The Missing Candle is a reliably quiet pub in Veilgarden – the drinks are cheap, the food is… extant. These days it is best known as the meeting place of a very exclusive club – one that happens to include you.
The Candlefinder Society – the five greatest detectives in London – regularly meet to talk shop. Sometimes, you join forces to unravel the city’s most unusual mysteries. Today we’re releasing another new case for you to solve: the Case of the Clay Kidnapper, written by Gavin Inglis.
A prominent Veilgarden artist has gone missing, mere days before a new exhibition of her work! Eyewitness reports pin the crime, vociferously and with great conviction, on a Clay Man. An open-and-shut case? The Implacable Detective has her doubts. In the art world, the evidence often requires a little creative interpretation…
This case is available for free.
Getting Started
Candlefinder mysteries are episodic stories set in London, available from the midgame onwards. To unlock the Candlefinder Society:
Complete ‘A Name in Seven Secret Alphabets’ (raise that quality to 7)
Complete ‘A Name Whispered in Darkness’ (raise that quality to 7)
Raise your unmodified Watchful to 90 or more
If you meet those conditions, you can gain access to the Candlefinder Society by drawing a guaranteed card in London. Once started, cases must be finished before you can start another one or replay a past case. Some, like this one, require additional progress in other storylines, or higher stats, to begin. Cases can be replayed; Fate cases don’t cost anything to replay. The reward for completing a given case for the first time is more substantial.
This was a good one! Felt shorter than some, and not as deeply into weird mystery as some have been, but it’s nice to have some variety with a very classic Fallen London (in a good way) story. Melancholy and wry. I always enjoy stories with the Clay Men, and they did such a great job with the Implacable Detective, how sharp and drily hilarious she is. With the Banded Sleuth and the Urchin being kind of scene-stealers, the Implacable Detective often tends to sit in the background a little more for me, so it was nice to see her really shine here, still in an understated way but so, so good.
Some favourite bits:
The Implacable Detective threatening Clay Men with a brass band, trumpet personally detuned.
The Honey-addled Detective in disguise at the end!
Loved the Implacable Detective in this, all her irritation was hilarious and she clearly knows how to tailor her threats to her audience.
I’d predicted the broad strokes of the ending fairly quickly but I had not definitely not seen “I ate his heart” coming! Only in FL would I find that romantic behavior
The subsequent bits about how consuming a mountain shard affected her, both personally & in terms of her relationship w/the clay community was well done also
I absolutely adored this one! The story and all the characters - even the minor ones, like the lower-half urchin - were very well-done! Comedy, tragedy, romance, and a chance to bluff Jasper and Frank, this one had it all!
The only thing I was hoping for (that we didn’t get) was a voyage to Polythreme at the end, so the sculptress could fashion a new body for her Muse, and place the heart there.
After all, in its current place, as the saying goes, “this too shall pass!”
But even without that, this was an absolute joy, and a TON more fun than running around the Roof with that awful Duchess!
