So Godsfall. The place’s some sort of fallen citadel. I had stopped there a few times. The monks pay fairly well for batches of five crates of mushroom wine.
The Shattered Citadel can be explored, the decision enabled if you have five foxfire candles. The quest says BRING EXTRA: if you run out of candles BAD THINGS HAPPEN.
So I brought ten candles on my little steamer. Easy peasy, I thought.
I go in, and find the first mess of tunnels. You can either spend a candle to retrace your steps and head back, or to go deeper.
So I go deeper, which depends on a rather tricky Mirrors check. Sometimes you fail the Mirrors check and spend a candle but fail to make progress.
After the check something happens, and you need to deal with it with another stat or suffer the consequences.
So eventually I reach the middle point, which is about four or five messes of tunnels in. I have a special officer of mine deal with the bizarre altar there, and earn some decent rewards. Craving greater treasures, however, I delve deeper.
The tests get harder.
I think, "no sweat, I still have about six candles left. All I need to do is retrace my steps once I have one left."
I keep going deeper, but it becomes increasingly hard to get past the Mirrors check with my very mediocre stat, and the nasties test also causes some terror and sometimes a zailor loss. I think. Some details have gotten fuzzy.
"Okay, let’s go back", I say, spending the last candle to retrace my steps.
Congrats, you just made it back to the PREVIOUS MESS OF TUNNELS.
Well, f__k me and call me Maybe.
Without any other choice, I fumble and stumble back, candle-less.
Things in the dark start killing my zailors one by one, and each step also nets me a significant amount of terror. I click and click, scared to read what calamities are befalling my crew.
"This is the end," I think. "I should’ve made all those captivating treasures into heirlooms instead of indecisively keeping them in my bag."
But miraculously, I make it out of the Shattered Citadel, with 92 terror and three crewmen (out of my original seven or so). Luckily, the Khanate was one quadrant to the north.
So I chug on there, at what felt like less than half-speed, as terror slowly creeps upward ("Zeesus Christ, keep the light on, Barnaby!").
A roaming tentacle appears and silently absconds with one of my remaining crewmen.
Unique, terrifying music plays all along, given my terror is so damn high.
I limp past the Ogodei Bridge and take a left to make port in the Khan’s Heart.
I breathe the loudest sigh of relief ever, and almost wince as I spend probably over 500 echoes in the tea houses, bringing my terror down to the low 60s. I also spend a couple hundred or so bringing my crew up to 6 before embarking on my journey home, attending an obligatory banquet on Pigmote Isle along the way.
In many other circumstances, this could’ve easily ended my second captain. Overall, I think fortune smiled upon me just enough to allow him to regain his sanity and live to tell this veritable Tale of Terror.