Sub Rosa
Joey Jones
cover art fantasy garden IFComp 2015 IFComp Game intrigue library mystery new weird nonhuman protagonist parser present tense puzzles second person treasure hunt walkthrough Xyzzy Awards 2015 XYZZY Best Puzzles
A story about secrets in the Age of Lead. You've spent seventeen years preparing for an infiltration. Stealing the Confessor's secrets is only the beginning: it will all be for nothing if you leave a trace.
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To name a secret is to destroy it and Confessor Destine is a man made of secrets. It has taken seventeen careful years but soon he will be undone.

You stand calf-deep in mud beneath a leathery cliff that bisects the otherwise endless Mambling Plain. You have with you all the tools you'll need to infiltrate the Destine mansion and discover what lies the Confessor has concealed. Somewhere along this cliff is the possibility of an intersection into another plain.
You check what you're carrying
You are wearing:
your llama-suit (muddy)

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You look at the llama suit
From feet to appendages to head, your form is completely covered by a thin-weave suit made wholly from the wool of the pellucid llama. It renders you undetectable to all the senses that matter, including your own.

You wove it yourself under the tutelage of the master weaver, White Widow. For her knowledge and silence she only asked for the
whereabouts of her seven wayward sons. As you wove the invisible thread, she slowly and solemnly sapped each one, all the while instructing you on how to avoid dropping unseeable lines.

Your lower legs are splattered with mud from the trek through the Mambling Plains.
You look at Winkerchief
The Winkerchief is a branded wipe cloth that perfectly wipes clean any surface. It's good for about a dozen uses before it loses its porousness.
You examine somnuliser
The somnuliser works as a small bomb. If thrown, it emits spores of untraceable potentiality, making it praeternaturally likely that
anyone coming into contact with the spores will fall asleep with the firm belief that their sleepiness is natural and unnotable. It has but one use, but once activated its spores should propagate through halls throughout the entire house, slowed only as it seeps under the doors. It should incapacitate everyone in the wing, but you'll have to be inside first for it to have an effect.
You look at the attuning set
the possibilities inherent in things in favour of the holder.

A gust of wind blows across the cliff, flapping a loose sheet of skin.
You look
You stand calf-deep in mud beneath a leathery cliff that bisects the otherwise endless Mambling Plain. Somewhere along this cliff is the possibility of an intersection into another plain.
You examine mud
The mud stretches from the cliff to the horizon, it constantly shifts and cracks like a great foul sea where nothing wholesome grows. It's even caked up the legs of your llama-suit.
You go north
The way back across the mambling plains is long and filthy, the way forward is through an intersection in this cliff.
You look at the cliff
A cliff of blue weather-beaten leather rises up in front of you. A
long thick sheet of it has half-peeled off near where you stand.
You look at the sheet
you are.
Peel skin
The cliff feels warm to touch as you pull down the flaking sheet of skin. You have to stretch as the tear of skin is taller than you. The whole sheet lands with a soft squelch in the mud at the base of the cliff.

The distant lights of Mump Simus sparkle briefly.
You check what you're carrying
You are wearing:
your llama-suit (muddy)

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You get the skin
The skin is firmly embedded in the treacherous mud.

The great cliff before you creaks.
You look
You stand calf-deep in mud beneath a leathery cliff that bisects the otherwise endless Mambling Plain. Somewhere along this cliff is the possibility of an intersection into another plain.

A wide sheet of skin lies in the mud at the base of the cliff.

The mud squelches beneath you.
You pull the skin
The skin is firmly embedded in the treacherous mud.
You climb the cliff
The great bisecting cliff is too vast to climb unaided, fortunately
the intersection should be close to muddy floor of the plain.
You look at the set
the possibilities inherent in things in favour of the holder.
Attune
What do you want to attune?
You attune the skin
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the sheet but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You attune cliff
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set along the cliff. This was the place the Tacit One said the intersection would be. Just when you begin to suspect
that the urn-dweller had set you up for failure, you spot a slim gap
in the leather cliff: the intersection.
You enter the intersection
To step Mambling mud into Confessor Destine's carpets would be your very undoing. For your undertaking to be successful, you must leave absolutely no trace.

The distant lights of Mump Simus sparkle briefly.
You wipe suit
(with the Winkerchief)
It'd be futile to try to clean the mud off whilst standing in even
more mud.
You stand on the skin
You get onto the sheet.

Leathery Cliff (on the sheet)
You stand on a piece of skin beneath a leathery cliff that bisects the otherwise endless Mambling Plain. The intersection gapes before you.
You wipe suit
(with the Winkerchief)
You wipe down the llama-suit, the grime soaking into the Winkerchief.

The mud squelches beneath you.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You enter the intersection
Glancing back one last time at the endless expanse of mud behind you, you step through the intersection...
Continue
You arrive outside and slightly above the Destine mansion, 90 degrees from the last plain. With a dull thud you land on the greenhouse dome, your things spilling from the folds of the llama-suit...
Continue
your things spilling from the folds of the llama-suit...With a
smearing squeak you slide down the dome and land in the Blue Rose Garden.

The Seven Deceits of Confessor Destine by Joey Jones and Melvin Rangasamy

The Blue Rose Garden of the Destine clan is one of the Five Transcendent Gardens and is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow with uniform fecundity. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.

Balanced precariously on the greenhouse dome is your attuning set, a whole storey out of reach.

The somnuliser lies unscathed on the ground beside you.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit
You take all
(the somnuliser)
You get the somnuliser.
Up
The greenhouse dome is smooth and impossible to climb by any conventional means, and most unconventional means.
You look at the roses
The flowers in the rose garden are all roses and every one of them is blue. The flowers at the outer reaches are a pale celeste, whilst
those closest to the central bush are a rich cobalt.

Splayed across some of the flowers is your Winkerchief.
You take Winkerchief
Taken.
You look
The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The twisting thorns span out in the moon-shadow of the Destine mansion which rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.

