[quote=Optimatum]I finally found the time to play this story, and. Wow. This story is fantastic. The eerie writing, the complex characterization, the subject, the lore, the rewards, the everything. It’s an Experience.[/quote]Aaaaaah, can’t wait to grab it! From what I read here and there it does seem like an amazing story!
You post being the best review without any spoilers in it. :)
Pretty groovy. Ate some wafers of blotter paper and drank some funky tea and took off on a horrifying yet strangely beautiful psychadelic journey.
Just another evening in Veilgarden…
After finishing the story on my first character, I’m confused about a couple things. What effect does taking the flesh from the bartender at the House have? And what effect does sneering at the exhibits have?
The former doesn’t give you any visible quality, yet the option disappears after you try it once.
The latter warns you that taking it will lock you out of the “goings on with the exhibits”. But I tried it and saw absolutely no change in the options available in the “Peruse the Exhibits” storylet. Maybe it’ll become apparent when I try it out with a more Rubbery-loving alt…
There can be hidden qualities, which is presumably what happened with the bar option. No clue about sneering though, I wasn’t brave enough to try it at all.
I love the story thusfar and adore that every action with the shopkeep has different manners of tea presented!
A superb story, to be sure. My take on it:
I have to say that it may have contained some of the most disturbing pieces of writing we have enjoyed in Fallen London so far, and that’s comming from someone who’d let themselves willingly be cannibalized alive in one of the previous stories.
I was incredibly emotionally involved in both the Cult and the Opal-Eyed Shopkeeper, which made it all the harder to decide whether to partake of the transformation myself. In the end, I decided to assist but not participate, as is the wont of my rather academic persona, ever witnessing and chronicling from afar. This time, though, the sense of solitude and isolation was positively overwhelming. It really goes to show how involving the writing was…
I have but one gripe, and that is the lack of warning we have regarding the limited time when swimming. For me, it ended up adding to the overall feeling of loneliness, feeling like I had purposefully kept distance from the Shopkeeper. I doubt if that was the intention, though, and at any rate I would have wished for some heads up, especially when in all the rest of the story you are amply warned about which actions will limit the other choices…
That said, does anyone have a guess what we might have seen in the gully? The picture seems to hint at a trap laid/represented by some deep-zee beast, while the description reminds me of some of the spiralling structures you can see in the Flute Street. Perhaps some older ruins or remains tied to Axile and the coming of the Flukes and Rubberies to the Neath?
One last note: it was interesting that the entire story maintained strict ambiguity of the Shopkeeper’s gender, except for one snippet, as reported here by elderfleur:
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/elderfleur/15365021
I wonder if that was a very slight slip-up of writing, letting us steal a peek at the artistic intention which was meant to be left unspoken; or if perhaps it was meant as a sign of the Shopkeeper’s composure failing in the moment of abject horror, with them themselves slipping back to the identity which they had strived painstakingly to transcend?
At any rate, it was an unexpected confirmation of the heavily alluded femininity of the character, which had nonetheless been left only indirectly stated otherwise…
edited by Aardvark on 12/28/2018
I finally was able to play this and just wanted to say that it was excellent; one of my favorite FL stories ever. The writing was downright poetic.
Please bring back Cass Khaw in the future.
I loved this story. It managed to capture the feeling of being simultaneously allured and repulsed, which reminded me why I fell in love with the world of Fallen London and Sunless Sea in the first place. I will add my voice to the chorus asking to see more stories by Cass Khaw in the future.
About genders, if you ask the Constables about the Shopkeeper, the tall one refers to them as "she". At the time, I wasn’t sure if this was a mistake, or if it was meant to show that the Constables weren’t very accepting of non-binary genders. Given the other example that has been highlighted, I’m thinking that this was deliberate.
Also, when the Honey-Addled Detective first mentions the corpse in Spite, he says "their death". And then when the corpse returns to life, "their scars" are mentioned. However, everywhere else, the corpse is referred to as "he" (including in the very same sentence that the scars are mentioned). I think these was probably mistakes, but I’m not sure, and I don’t know what it would mean if they were intentional.
So, apparently the “A Festive Story: the Ceremony” storylet to unlock this story has now been removed? And it’s not available on the Fate page, either. I guess I waited too long to start it with one of my alts. Disappointing, but I’m sure it’ll be available again at some point.
I was wondering this as well. I was planning on buying it, but it’s not available any more. Perhaps it will appear soon on the Fate page?
I was meaning to buy it but didn’t get around to it, and now I can’t. I’m a bit miffed given that the Explore the Festive Season storylet’s still there, and if I so chose I could unlock the Marriage of Feducci storyline instead, but not this one.
[color=#e53e00]Just to let you know - it will be coming back reasonably soon…[/color]
edited by babelfishwars on 1/21/2019
Alright, now I’m the one on the asking end of this question: having bought it from the Fate page, where do I now start the story? I can’t see any storylets in any of the six starting areas, and having obtained the story through the Fate page I didn’t have any storylet to read that would point me to the right direction.
[quote=Dudebro Pyro]Alright, now I’m the one on the asking end of this question: having bought it from the Fate page, where do I now start the story? I can’t see any storylets in any of the six starting areas, and having obtained the story through the Fate page I didn’t have any storylet to read that would point me to the right direction.[/quote] After purchase, the first storylet is "An Urgent Letter" with the Envelope icon (Polite Invitation style), which had been "available anywhere in London".
Ohh, so it is. Got lost in the 13 other gold-bordered universal storylets I’ve got lying around. Thank you!