails up her thighs, her breasts, and into her shivering mouth. You leave with the memory of your night burning bright in your mind.
He was a child then – and so were you. Your hands trembled as you held them behind your back.
Try as you might, you cannot overlay the softness of childhood on the face of the Nawab you have come to know so well. You remember him as he is now: moustache lightly oiled, a young man comfortable in his imperiousness.
Perception 13 failed in a challenge!
You stumble upon their grubby get-together by accident, and settle yourself on a seat in the back to be regaled.
The poets battle each other with verses, bantering with the crowd, impugning the honour of their colleagues. They begin quoting Kabir and Omar Khayyam but then improvise their own verses. You even add a line or two before stumbling home, energised.
He dresses in your silks and wears your ruby at his throat.
His skin is almost golden and his hands soft from easy work. You have never asked, but he is probably of a higher caste than you are. Your gold bridges the distance. You twine the silver ribbon from the box of sweets round his wrist and lick the skin under the jewels that you have showered upon him. You catalogue the way he looks stretched on the divan, and think back to it many times in days to come.
OK, back to exploring the new town.
The Nawab had warned the French to bolster their defences last year, when the British marched to take Calcutta back from his invading force. Have the French heeded his warning, you wonder?
The ramparts of the Fort D’Orleans look recently repaired, with platforms hastily assembled and field-pieces mounted in place. Sailors of the French East India company ship, the Sainte Contest, practice loading and firing with speed and efficiency. They are full of brittle martial energy and curses for the British: you feel strangely soothed by their precise action, and by their cool and sharp hatred.
You’ve gained 1 x An Enemy of the British (new total 8).
The deserters are being trained, the barriers are growing slowly higher - will it be fast enough to stop the British from seizing Chandernagore?
Onward
The most brightly dressed birds in the gilded cage. They wear doublets of violet striped silk and hats of scarlet studded with yellow topaz. You hope they sing sweetly.
Several of the ladies have gold-collared monkeys attached to their wrists with delicate chains, which immediately confirms your suspicions as to their idiocy. Sure enough, a few moments into your observations, one of the monkeys upends a tray of iced pink drinks all over a lady in turquoise ruffles. She screams like horse dying. You cannot keep a straight face, and must retire to the garden for a while. But you will cherish the memory of her shock.
Curiosity 13 failed in a challenge!
Onward
Now we have the missed connection we need to explore that one option:
A figure wrapped in a drab brown shawl brushes past you. You almost keep walking, but you are arrested by the memory of the most remarkable eyes you had ever seen. An enchanting figure at one of the innumerable parties at the French residence. The warm invitation in those shockingly dark eyes, a chance missed. What business could anyone like that have darting through the ill-lit streets at night?
You follow the brown shawl through marketplaces, down some stairs and to the river - taking care to keep to the trees. You walk for what feels like hours, time distending and dilating in the bruised red-yellow of sunset. The birds in the trees seem to stifle their cries as you pass, leaping into the sky and beating away from you on fluttering wings. You reach a clearing in the woods to the south of Chandernagore, and stop abruptly: in front of you is a mud-mound with several holes in the base. A snake mound.
The drab shawl is discarded on the ground, amongst a pile of trinkets - offerings, as you would place at a shrine. You see a flash of iridescent black tail, and take an involuntary step back.
Where is the warm-eyed creature who so intrigued you? Why does this place, so still and calm, cause your heart to beat faster in your chest? You feel poised on the very edge of something momentous.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge!
Marked by Shadow has not changed from 27 because it’s higher than 6.
You’ve lost 3 x Desires (new total 24).
You now have 1 x Ancient and forgotten magics.
Onward
The Fort D’Orleans stands on the banks of the Hughli river, and as far as you can see the east of the fort has been entirely ignored. Do you wonder why?
The co-ordinator of the defences is a man called M. Laporterie. You take your amulet from a deep pocket and slip it around your neck before barging into his offices - he looks like he has not slept in days, and is surrounded by carefully-inked ledgers and military texts. “The east?” He shakes his head sharply. “We have guns on the approach, and the bed is shallow. The British ships will never make it to the fort. You are clearly not a habitue of naval warfare,” he sniffs. “Now, excuse me, I have many important matters to attend to.”
He hands you a book on river warfare - a slightly mildewed, rather worn text. You spend a few hours with it open in front of you. Your mind wanders in a most relaxing fashion. In fact, you feel quite refreshed!
You’ve gained 1 x Imagination (new total 14).
Onward
Heh.
Both the British and French Companies persist in their strange tradition of arranging for cargoes of eligible white ladies to be sent to their outposts like so many unripe mangoes – a cause of much jocularity in the Nawab’s court. You manage to engage one of these uprooted ladies in conversation over a particularly fine enamelled comb at the picked-over bazaar.
Mademoiselle Ding is severely understaffed – a single Bengali girl of barely fifteen holds her purchases and yawns unabashedly. Her fortunes must clearly be in some decline, to be so ill attended, and it is easy to draw her into conversation about her troubles. She tells you of them with the candour and relish of the truly disappointed.
She is from Marseille, lured onto the passage East by a businessman uncle who promised her an excellent marriage match among the Company men. Yet, here she finds herself beset with third-son Corporals without a penny to their names. None of the rich traders wish to stir from their ledger-books or local mistresses. “Not that I blame the Native putains,” she informs you, eyes flashing. But her dreams of being a fine lady will remain just that.