Balanced precariously on the greenhouse dome is your attuning set, a whole storey out of reach.
You examine the bush
Emerging from a curse-stone rockery is the central bush of blue rose garden. On the central bush, from which all the offshoots grow, is the most perfect of the impossibly blue roses. The single stem
terminates in a full vivid bloom: its colour is vibrant even in citylight.
You enter the greenhouse
(first opening the sliding door)
On a regular night it would be bound to be jammed shut, but there's a possibility it could open in your favour.
Climb rose
Do you mean:
You climb the rose bush
The llama-suit probably wouldn't protect you from the thorns, it's
only made of wool after all.
You look at the thorns
The boundary of the garden is formed by a fence of twisting thorns.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a Winkerchief
the somnuliser
Smell blue rose
The biggest of the bouquets has an almost overpowering lavender scent.
Smell rose bush
The smell of lavender is strongest from the central rose bush.
You examine the central rose bush
Emerging from a curse-stone rockery is the central bush of blue rose garden. On the central bush, from which all the offshoots grow, is the most perfect of the impossibly blue roses. The single stem
terminates in a full vivid bloom: its colour is vibrant even in citylight.
You look around
The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.

Balanced precariously on the greenhouse dome is your attuning set, a whole storey out of reach.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a Winkerchief
the somnuliser
You examine somnuliser
The somnuliser works as a small bomb. If thrown, it emits spores of untraceable potentiality, making it praeternaturally likely that
anyone coming into contact with the spores will fall asleep with the firm belief that their sleepiness is natural and unnotable. It has but one use, but once activated its spores should propagate through halls throughout the entire house, slowed only as it seeps under the doors. It should incapacitate everyone in the wing, but you'll have to be inside first for it to have an effect.
You look at Winkerchief
The Winkerchief is a branded wipe cloth that perfectly wipes clean any surface. It's good for about a dozen uses before it loses its porousness.
Sing
The time for singing will be when the Confessor is undone.
Xyzzy
Orloger; Counter Cur taught you everything you didn't want to know about sums.

"In order to calculate the area of a bounded plain, you must find the length of the cross product of the vectors of its 2 adjacent sides,"
he said.

You didn't see why you couldn't just ask the letter-beast doing the binding, but you humoured the Counter at the time.

"Well," Counter Cur continued, "if B (Bx, By, Bz) and C (Cx, Cy, Cz) are the vectors of its 2 adjacent sides and A (Ax, Ay, Az) is the
cross product, then you must find A = B x C using this formula:

"Ax = By Cz - Bz Cy
Ay = Bz Cx - Bx Cz
Az = Bx Cy - By Cx."

"My memory is good, but there's got to be a better way of memorising this," you said.

"You will notice," Cur continued, "that if you replace x with y, y
with z and z with x you can get from the first line to the second line and from the second line to the third line."

"So all I need to do is remember the first line, right?" you said.

"Precisely," said Cur, "and you do that by remembering the handy mnemonic 'xyzzy'."

And that's how you cal... wait a minute, you didn't spend seventeen years preparing to break into the Confessor's mansion just to find out the area of the plain.
Review
Before moving further, you'll need to rescue your attuning-set from
the dome.
You throw the bomb at set
No, if you throw it out here it'll just disperse out harmlessly.
You take the rose
Do you mean:
2
You'd like to do just that: pluck one of the Confessor's famous roses and feel its petals pulp in your fist. But you will not give him the pleasure of leaving so obvious a trace.
You search the bush
Emerging from a curse-stone rockery is the central bush of blue rose garden. On the central bush, from which all the offshoots grow, is the most perfect of the impossibly blue roses. The single stem
terminates in a full vivid bloom: its colour is vibrant even in citylight.
You look at the rockery
Beneath the central rose bush is a masterfully assembled rockery made up of asymmetrically tessellating curse-stones placed to create a perfect hectahedron

It's unclear how the rose is so well hydrated with the solid rockery sitting on top of its main body of roots.
You take the stone
You take a curse-stone and instantly the rockery takes on a sinister and unnatural cast. You are momentarily overwhelmed by an insidious metaphysical wrongness before your Lemniscate training takes over and you shrug away the impossibility.
You throw rock at the set
You slowly exhale, eyeing up the attuning set in the citylight. Your overhand throw was tested often in the various Theocratic games, although that was nearly two decades ago. You hurl the rock through
the air and it catches the attuning set on one corner of its outstretched rods and it slides down into the garden.
You take all
Firstly the rock: You take the rock. It's a single seventeen-sided curse-stone. To gaze on a curse-stone in isolation for too long is to invite madness. The afflicted, the geocultists, only meet peace when their stone is perfectly enmeshed with other curse-stones in the form of a perfect solid.

And finally the attuning set: You get the attuning set.
You attune door
(with your attuning set)
You move the attuning set in the forbidden sideways figure-of-eight that your wrists naturally settle in when in motion. The lead rods of the set shimmer and you feel an intense feeling of rightness with the sliding door: it is attuned to you, for now.
You open the door
The door slides effortlessly open and you're greeted by a wave of rich warm air from the greenhouse.
Go west
You step into the greenhouse and the warmth envelops you, assaulting you with a panopoly of scents.

The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. A closed blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You examine sapling
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You examine the spindleweed
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You examine the berries
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
Go west
(first opening the blue door)

At last you tip-toe into echo-prone confines of the Destine Mansion, each room carved out of what was once a small mountain. You sacrificed three toes to learn how many secrets would bring the Confessor down. Seven. There are seven deceits you know can be found in these halls
and you won't leave until you know them.

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, lying flat by your feet.
You examine the rug
The rug is a thick slab of carpet with a beguiling pattern of interlocking keys and doors, tessellating in queasy spirals.
You take the rug
You lift up the rug entirely and a hole appears briefly underneath it before disappearing.
You go to the east
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You go east
The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.
You drop the stone
You drop the rock.
You look
The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.

