“Where would a dachshund go if a dachshund decided to disappear? The Fifth City has innumerable nooks and crannies. Every alley, every shadow, might conceal a clue – or a lost dog. Sometimes, as a sleuth, the only thing to do is put boots to cobbles.”
A journalist from the Surface has lost her pet dachshund, and contracted you to retrieve him. How hard can it be to find a missing dog? Just follow the clues, infiltrate a few undercover networks, expose a vast conspiracy in the Great Game, uncover the dark secrets of the sugar substitute industry, and you’ll be back in time for tea.
In addition to a new, substantial, stand-alone story every month, Exceptional Friends enjoy:
Access to the House of Chimes: an exclusive private member’s club on the Stolen River, packed with content
Access to Mr Chimes’ Lost & Found, a shop in the Bazaar where you can exchange currency earned through playing Exceptional Stories for exclusive companions and items
Two additional outfit slots
An expanded opportunity deck of ten cards instead of six!
A second candle: Twice the actions! 40 at once!
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I’m having a bit of trouble progressing this otherwise excellent story. I’ve got Sleuth’s Progress 4, and need 5 to enter the factory; however, I’m not sure what else I can do at this point. I’ve decrypted all the available combinations (including with Sugarplum), opened the safe, “advanced the interview” with the Correspondent, met the agent at the Somnolent Stray who is currently waiting for me in the factory as an inside (wo)man… I’m not sure what I need to tick up that one crucial bit of progress on the, er, Progress quality.
Hmm, that was odd. It seems the problem was that I hadn’t decrypted the stiletto with “Sugarplum” - only I had, but the option hadn’t given me anything new at the time, and the stiletto bizarrely disappeared from the list of things to decrypt until I reset the ring.
Hooray, new forum software! Not…entirely sure what the point of duplicating my text beside itself is, but it’s a thing I guess??
This was a really, really good one. I’ve noticed after some clunky action economy reasons ESes have over time generally become more streamlined and “linear” in terms of choices. It was really refreshing to have something to play with that DIDN’T cost you actions, and made you feel like you really were being a sleuth (or at least, playing an intense game of Where’s Waldo) in putting together all the clues. And storywise, it was a pleasant surprise how far things escalated from finding a dog.
And for those out there who have learned absolutely nothing up at the Hurlers, I’m pleased to report that nothing happened to the bomb at the end, and I was not carefully protected from its detonation.
It shows you the effects of any formatting you’re applying with BBCode.
…yeah, this story was real neat. I liked it. …was the implication at the end, when you think that the Correspondent would look great in a false mustash, that ALL the spies involved were actually just Discordant reflections of one person? The Actress (who uses the same image as the Correspondent, just without glasses!), the Mountaneer with his false mustache (and by extension the whole Sub-Alpine club).
And we even got to keep sugarplum! It’s -1 to Chess and Discordance are unique (worst-in-slot), which is neat. (Well, there’s alternate ways to get a -1 Discordance companion, but I have the +1 Discordance imp)
Love love LOVED this ES, oh my goodness. Absolute 10/10. As an absolute sucker for any story that lets us feel like we’re spying or pulling off a heist I could not get ENOUGH of the decoding portion. I loved this ES so much that early on when I was thinking, oh this is something special, I actually took time away from it to go and grind my Renown: Great Game to 40 for the last GG associated item, just because it felt right for me to have it while I was working on this. A little miffed I managed to beat the odds and fail the check to understand what the bomb was doing as it went off, but I then got to not visit my good friend the Anchoress, so All is Well. Also, it seems safe to say that there’s an active push to have rare items/lategame stuff/previous ES’s matter more in new stories? Because I am loving feeling rewarded for having a character with lots of cool stuff every single time it comes up, and it feels like that’s been a good string of stories doing this now. Love it.
Excellent story with one of those twists I should have guessed immediately. I am interested to know how much changed if anyone resisted the bomb or chose any ending except the Anchoress.
I seem to be stuck. I have used the seeds to decode the burnt missive and the stiletto, but now I get no further clues. It seems I must have missed something, as I see others have gotten much further here… I am deeply confused…
Thank you, delicious friends, for any help you can offer.
(I had to re-sign up for the forums. I appear to have disappeared.)
I’m sure I’ve missed something, but I’ve gone back to the Bazaarine Correspondent’s flat a dozen times, I’ve gone back to the Sub-Alpine club, I’ve been to Dante’s for dinner (and now can’t go back there)… I’m stuck really early in this story and not sure what I did wrong. All I’ve gotten are the half-burnt missive, the biscuit box, and the stiletto. No Sugerplum.
From the glowing comments here, I’m definitely wanting to continue here! I just am not certain where I need to go next…
