I’m intrigued by this one!
You can’t offer her a true duelist’s circle, but you can offer her a last flirtation with gunfire.
Playing this option will get you 3x Caught in the Circle of Bullets, 1x Roseate Pistol, 1x Gunslinger, and 10x Spark of Camaraderie.
Update 7: Mysteries of Avian Research
EJ: Soooo… I had put together a fun new update, full of new storylets and exciting accomplishments, and then instead of downloading the transcript I accidentally hit refresh and my beautiful transcript vanished into the ether.
On the bright side, the repetitive nature of Winterstrike is in our favor here. The update only contained one storylet that wasn’t repeatable; everything else we should be able to see again.
Here’s a quick summary of what happened in the lost update:
I did then get the chance to trade in five of them.Here are all our currently available pinned cards:
A Pale ArchivistThe Archivist appreciates your ceaseless interest in Iria’s curiosities. She doesn’t get out as much as she used to: you can be her eyes, and a sounding-board.
Almost all the Architects keep their tattoos easily visible. Where is the Archivist’s?
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen and 1x Glimpse of the Pale Archivist’s Tattoo; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 2 (you have 2)
You’ve uncovered a trove of components that looked like they were yanked from several different makes of stardrive. But why would they be stored in a pearwood box and cushioned in moth-velvet? Perhaps the Archivist will have some insights.
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 2 and Connection: A Pale Archivist no more than 2 (you have 2); You need 10 x Enigmatic Gadget (you have 3)]
The Captain is good company when off-duty, if you have a taste for his particular dry humor.
Like many Ocular Guards, he likes to spar during his off hours. You wouldn’t mind giving it a go. (A tough challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 40% chance of success.) [You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 1 and Connection: A Sardonic Captain no more than 1 (you have 1); You need Force 4 (you have 7)]
You’ve heard stories of a general from a faraway realm, never defeated in battle, who has come to live here in penance for some terrible crime. You wonder if the Sardonic Captain could be this individual.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen and 1x Portent of Winter Warfare; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 2 (you have 1)]
A Vision-ReaverThe Vision-Reaver won’t share his spoils except with staggeringly wealthy clients, but on occasion he can be persuaded to critique artworks and fashions.
There’s a display of fractal ice sculptures along one of the promenades. He’s sure to show up. (A modest challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 70% chance of success.) [You need Connection: A Vision-Reaver 1 and Connection: A Vision-Reaver no more than 1 (you have 1); You need Finesse 4 (you have 10)]
You grow curious about one of the Vision-Reaver’s rivals, who specializes in aural delicacies. Maybe it would be instructive to seek her out.
Playing this option will get you 20x Brittle Rumor and 1x Spared the Voice-Reaver’s Lure; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Vision-Reaver 2 (you have 1)]
Her very lack of expression is itself expressive. There’s a certain degree of understated charm to be found here.
You’ve heard what happened to the missing sister. The Thief won’t like the story, but if anyone can tell her, it’s you.
Playing this option will get you 5x Ice and 1x Teller of Unpleasant Truths which removes Connection: An Unsmiling Thief forever, locking off this card entirely.
[You need Connection: An Unsmiling Thief 2 (you have 2)]
You hear of a party where the Unsmiling Thief will be in attendance. Perhaps she’ll consent to speak to you there.
[LOCKED – You need Connection: An Unsmiling Thief 2 and Connection: An Unsmiling Thief no more than 2 (you have 2); You need 10 x Brittle Rumor (you have 5)]
The Architects wish to make sure of your commitment. Their tattoos can’t be removed, after all.
The Pale Archivist requires coldhouse flowers for the next stage of your initiation. She even tells you where to find them, instead of leaving you to research that for yourself. (A tough challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 40% chance of success.)
[You need Finesse 7 (you have 10); You need Tower Tattoo 1 and Tower Tattoo no more than 1 (you have 1)]
Why would anyone need a coldhouse in a winterlocked city? This can’t bode well, and it would be just like the Architects to take their obsession with preservation too far. (An almost impossible challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 10% chance of success.)
[You need Tower Tattoo 1 and Tower Tattoo no more than 1 (you have 1); You need Force 7 (you have 7)]
The Pale Archivist is highly placed. Out of curiosity, you track down her thesis from her days as a university scholar.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen and 1x Mysteries of Avian Research; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 1 (you have 2)]
You’ve brought the Pale Archivist a sufficient supply of the flowers. For her part, she has prepared the ink for the next stage of the tattoo.
[LOCKED – You need 3 x Coldhouse Flower (you have 0); You need Tower Tattoo 1 and Tower Tattoo no more than 1 (you have 1)]
EJ: So right now we need:
…but I did notice that we’re in good shape to attempt to increase our connection with the Vision-Reaver already, so let’s try that real quick!
A Vision-ReaverThe Vision-Reaver won’t share his spoils except with staggeringly wealthy clients, but on occasion he can be persuaded to critique artworks and fashions.
There’s a display of fractal ice sculptures along one of the promenades. He’s sure to show up.
Success!
You run into the Vision-Reaver while he is sizing up a grandiose statue of a fabled starship-temple. You remark that it lacks subtlety, and he nods in vexed agreement. By and by you find yourselves in a parlor debating the perilous trends in hairstyles since the winterstrike.
It’s late when the Vision-Reaver drops a hint that you should be careful of the starport, no matter how much the branching intricacies of the tunnels call to you. People who go in tend to leave pieces behind.
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Vision-Reaver (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x Brittle Rumor (new total 6).
EJ: Anyway, on to the randomly drawn cards. We start out with one we’ve seen before…
The archaeology of star travelThis is far from the only dead starship you’ve seen in Iria, but this one has a team of tattooed scavengers investigating it. No—those aren’t just tattoos. These are members of the Architects of Ink, a faction with a great interest in the preservation of history.
EJ: But due to our need to accumulate Enigmatic Gadgets, we’ll be doing something different this time:
Of course, just because you spotted something near some Architects doesn’t mean the Architects have first claim on it. They’re not even likely to notice you making off with the box.
Carrying the box away is as easy as you suspected it would be, although you don’t like the way the wind gusts around the starship’s hull. When opened, the box—itself of little value—reveals a thing of wires and gears and slanted transistors. Someone valued this once, although it’s anyone’s guess as to what it does.
You’ve gained 1 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 4).
EJ: This doesn’t quite go along with the bit of roleplaying I’ve been trying to do, but let’s say the tendencies of Rosal’s sneaky spy past reasserted themselves for a moment even if it was perhaps counter to their current best interests.
Next we get A children’s game, which we’ve seen (or at least I’ve seen) probably dozens of times at this point and which has no new options for us, and then another Winterlocked 1 card, but at least this one has some options we haven’t explored:
A roving marketFrozen spheres containing storm-eels with pleading eyes. Winsome thieves. Human-headed snakes in lambent cages. The market moves from street to street, square to square, but some of the sights never change.
EJ: Now that we’ve been building our Force stat, we can try wrestling the insectine soldier:
A small audience has gathered around a man wrestling an insectine soldier. The insectine—unusual to see one so far from its squad—is doing quite well. Perhaps you could best it. (A very modest challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 80% chance of success.) [You need Force 1 (you have 7)]
Success!
It’s no secret that insectine martial maneuvers are fitted to their unique physiology. The soldier has grown careless wrestling humans, however, and it falls for your feint. It chitters in panic as you long one of its limbs and force it to the ground.
The insectine takes its loss gracefully. Its dialect is hard to understand, but you believe that it wishes you many brave fights.
Force has increased to 8!
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Oddment of Honor (new total 41).
EJ: I don’t think we’ve really seen much about the insectines before. I think they pop up more in some later-game stories. This storylet tells us little about them except that they seem to be the most alien aliens around.
Next up we get another familiar card, and for the sake of variety and as we’re trying to build Force I figured we could be a liiiittle mean to the ironbird as long as we weren’t dissecting it for gadgets. Let’s say Rosal is getting fed up after trying unsuccessfully to barricade the thing over and over again (though admittedly you all didn’t observe most of those times).
A question of comfortIt’s time to seek some lodgings, however temporary. But there’s the troublesome matter of your ferrous companion.
The best plan is to ambush the ironbird after it thinks itself welcome. It’s a simple plan, but sometimes simplicity is the right call.
You could have sworn it worked
This wouldn’t be your first choice of shelter for spending the night, with its cobwebby shadows and bleak broken walls, but it is full of good ambush spots, and that’s the primary consideration. You turn sharply, losing the ironbird in the maze of twisty passages too narrow for it to spread its wings and soar.
It doesn’t take long for your stratagems to knock the ironbird to the ground. Just to be safe, you smash it and pile rubble over it. Each time you strike it, the metal carcass makes cracked music box sounds.
All for nothing: in the morning the ironbird is at your side again. Only faint scratches and the occasional dent suggest the ordeal it’s been through.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
EJ: See, this is even the option that gets you the classic IF reference, so you can’t be mad at me. Also, we’ve learned that the ironbird is apparently indestructible? Just what is this thing?
Next we get a run of old cards, including not one but TWO copies of An importunate thief, which does zilch for us at this stage in the game. I feel like I’m getting a lot more Winterlocked 1 cards this time than I did in the lost update, maybe just to spite me.
Then at least we get this:
A dusty parlorSome people prefer to ignore the evidence of winter’s crescendo and while away their hours in parlors like this one, exchanging banter and showing each other the oddling treasures they’ve scavenged.
EJ: So now I can at least show you the option I took before with the Labyrinth Crystals:
The map tells you that the parlor used to be no such thing, but once belonged to a Stentorian Councilor. Nowhere to be found these days, of course. You wonder what else the map can tell you.
This will earn 10x Labyrinth crystals.
The map has some ideas of its own. It zooms in to show you a painstakingly detailed floor layout of the room you’re in. It also informs you that someone left a crystal behind a desk. Unobtrusively, you retrieve it. The shadow-pattern in the crystal matches the map’s lines and angles for a moment, then fades to the usual bland facets.
You’ve gained 10 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 15).
EJ: Then we get A roving market again, which is driving me particularly crazy because the card that I’m looking for to trade in our Labyrinth Crystals for Enigmatic Gadgets has the same icon, so every time I draw A roving market I’m hopeful for a minute only for my hopes to be crushed. We also get An importunate thief again, which is just rude. Importunate, you might say.
But hey, here’s the card I’ve been grinding Force for!
The writings of an Avian ProphetWhile you were looking up the history of Irian religious caricature—you want an evening’s amusement now and then—you come across a book bound in white suede.
The Architects would be interested in this. The trouble is, the book is chanting to itself in a low, unhurried voice. It’s sure to attract attention as you make your way to the nearest contact. (A tough challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 40% chance of success.) [You need Force 5 (you have 8)]
The ironbird gives a single triumphant cry when it spots the book. Some of the gears in its chest rattle alarmingly. What does it want?
There are collectors in the Society who might value the book. Where to get the best price? (A chancy challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 60% chance of success.) [You need Finesse 5 (you have 10)]
You’re certain you’ve seen a commentary on this text in that decrepit old study you rummaged through a while back. Time to go back for another look.
Playing this option will get you 20x Memory of Far-Flung Stars.
[This branch is now free to play]
EJ: Unlike the last time I saw this card, I now have a high enough Force stat to unlock the Force option, but our odds still aren’t great. Nevertheless, let’s try it!
Success!
You know of a skybridge connecting a creaking hall to a haunt of the Architects. So does everyone else—the thing is clearly visible, after all—but during a narrow escape from a Languid Gentleman’s personal guard, you discovered that the skybridge, for all its apparent frailty, will bear your weight. Moreover, the decorative projections, which resemble laughing masks, will conceal you if you are careful.
You have a bad moment when the skybridge starts to sway in response to the book’s mutterings, but the onlookers below react as if the spectacle were being produced for their amusement. Apart from a couple of firecrackers, no one disturbs your crossing.
The Architect who receives you has a phoenix tattooed down one arm to breathe curling fire across the back of her hand. “A book for a book, shall we?” she says, smiling. She helps you pick out an intriguing volume on cryptoideology.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 13).
You’ve gained 1 x Tome of Scattered Ideals (new total 2).
EJ: And now, speaking of bullying the ironbird a little in search of Force boosts and a bit of novelty:
Fossils in reverseA wall in what used to be the archivists’ district contains fossils. More accurately, what used to be a wall. The structure has been eaten away by whorls and ripples of ice, not unlike the process by which petrified wood is formed. The fossils are clearly visible, if distorted.
The ironbird’s interest in spectacles like this one unnerves you. It might be best to end your association. (A tough challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 40% chance of success.) [You need Force 5 (you have 8)]
From the moment you set out after it, the canny creature seems to know better than to stay in sight. It vanishes around a corner. It’s only hours later, when your impulse has passed, that it returns to your side, carrying an optic fiber in its beak like a hapless worm.
Force is increasing…
Force 8 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: Of course, we know it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway even had we succeeded.