“And now the city is to be beseiged!” She exclaims, as if the Anglo-French war is a personal affront. “I would have been better of in papa’s bakery.”
She does let slip one interesting revelation: almost all the money has already fled Chandernagore, to outposts in the Indies and to the banks of Istanbul. The French Company has no confidence in its meagre troops, or in the commercial fairmindedness of the British if they seize control.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Memories (new total 27).
You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 5).
Onward
They move silently amongst the throng wearing pristine white: the colour of death. The only relief are the bands of yellow silk wrapped around their waists. It stands to reason that the servants - ubiquitous and yet below notice - would know the most useful gossip.
At first, they maintain their carefully constructed masks of cool politeness but soon you find yourself in the kitchens, telling a particularly filthy joke about a laundress, a Brahmin priest and a goat with a taste for ghee. They laugh uproariously, and relax enough for you to gently coax them into small revelations: the tradesmen are all angry as a bag of hissing cobras, water is being rationed to keep the defensive reservoir full.
Most startlingly they all reveal their own escape plans for the coming siege, and even invite you to come with them. “This is not our battle,” one of the turbaned waiters spits. “We should leave these phirangis to their war.” This is most useful to know, if dispiriting. You memorise some of the secret exits. Just in case.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
Chandernagore is as fortified as it can be given your resources - but at the cost of trade & private homes. You hope it is worth it.
You’ve gained 3 x Memories (new total 30).
Onward
So the fortifying Chandernagore stat maxes out at 10, it seems like. But we still have a ways to go with getting our stats high enough to continue, I think.
Party again: we tried The Bureaucrats before but we failed it, I think.
At their centre stands Pierre Renault - the Governor of Chandernagore - holding a glass of milky pernod and watching his compatriots brangle with a half-smile.
You need 1 x Pierre Renault to unlock this branch - find him through exploring the dreams of the French
Renault watches you with glittering eyes as you insinuate yourself into the group: flattering the pompous, charming the weak of will, gently leading the foolish. They trip over themselves to reveal guarded secrets. There is not enough money to pay the sepoys. The French fleet is fewer in number than the British suspect. The untrained recruits far outnumber the veteran soldiers. It is easy to shift the conversation to the plans for the defence, and easier still to introduce gentle suggestions for amelioration which are quickly taken up by the group.
You allow yourself the smallest of satisfied smiles when you catch Renault’s eye. He turns his body slightly so that his hands are hidden, and applauds you silently. You give him a brief nod. Is that genuine appreciation or a new species of mockery? With Renault, it is hard to tell.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge!
The Defences of Chandernagore has not changed from 10 because it’s higher than 10.
You’ve gained 1 x Pierre Renault (new total 2).
Onward
The town’s wealthiest trader has a young daughter, normally kept battened up in the schoolhouse with the nuns. You could not imagine a less appropriate time to begin venturing out-of-doors, but the approaching siege has thrown all kinds of domestic arrangements into disarray.
It quickly becomes clear that neither bribery nor charm work on the fiercely protective Bengali matron attending the young Mademoiselle. You are about to make your retreat when a word from the child arrests your step. Mademoiselle steps forward to speak to you directly, every inch the lady.
“I am sure you are fearful, as am I,” she says in clear tones. “The English are brutes, to be sure. But they will do no harm to those who are not soldiers.” She cannot be more than twelve.
So then, her father believes the English will take the town? “My father says Monsieur Renault is a good and clever General, and he will protect us. But the captain of the Sainte Contest is a fool, Papa says.” She giggles suddenly, without fear. “Papa says the English may take his goods, but they will treat Mama and I like ladies, and that is all that matters.”
You part, mouthing some empty hopes for her safety and wellbeing. It is difficult for you to share her belief in the gentlemanly conduct of war – but then, you are a survivor of the Siege of Calcutta. You have few illusions.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! Onward
Bengal is famous for its Indigo, and Chandernagore produces, sells and exports a huge quantity of it. You follow a worker carrying a bundle of blue-flowered plants to the factory.
As you draw closer, the combined stench of smoke from the factory and fermenting plants in vats sticks in your throat. Your eyes water. You bid a hasty farewell to the worker, and go in search of a cool, refreshing drink.
Curiosity 13 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Traumas (new total 31).
Onward
Oh. This is where we’ll get the indigo-stained lips to unlock that other option. I didn’t twig to that before.
The grand gates leading to the lushly-leafed avenue outside the Fort are beautiful, but defensively weak. They must be shored up if the city is to hold against British bombardment.
Pierre Renault - the French chief of Chanderpore - has clearly been busy demolishing people’s homes and shops, and shoring up the gates with the rubble. You even spot a church steeple in the debris. You admire his strategy, and try not to calculate the cost to trade and livelihoods. You fear that Chandernagore’s future will pay it in blood and ruin, no matter who wins the battle.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! Onward
You will gain the character Madame Molloy: she will unlock more content this month, and in upcoming episodes, as well as 2x Defences of Chandernagore and 5x desires
You have been investigating a certain Madame Molloy in the Dream, wife of one of the French Company factors. You have heard repeatedly that she is a memorable, even formidable woman.
You manage to find yourself across from Madame Molloy at a local teahouse through the careful application of a childhood spent slipping away from lessons in dreamwalking to try your hand at games of chaupar.
is an ancient boardgame of luck but also logic. It appears that the clink of cowrie-shells and wooden pawns has lured an yet another enthusiast: the unexpectedly delightful Madame Molloy.
