I believe if you have enough Stone-Hearted you can do it all at once. Can’t check myself since I’ve only done the prologue to Firmament.
You still have to go through the whole process five times, whether or not you choose to exit the storylet at any point.
Sure, but if you have enough Stone-Hearted you can just finish it in “one go” instead of having to go back and grind that quality again. You don’t need to redraw the card after you’ve drawn it once.
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Again, I know that, I’m just surprised at the phrasing of having to “do all that multiple times” when… it’s quite literally what’s happening.
And you’ll actually spend way more actions grinding Stone-Hearted if you do it all in one go (all five times), since each cycle uses up CP equal to the level you have. If you’re at Stone-Hearted 6, you lose 6 CP and go to level 5; if you’re at level 5 you lose 5 CP, etc.
But if you go in with, say, level 3, you only lose 3 CP; then 2, then 1. So with lower levels of Stone-Hearted, you ened up losing fewer CP of it. You’d lose 21 CP of Stone-Hearted doing it all at once, and something closer to 10 splitting it up with lower amounts.
I wish there was a way to see which bit of the dream you’d maxed out and which to use your actions on. As far as I can tell, if you forget which one you’re on, you waste 1-4 actions until you pick the right one.
I used the Plans bookmark to keep track of which action I should do next, but I still forgot and clicked the wrong option 3 or 4 times.
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I’m keeping track through the Progress qualities. Whichever one isn’t maxed is the one you should run. And then it’s cross-referencing with the wiki to be absolutely sure.
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Ditto plans, bright red flag makes things simple.
Just finished this one and whoof, poor girl :(. I don’t think I’ve seen characterization of Stone before, and in some cases her gifts seem stark and severe and borderline curses. But this, very relatable and sad. Tragic. Because you know the Sun won’t actually live her or her children like she hopes. Her dream is in vain.
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Wondering if this is preparation for whatever comes after Firmament, or very early leadup for next year’s Estival; Stone wanting to leave the Neath and go find dad could be a pretty big deal.
I had thought that what turned out to be the whole set of repetitions was still just one step in an even bigger cycle. I took someone talking somewhere about having to grind Stone-Hearted repeatedly to mean we would have to use up all our Stone-Hearted several times over.
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Yikes, seeing how I legitimately couldn’t wrap my head around calling one cycle “all that”, I can’t even project myself into thinking about having to do the whole action sink multiple times over!
At least you got a pleasant surprise.
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A sudden thought strikes me:
What if the quality leads to a new companion, in any shape or form, this Hallowmas?
I’ got the dream and am doing the grind! Taking a while, but making progress
I thought about this, too. I doubt it.
I don’t know anyone who works on the game, so I have no private information. I’m free to speculate wildly because nothing I say has any value or bearing! You have no reason to trust what I think.
(my understanding of some recent relevant evants, for which I apologize for my utter loss in knowing how to narrate compellingly; you have been warned)
There was only one new Firmament-gated tie-in introduced last Hallowmas and that requirement was a relationship that was introduced in Chapter 3, which was about one year old at the time.
In addition, both last year and the year before featured new Hallowmas interactions with Firmament-themed companions, but their prerequisites were meeting them at the Feast of the Rose regardless of whether you did anything yet toward the roof. If such an interaction is additionally available this year and you haven’t already met that companion, no grinding will help you this far along in the year and you should resign yourself to Fate.
There was a Firmament-gated Feast of the Rose interaction over a year ago that required doing more or less everything in Chapter 2. I think that was about 8 or so months after the relevant chapter was released, and on top of that it also required Fate-only gifts.
Given my understanding of the recent past, our fine Failbetter friends have steadily given us encouragements and rewards for playing the game and reading the stories, but they haven’t required we feel rushed to complete them ASAP, which I appreciate.
(I think I’ve taken more time reading Firmament carefully because I know I’m not rushed, and Firmament is definitely a story I feel benefits from care. Some of my favourite roof writing has been in flying through the airs.)
The most recent quality required for the dream to start is one that I think we could have obtained soon completing Chapter 3, so that feels fair game, but recent history indicates that anything both time-limited and requiring grinding the entire dream first is likely to be available next year at the earliest.
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Also, the dream raising takes a long time, and getting the card at all takes a while. They wouldn’t put people in a situation where they had to spend almost all of Hallowmas trying to get the Dream finished and miss everything else, and where stopping in the middle might mean you don’t draw the dream card for another week.
So that’s a good point, they’ve had Hallowmas rewards from near the content boundary but usually catch-up has been feasible. This would be pushing it, probably not as bad as the miser mount but the card draw RNG is different. You only ever have to draw the card once, you can return at will, but someone who was a chapter behind definitely could not guarantee they could power through by the end. And if you tried, you would want to forgo a Mask which is against the spirit of the event.
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I certainly hope they don’t. I’ve only done the prologue to Firmament to get an airship and haven’t even gone to the roof yet. I don’t want to play an incomplete story so I’m waiting for the whole thing to be done before I continue. I did the same thing with Evolution. I’ve got other grinds I to finish.
Edit: I was certainly mad when the added Illicit Correspondence with Old Resurrection during last year’s Feast of the Rose. It required a quality you can only get from playing Firmament. While at the same time they brought in the Whispering Duellist and Sun-Kissed Polymath which didn’t require you knowing them from the Estival that introduced them.
My personal guess is that it’s likely that at least some of the new hallowmas companions will be firmament-related. I don’t know if any will be firmament-locked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one.
Also, finally completed the dream! Now I just need to go back and grind my stone-hearted back up to 6…
I have finally completed the new dream. It’s been a really interesting experience, for sure.