Music in an old concert hallA concert hall has survived slantwise. All the walls lean against each other in a crazed fashion, and they are additionally supported by pillars of ice with shining facets.
Dancers step nimbly amid the cracked wineglasses and petrified blossoms while musicians play a suite of velvet harmonies.
You have certain musical talents yourself. They are sure to welcome your contribution. (A modest challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 70% chance of success.) [You need Finesse 4 (you have 10); You need 5 x Spark of Camaraderie (you have 20)]
Success!
With a smile, you ask one of the musicians for her instrument. She cedes the parabolic harp to you, and you strike arpeggios as pure and true as sweet water from the silver-bright strings. You play for a long time, there beneath the pale lights, as the dancers whirl around you and the other musicians weave their own strange counterpoints. Few people speak to you—they know better than to interrupt—but those who pass you by look upon you with a definite air of respect.
Finesse has increased to 11!
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge!
You’ve lost 5 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 15).
You’ve gained 1 x Flirtation with the Scarf and Feather Society (new total 12).
You’ve gained 1 x Subtle Delight (new total 2).
Next is another card that we’ve seen before and haven’t particularly been looking for, but at least it’s Winterlocked 2:
A museum’s ruinsThe museum is still guarded by two-headed robot serpents, although their eyes are crowded over by frost, and their plasma-breath is pale and anemic. You are strolling through the galleries in a desultory fashion when you startle a vision-reaver. He is contemplating a great curving portrait that probably used to be flat—and yet there’s a certain aesthetic pleasure to be found in the distortion.
In your peregrinations, you’ve seen works of art that would put this pallid portrait to shame. You’d like to offer one of those memories to this Vision-Reaver. (A modest challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 70% chance of success.) [You need Resolve 4 (you have 10); You need 5 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (you have 17)]
The Vision-Reaver smiles politely, but you can see your face, all sudden-earnest, reflected in his opaque eyes. “You have only an amateur’s judgment of these matters,” he says. “Come back when you’ve studied the ravenfolk’s knot-sagas, or found the 113 ecstasies represented in the final painting of the dancer Miang Naia, and perhaps then you’ll know what to offer me.”
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 10 failed in a challenge!
EJ: Next is A question of comfort again, and I did take the barricade option this time. (Rosal, having tried stronger measures and found those ineffective, is going back to what at least kind of sort of works.) Then we get a few cards we’ve seen before with no new options. Then, finally:
A dispute over a dueling groundA squad of Ocular Guards is threatening to shut down a duel. Not just any dueling ground, either. This hill-shrine is a favorite of the Circle’s.
EJ: Let’s see a new option this time!
No one is paying attention to the hill-shrine’s intended purpose. What would happen if you sat down to meditate, even in these conditions?
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen, and you will lose 5x Ice.
Humming quietly, you make your way to one of the calmstone meditation benches and sit. Flower imprints can be seen in the snow at your feet, although there are no flowers to be had.
You fall into a reverie of startides and starships, and forsythia blossoms bright in the first sweet days of spring. But the forsythias are no more; the winterstrike saw to that.
When you look down again, the flower-shapes have turned into taloned bird tracks.
You’ve gained 20 x Dubious Omen (new total 30).
Resolve has increased to 11!
EJ: Well, that got sort of ominous! I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about though!
Anyway, there are some more boring old Winterlocked 1 cards, and then this one, which at least offers enough choices that we have some novelty left to squeeze from it (although it’s STILL not the market I’m looking for, dangit!):
A roving marketFrozen spheres containing storm-eels with pleading eyes. Winsome thieves. Human-headed snakes in lambent cages. The market moves from street to street, square to square, but some of the sights never change.
In spite of the troubling signs that you have seen in every corner of Iria. [sic] you are determined to find some cheer in the city.
Playing this option will get you 10x Memory of Far-Flung Stars, 10x Fleeting Merriment, and 10x Oddment of Honor, at the cost of 10x Dubious Omen.
You discover good company in a group of stranded travelers and their scampersome children. You pass a flask of bittersweet wine back and forth, and exchange stories of other cities around other suns. You come away from the encounter much refreshed.
You’ve lost 10 x Dubious Omen (new total 20).
You’ve gained 10 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 27).
You’ve gained 10 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 30).
You’ve gained 10 x Oddment of Honor (new total 51).
Resolve is increasing…
EJ: Aw, how nice. I’m not sure what the flavor justification for trading Dubious Omens in for it is exactly, unless Dubious Omens actually reflect how anxious you are about the whole situation, or something. Anyway, we got a lot of stuff! Cool!
A wounded duelistA duelist lies fallen in the shadows of a garden. After a moment you realize that she is still breathing, even if the blood has frozen like a rose over her heart.
EJ: Aha! I was hoping this one would appear again!
You can’t offer her a true duelist’s circle, but you can offer her a last flirtation with gunfire.
Playing this option will get you 3x Caught in the Circle of Bullets, 1x Roseate Pistol, 1x Gunslinger, and 10x Spark of Camaraderie.
Success!
Her eyes come alight, despite the ghastly exhaustion in her face. “Yes,” she says, almost to herself. “They can’t deny me a death shrouded in gunsmoke.”
You’re not certain of her ability to stand, but you pace out a circle, not because either of you is in danger of boundary-breaking, but because the ritual will be a comfort to her.
Her aim is good, but not good enough; yours is dead-on, with the bolt catching her squarely in the chest.
“My gun,” she says in a final rattling rasp. “Yours, now.” You would protest, but her eyes have already gone dark.
You’ve gained 3 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 16).
You’ve gained 1 x Roseate Pistol (new total 2).
You’ve gained 10 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 20).
You’ve gained 1 x Gunslinger (new total 2).
Force has increased to 9!
EJ: Gunslinger, specifically, is the property we gained that opened a lot of doors to us. I have yet to run into anything that uses the Roseate Pistol.
This seems like a good place to leave it, but first, one last run at Coldhouse flowers:
The Pale Archivist requires coldhouse flowers for the next stage of your initiation. She even tells you where to find them, instead of leaving you to research that for yourself.
You should have known better than to take an Architect’s directions for granted. At least next time you’ll know better than to turn left at that fork, especially when the air reeks of decaying positron sludge.
Finesse is increasing…
Finesse 11 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: Of course, with these pinned cards there is absolutely nothing stopping us from sitting here and clicking this specific option until we win. I just don’t think that’s fun, so we’ll try some other stuff and come back to it later.
There is something we can do now though:
The Pale Archivist is highly placed. Out of curiosity, you track down her thesis from her days as a university scholar.
Her research touched upon the Avian Temples. In fact, it was in Iria that some mentor guided her away from this line of inquiry. Since then, she has been studying the morphosyntax of ink.
You’ve gained 20 x Dubious Omen (new total 41).
You now have 1 x Mysteries of Avian Research.
Finesse is increasing…
EJ: I’ll do the stats and inventory wrap-up in a separate comment since I think this is pushing the character limit already.
… also, hey, I just noticed these have title text on mouseover, so here it is:
Update 8a: Pest Control
EJ: Welcome back to Winterstrike! I didn’t quite think through the fact that the “deadline” for finishing this before it disappears and the deadline for Shufflecomp entries are very close together, but, uh, I will do my best to juggle both. Right now I’m doing a double-length update (okay, more of a 1.5x length) in an attempt to catch up.
Up first, a card that’s new to us not because it’s a midgame card but because it had a lot of secondary requirements. Not a ton of cards do in this game—the contents of the deck are heavily defined by game progress rather than the characteristic “qualities” of the QBN. But this is one of the few.
(Unlocked with Winterlocked 1 - you have 2; Unlocked with Resolve 5 - you have 11; Unlocked with Force 5 - you have 9; Unlocked with Finesse 5 - you have 11)
It used to be an armory for an order of warrior-poets. You’re not sure why it escaped being plundered this long, but now it’s cracked open. The statues of gun-saints are toppled, and a tapestry of ash-fibers and bristling wires lies shredded by fingers of ice.
The Circle of Bullets has a keen interest in certain dueling pistols that they believe to be within. They would be grateful for your assistance, especially since some of those pesky Architects of Ink may raise a fuss about it. (A modest challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 70% chance of success.)
[You need Resolve 5 (you have 11); You need Caught in the Circle of Bullets 10 (you have 16)]
The Architects are determined to preserve the artifacts in the armory, weapons or otherwise, so that the warrior-poets’ legacy won’t be lost at the hands of deathmongers. You could offer your assistance. (A very chancy challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 50% chance of success.) [You need Force 5 (you have 9); You need Associated with the Architects of Ink 10 (you have 13)]
Circle duelists here, Architects there. In the confusion, you might be able to liberate some items for your own use. Perhaps even one of the ancient pistols someone has mentioned. (A chancy challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 60% chance of success.) [You need Finesse 6 (you have 11)]
It would be less obvious close-up, but from a small distance you divine a worrying pattern to the damage to the armory.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen.
[This branch is now free to play]
There’s no need to get involved, but watching the fireworks promises to be an entertaining way to pass the time.
EJ: Of course, we’ve gotta rep the Architects; we’re one of them now, sort of.
The Architects are determined to preserve the artifacts in the armory, weapons or otherwise, so that the warrior-poets’ legacy won’t be lost at the hands of deathmongers. You could offer your assistance.
Success!
The duelists may have determination on their side, but the Architects are better at planning. Rapid questioning reveals that a couple of them are familiar with the armory’s layout, including a secret passage that may not have been blocked when the winterstrike hit. You lead a sortie against the duelists and are bemused by their surprise. A few well-placed shots from militant Architects scatters them, and soon you have the upper hand.
When you report back to the Architects’ leader, an elderly man with a cockerel tattooed on his face, he praises your courage. “They’ll be back later,” he says, “but for now, we excavate what we can.” You are given a few baffling artifacts, like Moebius sculptures, to study in your spare time.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 14).
You’ve lost 3 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 13).
You’ve gained 3 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 7).
EJ: The next noteworthy thing that happens is this:
A museum’s ruinsThe museum is still guarded by two-headed robot serpents, although their eyes are crowded over by frost, and their plasma-breath is pale and anemic. You are strolling through the galleries in a desultory fashion when you startle a vision-reaver. He is contemplating a great curving portrait that probably used to be flat—and yet there’s a certain aesthetic pleasure to be found in the distortion.
In your peregrinations, you’ve seen works of art that would put this pallid portrait to shame. You’d like to offer one of those memories to this Vision-Reaver.
Success!
The Vision-Reaver studies you for a long moment, then nods. “That one,” he says in a dreaming voice.
His opaque eyes become less opaque as you look into them. In them you see starscatter and starfall and starglory, grand glowing vistas of palaces that exist only in paintings of charged particles and lightning flickers.
When you come to yourself again, you hear the Vision-Reaver’s murmured thanks. A little while after that, you are able to see again.
You try to figure out which remembered work of art has been taken from you, but it’s impossible to tell.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 15).
You’ve lost 5 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 22).
You’ve gained 1 x Scholarly Wonderment (new total 3).
EJ: Next we get a couple cards that don’t have anything new for us to see, and then A wounded duelist, which still has some options that we haven’t explored:
A wounded duelistA duelist lies fallen in the shadows of a garden. After a moment you realize that she is still breathing, even if the blood has frozen like a rose over her heart.
The woman clearly needs medical attention. She is likely to resist your charity, however.
You’re able to subdue her without, you hope, doing any more harm than what has already been done. There’s a Shrine of Spring Blossoming where medic-priests can be found not too far from here. The priests look at you reproachfully—they can tell the woman would have preferred to die a duelist’s death—but they are bound by the oaths of their order to do what they can for her.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
EJ: This next card has some new options open to us now that we have the Gunslinger quality:
An invitation to duelThe Circle wishes to extend to you an opportunity to duel.
The opponent who wishes to challenge you is a dark-skinned woman. Her eyes hold the light of devastated moons. (A very modest challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 80% chance of success.) [You need Caught in the Circle of Bullets 10 (you have 13); You need Resolve 4 (you have 11); You need Gunslinger 1 (you have 2); You need 5 x Oddment of Honor (you have 52)]
It’s no secret that the Ocular Guard disapproves strongly of the Circle’s duels. You could report the matter to them.
A Duelist All in Gray wishes to face you. Her expression is wry as she regards you with those grave gray eyes, but not entirely unfriendly.
(A chancy challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 60% chance of success.) [You need Caught in the Circle of Bullets 10 (you have 13); You need Resolve 6 (you have 11); You need Gunslinger 1 (you have 2)]
You don’t just want to defeat the Duelist All in Gray. You want to do it spectacularly.
[Playing this option will get you 3x Caught in the Circle of Bullets; 5x Spark of Camaraderie; and, if your Connection is 0, 1x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray.]
[This branch is now free to play]
(A tough challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 40% chance of success.)
[You need Caught in the Circle of Bullets 10 (you have 13); You need Resolve 8 (you have 11); You need Gunslinger 1 (you have 2)]
You don’t wish to duel at this time—wrong phase of the moon, wrong time of the year, something—but you indicate your interest in observing one, so you know how things work.
