Betray your Noman?
The Noman is nothing but lacre and endings. It is already half-betrayed. You only need give it a push.
[spoiler]
A hansom at midnight
Your Noman quite obviously thinks the plans are its own inspiration. It makes its preparations in secret: hoarding, scribbling, dreaming. On the night when it leaves, it stands by your bed. For a moment, it seems as if it intends to leave you with a parting kiss, but it turns and shuffles to the door. You move discreetly to the window once it enters the street, to watch it speak to the muffled driver of the hansom cab. ‘North,’ the Noman says. ‘North.’
Your ‘Noman’s Friend’ Quality has gone!
[ul][li][/li][/ul]Your ‘Noman’ Quality has gone!
[ul][li][/li][/ul]You now have 1 x The Stench of Betrayal
Sacrifice your Noman
“You think if you spend enough time with me, you can strike me like one of those Oaxacan treasure-pots and I’ll…” it gestures. “Burst in a shower of riches.”
What a clever little monster it is.
Eyes like holes in snow—
“Go on, then,” it spits. “For what good it will do you. Sail North, will you, like the others. He was drowned in lacre, you know, the one you—”
One push, and it’s over the edge, in silence. And here comes St Cerise’s candle, to light you to bed. One day, perhaps, it will chop off your head.
Record this in your Journal
The present life of man, O king, seems to me like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.
You’ve lost 1 x Noman (new total 0).
You made something, beneath the Bazaar. It followed you home. It won’t last.
Your ‘Noman’s Friend’ Quality has gone!
Why? In God’s name, why? What can you possibly hope to gain? Stop now. Before it’s too late.
You’ve gained 1 x Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name (new total 31 - Tower-Watcher).
I hope you’re proud of yourself.
You now have 1 x St Cerise’s Candle
This has been updated on the wiki since a few minutes after the Wicket opened on January 6th. Some people were really impatient to sacrifice their new Noman.
[quote=Optimatum]I currently have five Fluke-cores, three Fecund Amber, and no Cerise yet. Perhaps I will fill in that blank.
Even though that’s fifty or so extra days of grinding for Cider…[/quote]
That’s terribly exciting. Would you be interested in cider sips or strange pranks by way of emotional blackmai… that is to say, slight defrayment of your costs?
They are if you’re in a position to take advantage of the wounds reduction. Total wounds reduction from sipping and dreaming is 4-9 CP (the equivalent of 1.44 actions of "Nurse a friend back to health" gold standard wounds reduction). Then you gain 1 CP of nightmares (.2 actions of "Invite a friend to confess your fears" assuming conservatively that you gain the Sudden Insight required incidentally to other actions (realistically, it probably costs you in the neighborhood of a half action)). Then you gain an Extraordinary Implication.
So the total EPA is conservatively (([grind EPA] * (1.24 saved actions) +2.5) / 2 actions.
You can put yourself in a position to take advantage of the wounds reduction more often by (profitably) converting nightmares to wounds by Gawping at the Labyrinth of Tigers.
[quote=Optimatum]I currently have five Fluke-cores.[/quote]I thought you get locked out of acquiring more than one fluke core after the first… How do you go about procuring another?
Which is mildly inconvenient for people who didn’t want to seek, since they got a card shoved back into their nadir deck after finally getting rid of it.