You can also see a rock here.
You get all
(the rock)
Taken.
You put rock in the rockery
You swivel the curse-stone back into its place in the rockery and a feeling a beatific peace spreads through you. The hectahedron is complete once more.
You go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You go to the west
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.
You take rug
You already have that.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a rug
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
the somnuliser
You drop rug
You drop the rug.
You look
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, lying flat by your feet.
You take rug
You lift up the rug entirely and a hole appears briefly underneath it before disappearing.
You drop rug
Dropped.
Attune rug
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the rug but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You attune the floor
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the floor but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You examine slab
One of the counters is a cooling slab that keeps chilled anything left on it, this one has a gourd on it.
You examine the gourd
The gourd is cooked, with the top end sliced through to make a lid. It's a regular yellow gourd, and has the letters 'XVII' scratched into one side.
You open the gourd
You open the gourd, revealing some mince.
You examine the mince
The gourd is full of slimy grey minced meat.
You examine the stove
The stove is a simple device for producing intense heat. It can be switched on or off.
You look at the refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently closed.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You examine the panel
On the back of the refresher there's a compartment for the lead rod that powers the device, a small dial for changing the time setting and an activation switch to activate the device. Imprinted on the panel
are the words "CONSULT MANUAL FOR DIAL CONFIGURATIONS".
You go to the west
(first opening the red door)
As you go to push the flap of letter-beast skin aside with an
invisible hand, you feel the stir of your feelers. You can smell a human nearby: it must be the Confessor's guard.
You remove the suit
Merely wearing the suit would be pointless, anyone would see straight through to the person beneath. No, in order to make use of it, you had to weave it into your own skin. In time, the suit will peel off as
your skin is shed, but not today.
You examine legs
You are completely invisible.
You take the gourd
up.
You check your inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
the somnuliser
You put the gourd in Winkerchief
(first taking the gourd)
You risk it falling apart in your spindly appendages if you pick it
up.
You attune gourd
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the gourd but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You open the stove
The stove is just a surface for heating.
Open refresher
You open the refresher.
You look at the refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently open.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You take the mince
a trace.
You put rug on the gourd
You'd end up with mince all over the rug if you did that.
You put rug on the refresher
The rug is much too cumbersome to fit in the refresher.
You look at the dial
The refresher dial has two settings, contained and uncontained. It is currently set to contained.
You turn the dial
You turn the dial to uncontained and the whole device starts to hum with purpose.
You examine the gourd
The gourd is cooked, with the top end sliced through to make a lid, which is open, revealing some kind of mince inside. It's a regular yellow gourd, and has the letters 'XVII' scratched into one side.
Open refresher
That's already open.
Close refresher
You close the refresher.
Close gourd
You close the gourd.
You look at the refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently closed.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You examine the panel
On the back of the refresher there's a compartment for the lead rod that powers the device, a small dial for changing the time setting and an activation switch to activate the device. Imprinted on the panel
are the words "CONSULT MANUAL FOR DIAL CONFIGURATIONS".

The whole panel is shaking now the machine is set to be uncontained.
You look at the switch
one side.
Open refresher
You open the refresher.
You read the gourd
The gourd is cooked, with the top end sliced through to make a lid. It's a regular yellow gourd, and has the letters 'XVII' scratched into one side.
You examine the cooling
One of the counters is a cooling slab that keeps chilled anything left on it, this one has a gourd on it.
You touch the slab
You can feel the cold as you move your hand near.
You take the gourd
up. The best you could do is open up its little lid.
Attune slab
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the cooling slab but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You attune the refresher
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the refresher but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
Review
You need to put the household asleep before you can explore any further. Throwing the somnuliser in the kitchen should do the trick, but you'll have to take steps to avoid being caught by the spores.
-> There's something strange about the rug you found in the kitchen.
You throw somnuliser
You throw the somnuliser softly at the ground and it clicks open, silently loosing invisible sleeping spores. Best make haste!
You go east
You know that the spread of the spores from the somnuliser must be gaining on you quickly: at this rate you doubt you could make it
across the greenhouse.

The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

Hard green fruit bodies hang from the hayberry bush. The banberry
shrub is crinkled and grey with mould. The plant bed is thick with spindleweed.
Go east
You've nearly reached the sliding door when you feel a gentle soothing spreading through your limbs. Too late, you think dimly as
you stifle a yawn.

You gently lower yourself to the ground, involuntarily but as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to be found by Confessor Destine's guards the next morning.
You look at somnuliser
The somnuliser works as a small bomb. If thrown, it emits spores of untraceable potentiality, making it praeternaturally likely that
anyone coming into contact with the spores will fall asleep with the firm belief that their sleepiness is natural and unnotable. It has but one use, but once activated its spores should propagate through halls throughout the entire house, slowed only as it seeps under the doors.
You put somnuliser in the refresher
You put the somnuliser into the refresher.
You take somnuliser
As you take the somnuliser you spare a passing thought for all the things that have passed through your appendages to be stashed or
stowed or forgotten about, thousands of medium sized dry goods disappearing into your past.
You check your inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
a rug
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You examine rug
The rug is a thick slab of carpet with a beguiling pattern of interlocking keys and doors, tessellating in queasy spirals.
You search rug
The act of looking under a rug requires the rug to be on the ground, for it is only then that the rug reaches its full potential in concealing.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug and the ground underneath is sucked into its weave, revealing a bone ladder leading down into dark depths below.
Go downwards
You put a tentative foot on the third rung down of the slender bone ladder beneath you. Through your invisible body, you stare down into the darkness below, slowly descending. The bones creak as if their
long dead owners were there to complain. Taking one step at a time you arrive safely at the bottom.

Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall is bare. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You look at the bottles
Thousands of bottles line the rack, no doubt organised by some arcane system. Most are coated in a thick layer of dust.
Go west
(first opening the brick wall)
You give the wall a light shove but it doesn't yield.
You look
Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall is bare. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You search the wall
The bricks in the middle of the western wall are grouped in a pattern of five bricks across by four down, etched into the bricks are the letters A to T in alphabetical order, like so:

|   A   |   B   |   C   |   D   |   E   | 
|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   |
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
Up
You stare up at the small square of light above. The bone is cold and clammy in your pellucid grasp. You lift yourself up and the bones seem to bend under your weight. For a moment you think the ladder might be falling backwards but it holds and soon you are up in the kitchen once more.

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
You look under rug
The sleep powder is designed to act silently, to send occupants into unconsciousness without them knowing, but as you're struck by the sudden urge to sleep you know it's wholly explicable.

You gently lower yourself to the ground, involuntarily but as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to be found by Confessor Destine's guards the next morning.
Go downwards
The sleeping spores spread, particles of possibility that disappear, traceless on contact. By the time you reach the bottom of the ladder, the need for sleep overwhelms you.

You gently lower yourself to the ground, involuntarily but as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to be found by Confessor Destine's guards the next morning.
Subrosa1
SAVESave successful.
You look
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
You examine slab
One of the counters is a cooling slab that keeps chilled anything left on it, this one has a gourd on it.
You attune mince
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the mince but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
Go downward
With a quick intake of breath you quickly shimmy down the bone ladder.

Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall is bare. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You attune brick
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the brick wall but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You press a the brick
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.
You press a the Brick
You've already pushed Brick A.
You look
Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall is bare. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
Up
the vaulted cellar at your back pressing in its emptiness.