(A straightforward challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 100% chance of success.) [You need Resolve 1 (you have 11)]
EJ: I’m interested in that Duelist in All Gray, but for now let’s duel the dark-skinned woman.
The duel happens as fast, or as slow, as heartbeats. The woman is a relative newcomer, so the ravenfolk duelmaster provides her a dull dark gun, but you are permitted to use your own weapon.
The woman gets off the first shot, and you barely keep yourself from careening out of the dueling circle with its boundary of shadows as you roll out of the way.
A few more exchanges, and then you catch her in the forehead. She crumples. Even then she makes one last wild shot, in no danger of hitting you.
You bow to her: she fought well. The duelmaster murmurs her approval.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Duelist’s Credo (new total 3).
You’ve gained 1 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 14).
EJ: Another run of old cards, and then we get this:
A dusty parlorSome people prefer to ignore the evidence of winter’s crescendo and while away their hours in parlors like this one, exchanging banter and showing each other the oddling treasures they’ve scavenged.
The shipshard mirror has an honest streak at times. What will it show you today?
Playing this option will get you 10x Oddment of Honor.
You see not your visage but a sword of star-steel, its blade yet keen and its hilt wrapped with green-gold serpentskin. In the center of the crossguard is graven Iria’s emblem, the Circle of Glory. After a moment, the image sputters out, and frost spreads over the mirror’s surface from the edges.
You’ve gained 10 x Oddment of Honor (new total 62).
EJ: Next An invitation to duel comes up again, and I’m trying to get all possible connections, so here goes:
An invitation to duelThe Circle wishes to extend to you an opportunity to duel.
You don’t just want to defeat the Duelist All in Gray. You want to do it spectacularly.
[Playing this option will get you 3x Caught in the Circle of Bullets; 5x Spark of Camaraderie; and, if your Connection is 0, 1x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray.]
Your ambition outreaches your ability, alas. The tricky shot you were trying to pull off leaves you exposed for a critical moment, and she is quick to take advantage.
She leaves you with the usual duelist’s memento, except this scar is crescent-shaped, like a pale moon.
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 11 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: Well, we’ll have to try again later! This next card I’m pretty sure is a Winterlocked 1 card, and I’ve definitely seen it before this playthrough since this is how you get the connection with the Sardonic Captain… but that was in the lost update, so it’s new to you all.
A riot over smokewaterSmokewater used to be a pedestrian sort of treat. Now, in a city shadowed over by cold winds and intermittent snows, it’s one of the most sought-after beverages.
At the moment, a small but hostile crowd has gathered outside a smokewater brewery. The Ocular Guard has just arrived in an attempt to protect the place.
You fall into place with the Ocular Guard. There are, indeed, other citizens who agree with you that random pillaging profits no one. (A low-risk challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 90% chance of success.) [You need Force 2 (you have 9)]
In the confusion, the Guards seem to have overlooked the fact that it would only be a moment’s work to bring down one of the murals in such a way that it would cover their left flank. Someone ought to bring this to their attention.
Playing this option will get you 3x Seen with the Ocular Guard, 5x Spark of Cameraderie and, if your Connection is 0, 1x Connection - A Sardonic Captain.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Force 3 (you have 9)]
Force of arms won’t cut it. Talking the crowd down might. (A straightforward challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 100% chance of success.) [You need Resolve 2 (you have 11)]
It wouldn’t be difficult to sneak in and obtain a supply of the smokewater for yourself, while everyone else is occupied out here. (A straightforward challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 100% chance of success.) [You need Finesse 2 (you have 12)] Go
The crowd is very close to becoming a mob. All it would take is a little push.
Playing this option will get you 7x Ice, 7x Brittle Rumor, and 7x Smokewater.
[This branch is now free to play]
[LOCKED – You need Ice 5]
It wouldn’t be difficult to sneak in and obtain a supply of the smokewater for yourself, while everyone else is occupied out here.
The tumult outside allows you to head inside and obtain a small quantity of smokewater. You don’t have the means to carry more, and the rest isn’t doing you any good, so you take the time to pour the rest out from the sparking vats, drenching the floor. You don’t see the point in others getting use out of things if you can’t, after all.
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You now have 1 x Smokewater.
You now have 1 x Ice.
EJ: I’m kinda surprised that got us Ice; there are a lot of “ignore both sides of this conflict and just steal stuff” options in this game and most of them don’t. Though I guess it did have the telltale snowflake icon Ice options usually have. They usually are more obviously brutal though.
Because we need Finesse, I take the “steal stuff” option on this next card too:
A team of Architects appears to be excavating a temple, relic of an earlier era. And not just any temple: one of the Avian Temples that proper Irians consider taboo.
The Architects must have uncovered something especially delicious if they’re braving the Irian taboo. You think you see a way of relieving them of their prize.
It’s no difficult work to spot the weakness in the overhanging structure. With a bit of cunning, you’re able to bring the whole thing clattering down on the Architects, trapping them with their beloved artifacts. You’re fairly certain they don’t even realize it was an attack.
Your search of the area turns up slivers of crystal, no doubt records of rituals past. Slim pickings for the afternoon’s work, but better than nothing.
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Ice (new total 2).
You’ve gained 3 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 18).
That one was more brutal, though it’s not necessarily obvious before you take the option that you’re going to be trapping them to possibly freeze to death… and it doesn’t have the snowflake icon. I was a bit unpleasantly surprised by what this option entailed when I did my theft-heavy first playthrough.
Next we pull A repository of antiques again, try the same option as last time, and fail again. Then a run of old, boring cards and then another A repository of antiques, which we fail AGAIN. Then more old stuff, for some reason mostly copies of A starship carcass, Shadows in the ice, and A moment’s birdsong. I remember when I was actually looking for A starship carcass and it went a long while without showing up. The desire sensor is real.
But then! Finally! It’s that card I was looking for last update when I kept getting A roving marketplace instead!
In the sometime shelter of bleak arcades, people gather to trade away things they don’t want anymore for temporary comforts and pale amusements.
It’s an evening for passing around drinks. Even a sip is something against the dreadful cold.
[You need 1 x Smokewater (you have 1)]
Not that this is unusual, but you’re haunted by a lingering-cloud sensation that bad luck’s around the corner. To prove yourself wrong, you sit down with people playing an unfamiliar card game.
[You need 5 x Dubious Omen (you have 47)]
Going about Iria, it’s impossible to escape whispers of fungal incursions and unquiet engines and mad revels in moondark halls. It’s time to seek out less disturbing stories.
[You need 5 x Brittle Rumor (you have 6)]
You close your eyes for a moment, only a moment, when you hear a resonant hum from the snow near your foot.
[You need 5 x Labyrinth Crystal (you have 18)]
A tall man approaches you. His stride is awkward and slow, but he carries himself erectly. The side of his coat is stained dark. “There’s a message I would give to my brother,” he rasps, “but I cannot take it myself. I have no payment to offer except my gratitude. Poor coin in this city, I know.”
He tells you where his brother is. It’s not far—if you’re not dying. You could do it easily.
Playing this option will get you 20x Oddment of Honor, and 1x Glimpse of a Magistrate’s Shadow, which locks off this branch in the future; you will also lose 5x Ice.
[This branch is now free to play]
Several people are reciting fragmentary poetry to each other—no, they’re braiding songs and sagas and sonnets into a bemusing patchwork whole.
A Laughing Marksman is much taken by your ill-tempered blaster, and wishes you to demonstrate your skill with it.
[LOCKED – You need 1 x Ill-Tempered Blaster (you have 0)]
EJ: Hopefully we’ll have the chance to see more of these options in the future, but right now there’s just one thing I want here:
You close your eyes for a moment, only a moment, when you hear a resonant hum from the snow near your foot.
The crystals appear to be disintegrating, but your dismay turns to curiosity when you dig through the snow to find a few mechanical components ticking secretively to themselves. It’s impossible to tell if they even come from the same machine.
You’ve lost 5 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 13).
You’ve gained 3 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 11).
EJ: Now we can deepen our connection with the Pale Archivist!
The Archivist appreciates your ceaseless interest in Iria’s curiosities. She doesn’t get out as much as she used to: you can be her eyes, and a sounding-board.
You’ve uncovered a trove of components that looked like they were yanked from several different makes of stardrive. But why would they be stored in a pearwood box and cushioned in moth-velvet? Perhaps the Archivist will have some insights.
The Archivist frowns thoughtfully when you present her with the puzzle. “No engineer would put these components together,” she says, “but look—” She rises and pulls out a tome bound in bark-colored cloth. There’s a table of star-route harmonics, and the components correspond to a particularly powerful harmonic sequence. “You could build an entirely different stardrive around this if you could only obtain the materials.”
The ironbird, head tilted, is listening attentively.
You’ve lost 10 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 1).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Pale Archivist (new total 3).
You’ve gained 1 x Scholarly Wonderment (new total 4).
EJ: The new option for the next level of relationship with the Pale Archivist is this:
The Pale Archivist would like your opinion of a recent research discovery.
[LOCKED – You need 5 x Scholarly Wonderment (you have 4); You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 3 and Connection: A Pale Archivist no more than 3 (you have 3)]
EJ: I’m pretty sure the only repeatable source of Scholarly Wonderment we’ve seen is A ruined museum, so we’ll have to hope that comes up again soon. Speaking of, though, let’s check on some of our other companions.
The Vision-Reaver won’t share his spoils except with staggeringly wealthy clients, but on occasion he can be persuaded to critique artworks and fashions.
Your dreams are troubled of late. Perhaps the Vision-Reaver has some advice to offer.
[You need Connection: A Vision-Reaver 2 and Connection: A Vision-Reaver no more than 2 (you have 2); You need 10 x Dubious Omen (you have 48)]
You grow curious about one of the Vision-Reaver’s rivals, who specializes in aural delicacies. Maybe it would be instructive to seek her out.
Playing this option will get you 20x Brittle Rumor and 1x Spared the Voice-Reaver’s Lure; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Connection: A Vision-Reaver 2 (you have 2)]
EJ: Well, Dubious Omens are one thing we have by the bucketload, so let’s fork some over.
Your dreams are troubled of late. Perhaps the Vision-Reaver has some advice to offer.
When pressed over tea-of-roses, the Vision-Reaver admits that there are, indeed, ways to harvest dream images. He himself scorns the art, as the results are prone to entropy errors. But, he adds, sometimes simple remedies are the best. With a matter-of-fact patience you would not have expected of him, he spends the evening playing simple board games with you. There’s something to be said for his advice, for you sleep restfully that night.
You’ve lost 10 x Dubious Omen (new total 38).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Vision-Reaver (new total 3).
You’ve gained 3 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 34).
EJ: Aww, that’s oddly sweet.
The Captain is good company when off-duty, if you have a taste for his particular dry humor.
Like many Ocular Guards, he likes to spar during his off hours. You wouldn’t mind giving it a go.
(A modest challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 70% chance of success.)
[You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 1 and Connection: A Sardonic Captain no more than 1 (you have 1); You need Force 4 (you have 10)]
You’ve heard stories of a general from a faraway realm, never defeated in battle, who has come to live here in penance for some terrible crime. You wonder if the Sardonic Captain could be this individual.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen and 1x Portent of Winter Warfare; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 2 (you have 1)]
Like many Ocular Guards, he likes to spar during his off hours. You wouldn’t mind giving it a go.
“Only proper way is to do this with standard-issue swords,” the Captain says, clearly bemused. When you don’t protest, he retrieves two ocular smallswords, plain but well-maintained, from the armory.
The Captain is vastly canny, and for all the Guard’s reputation for a certain stiffness, he fights dirty. Nevertheless, you are surprised, upon finding yourself with his swordpoint at your throat, to see a glimmer of respect in his eyes. “Keep this up and I’ll have to watch my back,” he says.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Sardonic Captain (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x Oddment of Honor (new total 63).
EJ: His next storylet needs Labyrinth Crystals; we’ll do it next time. The Vision-Reaver meanwhile needs… more Enigmatic Gadgets. Hope that marketplace shows back up!
I assume we’ll want to do the Nex-locked options eventually for everyone except maybe the Unsmiling Thief (since hers destroys the connection permanently), but they’re unrepeatable and they seem like they might hit better if you have some attachment to the characters, so I’ve been holding off.
Update 8b: Coldhouse Flowers (yes, finally)
Anyway, after spending some time with our friends, it’s back to the grind (literally, I’d like to get my Finesse to 13). Right off the bat we draw a new card:
A squad of Ocular Guards appears to be dealing with what looks like a temple of delicate gold-black rafters and chitinous tiles: an insectine colony, already damaged by curving spikes of ice.
You’ve heard uneasy stories of insectine poison-banquets and the dire prophecies they sting into their living prey. You’d better lend the Guards a hand.
(A modest challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 70% chance of success.) [You need 5 x Brittle Rumor (you have 6); You need Force 4 (you have 10); You need Gunslinger 1 (you have 2)]
The insectines’ unsavory reputation is largely the result of human prejudice against, well, insects. They don’t deserve to be exterminated like this.