“C’est bloody absurde!” she cries, clamping her pipe firmly in her yellowing teeth as she rolls her six shells with a delicate move of the wrist. “Not twelve, thirteen years ago we sent our goods back to Paris via Master Bellamy’s English factory in Madras. For safe passage!” She dabs at the spilled tea with a corner of her scarf edged with distinctive Murshidabadi lace . “The English Company handled our goods in trust, and we handled theirs. It was the way the business was done. It was only after Hampton tupping Court and le putain Versailles decided to push their war over here and into the bazaar that it all went to pot.”
Madame Molloy’s unfamiliarly accented voice rattles the shutters again, French and English epithets melding together in an amusingly unladylike combination. You have learned that she is a rarity in Bengal, an Irishwoman; married to a balding drunk of a French trader. She is a mine of information, and seems to hold the French ladies of the town in as much scorn as they hold her. Instead of social engagements she maintains her tidy columns of trade figures, the ledger replaced under her drunkard husband’s sleeping head every night. With a comradely wink she tells you that she has a neat little sideline in re-exported carpets.
If you ever need to be smuggled in to see an Emperor rolled in a carpet like Cleopatra, you feel sure that you could rely on Madame Molloy to provision you. Well. She could perhaps help get you out of Bengal altogether, if it came to it – not that you are making any plans in particular, it’s just another little possibility that could one day come of use. You challenge her to a rematch some other day, not a little shaken by your too-narrow victory this time.
You’ve gained 5 x Desires (new total 29).
An occurrence! Your ‘Madame Molloy’ Quality is now 1!
The Defences of Chandernagore has not changed from 10 because it’s higher than 10.
Onward
You will gain 3 x Dreams of Distant Shores and 5 x Desires
You categorise a certain group of partygoers with one look: they are the particular breed of foreigner that loves all things Indian. The women wear garish saris and all have elaborate hairstyles threaded with jasmine, presumably carefully pinned by their servant girls. The men wear silver-embroidered sherwanis to the knee, and smoke homegrown, handrolled tobacco which purples the air.
The women are light-headed and laughing with their daring, the men self-congratulatory and convivial with scotch. You have always instinctively disliked these sorts of people, these types of gatherings: they feel too much like masquerade. It irks you that they can, they will, simply go home, peel off their clothes, and become once again starchly, properly, safely European. India is a game to them, and the dice are always weighted in their favour.
The lychee-and-cardamom scent of desire hangs about them like a thick musk, it clings to your skin despite your disdain.
You’ve gained 3 x Dreams of distant shores (new total 4). Onward
Failed The Housekeeper (Memsahibs of Chandernagore) again. And then succeeded at the Dye Factory.
Bengal is famous for its Indigo, and Chandernagore produces, sells and exports a huge quantity of it. You follow a worker carrying a bundle of blue-flowered plants to the factory.
The worker looks around, and then beckons you to a vat of fermenting indigo plants. He slips off the lid, and dips in his fingers, offering you a taste of the thick blue liquid. You lick cautiously - it tastes sweet and rich. He laughs at your shock. “If it tastes sweet, the dye is ready to be siphoned. Even an hour too long produces inferior dye.”
You watch the process for a while, before thanking him and walking away - only much later do you realise that your lips and tongue are stained a deep royal blue.
You now have 1 x Indigo-stained lips. Onward
“Marked by Shadow has not changed from 27 because it’s higher than 6” is a terrifying line!
…hmm. I don’t know the actual history here, but this feels…portentous.
Hmm.
Stats:
1757: March - Anglo-French rivalry threatens Bengal (Bengal, 1757 - a troubled time).
I was trying to remember where we needed Indigo-Stained Lips and then it came up on the very first card:
The Nawab has his own men in the French town of Chandernagore, of course, but that does not mean he trusts them.
You remove your amulet of office and change your clothing: you judge that it would be best to observe the preparations being made for the British attack unseen.
You step lightly across rubble, avoiding the bolts of silk and scatterings of pepper and spice that litter the now half-demolished trade quarter. A girl with blue-stained hands up to the elbow looks intently at your lips. You suddenly remember they are blue with indigo dye. She pulls you round a corner, down an alley and then into a shop still mostly intact. A crowd is sipping chai inside - they look up at your entry.
Explore the town of Chandernagore to gain Indigo-Stained Lips, which unlocks this branch.
“The stranger’s clothes are too rich,” a surly fellow in a turban points out. “We should not reveal our secrets.”
“You are suspicious of your own mother, Jehangir,” the girl retorts. “The clothes are probably stolen. Look at the blue lips! This poor unfortunate has been drinking indigo dye!”
A murmur of pity sussurates around the room, and you are more than happy to let the lie pass unchallenged. You are given a chai and a seat, and then the meeting continues, almost without pause. Looking around the room, most of the people have blue hands or faces or legs: factory-workers and labourers stained bright with the evidence of their trade.
The French and Dutch factory owners are closing down, escaping by land or boat for the duration of the British siege. The workers propose seizing the factories in the confusion. Demands are listed, options debated. A few of them are clearly clerks, and write down their arguments in a neat, even hand. You leave the meeting with a manuscript of Rousseau’s recently published Discourse on Inequality, well-thumbed and hand-copied. “The earth belongs to nobody,” the girl quotes, eyes bright. You wonder what the Nawab or his hard eyed zamindars would have to say about that?