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You look at somnuliser
The somnuliser works as a small bomb. If thrown, it emits spores of untraceable potentiality, making it praeternaturally likely that
anyone coming into contact with the spores will fall asleep with the firm belief that their sleepiness is natural and unnotable. It has but one use, but once activated its spores should propagate through halls throughout the entire house, slowed only as it seeps under the doors.
You go east
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You throw somnuliser
You throw the somnuliser softly at the ground and it clicks open, silently loosing invisible sleeping spores. Best make haste!

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You look at the tree
In the centre of the round greenhouse is a great grosvair tree, its shaggy fur hanging in rugose strips from the calcified trunk.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You examine hayberry
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You examine the berries
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
Examine leaves
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

Hard green fruit bodies hang from the hayberry bush. The banberry
shrub is crinkled and grey with mould. The plant bed is thick with spindleweed.
Up
If you climbed the tree, you would have nowhere to go from there.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You go east
The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.
You throw somnuliser east
(first ignoring unnecessary text "east")
No, if you throw it out here it'll just disperse out harmlessly.
Go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
Go west
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
You go to the east
You know that the spread of the spores from the somnuliser must be gaining on you quickly: at this rate you doubt you could make it
across the greenhouse.

The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
Go east
You've nearly reached the sliding door when you feel a gentle soothing spreading through your limbs. Too late, you think dimly as
you stifle a yawn.

You gently lower yourself to the ground, involuntarily but as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to be found by Confessor Destine's guards the next morning.
You take somnuliser
You get the somnuliser.
You put somnuliser in the cooling slab
The gourd fills the slab, leaving little room for other things.
You look at the dial
The refresher dial has two settings, contained and uncontained. It is currently set to uncontained.
You look at the bomb
The somnuliser works as a small bomb. If thrown, it emits spores of untraceable potentiality, making it praeternaturally likely that
anyone coming into contact with the spores will fall asleep with the firm belief that their sleepiness is natural and unnotable. It has but one use, but once activated its spores should propagate through halls throughout the entire house, slowed only as it seeps under the doors.
You examine the lead
There's a closed hatch under the panel.
You open hatch
You open the lead compartment, revealing a power rod.
You examine the blue door
An open blue door stands between the kitchen and the greenhouse. The wood is slightly tainted by the decades of greasy fumes.
You examine red door
The door is formed of a single rigid strip of red leather,
unmistakably from a letter-beast. The door is currently shut.
You open the blue door
That's already open.
You examine the blue door
An open blue door stands between the kitchen and the greenhouse. The wood is slightly tainted by the decades of greasy fumes. On closer inspection you note that the blue colour of the door is made up of thousands of tiny interlocking painted blue roses, each slightly different from all the rest.
You examine the blue roses
An open blue door stands between the kitchen and the greenhouse. The wood is slightly tainted by the decades of greasy fumes. Staring further at the tiny roses, you note that each tiny rose is made up of
a number of small lines.
You examine the small lines
An open blue door stands between the kitchen and the greenhouse. The wood is slightly tainted by the decades of greasy fumes. On even
closer inspection the tiny lines that make up each tiny rose are themselves small roses, each different from the rest.
You examine the small roses
An open blue door stands between the kitchen and the greenhouse. The wood is slightly tainted by the decades of greasy fumes. All this staring at the blue door is giving you a headache.
You examine the power rod
The power rod of the refresher takes up half of its compartment and it hums slightly with the potent power of lead.
You take the rod
The internal lead rod is partially fused with the refresher itself and cannot be removed. The space around the rod is empty, perhaps to leave room to install additional rods.
You look at the dial
The refresher dial has two settings, contained and uncontained. It is currently set to uncontained.
You turn the dial
The refresher ceases its vibrating as you turn the dial back to contained.
You examine the refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently closed.

Inside the refresher is the somnuliser.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You examine the panel
On the back of the refresher there's a compartment for the lead rod that powers the device, a small dial for changing the time setting and an activation switch to activate the device. Imprinted on the panel
are the words "CONSULT MANUAL FOR DIAL CONFIGURATIONS".
Activate refresher
(first closing the lead compartment)
You turn the refresher on and there's a brief flash of light which
must come from the particles which clang to the somnuliser. Looking inside, you see the somnuliser.
You wait
You wait a few moments.
You go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

Hard green fruit bodies hang from the hayberry bush. The banberry
shrub is crinkled and grey with mould. The plant bed is thick with spindleweed.
Go west
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
You examine the refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently closed.

Inside the refresher is the somnuliser.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
Go west
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
Go east
You know that the spread of the spores from the somnuliser must be gaining on you quickly: at this rate you doubt you could make it
across the greenhouse.

The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You shut the blue door
You quickly slam the blue door shut.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You go east
You slip out of the door as the sleep spores spread invisibly in the greenhouse behind you.

The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.

By now the spores should be spreading out into the hallway.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

The spores will be spreading to the upper floor and enslumbering the guard.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

The spores will be seeping under the doorway into the Confessor's bedroom.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

The Confessor will be inhaling the spores, sending him into a deeper sleep.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

The spores will be dispersing almost to a safe level by now.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

You count down from ten: it should be safe to re-enter the house now.
Go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. A closed blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You go to the west
(first opening the blue door)

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.

You can also see the somnuliser here.
You examine the somnulizer
It is a spent hull, but a potent reminder that something may be amiss.
You close the refresher then turn it on
You close the refresher.

As soon as you activate the refresher, it immediately shuts off. Seems the Knights Linear were smart enough to not let the somnuliser be used more than once.
You get somnuliser
(first opening the refresher)
You get the somnuliser.
Go west
(first opening the red door)

A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. In the Banquet Hall the last revellers are taking ether and barely-enfranchised cousins are plotting in a distant drawing room.
But here this wing is quiet. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. A closed bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
You examine silver
This is a painting of a young woman with a distinctive smile. She is dressed for the Hex wars, with a swine-net and a mace. The title underneath the portrait reads: Confidante Destine.