(A low-risk challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 90% chance of success.) [You need Resolve 4 (you have 12); You need Gunslinger 1 (you have 2)]
Insectines are regarded as a curiosity in some parts of Iria, as they are relative newcomers. You know of people who like to collect the exotic, and who would pay well.
Playing this option will get you 10x Ice and 10x Labyrinth Crystal.
[This branch is now free to play]
One of the insectines zigzags toward your position beneath a crystal-black archway and hums urgently at you. What does it want?
The insectines’ unsavory reputation is largely the result of human prejudice against, well, insects. They don’t deserve to be exterminated like this.
You spot a balcony that offers some cover. It’s only a moment’s work to clamber up, although you have to avoid the grinning icicles. You begin shooting at the Guards. Although they fire ocular blasts at you, they only succeed in melting some of the shrouds of ice to either side of you.
With this distraction, the insectines are able to rally. With a choral buzzing, they attack with renewed ferocity. The Guards are forced to retreat.
The queen herself does not come out to thank you, but a squad of insectine high soldiers come out to dance their gratitude. You bow in return, cautioning them that they should consider relocating. One of the soldiers acknowledges your advice, in a voice like serrated flowers.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve lost 1 x Ice (new total 1).
You’ve lost 3 x Seen with the Ocular Guard (new total 0).
You’ve gained 1 x Oddment of Honor (new total 64).
EJ: Well, that destroyed our relationship with the Ocular Guard, but I’m never going to pick a “yeah let’s exterminate this sapient species” option unless my hand is forced somehow, so oh well.
Immediately after this we get A children’s game and I choose to give some candies to the children, losing the rest of the Ice I picked up earlier. That didn’t last long!
It used to be an armory for an order of warrior-poets. You’re not sure why it escaped being plundered this long, but now it’s cracked open. The statues of gun-saints are toppled, and a tapestry of ash-fibers and bristling wires lies shredded by fingers of ice.
The Architects are determined to preserve the artifacts in the armory, weapons or otherwise, so that the warrior-poets’ legacy won’t be lost at the hands of deathmongers. You could offer your assistance.
The duelists may have determination on their side, but the Architects are better at planning. Rapid questioning reveals that a couple of them are familiar with the armory’s layout, including a secret passage that may not have been blocked when the winterstrike hit. You lead a sortie against the duelists and are bemused by their surprise. A few well-placed shots from militant Architects scatters them, and soon you have the upper hand.
When you report back to the Architects’ leader, an elderly man with a cockerel tattooed on his face, he praises your courage. “They’ll be back later,” he says, “but for now, we excavate what we can.” You are given a few baffling artifacts, like Moebius sculptures, to study in your spare time.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 16).
You’ve lost 3 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 12).
You’ve gained 3 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 4).
*At last! And that got us some Enigmatic Gadgets, which is nice since it saves me a trip to that stupid elusive marketplace.
An importunate thief then shows up again a couple of times. This guy really never learns.*
A squad of Ocular Guards appears to be dealing with what looks like a temple of delicate gold-black rafters and chitinous tiles: an insectine colony, already damaged by curving spikes of ice.
One of the insectines zigzags toward your position beneath a crystal-black archway and hums urgently at you. What does it want?
You are given to understand that it’s not just xenophobia that’s driving the Guards’ violence. The insectines discovered something that the Guards wanted. This one is determined that the Guards will not have it.
Before you can say no, it presses upon you a truncated cube that whispers and whistles like birdsong in a land of never-dreams. Through the cube’s translucent facets you can see clusters of tiny eyes wired to each other with non-Euclidean circuitry.
You’d give the thing back, but the insectine has already flown back to its fellows.
You’ve gained 1 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 5).
EJ: We then get An invitation to duel again and pick the same option as last time, failing again. Then there’s some old stuff and then a card I’ve now failed to capture twice (once due to a lag issue, the second time in the lost update) and am excited to finally show you!
There’s a house with a garden less frost-chained than those around it. A Meticulous Ocicat lives in the house, and though you never catch her arranging the parlor’s books, or the starship figurines with their winking lights, or the trays of sugar cookies and tea, everything is always in perfect order.
As the Ocicat wanders around the parlor, tail curling and uncurling like a question mark, she glances your way and mews. You’ve heard that she likes to listen to visitors’ stories.
The sugar cookies are cut in the shapes of whimsical trees and flowers and crescent moons. They beg to be enjoyed.
One of the Ocicat’s books draws your eye. In fact, her shelves reveal that she is widely read, a lover of lore, although the occasional adventure novel peeks out in between weighty tomes of stellate scholarship. You could pass an hour or three here, sheltered from Iria’s tumult, reading.
The Ocicat inspects one of her bookcases, and her whiskers twitch in distress. One of her library crystals is sparking and fizzing: the text within won’t be good for much longer.
You need 1 x Labyrinth Crystal (you have 13)
EJ: I believe we’ve only seen the book-reading option, so let’s try telling her some stories:
Not only is the Ocicat an excellent audience for the tales you happen to have with you—tales of joyous dragon-robots and flower-strewn festivals and, perhaps, the occasional brave kitten—she has a habit of acting out the amusing bits. Her feline face is wonderfully expressive, and when it’s time for you to go, you do so with a light heart.
You’ve gained 1 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 35).
EJ: Some may find this Ocicat business a bit twee, but whatever, I think she’s charming.
After this we get Pest control again and take the option that gets us an Enigmatic Gadget. Then some old cards, and then our feline friend again, clearly in the mood for some attention today:
The sugar cookies are cut in the shapes of whimsical trees and flowers and crescent moons. They beg to be enjoyed.
Not only are the cookies as delicious as they smell, the pastel sugar sprinkles release flower-fragrances as you bite into them. The Ocicat urges you to take a few with you.
You’ve gained 1 x Evanescent Treat (new total 25).
EJ: More old stuff, including another encounter with The writings of an avian prophet, which is kind of funny because it feels like you should only be able to pull off a heist of an arcane chanting book once. But hey, more Ocicat! She’s everywhere all of a sudden:
The Ocicat inspects one of her bookcases, and her whiskers twitch in distress. One of her library crystals is sparking and fizzing: the text within won’t be good for much longer.
EJ: Well, we’ve got plenty of labyrinth crystals, and I do hate to lose data to corruption, so I’m happy to help out a friend here:
Fortunately, you have a spare labyrinth crystal and the knowledge of how to transfer data to it. The operation is fiddly, but you’re glad to make the effort on the Ocicat’s behalf. Sure enough, the labyrinth crystal chimes in your hand, casting momentary rainbows against the bookcases and the floor: the book has been salvaged. The Ocicat watches you with wise, grateful eyes.
You’ve lost 1 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 12).
You’ve gained 1 x Oddment of Honor (new total 65).
The next interesting thing we get is this:
Some people prefer to ignore the evidence of winter’s crescendo and while away their hours in parlors like this one, exchanging banter and showing each other the oddling treasures they’ve scavenged.
It’s as good a time as any to page through the book. What strange ideas lie within?
A one-handed ravenfolk warrior is reading over your shoulder. Companionably, you move to her side, and the two of you are soon reading choice passages to each other and chuckling. Improbable star fortresses and humming laser swords, for a start. You wouldn’t mind such a sword yourself.
You’ve gained 1 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 37).
EJ: I’m not sure which book is “the” book; there’s no item prerequisite for this option and no book mentioned in the card description. Anyway, it seems to be a Star Wars novelization or perhaps an Expanded Universe tie-in novel rather than anything more portentous. This is a cute moment with the ravenfolk warrior, though; it makes me a bit sad that she’s not a proper character we can get to know.
We get another run of old cards after this, which is not helping with my attempt to grind Finesse, since by “old” I mean most of them are Winterlocked 1 and offer only the easiest of challenges. But finally Attack on a dream refinery comes through for us:
The two sides don’t seem to be paying attention to anyone else. Which leaves an interesting opportunity for a resourceful individual like yourself. That side entrance, in particular, doesn’t look to be guarded.
While the fighting continues, you ease the entrance open. It once had sophisticated biometric locks, but all of them are pierced through with ice and are no longer any barrier.
The wavering-sweet smell of dreamstuff is very strong inside, and you know now why the Guards are so keen on securing the location. It’s a wonder that they didn’t send more than four people. The refinery isn’t just producing dream-anesthetic, it’s producing the kind of drug that people use at reveries and parties.
Sadly, the refinery’s functioning was affected by the winterstrike. Still you’re able to salvage a couple doses of the stuff before you have to slip out lest whoever’s outside traps you in here.
Finesse has increased to 13!
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 3 x Evanescent Treat (new total 35).
EJ: That means it’s time to try Coldhouse flowers again:
The Architects wish to make sure of your commitment. Their tattoos can’t be removed, after all.
The Pale Archivist requires coldhouse flowers for the next stage of your initiation. She even tells you where to find them, instead of leaving you to research that for yourself. (A modest challenge
Your Finesse quality gives you a 70% chance of success.
[You need Finesse 7 (you have 13); You need Tower Tattoo 1 and Tower Tattoo no more than 1 (you have 1)]
Why would anyone need a coldhouse in a winterlocked city? This can’t bode well, and it would be just like the Architects to take their obsession with preservation too far.
(A tough challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 40% chance of success.)
[You need Tower Tattoo 1 and Tower Tattoo no more than 1 (you have 1); You need Force 7 (you have 10)]
You’ve brought the Pale Archivist a sufficient supply of the flowers. For her part, she has prepared the ink for the next stage of the tattoo.
[LOCKED – You need 3 x Coldhouse Flower (you have 0); You need Tower Tattoo 1 and Tower Tattoo no more than 1 (you have 1)]
The Pale Archivist requires coldhouse flowers for the next stage of your initiation. She even tells you where to find them, instead of leaving you to research that for yourself.
The Archivist’s directions take you past some snappish laser cannons and to a coldhouse dome. You work quickly to gather the toothy blossom, on account of the cold, worse even than the surrounding winter. When you present the Pale Archivist with your find, there’s a pleased but rueful light in her eyes.
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge!
You now have 1 x Coldhouse Flower.
EJ: Woo, finally! Although somewhat anticlimactically, we now have to do it twice more to actually progress. I do fail a number of times, but I eventually get the three flowers, so I’ll see you next time when we will at last get our second tattoo!
In the meantime, here are our current stats:
And here’s our inventory:
In which the only actually new item is this:
Coldhouse Flower x 3: It’s unclear why the flowers need more cold than there already is.
Now that I have Samsara to compare it against, Winterlocked definitely feels a lot grindier: there are more random cards available, but also (it feels like) a lot more dealing and playing those random cards to slowly increase stats, without much progression on the overarching plot.
Some reviews online are saying people completed it in an afternoon; does that really seem possible? If so, I might give it a shot myself before the deadline; I’d been assuming it was many hours of play, broken up by real-time delays.
As I understand it, most of the StoryNexus games used to have real-time delays that have been mercifully removed during this palliative care period.
Yeah, at some point they removed the real-time delays (by giving you 1000 action points: they still only accumulate at one point every 10 minutes but 1000 is way more than you need to get through IIRC). Edit: I think on one of my quick playthroughs (to see other endings) I was at about 800 action points remaining at the end? Which maybe gives you an estimate of the length…
It’s probably a long afternoon and a lot of quickly clicking through stuff that you’ve already seen, but yeah, I think so?
Also they never switched them to HTTPS so you’ll have to make a browser exception to allow the insecure connection. And I often get a thing where when I log in it returns an XML document instead of the logged-in page, but it does actually log me in, so backing up to the main page does let me play just fine.
You can absolutely do it in an afternoon; that two-hour playtime estimate on IFDB is mine (though I do read fast). In addition to there being no real-time delays anymore (so I’m sort of recreating the old-fashioned experience by making you guys wait around for updates), remember that you can just sit on the plot-advancing card and hit “go” on the option you want until it works; that’s just not interesting for you guys to see, so I’m trying to use my grinding as an opportunity to show off more options on the random cards instead.
Update 9: Wintry Suspicions
EJ: Hello again! Today on Let’s Play Winterstrike, we’ll be getting a new tattoo.
You’ve brought the Pale Archivist a sufficient supply of the flowers. For her part, she has prepared the ink for the next stage of the tattoo.
The Archivist takes you down, and down, and down to a basement where you can hear the pattern-drumming of insistent footsteps. You are soon distracted, in the partial dark, by the flower-ink’s nippy fragrance. Just breathing it makes you feel your pulse slowing.
The next thing you know after that, you are reclining in a luxurious chair. Someone has left a mirror angled just so: you tilt your head to examine the tattoo’s second level, with its tiny, detailed figures under siege.
To progress to the endgame, you should now raise your Associated with the Architects of Ink quality to 15.
You’ve lost 3 x Coldhouse Flower (new total 0).
You’ve gained 1 x Tower Tattoo (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 21).
