Pale flesh pulled taut over malformed bone. A sharp, protruding nose; a twinkling human eye. An endlessly grinning mouth, stretching back well beyond any human jaw. An eel?
Eels: a Fifth City delicacy, and an ichthyological mystery. It is eel migration season in the Neath, and the Stolen River runs black with slippery bodies. But where does their migration end? And why does this specimen have an unsettlingly human face? Eat inadvisable zeefood; track the creatures to their spawning ground; find an answer to the why of eels.
You meet a Saucy Commis, who winks at you prettily; and a Saucier Saucier, who propositions you in a shockingly bold manner.
Fallen London may have spent years establishing the Adjective Noun naming system and setting countless stories in or around kitchens just to set up for making this joke.
Has anyone got the result for āShake him offā (I assume successfully)? My computer skipped that result for some reason, sending me first back to the screen to select it then straight on to the next research section.
Hell of a story! Of all the places it might have gone, I wasnāt expecting it to be The Enigma of Amigara Fault but with eels. āThis is eelsā hole! It was made for eels!ā sort of thing.
Slight lore thought: Is there a possible connection between the Labyrinth of Eels, Zenith and Piranesi. Obviously Zenithās wings of change calls itself āThe Law of Piranesiā but on a more direct level they all seem to have the same mechanic (trapping individuals in the space until they have changed so significantly as to no longer be themselves).
Important note: the more shocking ending of this (shocking) ES references the (shocking) quality you could get from the (shocking) recent ES Memories of Mozart, also written by Harry Tuffs (shocking). I wonder if thereāll be a third one, to make a nice body horror trilogy?
I said about Memories of Mozart itās not for the squeamish. I have no idea what to tell the squeamish about this one. For me it was super funny because in real life I find seafood revolting. But this is Fallen London where anything goes, soā¦ Bon appetit!
Iāve run around, so to speak in the Zub department. Canāt get my scandal or suspicion down (and stay down) to petitionā¦ And I donāt have one Iām wondering if I should just quit while Iām ahead
Another Exceptionally Exceptional Story from Harry Tuffs, with bonus gruesome eel artwork. I enjoyed this one immensely ā it was engaging and satisfying (in both a narrative and gustatory sense) from the very start. And now Iām very curious about what exactly is going on inside the Labyrinth of Eels. Ruins? Prisoners? A warden? How intriguing!
One of the best ES Iāve read in a long time! I was already an HT fan but this makes me want to look up everything else heās done in FL and his other games, too. The writing was great, I didnāt feel railroaded, and I loved the queer ship. Great addition to the general worldbuilding, too.
It has been a while but I vaguely remember Zenith making oblique references to the Halved, and certainly it has a connection to the Stacks which are almost certainly has some connection to the Pergamon Manse, where the Judgements once kept their laws recorded. Librarians are very, very similar to Scrive-Spinsters, assuming they arenāt actually the same thing. Itās not impossible they could be the same place; Judgement laws can do things like decree two places be the same place and the Halved was/likely still is the Judgement who governed distance and measures. So yeah, I buy it.
I love when yāall allude to obscure or subjects that arenāt talked about in everyday society; what could he possibly be eating under that table cloth
Delicious friend indeed
One of the really good ones ā no surprise given the author. The story moves along at a nice clip, with meaningful decisions at key points. I actually had to go find an acquaintance to say something nice about me to get my hands on the zub, which was a new experience. Iād never clocked that praying only gets you so far.
I thought the Eat-Everything-that-Twitches Strepitious Gourmet (learnt a new word there! Something I really appreciate about FL) was delightfully vile and went out of my way to disoblige him. It was very pleasing to be able to blow his zub up more than once. Would you want to have him in a pie? Nah. But there is clearly an entirely different story if you make common cause with him.
I appreciated the warning once you got to the Labyrinth, but didnāt turn back. The body horror was no worse than some of the options on the roof.
Oh, and āanimals speaking English are hardly unheard ofā was just perfect and so funny. I could see Mr Tumnus and Reepicheep in the distance, waving cheerily. Great stuff. And I actually have A House of Many Doors in my Steam library. Must move it up the list.
Well, this was delightfully cringe-worthy on numerous levels. I have to say, sometimes I feel really squeamish about the modifications my characters put themselves through in the purpose of knowing things, but I justify this with the notion that your viewpoint changes quite a lot once you return after dying for the first time, and much more so when you start delving into Shapeling Arts.
I wonder if anyone has echoed what the Warden says if youād had 5+ changes in your playthrough? I had 4 and he was already pretty impressed.
As for the Piranesi connection, itās really intriguing and Iād love to see how the Labyrinth relates to the High Wilderness, Piranesi, Zenith and the Judgements. The Firmament is (rather appropriately IMO) focused on celestial topics, being the closest we can get to the Wilderness and still keep our character in the Neath, so the connection there is quite clear, but it was more surprising to find it at the bottom of the Zee.
Nonetheless, the real-world inspiration for Piranesi and all related spaces is a series of very inspiring etchings by the eponymous artist, showing various prison-spaces with titanic and surrealistic properties, so the idea of separate prisons with a common theme is also perfectly thematic. Definitely hope it will be explored (not necessarily explained) further in the future!