You've never heard of this Confidante Destine, though with hundreds of the Destine clan in just the other wings of the mansion, this is perhaps no great surprise.
You look at the iron
In the painting, the Confessor himself is standing regally in his purple cloak. On one shoulder, eating out of a raised palm, is a young quailer.
You look at the bronze
Framed by bronze leaf is a diorama of the Chief Destine, founder of
his clan. In the painting he is a wearing a purple cloak and wielding an ornate dagger that is touched up against an egg of purest lead. In the background is a surprised looking goose.
You look
A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. A closed
bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
You look at the guard
She sleeps against the door, drooling only mildly. Her suit of armour is so long and heavy it actually appears to be propping her upright.
You open the white door
You open the bone door.
You examine the bone door
The open door to Confessors Destine's menagerie appears to be made of bone but on closer inspection of its organic cracks, it's obviously made from thick panels of calcified grosvair wood.
Go west
There are many great menageries in the plains: the Swinery, the Pleasure Gardens of Leaguer Mel, Eyefort Maze... this is not one of them. Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits. You get the impression that the Confessor liked the idea of having a menagerie more than he liked the idea of actually owning and caring
for live animals.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall, where the pellucid llama once lived.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
You look at the hay
A large pile of loose hay, fairly fresh, sits in a stall. Pellucid-llamas greatly prefer eating nuts and berries to grass, but will eat it if there's truly nothing else.
You search the hay
You root through the hay, but you can't find anything. You have to spend a few moments placing strands of hay back on the pile lest you leave them littered through the house.
You examine the bird
The quailer is a nervous looking brown bird that shivers every few moments as it talks endlessly to itself. Every few moments it pecks fruitlessly at the banberry stones that litter its cage.
You take the banberry stone
(first ignoring unnecessary text "banberry stone")
What do you want to take?
You look at the beetles
On closer inspection, the beetles are more like very dark blue and
they flit across the chamber disinterestedly.
You take the beetle
(the beetle chamber)
The chamber is much too big for you to lug around.
You go to the east
A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. An open bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
You go east
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a leathery red door opens the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
You go to the east
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You examine the banberry
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You take the banberries
You pluck one of the berries from the banberry shrub as they sprout before you.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You go west
Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits, not all of which are zoologically plausible.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall, where the pellucid llama once lived.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
You give the banberry to the bird
(first taking the banberry stones)
You are unable to slide your appendages through the bars of the cage.
You check your inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
an obloid red berry
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You give berry to the bird
You pop the berry into the quailer's mouth and it gulps it straight down before starting a different litany.

"Oh come on," says the quailer in the deep voice of the Confessor, "don't give me that look, it's not that unripe."
You take the banberry
You pluck one of the berries from the banberry shrub as it ripens before you.

Hard green fruit bodies hang from the hayberry bush. The banberry
shrub is crinkled and grey with mould. The plant bed is thick with spindleweed.
Continue
Before you can pluck a berry, the plant wilts in front of you.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
Go west
Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall, where the pellucid llama once lived.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
You give berry to the bird
You pop the berry into the quailer's mouth and it gulps it straight down before starting a different litany.

The quailer sings an ugly song:

sealing our secrets
and taking our tears.

It sings in the voice of the Confessor himself.
You listen
The quailer sings again its ugly song:

sealing our secrets
and taking our tears.

The song is so clunky, it's difficult to say why the Confessor would sing it.
You examine stuffed
All around the room are various stuffed beasts, all in a state of advanced dishevelment.
Up
As you arrive at the top of the slope, you reflect that a secret is only a secret if someone is invested in keeping it one. If the Confessor is a man who becomes more comfortable in his position, you would expect him to have fewer secrets as the years go on. But perhaps he is a man for whom past indiscretions, explainable at the time, become hardened into the unspeakable as the years make his past
motives less explicable.

walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, a closed purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end a closed orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.
You examine the mural
Across the ceiling is a diorama depicting the procession of the plains through the different ages. The Golden Age of plenty when gods walked the plains. The Silver Age of long childhood summers and bitter
heresy. The Bronze Age of monsters and heroes. The Iron Age of technological wonder and endless strife. And now, the Age of Lead, where all that has come will come again and all that might be will be. In the centre is the symbol of the Sinuan Theocracy, whose reason for being is to prevent the cycle of the Ages from recommencing.
You examine the plinth
On the top of the stone plinth is an indent in the shape of a dagger. It's empty. On the edge of the hilt is what appears to be a coat hook.

Looking at the plinth close up, you notice set into it is a small closed cupboard.
You examine cupboard
The cupboard is set into the plinth, tastefully out of sight. It's currently closed.
You open the cupboard
You open the cupboard, revealing the vax.
You examine the vax
a tiny plain without atmosphere that intersects its insides. From the transparent tube, you can see it currently has a pile of dust inside it, which could easily be emptied if you so desired.
You take the vax
You get the vax.
You examine the dust
The dust is floating in the vacuum like fuzzy round cow.
What is the cow
No question words are needed in commands. If you are stuck, try saying "help".
Look around
walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, a closed purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end a closed orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.
You go to the east
(first opening the orange door)

The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.
You examine the armchair
The armchair is vast and generously stuffed. Its only flaw as a chair is the bright blue livery and floral design.
You sit
You sit down on the floor.

Library (sitting down on the floor)
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.
You sit on the armchair
(getting off the floor)
You get onto the armchair.

Library (on the armchair)
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.
You examine the fireplace
The fireplace is more functional than cosy. It's a simple pit beneath
a narrow chimney, as far away from the bookcases as can be in a room entirely covered by bookcases. Sitting in the fireplace are some
ashes.
You examine the ashes
A small heap of ashes sits in the fireplace.
You take the ashes
You get off the armchair.

The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.

Taking hold of the ashes would be impossible, it'd run through your fingers or cling to your suit.
You check your inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You rub vax on the ashes
There's already a pile of dust in the vax, and if you're going to put everything back as you found it, it'd be catastrophic to mix things in there.
Empty vax
(first opening the vax)
You empty the vax carefully onto the library floor.
You rub vax on the ashes
(first closing the vax)
The ashes are sucked into the vax and are now floating in the vacuum tube within it.
You look
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.

You can see a pile of dust here.
You examine the curtains
The curtains are pair of heavy woollen fabric sheets hooked over a pole.

They are currently shut closed.
You open the curtains
You open the curtains.
You look
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Distant city light streams through the open curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.

You can see a pile of dust here.
You look at the light
(the citylight)
Light from distant cities casts a faint illumination.
You look at the bookcases
The bookcases have been shoved together precariously, leaning on one another for support. Each bookcase is labelled in a script comprised
of interwoven azure flowers and thorny stalks. The labels are the
seven eternal categories: damp, forgotten, implausible, pejorative, exhaustive, unsettling and beseeching.
Examine 13
The spine reads, Milking by Candler Shaker.
You read 13
(first taking Milking)
You open up Milking.