EJ: We already have Associated with the Architects of Ink 15, so let’s take a look at this new card:
The Architects are increasingly nervous about your friendship with the ironbird—something to do with writings recovered from sites uncovered by the winterstrike.
Note: Choosing a branch will advance you toward the endgame.
The Lecturer tries to persuade you that the ironbird is dangerous, but you stop him midway through his rehearsed speech, assuring him that you are of like mind.
The ironbird may or may not be an artifact itself—its true nature isn’t entirely clear to you even now—but it’s worthy of preservation in its own right. When the Architects approach you about it, you will have to put off the Emaciated Lecturer they send with a plausible story.
[LOCKED – You need 10 x Ironbird’s Regard (you have 10); You need Ice 15]
The Emaciated Lecturer would have entertained you in the past, but you realize that your calling is written in frost and spindled ice, not ink. You will have to start by disposing of the Lecturer.
[LOCKED – You need Ice 15]
EJ: I want to put this to a vote, but I can’t end the update here, so I’ll do an update focused on advancing connections as far as possible and there’ll be a poll at the end.
The Captain is good company when off-duty, if you have a taste for his particular dry humor.
The Captain has what would be a weakness for gambling if he weren’t so good at it. He invites you to a game of cards.
[You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 2 and Connection: A Sardonic Captain no more than 2 (you have 2); You need 10 x Labyrinth Crystal (you have 12)]
You’ve heard stories of a general from a faraway realm, never defeated in battle, who has come to live here in penance for some terrible crime. You wonder if the Sardonic Captain could be this individual.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen and 1x Portent of Winter Warfare; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 2 (you have 2)]
The Captain has what would be a weakness for gambling if he weren’t so good at it. He invites you to a game of cards.
There are six of you at the card table, in a room where figures hung on mobiles spin out a drama of entangled flowers and mutant lizards and the occasional swaying fungus. Fortunately, you don’t lose anything you can’t afford to lose. In the meantime, the Captain lets slip that he’s seen service in a vast, unending interstellar war before landing in Iria. He is silent on whether he finds this de facto exile an improvement on his circumstances, and you notice that he drinks smokewater in copious quantity.
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Sardonic Captain (new total 3).
You’ve gained 3 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 29).
You’ve lost 10 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 2).
EJ: His next storylet requires Sparks of Camaraderie, which we also have, so let’s continue with him:
The Captain sends a terse request to see you. Something about a battle history he wishes to share with you.
[You need Connection: A Sardonic Captain 3 and Connection: A Sardonic Captain no more than 3 (you have 3); You need 10 x Spark of Camaraderie (you have 15)]
Well, he wasn’t dissembling entirely. The two of you meet over glasses of summerfruit wine. He discusses, in understated detail, a particular battle that was won against odds of eight to one. You’re almost convinced he’s not exaggerating. In any case, there are many lessons to be taken from the account.
Toward the end, the Captain comes to his point. “Do you know,” he says quietly, tilting the wineglass this way and that to watch the light pooling in the pale green wine, “there are any number of civilizations where Avian Temples are taboo. Yet people build them, often at great risk, and once the things are there, people leave them alone. Unless they’re Architects. I’ve never found out, despite visits to dozens of worlds, what the common thread is.”
He doesn’t so much as glance at the fledgling ironbird.
You’ve lost 10 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 5).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Sardonic Captain (new total 4).
You now have 3 x Penetrating Discipline.
You now have 1 x Seen with the Ocular Guard.
EJ: At this point the Sardonic Captain pinned card disappears; I didn’t realize that was going to happen (in my first playthrough I was ride or die for the ironbird and eschewed human friends), so I didn’t do his Nex-locked branch. I’m not sure if the connections only go to 4 and this is the end of their stories, or if they’ll pop back up once we enter the endgame.
The Archivist appreciates your ceaseless interest in Iria’s curiosities. She doesn’t get out as much as she used to: you can be her eyes, and a sounding-board.
Almost all the Architects keep their tattoos easily visible. Where is the Archivist’s?
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen and 1x Glimpse of the Pale Archivist’s Tattoo; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 2 (you have 3)]
The Pale Archivist would like your opinion of a recent research discovery.
[LOCKED --You need 5 x Scholarly Wonderment (you have 4); You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 3 and Connection: A Pale Archivist no more than 3 (you have 3)]
EJ: We still need one more Scholarly Wonderment, but we can do the formerly Nex-locked branch now:
Almost all the Architects keep their tattoos easily visible. Where is the Archivist’s?
The answer comes to you when you’re not looking for it. During a discussion of biomimetics over tea and toast, a lightning-flash from the window hits her eyes at a particular angle. A scroll, tiny and perfect, is visible in her right pupil, as though someone limned it there in silver ink. Then the thunder comes, and the eye-tattoo is no longer visible.
You’re convinced that even tinier writing was to be found on the scroll, but there’s no way you could discern it without a magnifying lens.
You’ve gained 20 x Dubious Omen (new total 74).
You now have 1 x Glimpse of a Pale Archivist’s Tattoo.
Finesse is increasing…
EJ: Out of curiosity, I checked, and you can indeed tattoo your eyeball, although the idea of having such fine detail might be a science-fictional concept.
Now let’s check out the Nex branch for the Vision-Reaver:
The Vision-Reaver won’t share his spoils except with staggeringly wealthy clients, but on occasion he can be persuaded to critique artworks and fashions.
You grow curious about one of the Vision-Reaver’s rivals, who specializes in aural delicacies. Maybe it would be instructive to seek her out.
Playing this option will get you 20x Brittle Rumor and 1x Spared the Voice-Reaver’s Lure; the latter locks off this branch in the future.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Connection: A Vision-Reaver 2 (you have 3)]
On one of his visits, the Vision-Reaver’s eyes alight on your collection of odd machines. He asks whether you have considered them from an aesthetic viewpoint, rather than a strictly engineering one.
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Vision-Reaver 3 and Connection: A Vision-Reaver no more than 3 (you have 3); You need 10 x Enigmatic Gadget (you have 6)]
You grow curious about one of the Vision-Reaver’s rivals, who specializes in aural delicacies. Maybe it would be instructive to seek her out.
The Vision-Reaver catches up to you before you get too far. His face is flushed, but not with anger, as you would have expected. “It’s a good thing I found you,” he says, ushering you out of the rock garden with its sere frost-patterns.
In a more discreet location, he explains that his counterpart has mastered the trick of stealing people’s voices, and he has no wish for you to lose yours. Even if his colleague has lately been amusing herself collecting bird-chants.
You’ve gained 20 x Brittle Rumor (new total 28).
You now have 1 x Spared a Voice-Reaver’s Lure.
Finesse has increased to 14!
EJ: We now have enough Brittle Gossip to advance the regular storyline for the Unsmiling Thief, as well:
Her very lack of expression is itself expressive. There’s a certain degree of understated charm to be found here.
You hear of a party where the Unsmiling Thief will be in attendance. Perhaps she’ll consent to speak to you there.
[You need Connection: An Unsmiling Thief 2 and Connection: An Unsmiling Thief no more than 2 (you have 2); You need 10 x Brittle Rumor (you have 28)]
You’ve heard what happened to the missing sister. The Thief won’t like the story, but if anyone can tell her, it’s you.
Playing this option will get you 5x Ice and 1x Teller of Unpleasant Truths which removes Connection: An Unsmiling Thief forever, locking off this card entirely.
You hear of a party where the Unsmiling Thief will be in attendance. Perhaps she’ll consent to speak to you there.
The rumors aren’t entirely wrong, but it turns out that the Thief has already left, pleading headache, by the time you arrive. You spend a little time snacking on crackers spread with heady mousse and exchanging candied pleasantries with other guests. A Solemn Sculptor is a long-time friend of the Thief’s, however, and is happy to send her your best wishes via his birdplane.
If nothing else, the brandy-cakes, topped with black-red cherries, are most delightful.
You’ve gained 3 x Evanescent Treat (new total 39).
You’ve lost 10 x Brittle Rumor (new total 18).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: An Unsmiling Thief (new total 3).
EJ: And the next connection level requires Fleeting Merriment, which we also have; since the Nex-locked option destroys the connection, I feel okay about going ahead with advancing the connection level to 4 and making the card vanish without doing that.
There’s an unsmiling birdplane at your bedside one morning. What could it mean?
[You need Connection: An Unsmiling Thief 3 and Connection: An Unsmiling Thief no more than 3 (you have 3); You need 10 x Fleeting Merriment (you have 38)]
The Unsmiling Thief wishes to pay a call. You are only too amenable, and you spend the morning obtaining suitable refreshments—no great difficulty for one who knows where to look.
She comes with her birdplane, which is laden with a small quaint basket of cookies. The fledgling ironbird watches the birdplane during the whole conversation, which ranges over topics as diverse as insectine tactics and the proper recipe for summerfest punch. After the Thief leaves, her demeanor unusually restful, the ironbird finds a perch from which to gaze broodingly at the night sky. One of the stations in orbit particularly captures its attention.
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: An Unsmiling Thief (new total 4).
You’ve gained 3 x Subtle Delight (new total 7).
You’ve lost 10 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 28).
You’ve gained 1 x Flirtation with the Scarf and Feather Society (new total 17).
EJ: Now we’re at the point where we need to accumulate Scholarly Wonderments and Enigmatic Gadgets. I blast through a bunch of cards that have nothing new to show us; I’m frankly not even capturing them. But there is something significant in the random cards that we have yet to succeed at:
The Circle wishes to extend to you an opportunity to duel.
You don’t just want to defeat the Duelist All in Gray. You want to do it spectacularly.
[Playing this option will get you 3x Caught in the Circle of Bullets; 5x Spark of Camaraderie; and, if your Connection is 0, 1x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray.
You don’t toy with her, exactly; the Circle frowns on that sort of thing, although some duelists find it irresistible. But you fire three shots in quick succession, the first two bracketing her head, and the third burning out her left eye. The Duelist All in Gray only gets off one shot, and it scorches a comet-streak into a steel wall.
The duelmaster murmurs appreciatively. She’s not the only one.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge!
You’ve gained 5 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 11).
You’ve gained 3 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 19).
You now have 1 x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray.
Force has increased to 11!
EJ: Wooo, finally! Now we have a new pinned card for the Duelist All in Gray’s storylets:
Her story is a familiar one, in Iria. Once a soldier supreme, she deserted to devote herself to the Circle. There has to be more to it, though.
You track down some of the many duelists she has bested to ask them why her signature color is gray.
(A straightforward challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 100% chance of success.)
[You need Connection: A Duelist All in Gray 1 and Connection: A Duelist All in Gray no more than 1 (you have 1); You need Resolve 4 (you have 13)]
After a particularly harrowing match, a Hunched Woman comes up to the Duelist All in Gray with something in her hand that shines like a condensate of stars. The Duelist pales and shoulders past her. What could it be?
Playing this option will get you 1x Steadfast to the Gray, which locks off this branch in the future, and you will lose 10x Ice.
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Duelist All in Gray 2 (you have 1)]
You track down some of the many duelists she has bested to ask them why her signature color is gray.
You eventually fall in with one of the Duelist’s companions, a Veiled Musician. The Musician declines to take up firearms herself, but is sympathetic to the Circle’s code. “It’s true,” the Musician says over a cup of bitterflower tisane. “The Duelist was once a high-ranking officer in the Fleet of Dire Brilliance, and she was rewarded a rare prismatic medal. When she cast it aside to become a duelist, she swore never to wear colors again except the red of blood.”
You murmur your appreciation of the Duelist’s steadfastness, and the two of you share a smile of understanding.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 12).
The only way to earn the Duelist’s lasting respect is to best her. Perhaps understanding her past will help you to do so.
[You need Connection: A Duelist All in Gray 2 and Connection: A Duelist All in Gray no more than 2 (you have 2); You need 10 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (you have 31)]
There are any number of tales attesting to the Duelist’s versatility. You are viewing an artist’s sketch of her duel against a Venerable Swanfolk Gunslinger—raw, but the harsh, hurried strokes of nocturne-charcoal are oddly compelling. A woman’s chuckle nearby startles you: it’s the Duelist herself.
“Pure vanity, I realize,” the Duelist says conversationally. “I like the piece for being monochrome, although my opponent’s stance didn’t look like that at all.” She regales you with other tales as the two of you stroll through the gallery. She has a lively sense of wit for someone who dresses so drably, and you part in good humor.
You’ve lost 10 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 21).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray (new total 3).
You’ve gained 3 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 33).
EJ: Aaaand here I lost track of where I was with the Duelist All in Gray’s connection level and accidentally vanished the card before I could do the formerly Nex-locked branch. Oops! But here’s the last level of her connection storyline (for now?):
The Duelist All in Gray contacts you through the Veiled Musician. She asks your assistance in a personal matter.
[You need Connection: A Duelist All in Gray 3 and Connection: A Duelist All in Gray no more than 3 (you have 3); You need 10 x Oddment of Honor (you have 57)]
One of her friends is dying of a disease carried into the lungs by the winter winds, and one for which the medic-priests have no remedy. This friend of hers wants a distraction, and as you are a stranger to him, the Duelist hopes that you will be able to divert him. You tell him the best stories you know, all true. The choicest of all concern red moments and the thunder of guns and fights bravely fought.