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge!
You’ve lost 3 x Traumas (new total 29).
You’ve gained 1 x Indigo-stained lips (new total 2).
Onward
The temple is a fine example of do-chala architecture: its roof is impossibly sloped, joining like the vertices of a hunting bow. Priests move hurriedly through the gathered throng, directing devotees and workers as they pass. You venture closer, hoping to hear why they have gathered.
A nearby Brahmin priest levels his gaze at you and spits deliberately on the ground. You see the knowledge in his eyes: he knows of your low-caste birth. He knows you do not belong on these sacred grounds. You are walking away before you even realise what you are doing. Despite your position, despite your finery - you find yourself back inside the body of the nearly-starving child in rags that you once were, shunned by society, avoiding the shadows of other people because you would dirty them with your very touch. Your hands are shaking.
Perception 14 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 3 x Traumas (new total 32).
Onward
The grand gates leading to the lushly-leafed avenue outside the Fort are beautiful, but defensively weak. They must be shored up if the city is to hold against British bombardment.
The French sepoys - Indians dressed in French colours with their hands curved around muskets - turn you aside. Apparently you look like a troublemaker. The effrontery!
Perception 14 failed in a challenge!
Onward
The temple is a fine example of do-chala architecture: its roof is impossibly sloped, joining like the vertices of a hunting bow. Priests move hurriedly through the gathered throng, directing devotees and workers as they pass. You venture closer, hoping to hear why they have gathered.
Gold idols are being swaddled in cloth, while groups of ink-stained clerks and dusty dockworkers pray in careful separation.
A woman hands a Brahmin priest an armful of carefully folded clothes, and then glares as she catches you watching. The priest laughs ruefully and tugs at his munj - the sacred string worn across the body at all times. A high caste affectation - nobody of your birth could dream of wearing such a thing. “These are dangerous times,” he tells you, displaying the plain kurta kameez the woman gave him. “Even a priest may find himself at the end of a British musket.”
It seems that the Bengalis in Chandernagore are preparing to flee rather than fight. A worrisome thought - but useful to know.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge!
The Defences of Chandernagore has not changed from 10 because it’s higher than 10.
Onward
Oh, I like “joining like the vertices of a hunting bow” as a bit of imagery here, especially in conjunction with it being a temple, the priest chasing you away on failure, and the priests preparing to flee rather than fight…
The most brightly dressed birds in the gilded cage. They wear doublets of violet striped silk and hats of scarlet studded with yellow topaz. You hope they sing sweetly.
The talk is all of the gruesome details of the upcoming execution of one Robert-Francois Damiens - who as far as you can tell - is a madman who managed to lightly scratch King Louis XV with a sharpened kitchen knife. You ask what the phrase tiré et écartelé means, and they explain what it is to be drawn and quartered by four horses. Do you wish you were not so curious?
The talk of blood and death leads quite neatly to muttered talk of English cannon and cavalry, rumours of Robert Clive that paint him as an eight-foot tall demon with hands wreathed in fire. You tell a few partly-invented, partly-true stories of English incompetence and Clive’s sexual misadventures. The mood seems to lift. The gossips soon break apart, and begin spreading their renewed feelings of superiority and arrogance to the rest of the party.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge!
The Defences of Chandernagore has not changed from 10 because it’s higher than 10.
You’ve gained 2 x Traumas (new total 34).
Onward
Heeeeey, finally succeeded on the housekeeper.
One of the chief factors of the French Company here in Chandernagore maintains quite the household, with a French Housekeeper who took ship with him. The way a man treats his servants reveals much, and you resolve to investigate this oddity of a woman, who is white yet plainly a servant; subordinate and yet purportedly superior.
There is nothing subservient about Madame Cupre. One of the houseboys – bribed with a hot cup a tea and a sympathetic ear - tells you that before the woman learned the names of all the spices in the pantry she had memorised the quantities in each jar. He lifts his shirt and shows you the livid red marks where she had him flogged on the mere suspicion of pilfering. He gives you a sheepish shrug as you spot the cloves bulging from his pockets.
You follow Madame Cupre as she haggles with marketplace traders like a particularly tightfisted moneylender, and climb the bougainvillea-twined trellis that reaches up to her window to watch her rooms. You learn without surprise that the implacable Madame and her employer are bedfellows, and seem to have been so for years if their careless intimacy is any guide. Their pillowtalk reveals that the factor’s wife back in Paris is – as a well-bred Englishman might put it - a notorious flirt, but reveals little of his business. Madame Cupre herself seems to hold her master in little professional regard: you watch as she drafts a letter to a former employer aloud, inquiring after vacancies and hinting delicately at the impending siege.
Yet Madame Cupre might well be of use to you if and when the siege truly begins – her assiduously guarded kitchen stores, you are certain, could feed the assembled French troops for at least a week.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
The Defences of Chandernagore has not changed from 10 because it’s higher than 10.
Onward
While the walls are being strengthened, and the houses surrounding the fort demolished to prepare for a land assault - the British have formidable ships of war that must be halted.
A European soldier tries to hand you a shovel as you approach the wall. You try to explain that you are not a laborer, but he does not understand English or French, and your Portuguese is not good enough to explain your rank. You see the anger build on his face, and find yourself held face down in the mud. A most unsatisfactory experience, all round.
