My stats were maxed but I was a fresh new POSI: no Laboratory, no Railroad, no ship. So I could only dig, and dig some more.
There was no way for me to build the device.
Echoes for going downwards, starting here: Fallen London
In addition to the gloves, item named “Sample of Lacreous Affection.” Nostalgia, no sighted use yet (cannot be sold).
Went down, see my profile for details.
Reward from donating a Tier 8 item & going up:
[spoiler] Singed and Stained Work Gloves: best-in-slot Gloves at +8 Dangerous and best-in-slot Kataleptic Toxicology at +1
Also a new nostalgia item: Vestige of a Starlit Reverie (no echo value)
[/spoiler]
edited by Ginneon Thursday on 7/29/2021
[quote=PSGarak]Echoes for going downwards, starting here: Fallen London
In addition to the gloves, item named "Sample of Lacreous Affection." Nostalgia, no sighted use yet (cannot be sold).[/quote]
Upwards gives "Vestige of a Starlit Reverie" instead.
I guess, these will unlock some minor opportunities elsewhere, like chirurgical touch.
The sites we dug out will be present for several months from today, right? I vaguely remember something like that being told.
edited by Aro Saren on 7/29/2021
(All this is unlocked because I am not a Preserver of London)
The Grand Clearing-Out: A Coda
You pass by a woman, a stranger, who greets you warmly like a friend. She apologises; claims she mistook you for someone else. For a few minutes, every stranger on the street looks at you with a partial smile or a puzzled look of recognition. Indeed, they all look familiar to you. But the feeling soon passes.
The rumbling and churning beneath the streets seems to have ceased. And perhaps with the help of your fellow Londoner, you can piece together what just happened.
But that can wait
You are exhausted, all of a sudden. And your lodgings are still standing.
–
All manner of thing
In the morning, the London air is unusually clear. The false-stars illuminate the streets more strongly than they have in weeks. Your sleep was undisturbed by any tremors, earthquakes, or sudden sinkholes.
The clothes you wore picking through the rubble are covered in dust. Some will survive, given a good scrubbing. Others are a total loss. You don’t even remember where you got this pair of heavy work gloves – from another volunteer, perhaps. But they seem worth keeping.
The city wakes to the sound of reconstruction. Already, gaps and cracks in the ground are being patched over with steel beams and new cobbles. Collapsed buildings are once again being raised. Hunger grips you when you awake; breakfast will not be postponed indefinitely.
The story of the Grand Clearing-Out is concluded, though its effects will be felt in London for some time. Players will be able to purchase Chthonic Scrip and catch up on the Festival story until August 5th.
You’ve lost a quality: Nightmares.
Scandal has dropped to 2 - Sinful!
Confident Smile
You’ve gained 1 x Confident Smile (new total 19).
Singed and Stained Work Gloves
You now have 1 x Singed and Stained Work Gloves.
Involved in Mr Chimes’ Grand Clearing-Out
The Great Sink of 1899 is finally over.
Here is the reward for us newbies!
Singed and Stained Work Gloves
Dangerous +8; Bizarre +1; Kataleptic Toxicology +1
A memento of when London almost fell for a second time. These hardy gloves have seen their share of picking through rubble and handling dangerous materials.
There’s a special action you can do when going upwards and chose a certain ending in A Kingdom for a Pig. It only gives text.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/NNNnobody/23414024
Also yay for better Dangerous gear.
The gloves are the same for all participants, the special reward for preservers is sample/vestige.
What’s the mouseover tooltip text for the “Vestige of a Starlit Reverie”?
With a “Sample of Lacreous Affection”, it says “For a moment, there, she thought she could bear lingering here”, which definitely puts a slant on this…
All those new items with seemingly no use for them… expect them to be used in a future event. Bet on it.
Damn. That was beautiful. I genuinely feel like I did something desperately important with my fellow Londoners and that, for this one moment, everything is okay. And “breakfast will not be postponed indefinitely” made me laugh actually out loud.
Even with its various foibles and missteps, I think we can pretty much all agree that this event was a lot of fun and a big success.
Can anyone put together what did Masters actually do to fix the problem?
Indeed! A funny close for a pretty intense climax; a few in-course corrections were clearly overtuned (the undiscardable Cart card) or sorely needed for an event with no warranted preparation (the conversion of top tier items), but for such an experiment it has gone pretty well, although the (accidental) fast pacing of the final steps could come off as pretty alienating for people that can’t refresh the game as many times per day as, say, me.
It started like funny spelunking effort in which the stakes were possibly "I want to be sure to explore this site before the event ends" to "oh mother of **** what the **** is happening" in a way that I don’t think was available before, which speaks well for the compelling use of World Qualities and this kinds of far-reaching events in general. The Preserver being an Affiliation makes sense and has definitely appropriate stats, and the two Preserver items… I’m excited to see what use they might have, but even if it won’t amount to much, they’re definitely two kickass mantlepieces (I also echoed the two paths with my characters)
Sooo yeah, the preliminary digging was cool, the explorable sites interesting (I’ll definitely play around a bit more now that we’ve sure to have time) and the climax appropriately intense, although some pacing issue made things a bit weird in certain points.
PS: Like Wojciech, I definitely hope there’ll be at least some hint as to what exactly postponed yet another reckoning. It seems we’ll have some more closure next week, so definitely hyped for that.
edited by Huey on 7/29/2021
I want to applaud this event as well. Two parts in particular stood out for me.
The first is the general excitement of London’ Plight and , as someone else has aptly put it here on this thread, the fact that it retroactively justified years of hoarding in a good way.
The second is the Spider Symposium . As someone with an amateurish interest in philosophy I don’t even know where to begin with praising it. The idea , the execution, the self-aware humour that has made me laugh heartily multiple times exploring , just everything about it. I gagged in laughter at the subtle reformulation of "What is it like to be a bat?" , at the quip about the accusation of misunderstanding Aristotle and so many other tid bits masterfully weaved into well written explanations of the main arguments! I plan on sharing some passages with real life friends for fun and edification alike.Whoever it is at Failbetter who came up with this particular idea and did the writing , know that it is much appreciated and savoured.
edited by Anthony on 7/29/2021
edited by Anthony on 7/29/2021
[quote=Tigerfort]What’s the mouseover tooltip text for the "Vestige of a Starlit Reverie"?
With a "Sample of Lacreous Affection", it says "For a moment, there, she thought she could bear lingering here", which definitely puts a slant on this…[/quote]
"For a moment, there, you thought you had wings".
It kind of sounds to me like what the Masters did was just reassuring the Bazaar to calm it down. Like the Stone Pigs becoming restless was giving it the urge to fly away, and they had to convince it not to. I don’t know what it looked like down in the lacre, but up in the spires the experience was of seeing London in its entirety and finding it beautiful. And then having a shared dream with everyone else in the city and experiencing a brief moment of spiritual oneness. Maybe the point was just to show London to the Bazaar from a fresh perspective, so that it would recognize what it would lose if it tried to fly back to the stars.
edited by Macnia on 7/29/2021
I probaby missed something but I didn’t realise choosing "prehaps not" while assisting the masters would just end the story. I thought I’d be able to go back to London and come back later, so I guess I’ve missed out on the plot. It would be nice if we could replay it if we were already part way through, but I realise it was intended to be a one off thing. I liked the new areas a lot though, next time I’ll just have to be more careful.
The in-game note promises one after the end of the festival. Plus you immediately get an Affiliation with +4 Respectable and +1 AOTRS.
[/quote]
Well, I did it. Easy come, easy go. It’s not like it’s real money. Now, it seems, we wait.