When he tires, the Duelist leads you to an adjoining room. “He was the only one to come with me when I deserted,” she says quietly. Her mouth crimps a little. “I can say the word now. Time was when I couldn’t. But I have given the Circle my loyalty, and I don’t regret a moment of it. In any case, thank you. Any small ease you can bring him eases my heart as well.”
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Duelist All in Gray (new total 4).
You’ve gained 3 x Duelist’s Credo (new total 8).
You’ve gained 1 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 20).
You’ve lost 10 x Oddment of Honor (new total 47).
EJ: When we get An invitation to duel again, we can also see what happens if we battle the Duelist All in Gray the normal, cheap way:
The Circle wishes to extend to you an opportunity to duel.
A Duelist All in Gray wishes to face you. Her expression is wry as she regards you with those grave gray eyes, but not entirely unfriendly.
You can’t say whether it’s the distracting gusts of icy wind, or the way she fades against the crenellated shadows, but you have no luck reaching her with your shots.
Her luck, on the other hand, starts bad and gets better. There’s a moment’s fierce merriment in those eyes before she fells you.
Your latest scar bears a curious resemblance to a star-shape.
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 13 failed in a challenge! (This challenge was old territory for you - you won’t learn so much.)
EJ: Just because we beat her once doesn’t mean we can do it reliably, I guess! Here’s the next card with new stuff for us:
While you were looking up the history of Irian religious caricature—you want an evening’s amusement now and then—you come across a book bound in white suede.
You’re certain you’ve seen a commentary on this text in that decrepit old study you rummaged through a while back. Time to go back for another look.
The study is harder to get to than before, but your persistence pays off. The commentary is contained in a tetrahedral crystal mounted in the wall, with wing silhouettes painted around it in silver-edged black. Its author is devoted to the odd notion that starships evolved from birds, with careening illustrations to support this contention.
You’ve gained 20 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 42).
Resolve has increased to 14!
EJ: Fate also sees fit to give us another crack at the Duelist All in Grey:
The Circle wishes to extend to you an opportunity to duel.
A Duelist All in Gray wishes to face you. Her expression is wry as she regards you with those grave gray eyes, but not entirely unfriendly.
Despite the Duelist’s drab coloration, you have no trouble following her movements. It’s as though the awful swirling chill has lent you heightened awareness; as though you see her through a lens of wintry clarity. Your first two shots graze her shoulder. The third takes her cleanly in the throat.
The duelmaster doesn’t congratulate you, but the nods and murmurs of the Circle’s watchers are most encouraging.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
Connection: A Duelist All in Gray has not changed from 4 because it’s higher than 0.
You’ve gained 1 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 9).
You’ve gained 1 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 19).
EJ: Just after this we get A museum’s ruins again (only the second time we’ve seen it in this playthrough) and get the last Scholarly Wonderment we need to advance our relationship with the Pale Archivist:
The Pale Archivist would like your opinion of a recent research discovery.
Uncharacteristically, when yhou [sic] show up, you spy a tray of bonbons in the study. The Archivist’s expression is rueful. “Asceticism is all very well,” she says, “but once in a while it helps to indulge.”
You can tell that the paper wasn’t authored by the Archivist herself. The style is elliptical, with a reliance on winging metaphors, while the Archivist’s prose tends toward elegant understatement. The argument is sound, however, and you express your appreciation of the unnamed scholar’s skill.
“I thought so, too,” the Archivist says. She goes on to ask you about areas where she might fruitfully assign follow-up research. The tray of bonbons is quite empty by the day’s end.
You’ve lost 5 x Scholarly Wonderment (new total 0).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Pale Archivist (new total 4).
Here’s another card where we haven’t seen all the possible branches yet:
While you were looking up the history of Irian religious caricature—you want an evening’s amusement now and then—you come across a book bound in white suede.
The ironbird gives a single triumphant cry when it spots the book. Some of the gears in its chest rattle alarmingly. What does it want?
The ironbird hops from foot to foot as you draw the book out. The book’s chanting grows louder. The ironbird sings back.
In concert, they sound like the crescendo of a starship engine as it powers up for flight, and the heady rush of stars, and—
When you return to yourself, the book is gone. For a second you hear a tiny whisper from within the ironbird’s mechanisms, then that, too, is gone.
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 85).
EJ: Did it… eat the book? As an Architect of Ink, I’m not sure Rosal approves of this. Also, we very much do not need more Dubious Omens (which as the game has gone on I’ve become more convinced represent the PC’s anxiety about the situation… all the more reason to not keep accumulating them).
Anyway, I momentarily forgot that we had yet to actually succeed at the Architects option for A repository of antiques, so…
It used to be an armory for an order of warrior-poets. You’re not sure why it escaped being plundered this long, but now it’s cracked open. The statues of gun-saints are toppled, and a tapestry of ash-fibers and bristling wires lies shredded by fingers of ice.
Circle duelists here, Architects there. In the confusion, you might be able to liberate some items for your own use. Perhaps even one of the ancient pistols someone has mentioned.
Sometimes the presence of more people makes it easier to penetrate an objective, especially if they are getting in each other’s way. You tiptoe through dank halls hung with skeins of whisper-silk, and whose walls have been painted with hexameter praises of the warrior-poets’ lost generals. Snaky wires slither away at your approach, leaving a residue of red-orange sparks. A low murmur in a language the living have abandoned teases your ear as the armory’s machines attempt to make sense of you.
You don’t have as long as you’d like for your search, but you come across a forgotten bottle of smokewater and a journal inscribed in pulses of light within a metalglass pendant. Later, after you’ve gotten away, you have to chuckle at the writer’s anecdotes of upside-down feasts on some distant moon, not to mention the incident with the space fungus.
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve gained 1 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 37).
You’ve gained 1 x Smokewater (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 39).
EJ: Luckily, we soon get the opportunity to try again:
It used to be an armory for an order of warrior-poets. You’re not sure why it escaped being plundered this long, but now it’s cracked open. The statues of gun-saints are toppled, and a tapestry of ash-fibers and bristling wires lies shredded by fingers of ice.
The Architects are determined to preserve the artifacts in the armory, weapons or otherwise, so that the warrior-poets’ legacy won’t be lost at the hands of deathmongers. You could offer your assistance.
The duelists may have determination on their side, but the Architects are better at planning. Rapid questioning reveals that a couple of them are familiar with the armory’s layout, including a secret passage that may not have been blocked when the winterstrike hit. You lead a sortie against the duelists and are bemused by their surprise. A few well-placed shots from militant Architects scatters them, and soon you have the upper hand.
When you report back to the Architects’ leader, an elderly man with a cockerel tattooed on his face, he praises your courage. “They’ll be back later,” he says, “but for now, we excavate what we can.” You are given a few baffling artifacts, like Moebius sculptures, to study in your spare time.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 23).
You’ve lost 3 x Caught in the Circle of Bullets (new total 14).
You’ve gained 3 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 12).
EJ: And as a nice side benefit, that got us the Enigmatic Gadgets we need for the Vision-Reaver! (I still haven’t seen that goddamn market again.)
On one of his visits, the Vision-Reaver’s eyes alight on your collection of odd machines. He asks whether you have considered them from an aesthetic viewpoint, rather than a strictly engineering one.
The Vision-Reaver has great facility in putting together facets of a whole. Like a magician of angles and ratios, he shows you that a number of the machines can be rewired together into a primitive miniature stardrive calibrator.
You take a closer look after he has left. You’re positive that all of the machines were altered even before that by a hand not yours.
The ironbird has its back to you and is studying a crack in the floor with exaggerated interest.
You’ve lost 10 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 2).
You’ve gained 1 x Connection: A Vision-Reaver (new total 4).
You now have 3 x Scholarly Wonderment.
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 24).
EJ: Ironbird, have you been messing with our stuff without asking? I hate when roommates do that!
Anyway, now for the promised poll:
Note that even if we choose not to murder the Lecturer, getting to Ice 10 will most likely require killing a bunch of other people.
As an added note, if I’m remembering the amount of endgame content right, I don’t think we have much more than one or two updates ahead of us, so I think it should be possible for me to race through a second time to show off a second ending option if I don’t get too hung up on showing new content in the early- to mid-game (like the stuff available with different backgrounds or if you join different factions).
I didn’t expect “the ironbird is dangerous” to be the low-Ice option! I guess it makes sense, though; we have to choose between the bird and the humans (broadly construed), and hurting humans needs Ice.
Yeah, the one option that gets you a bunch of Ice for being violent towards the ironbird is a little bit of an outlier; otherwise Ice generally requires harming/being cold towards your fellow living beings.
Okay, the poll’s been tied for days, so I’m going to go ahead and do the “agree that the Ironbird is dangerous” ending today, and then I’ll restart, race through the early stages, and show off the “fob off the Lecturer with an excuse” ending in what might be a multi-part update sometime in the next several days. This is the order that makes sense to me because we don’t need anything special to go for the anti-Ironbird ending, and if I start over I can build up Ice as I go instead of trying to scrape together 10 Ice now. I’ll try to show off some of the Ice-gaining options in that playthrough as well.
Update 10: Ironbird Destroyer
EJ: Today on Let’s Play Winterstrike: an ending!
The Architects are increasingly nervous about your friendship with the ironbird—something to do with writings recovered from sites uncovered by the winterstrike.
Note: Choosing a branch will advance you toward the endgame.
The Lecturer tries to persuade you that the ironbird is dangerous, but you stop him midway through his rehearsed speech, assuring him that you are of like mind.
The ironbird squawks coaxingly at you, but to no avail. You and the Lecturer look grimly at one another.
The ironbird sweeps out of the room with a terrible dark clattering, and neither you nor the Lecturer is able to keep up with it. “It may come back,” the Lecturer says, “as it seems to have imprinted on you. We’ll be in touch with further instructions.”
That night, despite your barricades, you hear a creaking avian lullaby.
You’ve lost 3 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 8).
You’ve gained 1 x Winterlocked (new total 3).
You now have 1 x Ironbird’s Scourge.
You’ve gained 1 x Associated with the Architects of Ink (new total 25).
EJ: This gives us a new pinned card:
The odd calls, the aperiodic corpses, the persistent cold: it’s clear that the ironbird is involved, and that its existence can no longer be tolerated, no matter how affectionate it is toward you.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
The Emaciated Lecturer is back and thinks he is close to understanding the ironbird’s inner workings, which will allow you to defeat it. But he needs more information from certain archives.
(A very chancy challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 50% chance of success.)
[You need Tower Tattoo 2 (you have 2); You need Finesse 10 (you have 14)]
The Architects like to think that they have a monopoly on Iria’s caches of lore, but there are a few places you frequent that they wouldn’t immediately think to check.
Playing this option will get you 3x Ironbird Schematic.
[This branch is now free to play]
[You need Tower Tattoo 2 (you have 2)]
You and the Emaciated Lecturer believe you have enough information on the ironbird’s inner workings to overcome it.
[LOCKED – You need Tower Tattoo 2 (you have 2); You need 3 x Ironbird Schematic (you have 0)]
EJ: We could just use the formerly Nex-locked branch to immediately get the items we need, but let’s try the normal way first:
The ironbird is clever, but it’s not immune to trickery. By means of a code, you and the Lecturer agree to meet that evening at a mechanical sanctum. Then the Lecturer departs on his own business.
You lead the ironbird to the ice warrens that have accreted around Iria’s winterlocked starport and lure it with a particularly fine engine-harmonizer into a section overgrown with spider-fungus. The ironbird begins clacking in distress once it realizes its situation—spider-fungus is notoriously undiscriminating in its appetites—but you are already hurrying away.
The Lecturer can’t conceal his relief when you greet him at the sanctum, where you retrieve the necessary document. “It’s only some of what we need,” he says, “but in times like these, any start is a good start.”
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve lost 3 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 5).
You now have 1 x Ironbird Schematic. Onward
EJ: It’s at this point that I remember that there are some endgame-specific random cards, so let’s seek them out:
Most people think of the Architects when it comes to cryptology, but the Society has its own experts on the topic.
The behavior of a Thief with a Ruby Ring, in particular her habit of hanging around the trays of dessert wines at Society gatherings, convinces you that she’s a spy. Not a skilled one, at that. Time for a confrontation.
It would be gauche to ask outright, but you can’t help but wonder if the Society has any long-term plan in the event that the winterlock cannot be broken. Especially since its members have evinced no interest in doing anything about the problem.
Playing this option will get you 20x Fleeting Merriment.
[This branch is now free to play]
Someone has sent you a ciphered message. The flower-symbols are both beautiful and perplexing, but your intuition tells you that they’re not just a decorative border on an otherwise humdrum letter about the tastiness of stuffed quail.
(A chancy challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 60% chance of success.)