This is just a manual of milking techniques. The diagram for those milkers that only have hooves is particularly memorable.
You look at 7
The spine reads, Room With a Dew by Bospur.
Examine 9
The spine reads, Tome & The Clan by Pupil Dandelion.
You read 9
(first taking Tome & The Clan)
You open up Tome & The Clan.

clan that leads to a permanent cleavage of the clan. Clearly,
Dandelion is drawing from the real-life publishing of The Confessor's Burden.
Go outside
(the orange door)

walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, a closed purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end an open orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.
Go downwards
A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. An open bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
Go west
Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall, where the pellucid llama once lived.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
You examine the llama
(the empty stall)
The stall is full of hay and is about the right size to keep a large ungulate. This must be where the Confessor keeps his prized pellucid llama, one of his greatest bragging points.
You put vax in the refresher
You put the vax into the refresher.
You turn on the refresher
The light flashes, signalling that the vax within has aged three days. Looking inside, you see the vax.
You turn on the refresher
The light flashes, signalling that the vax within has aged, despite
the uncontained dial setting, only three days. Looking inside, you see the vax.
You take vax
(first opening the refresher)
Taken.
You look at vax
a tiny plain without atmosphere that intersects its insides. From the transparent tube, you can see it currently has some ashes inside it, which could easily be emptied if you so desired.
Close refresher
You close the refresher.
You turn on the refresher
The light flashes, signalling that the ashes within has aged, despite the uncontained dial setting, only three days. Looking inside, you see a parchment.
You take the parchment
(first opening the refresher)
You take the parchment. The parchment, perfectly reformed as it was precisely three days before, is a letter which reads:

Grey news, Confessor. I caught Assenter Cur sniffing around Beningnell's old office in the Holy Chambers. He asked if I had a copy of the Strictures of Forgetting. I think he knows, or at least suspects, what we have done. Send advice soon.

The Confessor is definitely hiding something here, but what? The name "Beningnell" sounds familiar but you can't quite place it. This bears further investigation.
Up
walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, a closed purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end an open orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.
Go east
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Distant city light streams through the open curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.

You can see a pile of dust here.
You look at the bookcases
The bookcases have been shoved together precariously, leaning on one another for support. Each bookcase is labelled in a script comprised
of interwoven azure flowers and thorny stalks. The labels are the
seven eternal categories: damp, forgotten, implausible, pejorative, exhaustive, unsettling and beseeching.
You look at 4
The spine reads, Strictures of Forgetting by a forgotten
writer.
You read 4
(first taking Strictures of Forgetting)
You open up Strictures of Forgetting.

The Strictures of Forgetting is a ritual that can be performed by two determined individuals. The effect of this ritual is to uncanonise someone or something targeted by the ritual. Once uncanonised the target is considered not only to no longer exist but also to have
never existed. This technique is forbidden except by a majority decision in the Holy Chamber.

A cold shiver runs through you: the Confessor must have used the Strictures of Forgetting with the accomplice that wrote to him to uncanonise someone... but who, and why?
You go to the west
(first opening the purple door)

The master bedroom of the Destine mansion is smaller than you'd expected: it only has twelve chandeliers. In the centre of the
polished wooden floor is a round bed on which is the sleeping figure
of Confessor Destine himself.

Tucked beside the bed is an unseemly bedside table. Opposite the open door east to the corridor is an open watercloset.
You look at Confessor
Confessor Destine is a tall thickset male human. He is solely responsible for holding the secrets of every believer in Sinua, including his own. He is currently fast asleep buried in the silks, wearing his ceremonial pyjamas and a dagger belt. He's lying on his stomach, breathing slowly.
You wake up confessor
You imagine the shock on his face were you to wake him... it'd be
worth a lot but not seventeen years of planning.
You examine the pyjamas
The pyjamas are finely woven, plush, and thankfully all-encompassing. You imagine they're buttoned up, but it's impossible to tell while the Confessor is lying on his front.
You look at the belt
It's a simple cloth sheath attached to a belt. The part that holds his dagger is trapped under his sleeping form.
You look at the dagger
For reasons unapparent, the dagger is made of solid gold and as such appears neither sharp nor valuable. Etched into the blade are the
words "Confessor Destine".
You look
In the centre of the polished wooden floor is a round bed on which is the sleeping figure of Confessor Destine himself.

Tucked beside the bed is an unseemly bedside table. Opposite the open door east to the corridor is an open watercloset.
You examine table
The table beside The Confessor's sleeping couch is shaped like a fist clutched around a larynx. Your throat tightens reflexively just
looking at the table.

Sitting on the table is a bowl.
You examine the bowl
It's a bowl made from a twice-fused skull of an emutant. Aside from being tactless and ugly, it is smeared with unidentified grey remains of a second dinner.

Inside the bowl is a substance scanner.
You look at the scanner
The substance scanner is a slim brass wand. A display made from liquid crystals is embedded in one side.
You take the scanner
You get the substance scanner.
You scan yourself
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over yourself but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
Scan confessor
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over Confessor Destine but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You examine display
which light up to make letters when illuminated from inside.
Scan bowl
(with the substance scanner)
The scanner picks up nothing more untoward than OATS and MOLASSES.
Go east
walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, an open purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end an open orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.
Go east
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Distant city light streams through the open curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.

You can see a pile of dust here.
Scan dust
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the pile of dust but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You examine the bed
It's a huge round bed covered in layers of silk and velvet. Confessor Destine slumbers alone in its centre.
You examine the watercloset
The open closet appears to be made of sickly chrome alloy, squatting jaundiced in an alcove of the room.

The closet is full of inscrutable holes and nozzles for human functions. You were given to believe that it is usually polite to
leave a watercloset closed, unfortunately such a minor flaw doesn't count as a secret to hold against the Confessor.
Scan closet
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the watercloset but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a substance scanner
Strictures of Forgetting
a parchment
the vax
Tome & The Clan
Milking
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You return books
Firstly Strictures of Forgetting: (first closing Strictures of Forgetting)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Tome & The Clan: (first closing Tome & The Clan)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Milking: (first closing Milking)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You go east
(first opening the window)

You struggle through the window onto Greenhouse roof, mentally making
a note to close it up with the curtains before you escape back through the intersection. As you enter into the cool night air, something
about the Confessor strikes you. As odious as the man is, as a Confessor he is without fault: he has not left a single trace of
anyone else's secrets but his own.