Curiosity 14 failed in a challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Traumas (new total 37).
Onward
They move silently amongst the throng wearing pristine white: the colour of death. The only relief are the bands of yellow silk wrapped around their waists. It stands to reason that the servants - ubiquitous and yet below notice - would know the most useful gossip.
The women in white saris all look like widows and the men in white turbans like mourners at a funeral - and they have the same deliberately bland affect. Clearly your rich clothes and emerald jewels have marked you as an outsider. They smile with strained politeness and ask you whether you would care for another drink in the most courteous French, pretending they cannot hear you greet them in Bengali.
Serenity 13 failed in a challenge!
Onward
While the walls are being strengthened, and the houses surrounding the fort demolished to prepare for a land assault - the British have formidable ships of war that must be halted.
A mixed force of Europeans, Indians and what the English call “topazes” - a mix of African soldiers and slaves - are hard at work building up a huge bank of dirt along the river-approach to protect the battery of guns from ship fire. They use shovels, hoes, even their hands. French soldiers in dirt-streaked battle dress shout and stomp and direct the activity.
You clamber to the top - despite the straining effort of the men below, the bank is still not high enough. “It must be complete,” a pale, bookish man - wearing spectacles and a patched morning coat - mutters. He makes a note in his ledger. “Twenty two feet,” he says, in French, making calculations with his eyes as he watches the dirt rise. “We must have twenty two feet…”
Onward
Frequented by the Governor of Chandernagore, Pierre Renaut, and the officers of the regime - it is no surprise that the Sacre Coeur is the most beautiful church in Chandernagore. Its twin towers fresh-painted white and green, casting cool shadows over immaculately maintained lawns threaded with marigolds and shining pebbled pathways.
It is strangely silent in the church, even your footsteps seem somehow muffled, eaten up by the softly cushioned pews and sunlight filtered through the enormous stained glass windows. A few members of the congregation give you strange looks - your Bengali clothes and brown skin are far from de rigeur - but none approach. Perhaps the fine quality of the silk and your jewelled rings ease your way. It would not be the first time that your wealth overwrote societal rules, and you doubt it will be the last.
You approach the nave: a marble statue of Christ hangs frozen in an uncomfortable posture, fingers splayed, neck twisted towards god. The rivulets of blood leaking from the stone thorns are lovingly carved and polished to a gleam.
You feel suddenly as if you are in the dreaming, as if the veil between the wake has been worn thin by the fervent prayers and strange desires and dreams of distant shores that clog the air of this place. You leave the church quickly, and the feeling fades - surely a mere passing fancy.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge!
You’ve gained 2 x Visions (new total 43).
You’ve gained 2 x Dreams of distant shores (new total 6).
Onward
We’re now at 14/14/13 Curiosity/Perception/Serenity, so we just need one more level of Perception to do the next phase of The Nawab’s Man. IIRC the end of what exists in the game requires your main stats at 20, so that feels reachable in the next 12-13 days…
We have plenty of Imagination (14, and plenty of other items to trade for more) so next I’ll go back to the dream for a while, I think.
Ooof, 20 is going to be harsh—the amount of (total) experience needed for each level is quadratic, right? But I like the variety of storylets here, and how they show from so many different angles what’s about to happen to Chandernagore.
Yeah, they’re triangular numbers, at level 14 it costs 15 points to go up to level 15. So… hmm. (n^2+n)/2, so from 14 to 20 is… 420/2 - 210/2 = 105 points? So if most of the probability range nets us two-ish points expected value across successes and failures, fifty-some attempted storylets? Bit over 4 per day for the 13 remaining days? That sounds do-able.
(end math geekery: we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming)
OK, let’s head on into the dream
Monsieur Jean Law is the chief of the factory in the nearby town of Kasim Bazaar; the closest representative of the French East India company.
Law dreams of the Nawab’s court, imagining himself on his knees and begging for aid against British aggression. His dream is slick with desperation, sour with fear. Apparently he believes the British threat to be quite real, and quite overwhelming - he seems to have no tricks in reserve. A poor ally, then. Is that pity you feel, or grim satisfaction?
You now have 1 x Jean Law.
Onward
The ladies of the Nawab’s court have excellent imaginations. In the wake their smiles are hidden behind the purdah in their guarded apartments, but you may walk amongst them freely in the dream.
The ladies of the court dream - uncharacteristically - of walls and veils; it seems the political uncertainty has made them wary and suspicous.
Curiosity 14 failed in a challenge! Onward
You have noticed that in the dreams of the gravely injured, the dreamer’s bodies are often strangely distorted. They can swell to the size of a city, fire and plague playing out in the precincts as their flesh knits or rots. Other times the mind is so distended by sickness and sensation that the dreamer almost disappears altogether. You will have to be especially cautious as you explore the dreams rising hotly from the fever-wards.
You step into a damasked bedroom: the hospital orderly eagerly makes love to a woman. The gently fluttering curtains flicker and become bandages and soiled sheets. You leave the orderly to his - desire? Fear? You do not care to know.
Perception 14 failed in a challenge!
Onward
The Nawab has negotiated with Pierre Renault, the Governor of Chandernagore, in the past. He makes little secret of his dislike for Indians.
Renault - it appears - does not trust the British, and trusts the Nawab’s promises of protection even less. His dreams are all of fortifications, of knocking down mud-and-brick houses and constructing barriers of the rubble while children play, and their mothers weep and wonder where they will sleep at night.
