I’m currently at SMEN 20 with a Watchful of around 171 (after modifiers), meaning that I have a fantabulous 25% success rate on Drown Your Secrets. What I am curious about is this: were I to grind my Watchful to hit 200 after modifiers (such as via Chess), and borrow someone else’s Calling Card with SMEN 21, is it viable for me to go after the option on Winking Isle which requires 60 000 FaMtaFE, and hit the 7 points of SMEN in one shot to push me to 28, which will let me collect the first three candles efficiently? Or have I made multiple mistakes, such as needing Watchful 200 before modifiers, or there being a limitation on my accessing Winking Isle and the storylets unlocked therein?
Winking Isle requires modified Watchful 200.
The only other limitation there is to make sure you do not have any of a long list of items/Favours.
You can stay there for as long as you need/want. Eventually you’ll need to do the 60,000 F&M cycle multiple times anyway.
edited by dov on 3/18/2018
As long as you’ve set A Question and don’t have that laundry list of items, you’re set for as long as you want. You can even grind all the way to SMEN 70 before getting any candles (you need 77 for the end but each candle gives at least +1). I’d recommend using a Marsh-Mired option to hit 21 and spending a while there to minimize actions spent on travel.
If you want, I can loan you my Calling Card to do this.
That would be fantastic Optimatum, thankyou for the offer! TTH comes in a week for me, but I’ll need to get my skates on for the Watchful grind in the first place anyway, so I may not need your Calling Card immediately (unless you have no other use for it and can lend it now). Otherwise I might PM you when I get to the 200 and SMEN 21? Thanks for the advice!