You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see the open curtains.
You look at the dome
The dome itself is formed of smooth tooth-glass and it reflects the distant lights of the cities in the void above. On the western edge, the dome merges into the solid rock wall of the Destine mansion.
Sing
The time for singing will be when the Confessor is undone.
You go west
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Distant city light streams through the open curtains. The open orange door leads west and the open window reveals the greenhouse roof to the east.
Close window
You close the window.
You close the curtains
You close the curtains.
Go north
The door leading to the rest of the mansion is blocked off by the guard, even if you wanted to go that way.
Attune
(the bone door)
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the bone door but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You attune bird
(with your attuning set)
The cage isn't open.
You open the cage
If you could open it, the quailer would most likely escape.
Attune beetles
(with your attuning set)
The beetle chamber isn't open.
Open Chamber
You heft open the chamber, revealing a scrap of paper stuck to the bottom of the lid.
You examine paper
A scrap of paper from a book is caught in the lid, its fellow pages presumably eaten by the beetles. It reads:

pressure applied uniformly.
mewhat dynamic, would not
so caution in aquatic climes
Close Chamber
You close the beetle chamber.
Go east
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west, opposite the closed window on the east side of the room.
You read 7
(first taking Advanced Fluid Dynamics)
You open up Advanced Fluid Dynamics.

The blurb promised to offer up the knowledge of fluid interactions,
but is instead completely hollowed out and inside is a small bottle.
You examine bottle
The small glass bottle is unmarked and filled with a reddish liquid that has crusted about the lid.
Scan bottle
(with the substance scanner)
You run the scanner over the mouth of the small bottle. You expect
some kind of spirit, though drinking is not forbidden to a Confessor. The scanner flickers up PORT. Nothing unusual there. And then, moments later, it flickers LEAD. Only the Doge is permitted to so potent a draught as lead-sweetened port. This will be awkward for the Confessor to explain in the Holy Chamber.
You go west
walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, an open purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end an open orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.
You scan mince
(with the substance scanner)
You scan the mince. The crystal display flickers and then settles on four letters PORK... that's impossible! You can hardly believe it, could it be fluke? A problem with the scanner?
Continue
(with the substance scanner)
You scan the mince again. The display settles more quickly, it says PORK again. The Confessor could have no more horrific a secret than
the fact he consumes the flesh of swines. This alone would remove him from his position, but of course it wouldn't hurt to find more dirt on him.
Go downward
With a quick intake of breath you quickly shimmy down the bone ladder.

Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall is bare. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You scan the bottles
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the wine bottles but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
Up
You take a deep breath and quickly pull yourself up the ladder.

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a leathery red door opens the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, peeled back
to reveal the space below.
You scan the paintings
What do you want to scan those things with?
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
Advanced Fluid Dynamics
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You scan yourself
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over yourself but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You scan the hay
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the pile of hay but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
Scan chamber
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the beetle chamber but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You scan bird
(with the substance scanner)
The cage isn't open.
You examine the cage
The cage, hanging from an ornate stand, is made from thousands of bird bones tied together with feathers. It's imposing, if somewhat flimsy. The bottom of the cage is littered in banberry stones.
Open Chamber
You heft open the chamber, revealing a scrap of paper stuck to the bottom of the lid.
You scan the beetles
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the beetles but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
Close Chamber
You close the beetle chamber.
You scan bone
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the bone door but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You scan Silver
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the silver framed picture but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You scan Bronze
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the bronze framed picture but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You scan guard
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the guard but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You examine the armour
The armour is a deep subsea blue and the ironwork is etched with interlocking blue roses. The Confessor seems to have felt the need to have his blue rose motif in every part of the mansion, even his
guard's uniform.
You examine silk
A pile of silk and velvet blankets spread out like a tremulous ocean surrounding the iceberg Confessor.
You attune confessor
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over Confessor Destine but the lead rods barely even shimmer; he doesn't need attuning to you.
You turn Confessor
Humans are too heavy for you to move unaided, though just about
rounded enough to lever over.
You enter the closet
The risk of setting in motion some misguided hygienic automation is enough to deter you from entering the closet. It should still be safe to open or close its door.
Close closet
You shut the watercloset door. As it clicks shut you notice on the
back of the door is a bright purple cloak.
You examine the cloak
In all his public engagements, the Confessor always wears this old purple cloak.
You wear the cloak
(first taking the cloak)
You put on the cloak.
You check your inventory
You are wearing:
a cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
Advanced Fluid Dynamics
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You open the closet
You open the watercloset.
Go east
(first opening the window)

You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see the closed curtains.
Go downwards
Sitting on the edge of the dome, you slide yourself down into the garden below.

The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.
You examine the paintings
Firstly the bronze framed picture: Framed by bronze leaf is a diorama of the Chief Destine, founder of his clan. In the painting he is a wearing a purple cloak and wielding an ornate dagger that is touched
up against an egg of purest lead. In the background is a surprised looking goose.

Then the iron framed picture: In the painting, the Confessor himself
is standing regally in his purple cloak. On one shoulder, eating out
of a raised palm, is a young quailer.

And finally the silver framed picture: This is a painting of a young woman with a distinctive smile. She is dressed for the Hex wars, with
a swine-net and a mace. The title underneath the portrait reads: Confidante Destine.
You examine Silver
This is a painting of a young woman with a distinctive smile. She is dressed for the Hex wars, with a swine-net and a mace. The title underneath the portrait reads: Confidante Destine.
You look at Iron
In the painting, the Confessor himself is standing regally in his purple cloak. On one shoulder, eating out of a raised palm, is a young quailer.
You go east
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. Dim city light filters through the crack in the curtains. The open orange door leads west and the open window reveals the greenhouse roof to the east.
You go east
You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see the closed curtains.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug again, revealing a bone ladder leading down into dark depths below.
You look at the spindleweed
The plants in the greenhouse grow and die in a rapid cycle, proceeding through all possible stages of their life endlessly due to the lead enriched soil.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You take the berries
before you.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You look
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You examine grosvair tree
In the centre of the round greenhouse is a great grosvair tree, its shaggy fur hanging in rugose strips from the calcified trunk.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You look at fur
The wrinkled strips of furry plant-matter hang suggestively from the bone white branches.

Hard green fruit bodies hang from the hayberry bush. The banberry
shrub is crinkled and grey with mould. The plant bed is thick with spindleweed.
You take the fur
That's not going anywhere.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You take the sapling
There are no berries on the banberry shrub to pick.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You take the spindleweed
You don't see any need to pick spindleweed.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You give berry to the bird
You pop the berry into the quailer's mouth and it gulps it straight down before starting a different litany.