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Swan Thief 2; You need Flirtation with the Scarf and Feather Society 15 (you have 18); You need Finesse 9 (you have 14)]
EJ: There’s a card for each group you can be allied with, and each has one option you can only get with the connection that’s unique to that group, so we’ll be able to see all three options on the Architects card but not the others. Here we try the first option first:
The Thief doesn’t realize you’re on to her until you’ve ushered her to a nook next to the crashhorn player. Anyone who wants to eavesdrop will have to deal with the crashhorn’s confounding frequencies. You find out that she’s working for the Architects, who are endlessly trying to “rescue” objects of beauty and lock them up where no one can enjoy them. She also drops a hint that there are far more Ocular Guards in the city than there ought to be. Nothing earth-shattering, as intelligence goes, but perhaps there will be other clues.
You’ve gained 1 x Brittle Rumor (new total 23).
People frozen dead in a dreary alley don’t even catch your notice anymore. Except these are different.
You passed some bonemongers not a few turns back. Their trade is distasteful, but someone has to deal with the driftwreck of the dead.
The dead can’t take any comfort from meditations offered on their behalf, but the living might. Indeed, a young man is watching from a cracked window, eyes glistening, hands taut against the frost-blighted pane.
You sense that the frozen-marionette corpses, however macabre, aren’t the full story. Their ghastly pallor suggests that they’ve been exsanguinated.
[LOCKED – You need Ice 15]
EJ: I think these were the “aperiodic corpses” mentioned in the pinned card, so we were evidently supposed to see this before we looked at that. Oh well! Let’s offer a prayer for these unfortunates:
There are many creeds in Iria, but there’s no way of guessing which ones these people adhered to. You bend your head and murmur a simple Litany of Passage, recognized by most Irians as suitable in ambiguous circumstances. When you are done, you glance at the window again. The man inclines his head, and drops down the curtain.
You’ve gained 1 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 6).
EJ: This card’s not new, but it was refusing to show up back when I needed Enigmatic Gadgets, so let’s see some of the other options on it now:
In the sometime shelter of bleak arcades, people gather to trade away things they don’t want anymore for temporary comforts and pale amusements.
A tall man approaches you. His stride is awkward and slow, but he carries himself erectly. The side of his coat is stained dark. “There’s a message I would give to my brother,” he rasps, “but I cannot take it myself. I have no payment to offer except my gratitude. Poor coin in this city, I know.”
He tells you where his brother is. It’s not far—if you’re not dying. You could do it easily.
Playing this option will get you 20x Oddment of Honor, and 1x Glimpse of a Magistrate’s Shadow, which locks off this branch in the future; you will also lose 5x Ice.
The man’s brother, a magistrate, is usually to be found with the others of his order, in a hall full of wolf-riddles and executioners’ swords. You hand the message over, and the magistrate reads it over. “I thought that was the end he’d come to,” he says coolly. “Thank you, regardless.”
It’s only on the way out that you realize the magistrate has no shadow. However, a silhouette on the far side of the room is turning a scrap of darkness this way and that, and its head is bent in grief.
You’ve gained 20 x Oddment of Honor (new total 80).
You now have 1 x Glimpse of a Magistrate’s Shadow.
Finesse has increased to 15!
It would be gauche to ask outright, but you can’t help but wonder if the Society has any long-term plan in the event that the winterlock cannot be broken. Especially since its members have evinced no interest in doing anything about the problem.
Playing this option will get you 20x Fleeting Merriment.
You approach the topic tangentially with several individuals, but it’s a Pearl-Crowned Dancer who tells you, with a disarming smile, “Before the winterstrike, Iria was governed by people who made studies and wrote out elaborate plans, and look where it got us. It’s our season now: there’s charm even in decay, and it would be a sad thing to sit here and wither away without partaking in the season’s pleasures.”
She asks you to join her in the dance, then, and you oblige her. The question falls away from your mind as you lose yourself in the dance’s measured perfection.
You’ve gained 20 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 68).
Finesse is increasing…
EJ: Also, this is something we’ve seen before, but we didn’t succeed at the challenge, and the outcome is interesting in light of what’s to come:
The ironbird’s interest in spectacles like this one unnerves you. It might be best to end your association.
With a hammer-and-tongs efficiency, you ambush the fledgling, then take it apart and scatter the pieces. When you’re done, you can’t help but pocket one of the component mechanisms as a memento.
That would be that, except the next day, it looks at you reproachfully from a safe perch.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Simple challenges mean you don’t learn so much.)
You’ve lost 3 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 3).
You’ve gained 1 x Enigmatic Gadget (new total 7).
One of the Pale Archivist’s students has made a breakthrough in interpreting a prophecy recovered from a starship carcass.
The Archivist enlists your aid in chasing down a similar document, held not in crystal or paper, but tattooed upon the skin of a Desiccated Researcher.
(A chancy challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 60% chance of success.)
[You need Connection: A Pale Archivist 2 (you have 4); You need Associated with the Architects of Ink 15 (you have 29); You need Resolve 9 (you have 14)]
In certain shadowspun alleys, people gather for wheeling ceremonies. Some of these groups style themselves Initiates of Winter. Do they have information that you don’t?
From a strictly scholarly standpoint, it would be interesting to see what happened if you introduced a “prophecy” of your own and tracked the changes as it wound through Iria.
Playing this option will get you 20x Fleeting Merriment.
[This branch is now free to play]
EJ: I of course can’t resist seeing the exclusive option first:
One of the Architects’ most closely guarded sanctuaries is a repository of past tattoos, their members’ final contributions. Silent caretakers stand aside as you find your way to the tattoo-document you were sent to retrieve. You may not remove the preserved tattoo, but it’s a small matter to commit the salient details to memory.
“There it is,” the Pale Archivist says when she correlates your information with the prophecy and plots the coordinates on a lambent star-map. “Migration routes in the old chants, and cities winterstruck in unfathomable ages past. A hundred-year cycle, and Iria happened to be in the way of the phenomenon. If it weren’t for our slow starvation of warmth, the pattern would be beautiful.”
Both of you fall silent, thinking of the prophecy’s intimations of heat-death.
Resolve has increased to 15!
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Brittle Rumor (new total 25).
You’ve gained 1 x Scholarly Wonderment (new total 4).
Chaotic as the endeavor seems at times—not that there’s anything wrong with that—the pattern of duels itself is a duel against an unnamed opponent.
An Ailing Duelmaster, who sounds from his coughing as though he might expire at any moment, would like your assistance in attending one last duel, purely as a spectator. You don’t have anything else planned for the afternoon, and he looks at you with such weary hope.
You’re starting to wonder if the Circle’s reputation for being apolitical is entirely deserved.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen.
[This branch is now free to play]
The Woman with Tiger Guns lets slip, over a glass of sparkflower mead, that of the eleven duelists who founded the Circle, one yet lives—and now considers the entire system her opponent. The Woman says she can show you proof incontrovertible if you have a strong stomach.
(A modest challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 70% chance of success.)
[LOCKED – You need Connection: A Woman with Tiger Guns 2; You need Caught in the Circle of Bullets 15 (you have 12); You need Resolve 9 (you have 15)]
EJ: Let’s see what’s up with the Ailing Duelmaster:
The two of you arrive just as the duel begins. The Ailing Duelmaster is rapt, even reverent, as though the blasts were bells in a great symphony. You have to admit that the Duelist in Bronze-Black Boots is in fine form, with impeccable footwork.
It’s not my time yet," the Duelmaster says, with keen regret, after the match is over. You help him back to his home. The streets are pleasantly quiet, and the sky is almost calm.
You’ve gained 1 x Oddment of Honor (new total 81).
You passed some bonemongers not a few turns back. Their trade is distasteful, but someone has to deal with the driftwreck of the dead.
The bonemongers greet you in a friendly enough fashion, although the clattering of their jewelry, made from bone and petrified wood and bleached shell, is distracting. They offer you a nominal payment for the information.
“Someone has to scour the streets white as bone and pure as marrow,” the smallest bonemonger says in a dreaming voice as you turn to leave. You don’t hurry your footsteps until the group is out of sight.
You now have 1 x Ice.
You’ve gained 1 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 16).
In the sometime shelter of bleak arcades, people gather to trade away things they don’t want anymore for temporary comforts and pale amusements.
Not that this is unusual, but you’re haunted by a lingering-cloud sensation that bad luck’s around the corner. To prove yourself wrong, you sit down with people playing an unfamiliar card game.
The game’s rules aren’t too complicated, although you are bemused by the imagery. A great many eyes, and swords, and snowflakes. The occasional book or raygun. Once you glimpse a pair of gears, but only once. If nothing else, you come away pleased at your mastery of the rules.
You’ve lost 5 x Dubious Omen (new total 66).
You’ve gained 3 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 72).
EJ: Ha ha, I see what you did there.
Chaotic as the endeavor seems at times—not that there’s anything wrong with that—the pattern of duels itself is a duel against an unnamed opponent.
You’re starting to wonder if the Circle’s reputation for being apolitical is entirely deserved.
Playing this option will get you 20x Dubious Omen.
The insight comes to you while you are watching two simultaneous duels from a high balcony. The wind is cuttingly cold, but you scarcely feel it scratching at your heart. The Circle has a great interest in inciting violence. Duels don’t take place at random times and places; they take place in such a way as to aggravate the Guard, or the Architects, or sometimes the Society.
There’s a fire-flash across the sky: a starship. You remember a Solemn Duelist remarking that the best wars are themselves duels. But is the Circle, for all its talk of the code, interested in immolating Iria, or in spreading its reach to other worlds? Or perhaps it’s fixated on another opponent entirely.
You’ve gained 20 x Dubious Omen (new total 86).
Force has increased to 13!
EJ: An intriguing question which, spoilers, we will not be following up on in any way!
It’s an evening for passing around drinks. Even a sip is something against the dreadful cold.
You’re not sharing much, but drinking smokewater alone is both a sad endeavor and an unnecessary one. The few of you exchange quiet stories of times past and peculiar treasures, and when you finally go on your way, you carry some of that shared warmth with you for a time.
You’ve lost 1 x Smokewater (new total 1).
You’ve gained 1 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 8).
The Ocular Guard has detected starship traffic in Iria’s orbit, even though no one has yet landed, or opened fire. These are possibilities very much on the Guard’s mind.
You spend your share of time at the local smokewater parlors, listening to the spindly music of ossified harpsichords. More than the music, however, the games draw you: one more way to distract yourself from the silver-hung skies, the sheen of ice. Go
There are a lot of Guards lately. Surely they can’t have been recruiting so rapidly?
Playing this option will get you 20x Spark of Camaraderie.
[This branch is now free to play]
The Guard’s leadership is determined to retake the control systems for some of the orbital defense platforms. To their irritation, the Circle’s duelists have been using the complex. Someone will have to clear them out.
(A very chancy challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 50% chance of success.)
[LOCKED – You need Connection: An Ocular General 2; You need Seen with the Ocular Guard 15 (you have 3); You need Force 9 (you have 13)]
You spend your share of time at the local smokewater parlors, listening to the spindly music of ossified harpsichords. More than the music, however, the games draw you: one more way to distract yourself from the silver-hung skies, the sheen of ice.
You fall in with a group of ex-Guards. None of them has a visible injury, but when you look at them it’s as though their features have been scrubbed clean of light or shadow or anything in between; you have to distinguish them by their voices. Still, they are pleasant company, and you win the occasional match of cards.
You’ve gained 1 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 17).
There are a lot of Guards lately. Surely they can’t have been recruiting so rapidly?
Playing this option will get you 20x Spark of Camaraderie.
It becomes apparent that most of the newcomers come from other worlds, and recently, too. You thought you would have heard if someone had successfully navigated a starship through the winterlock that isolates Iria from the rest of the universe. The Guard’s upper echelons must be better at keeping secrets than you would have given then credit for. The question is, can they manage it again? In the meantime, you do your best to get to know the newcomers. If nothing else, you can answer basic questions. For some reason a lot of them are fixated on the triumphal statue in the Equestrians’ Garden, the one with the incongruous dancing bears.
You’ve gained 20 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 30).
Force is increasing…
EJ: At this point I spent a looooot of time trying to get the Architects’ random card again. I almost gave up, to be honest. But I persevered, and here it is!
From a strictly scholarly standpoint, it would be interesting to see what happened if you introduced a “prophecy” of your own and tracked the changes as it wound through Iria.
Playing this option will get you 20x Fleeting Merriment.
You compose a plausible set of verses—you are better at pastiche than you would have given yourself credit for—and arrange to release it among common citizens at four different locations. A frivolous exercise, you think at first, although there’s no harm in the occasional prank. You even have a defense prepared if the Architects should object.
It turns out that your supposition of frivolity was premature. All sets of verses converge to the same dire chant, albeit in thirteen different languages. If you didn’t know better, you’d suspect someone of organizing Iria to play a counter-prank on you. And what does that last line about “hatching inside the heart” signify, anyway?
You’ve gained 20 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 97).