Renault dictates enraged letters to his secretary, begging for more men, more money from the French East India Company. His letters crumble to ash almost the moment the ink is dry: no help is coming. Without the Nawab’s aid, Chandernagore will fall. The only question is: do you wish it to?
You’ve lost 2 x Imagination (new total 11). You’ve gained 1 x Pierre Renault (new total 3). Onward
Robert Clive - or Colonel Clive, as you should call him - commands the armies that threaten the French town of Chandernagore. Knowing his mind will be of great value.
Clive dreams of ill-tempered letters to his superiors, to the Nawab, even to Pierre Renault - his erstwhile enemy, Chief of Chandernagore. It is a dream of unspecified want, of greed so vast it coats your skin with slickness.
Perception 15 failed in a challenge! You’ve gained 1 x Desires (new total 37). Onward
Gained desires from witnessing his greed? Huh.
The Nawab raises men up carelessly and drops them with as little ceremony. You are not the first of low birth he has honoured, but you are the only one who has remained so.
The Nawab’s confidantes this week seem - particularly unpleasant. You do not think you have to worry about them plotting treason. They are far too busy indulging their baser appetites, and dreaming of worse besides. In their dreams the Nawab is always opium-mazed, his laughter sharp like glass, his eyes unfocused and cruel. You fear for his sanity if this revelry continues. You fear for Bengal.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 9). You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 9). You’ve gained 1 x Marked by Shadow (new total 28). Onward
Failure on the surgeon again, but Curiosity increases to 15
Curiosity has increased to 15! You’ve gained 3 x Traumas (new total 49). Onward
Find a dream of escape and blue-drenched sky. The risk is falling. But that’s what makes it fun.
You find yourself clutching slick rigging, with tendrils of moist cloud swirling into your face. You are on a galleon decorated in pinks and reds, its bow thickly crusted with with grotesque sea-monsters and slant-eyed mermaids. The dreamer stalks the decks and orders about the crew, dressed in a richly brocaded sherwani and tall plumed hat. You look down but instead of the blue of the ocean you see a cloud-stippled sky. Strange birds swoop around the hull, scaled iridescent like fish, with wings made of translucent ribbons. You are flying - a bright, pure, mad joy flashes through you.
You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 8). You’ve gained 3 x Desires (new total 40). Onward
The ladies of the Nawab’s court have excellent imaginations. In the wake their smiles are hidden behind the purdah in their guarded apartments, but you may walk amongst them freely in the dream.
The women dream of huddling in groups, whispering stories of British soldiers and French spies. Their fear and anger torches the sky in red and orange, raining fire down on Murshidabad until all that is left are the cool marble pavilions of the palace. You leave with a sense of growing desolation.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 7). You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 10). You’ve gained 2 x Traumas (new total 51). Onward
The wife of William Watts, she is - surprisingly - well liked by the Bengalis, court and citizenry alike. Even the Nawab’s mother, Amina Begum, appears to like her. Curious.
Frances Watts dreams of French sepoys dragging her from her bed and lashing her hands together with rope. Five of the Nawab’s guardsmen enter her room, spilling her captors’ blood all over her genteel embroidery, and freeing her from her bonds. Amina Begum appears as Frances is weeping on the bed, and cradles her gently. How intriguing - has Mrs. Watts managed to induce Amina Begum to offer her protection from the French, should it be required?
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 11). You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 6). Onward
Charles Watson commands His Majesty’s Navy in the East Indies. His ships recaptured Calcutta, and now he plans to sail to Chandernagore.
Oh the ocean waves may roll, / And the stormy winds may blow, / While we poor sailors go skipping aloft / And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below / And the land lubbers lay down below.
You find yourself singing a surprisingly morbid shanty of shipwreck with the sailors on Watson’s command, the HMS Dragon. You shift away, your spirits raised, considerably the worse for rum, but no wiser of his plans.
Serenity 13 failed in a challenge! You’ve gained 2 x Desires (new total 45). Onward
You know little of the Marquis De Bussy-Castelnau save two facts: he is widely considered the French military genius of his time, and Cani crosses herself at the mention of his name.
De Bussy dreams of sacking forts, and soldiers screaming in the pre-dawn light. You have heard rumours of de Bussy’s alliance with the Rajah of Vizianagar against his British-allied enemies in the Deccan. It seems that Bengal is not alone in its strife.
Strangely, you are heartened by his dark-drenched dreams of blood and cannonfire: he would be a formidable opponent to the British, if he could be tempted into an alliance.
You succeeded in a Serenity challenge! You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 5). You’ve gained 1 x Investigating the situation for the Nawab (new total 14). You’ve gained 1 x An Enemy of the British (new total 9). Onward
Hrm. We still need some Serenity practice. Have we seen the failure side of the Maratha Envoy’s unlock storylet?
Trying to read the Envoy’s dream is like trying to read a ciphered letter without the key. The Maratha culture is more alien to you than that of the Europeans, and the Envoy seems to dream particularly - perhaps deliberately - obscure dreams.
Serenity 13 failed in a challenge! Onward
As you climb through a leaded-glass window into the young surgeon’s childhood bedroom he levers himself up from his bed like an invalid. A servant enters, wearing a smirk like a piece of gold, stepping with brightly-belled feet that ring strangely against the flagstone floor. The servant is holding a chipped cup full of some acrid potion – it floats to the surgeon’s lips as you watch.