Finesse is increasing…
EJ: And the last option on the card:
In certain shadowspun alleys, people gather for wheeling ceremonies. Some of these groups style themselves Initiates of Winter. Do they have information that you don’t?
Most of these people look like they’re joining in for the quaint festivities and a chance to wear elaborate plumes in their hats rather than any real conviction concerning oracular birds. Here and there, however, you spy unnerving figures: a man with a crown of gold-wire sparrows, a tall ambiguous figure with wings of light flowing from their eyes and mouth.
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 88).
EJ: Okay, that’s all the new random card stuff that we have access to. Now for the grand finale!
The odd calls, the aperiodic corpses, the persistent cold: it’s clear that the ironbird is involved, and that its existence can no longer be tolerated, no matter how affectionate it is toward you.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
The Architects like to think that they have a monopoly on Iria’s caches of lore, but there are a few places you frequent that they wouldn’t immediately think to check.
Playing this option will get you 3x Ironbird Schematic.
One such location is a Wishing Shrine, where the devout leave their wishes elegantly calligraphed in the hopes of attracting the universe’s favor. The Shrine’s acolytes keep records of everything—encrypted, to be sure, but that’s simple enough to get around.
Amid the humble wishes for long life, good scores on university exams, and the occasional out-of-place ode to the tastiness of roasted dried kraken, you find what you were looking for: a partial schematic. You have it sent to the Emaciated Lecturer.
When you return to your latest dwelling, the ironbird is still rearranging checkers pieces on the quaint two-dimensional star-map you provided for its amusement. You’re not sure this was the best choice of diversion, but you had to keep it occupied somehow.
You’ve gained 3 x Ironbird Schematic (new total 4).
Finesse has increased to 17!
EJ: On a largely irrelevant note, the description of the shrine seems to be drawing on a real tradition at Shinto shrines in Japan.
You and the Emaciated Lecturer believe you have enough information on the ironbird’s inner workings to overcome it.
The two of you spend a dizzying night poring over the schematics and fitting them together over cups of increasingly bitter tea. At last the ironbird’s weaknesses emerge, like fissures in a faraway window.
“For all its machine nature,” the Lecturer says, “the ironbird is an organism, and it is as an organism that we must attack it. A poison will be best, I think. And since it looks to you for companionship, the poison will have to come from your hand.” He taps his notes, then adds that he will alert you when he has prepared the poison.
You’ve lost 3 x Ironbird Schematic (new total 1).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Scourge (new total 2).
You’ve lost 3 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 2).
A few obstacles remain to be cleared before you can strike against the ironbird. Soon, you promise yourself, thinking of the iceweight of the dead. Soon.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
The Emaciated Lecturer sends notice that he has prepared the poison. It’s his handwriting, though, that tells you something has gone wrong. The flowing script goes spidery toward the end. And the last word is, of all things, misspelled.
(A modest challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 70% chance of success.)
[You need Tower Tattoo 2 (you have 2); You need Finesse 11 (you have 17)]
EJ: To be honest I’m not sure why the game is bothering to test for Tower Tattoo 2 at this point given that it’s a prerequisite to the prerequisite to this card.
It takes you moments to interpret the coded message that tells you where the Lecturer really is to be found. The ironbird chirrups querulously as it half-glides, half-runs alongside you through the convoluted streets. The sky is glassy-dark, with stars floating in it like drowning candles.
The Lecturer greets you from the ruins of a library, if you can call it a greeting. “It’s no use,” he cries, and your heart stutters. He is holding a quill-knife, and with a frenzied shout he launches himself at the ironbird.
You attempt to interpose yourself between the two, but the Lecturer meets your eyes, and the expression in them tells you that his derangement is an act. As you hesitate, the ironbird, provoked, flies at the Lecturer with talons outstretched. It plunges its beak into him once, twice.
You know what the Lecturer did, of course. He made of himself a poison, one the ironbird with its predatory inclinations would be hard-pressed to resist. His injuries are staggering.
As you rush to his side, the Lecturer looks at you with a pain-hazed smile. “No regrets,” he says, “but—medic-priests too far—” His hand twitches. He wants you to dispatch the ironbird while it’s weak.
The ironbird is sinking into drugged stupor. You judge that you have time enough to euthanize the Lecturer, rather than leaving him to suffer. Your hands are steady, and the end is swift.
Now all that remains is to deal with the ironbird itself.
Finesse is increasing…
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge!
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Scourge (new total 3).
Your preparations are complete. You know what comes next.
Note: This will end the game, after which your character will be destroyed and you may, if you wish, create another.
The Emaciated Lecturer sacrificed himself to give you the opportunity to deal with the ironbird. Best not to waste his gesture.
[You need Tower Tattoo 2 (you have 2)]
You give the Lecturer one last glance—if only he had conceived a plan that didn’t necessitate his death—then kneel beside the poisoned ironbird. It taps you feebly with its beak, not attacking you, but beseeching reassurance.
There are many ways you could end this. You’ve become no stranger to the morphology of violence. But your studies with the Lecturer have revealed the ironbird’s essential nature. For all its destructiveness, for all its encouragement of ruthlessness, it doesn’t act out of malice. It’s only responding to the dictates of its biology: to hatch amid wreckage and grow amid ruin, then travel to another world to continue the cycle.
On the other hand, the destruction it’s caused is indisputable. There’s a time for winter, but here in the world’s moving eye, before the clock slows to the inexorable heat-death, even winter must relinquish its reign.
You could end the ironbird’s life with the same callousness it has nurtured in others. But instead you cradle the fallen metal form and murmur one final lullaby to it, a song of star-winds and whimsical skies. You’re not acting out of malice, either. With patient, precise hands, you take it apart so that it suffers only in the way of quiet entropy.
At last the ironbird is in pieces, and you wreck each component so the geometry is irrecoverable. One of the lightless, lifeless eyes peers at you where it rolled by your foot. You leave it alone.
When you venture outside, you are greeted by forsythias grown up around the library. Everywhere the snow has retreated, and the sky sings with warmth. Iria is winterlocked no more.
You now have 1 x Winterstrike: The Lullaby.
You now have 3 x Endings: Gleam. EJ note: The icon for this is broken on the StoryNexus site.
Acknowledgments: This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of very hardy playtesters. Thank you to Chris Chinn, Stephanie G. Folse, Yune Kyung Lee, Kate Nepveu, and Olna Jenn Smith. Thanks also to Failbetter Games for the opportunity to spin this bit of story, and to my family for putting up with me while I did it.
And some final stats:
Connection: A Duelist All in Gray: Even her gun is gray, not silver. No less deadly for it, though.
Ironbird’s Scourge: You’re no longer fooled by its antics.
Spared a Voice-Reaver’s Lure: A friend saved you from joining the ranks of the silent.
Glimpse of a Pale Archivist’s Tattoo: You were almost happier before you looked into her eyes.
Glimpse of a Magistrate’s Shadow: Not as soulless as he seems.
And one new inventory item:
Ironbird Schematic: You’re not convinced the gears work the way the diagram says they do.
Linking (again) this Clarkesworld interview with several Bungie/Destiny writers and Yoon Ha Lee where he talks about some of the difficulty of trying to write for a system whose texture doesn’t match his writing style well and there weren’t a lot of examples of how to use it for different types of stories.
Looking through my notes for other endings and interesting saved bits… I liked this Ocicat one:
Fortunately, you have a spare labyrinth crystal and the knowledge of how to transfer data to it. The operation is fiddly, but you’re glad to make the effort on the Ocicat’s behalf. Sure enough, the labyrinth crystal chimes in your hand, casting momentary rainbows against the bookcases and the floor: the book has been salvaged. The Ocicat watches you with wise, grateful eyes.
Looks like I have the Ironbird Destroyer endings for the Scarf and Feather Society, and for the Ocular guard, which are interestingly similar and different to the Architects of Ink one, but let’s look at the Ironbird Prophet that I did on my first playthrough (unfortunately I’m missing the middle piece, but you get the idea):
Day and night, night and day, the ironbird sings a wheeling song of worlds to come. Vast worlds, past worlds, shattered worlds. Iria is only the latest in the sequence. It is time to move on.
The ironbird’s starship, constructed half of ice itself, is near completion. However, the ironbird wakes you in the night with a plaint of gears: scavengers are attempting to make off with key components.
The ironbird leads you through non-Euclidean passages to the starship’s control center. Your heartbeat does not quicken at the persistent unctuous dripping, the crackle-sizzle-hiss of gunfights taking place not far away, the occasional arrhythmic thump.
The control center is half-encased in ice, like a tomb of starward aspirations, but one of the control panels is accessible by a depression in the ice. The depression is precisely the size and shape of your hand. It’s obvious what you’re meant to do.
A concussion of death-words and dread-words and doom-words bells outward from the control center, with the ironbird’s high, triumphant shriek as counterpoint. You stagger to your knees. It takes a long time for the commotion to dim to a bearable murmur.
When you venture out, you discover that all the intruders have been hammered dead, with blood-verses frozen to the walls behind them. So this is the power of the oracular cannon. You can only guess as to how the ironbird obtained it.
It’s time to fly.
The ironbird has derived all the sustenance it cares to from the final antics of this city. It’s time to move on—and it wishes you to accompany it.
Iria is a patchwork of fire and ice and brimming shadow by the time you make it to the ironbird’s starship. It is cold inside, cold like the black spaces between stars, cold like the silent mass where your heart used to be.
The ironbird awaits you. It has sunk into the deck of the control center. Icicle-studded wires connect it to every conceivable surface, and blue-violet lights run along the wires like steady insects. Careful not to upset any of the wires, you make your way to your seat beside it. It lifts its head and whistles, with a timbre between iron and glass, at your approach.
The starship’s sensors apprise you of a clamor outside: blood, fire, the usual percussion. But it’s too late for them to stop you.
With a crystalline cry, the starship lofts. The wind of its passage is cold and keen, and leaves of Iria nothing but a husk, with figures splintered into ice-mirror visions. Wires cut into your skin as you, too, are joined to the starship. The next city is far away, but not far enough, and in the meantime the ironbird is already brooding its single egg to restart the cycle with another winterstrike.
You now have 1 x Winterstrike: The Prophet.
You now have 4 x Endings: Gloom.
Wow! I can’t say I really understood what was happening with the Ironbird until this final update, but that was quite an ending!
So, if I have this straight…
Months ago, something happened to the planet-slash-city of Iria, a “winterstrike”, that froze the whole thing under fast-spreading ice. Since then, quite a lot of people have died, with the survivors mostly organizing themselves into a few factions: the Archivists of Ink are scholars investigating the forbidden Avian Temples for clues about the cause of all of this, the Ocular Guard are soldiers quarantining the city (a “winterlock”) to keep it from spreading to other planets, the Scarf and Feather Society are socialites trying to enjoy their last moments in a doomed world, and the Circle of Bullets are duelists who…I’m not entirely sure what their deal is, except for duelling.
It turns out that the winterstrike is part of the reproductive cycle of the ironbird, a creature that’s not quite organic and not quite mechanical—it’s also partially made of prophecy, which is why its existence is tied to the forbidden Avian Temples. The ironbird emits prophecies as it goes, predicting the next place it will move, and where the next winterstrike will come. And starships might be designed based on ironbird biology, mimicking its way of moving from planet to planet. The ice is the ironbird’s way of feeding as it consumes planets in its flight.
Something like that?
I read the ironbird as a phoenix analogue, being reborn in an immolation of ice instead of fire. The living ironbird goes around learning starship navigation, finally suborning/building itself into a starship to launch across the galaxy, sacrificing itself in a winterstrike on another planet where its egg will hatch?
The game opens with:
The city of Iria shivered apart in a single silver-black moment. You regain your senses amid snow, and corpses shocked white, and glass-colored shrapnel.
And then once you choose who you your origin, it introduces your choice of initial faction preference with:
It’s a beautiful city, Iria. Whether it was more beautiful before the winterstrike that shattered its streets, struck down its buildings, and rendered starships unable to reach it or leave it—well, that’s open to debate. Some things haven’t changed: trysts arranged by birdplane messengers, libraries incised into the heady hearts of crystals, duelists whose games of gunfire and precise shadows cannot be stopped even by death. The Ocular Guard attempts to keep order, but other factions have taken advantage of the tumult to pursue their own ideals.
So I’m pretty sure the factions existed before the winterstrike. I think the text is fairly inconsistent about how destroyed the world is: the overarching story wants the world to be dying entombed in ice, while many of the events have life going on much as usual (or perhaps in a defiantly normal fashion trying to ignore the destruction?).
Also I think the “winterlock” refers to the inability of starships to land or leave.
I think “in a defiantly normal fashion” is what it seems to be going for, although it may not always come off that way.
Yoon Ha Lee seems to be really into the idea of “what if we got spaceships from trying to copy some sort of pseudo-mechanical alien creature”; it’s a bit of a spoiler to say this but there’s something like that going on in Machineries of Empire, too. (Winterstrike reads like a sort of dry run for that series in a lot of ways, albeit with the balance of focus on ambiance vs. characters distributed very differently.)