As he drinks it the dream saturates with the taste of bitter bark and the servant’s homespun cottons fall to the ground, revealing impossibly smooth and lean brown limbs. The young surgeon’s eyes begin to burn in his sockets with their raw desire, though he clearly does not dare even reach out to touch – even in this fantastical place.
You have met many repressed and darkly dreaming men – but this one and his too-sharp, brightly burning mind intrigue you. You promise yourself that you will visit him again.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! You’ve lost 1 x Imagination (new total 5). You’ve gained 5 x Desires (new total 50).
An occurrence! Your ‘A Dream of the Fever-Tree’ Quality is now 1!
Onward
FINALLY. I’ve lost count of how many failures I didn’t bother to capture.
Let’s see, the first part of this storyline is here in the dream.
The young French surgeon’s dreams are vivid again tonight. He is a mystery, his strange narcosis a sickly, pulsating beacon in the dreaming. Tonight florins of white fall from the sky, weighing down the gentle church-steeples and pleasing French arches of Chandernagore Strand near to toppling. You have been in dreams of snow before. It falls in a crushing silence. You are sure it should be cold, but it is not.
The young French surgeon lies on his cot, the snow falling through the walls and mounting up like ash against the damp and knotted sheets. He dreams himself into his own cell, even as snow from the mountains of his faraway home buries him alive amidst the whole town.
You need Dream of the Fever-Tree x 1 to play this multi-part quest; gain it through exploring the dream.
You recognise the scent of pitch and ordure, the uniform hung on the wall, the gloomy framed engraving of a sainthood. The air is rank with a taste of bark, chewed and spat out. Books rot on the shelves.
Once again the surgeon’s dreams buck and heave like a house tearing itself apart. There are no cracks to slide into, no archways to duck under. Still, there is certain to be be another opportunity; his livid dreams come as reliably as a monastery bell.
Curiosity 16 failed in a challenge! Onward
Fine, but try again and:
As before, the grinning servant enters, a cup held out with a rank scent. The young surgeon takes a mouthful and the servant’s clothes again twist and fall off, and the dream suddenly feels more solid and deep and true. Even your own flesh gains a goldenish sheen – you spare a moment to wonder what the substance in his goblet is, that has such power to warp the fabric of the dream.
The surgeon slumps back and the servant twines about him like a river tree, the sheets vanished. Limb plying on limb, the young surgeon is rooted to the bed by his lover. His eyes flick to you and he crimsons, just for a moment, before his lover arrests his attention with a sinewy cry.
How surprising – he saw you, without your intervention. It seems the young surgeon is not entirely a slave to his dream. Despite his wretchedly obvious guilt and his tawdry if amusing desire for local exoticism, he is clearly in some control of his dreaming. You note his face in its moment of erotic anguish and slip away through the snow-silenced streets – it will not be hard to engineer an encounter with him, in the wake.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! You’ve lost 3 x Desires (new total 47).
An occurrence! Your ‘A Dream of the Fever-Tree’ Quality is now 2!
Onward
You moved to a new setting: The Wake. Onward
The Lady of the House gave you excellent directions to Nandakumar’s rumoured escape tunnel, secreted underneath a tailor’s shop in Chandernagore. The shop itself looks as if it has been hastily abandoned, bolts of linen and cotton lying in loose bright waves across the floor. The higher shelves, where the silks would have been kept, are empty – either taken away by the shopkeeper or looted.
You slip inside and look around. The trap-door is barely hidden under a worn blue-and-yellow carpet, and you descend the rungs of the ladder in your embroidered court shoes.
The tunnel is dusty but clearly recently used, covered in footprints. A few lamps are scattered about the floor, some blankets, even a single abandoned shoe. Intriguing. You wonder what exactly Nandakumar has been up to.
This is a multi-part quest - enhance your Perception and collect Memories to progress.
In a dark alcove to the right is a locked trunk under a pile of well-used blankets. You are reasonably certain you could pry it open. You are even more certain that you would find the contents quite interesting.
Your hands slip, and one of your delicate lockpicking tools snaps in half and draws blood from your palm. You curse inventively. It is lucky you brought spares.
Perception 16 failed in a challenge! Onward
Failed this a whole bunch of times before succeeding…
The trunk opens with a satisfying click; it is well-oiled and made of solid mahogany, though it has been painted over to resemble something cheaper. The insides are lined with scarlet silk, embroidered with a sigil of a bird that you do not recognise. Silver coins slip from overflowing stacks within the trunk and clink and pool around your feet. The silver catches all the dim light in the tunnel and glitters dangerously.
It is a King’s ransom: the question is, which King?
You examine the coins. They bear the Nawab’s face, and the correct dates – but they are struck with a maker’s mark from the mint in Calcutta rather than the one in Murshidabad. The mint that the Nawab had to give to the British as part of the Treaty of Alinagar. The mint that is currently striking Bengali coins with British silver.
Your fingers almost fumble on the flashing coin: are you angry, or afraid? Despite this, you cannot but admire the grand quality of Nandakumar’s treachery.
For this is treason. Nandakumar has been bought by British silver, and ominously large quantities of it at that. He is no longer the Nawab’s man.
You succeeded in a Perception challenge! You’ve lost 6 x Memories (new total 44).
The time has come to confront the treacherous Nandakumar
Onward
Skirting the French barracks you spy a familiar face under a broad-brimmed Portuguese hat. It is the young French surgeon, the one whose dreams are swollen as overripe fruit. He is wracked with guilt, and plagued with fantasies – but a powerful natural dreamer. Worthy of a little investigation, on your own account.
He sits at a table in the courtyard, a crowd of bickering local mothers around him. In vain an orderly tries to prevent fisticuffs as the mothers thrust their children forward to be inspected. The young surgeon examines their teeth, gently lifts their limbs to check for sores.
This is a multi-part quest - enhance your Curiosity and collect Desires to progress.
His dreams are bloated with colour – warped by some kind of tonic or drug. They are layered with the stuff; he must dose himself fairly regularly. If you observed him, you may be able to find out what he is using. Any substance that can cause dreams to become vivid in this uncompromising, guttering way is surely worth your attention.
The surgeon returns to his clinic all too soon, and you follow. The orderly takes one look at you in the waiting room and sends you packing – apparently, even disguised in roughspun clothes and battered shoes, you look far too healthy to be taking up the phirangi doctor’s valuable time. You consider paying someone to beat you bloody for your next attempt to observe the surgeon – it appears you are too well-fed for less drastic measures.
Curiosity 16 failed in a challenge! Onward
And when we succeed:
You watch as the young surgeon measures himself out an ample dose of quinine between patients, drinking it down with barely a grimace. You drop your eyes and smile. It is a bark extract taken by the Europeans to ward off malaria, and is known to cause taut and pulsating dreams until the body grows inured. You have seen it before, but never quite so intensely as in his particular dreams.
Being a medical man, he must surely know that he need not continue the tonic – from his dreams, you know that he has been in Bengal for many months if not years. Perhaps he courts these visitations, these overripe fever-dreams that allow him to indulge in his passions without accepting responsibility. He sees you lingering at a nearby table and then looks away rapidly, blushing to the roots of his straw-coloured hair. You last saw him turn that colour while much compromised, twined about by his servant-lover.
So: he remembers your face from his dream. Another mark in his favour. It is possible that the boy is a lucid dreamer, like Cani, albeit untrained. He could be an asset to you in the coming chaos.
You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! You’ve lost 6 x Desires (new total 41).
You’ve gained 1 x A Dream of the Fever-Tree (new total 3).
Onward
On your way through the marketplace, you spy the young French surgeon, his broad hat unmistakeable. You are fairly certain that he is a lucid dreamer, perhaps even a powerful one – though he lacks training and finesse.
Despite this he could be of use to you. You could even perhaps train him to be another gateway into the dreaming world - even an alternative to Cani Theruvil. Should you desire one.
But that goal is still far off: you really do need to draw him into conversation first.
This is the final part of your quest - enhance your Curiosity and collect Desires to complete it.
You try to engage the surgeon’s interest on a point of medical practice. It is lucky that the Nawab’s court physician is a pompous ass, especially when deep in his cups – you are well informed of the latest scientific developments, even in foreign climes.
You sidle up to him at a stall selling medical instruments, and immediately offer to haggle for him. He demurs, blushing like a sunrise, but the asking price is obviously ridiculous. Even reassuring him in his own language elicits only a stricken look and mumbled refusal. You get on with haranguing the smallholder, certain the young surgeon will see your point soon enough. But by the time you finally win a fair price you look around to find the surgeon has fled outright, leaving only a laughing crowd in his wake. You will have to try a less direct approach.
Curiosity 17 failed in a challenge! Onward
Heh. Note that I failed this enough times to gain a level of Curiosity. Serenity continues to lag behind… hrmph.
You draw him to a drink of chai with a few well-judged comments about Freidrich Hoffman’s fashionably recent ideas of “nervous ether” and emanations from the brain, and gradually bring the subject around to delirium. He colours shyly, twirling his hat in his hands, and he talks of the hours he spends walking the sick wards, watching the fevers rise and fall and wishing he could visit upon them some reassuring vision. He looks up at you from under eyelashes bunched together with the heat. Then he looks away, murmuring about pleasant dreams.
It is clear he knows that dreams can have power. Perhaps he thinks you a visitation too, a spirit sprung from his own’s brain’s nervous ethers. You are almost reluctant to confirm some of his fantasies, even a little. Yet his ludicrous superstitions of Oriental sorcery could work very neatly to your advantage.
As a stable portal into the dreaming world, he opens up an unlooked for expansion of possibility. You part from the surgeon with promises of another cup of tea, this time somewhere private. You will have to decide how to begin his training.
Curiosity has increased to 18! You succeeded in a Curiosity challenge! You’ve lost 9 x Desires (new total 32).
You’ve gained 1 x A Dream of the Fever-Tree (new total 4).
Onward
Huh. This feels like a beginning as much as an end. i wonder if we’ll see more of him?
Also I don’t seem to have captured it, but under Wander in Dreams, the Dream of the Past option actually gives you one Imagination even though you’re in the dream. I’m not sure if that’s a bug, but it was convenient to extend my time in the dream a little bit so I could finish the Surgeon parts there without having to stop back in the wake to buy more Imagination…
We’re now at Curiosity 18, Perception 17, and Serenity 13. And we need Serenity up to 16 to finish the Maratha envoy storyline. So I guess next time I’ll be grinding Serenity, and we’ll confront Nandakumar.