"Are you listening bird?" snuffles a low swine voice faithfully recorded by the quailer. "Good, so Confessor, you may wonder why you have no llama now. Heh heh, Sow 17 is why. I got out, didn't you know? I know it was you that stitched us. Don't try looking for llama, I ate her. Time you hear this I be long gone. Heh, heh.".

Yes, that's definitely Sow 17's voice. Surely the Confessor would have heard that by now? But then, he hadn't wiped the record. Maybe he
still doesn't know who stole his llama. Either way, this counts as a secret: Confessor Destine doesn't really have a pellucid llama.
You look at quailer
The quailer is a nervous looking brown bird that shivers every few moments as it talks endlessly to itself. Every few moments it pecks fruitlessly at the banberry stones that litter its cage.
You examine the red door
The door is formed of a single rigid strip of red leather,
unmistakably from a letter-beast. The letter-beast door is open, allowing easy passage between the hall and the kitchen.
You examine the purple door
The door to the master bedroom is upholstered in several layers of purple keratin lace, made from untangled letter-beast claws.
You examine the orange door
The library door is a sickly orange and smells faintly of bile.
You look at 1
The spine reads, Bee Industry by Ewan Stores.
You read 1
(first taking Bee Industry)
You open up Bee Industry.

The author's debut work, a factual account of a machine he devised for the production of bees. It marks an early development in the field of apocriticism.
Examine 2
The spine reads, One Hundred Uses for Letter-Leather by
the Organisation for the Commercial Promotion of the Interests of
the Knights Linear.
You read 2
(first taking One Hundred Uses for Letter-Leather)
You open up One Hundred Uses for Letter-Leather.

By about the 34th reason, it becomes obvious that the writers have run out of good ideas but they soldier on regardless.
Examine 3
The spine reads, Treatises of Unending by the littlest
porpoise.
You read 3
(first taking Treatises of Unending)
You open up Treatises of Unending.

At the foot of each page is a series of possible pages that the reader can sensibly turn to next. Flicking to the end, you see that the last page directs you back to the first. The content is mostly mildly obfuscated body horror.
Examine 4
The spine reads, Strictures of Laxity by Yeastly
Wristman.
You read 4
(first taking Strictures of Laxity)
You open up Strictures of Laxity.

Apparently an all egg diet has one very definite effect.
Examine 5
The spine reads, Contract Ford by
They-That-Recorded.
You read 5
(first taking Contract Ford)
You open up Contract Ford.

The book contains the complete rules to Contract Ford, a game so complex that only three people are said to have ever understood the rules, which is unfortunate as the game requires four players.
Examine 6
The spine reads, Moving Celestial Bodies by the Monks of
Mambling.
You read 6
(first taking Moving Celestial Bodies)
You open up Moving Celestial Bodies.

This pamphlet details one of the many theories of the Monks of Mambling: that anything could be moved with a lever and a fulcrum and place to stand. The latter half details an experiment to this effect, in which the great curse-stone monument of Never More Unseen was toppled using a thoroughly starched python as the lever, a hypnotised pygmy elephant as the fulcrum, with the younger members of the monastery forming a human pyramid from which the abbot could stand.
The final chapter is made up geocultist ravings about the impossible geometry of the scattered stones.
Examine 7
The spine reads, Their Terrible Forms by THEY WILL NOT
FIT.
You read 7
(first taking Their Terrible Forms)
You open up Their Terrible Forms.

The author, evidently a geocultist in an advanced stage of madness, outlines everything that he has discovered about curse-stones. He appears to flirt with the view that it might not actually be possible to tessellate the stones to form a perfect solid and that those that claim to have done so are deluding themselves.
Examine 8
The spine reads, Phenomenology of Unpleasant Pastries by
Spinoza Kipling.
You read 8
(first taking Phenomenology of Unpleasant Pastries)
In order to keep track of the ordering on the shelves, you shouldn't take any more Unsettling books until you've put some back.
You return books
Firstly Their Terrible Forms: (first closing Their Terrible Forms)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Moving Celestial Bodies: (first closing Moving Celestial Bodies) You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Contract Ford: (first closing Contract Ford)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Strictures of Laxity: (first closing Strictures of Laxity)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Treatises of Unending: (first closing Treatises of Unending)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then One Hundred Uses for Letter-Leather: (first closing One Hundred Uses for Letter-Leather)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Bee Industry: (first closing Bee Industry)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Advanced Fluid Dynamics: (first closing Advanced Fluid Dynamics)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
You read 8
(first taking Phenomenology of Unpleasant Pastries)
You open up Phenomenology of Unpleasant Pastries.

The introduction reads:

Each pleasant pastry has its own unique qualities, in contrast to
every unpleasant pastry which is unpleasant due to one or more of the four-fold factors of possible pastry unpleasantness or one or more of the 15 synergistic combinations of unpleasantness, as schematised in the upcoming pages.
Examine 9
The spine reads, Never More Unseen by Abbot Spigot.
You read 9
(first taking Never More Unseen)
You open up Never More Unseen.

An incomplete history of the forming of a dread monument made from curse stones. Apparently, the undoing of the monument is recorded in detail in the unsettling volume, Moving Celestial Bodies.
You look at 10
The spine reads, Meaning and Death by M. R. Sleet.
You read 10
(first taking Meaning and Death)
You open up Meaning and Death.

This well known volume describes the process by which we attribute meaning to our actions to avoid thinking about our looming demise.
Most people consider the thesis ill considered, or at least,
unpleasant to bring up at the dinner table.
You look at 11
The spine reads, Lost Time by the Orloger.
You read 11
(first taking Lost Time)
You open up Lost Time.

This awfully clever author argues that time might not be completely circular or self-reversing and that every moment we experience will be lost to us eventually. This book never got the attention it deserved.
Examine 12
The spine reads, Love Letters by Bertrand Aleph.
You read 12
(first taking Love Letters)
You open up Love Letters.

Thankfully this isn't about the mating habits of letter beasts. According to the author, some letters are more loveable than others.
It particularly singles out lowercase "b" as the most endearing of characters. You stare at the "b" until you start to get a little creeped out.
Examine 13
The spine reads, Inverted Plains by Affronted
Mandible.
You read 13
(first taking Inverted Plains)
You open up Inverted Plains.

The first line reads: The void between plains is one of distance, potential, and time. The plains we see dimly across the void may have ceased to be or may cease to ever become.
Examine 14
The spine reads, Solarity by Naticca Wickbee.
You read 14
(first taking Solarity)
You open up Solarity.

The author explains how the glowing heat source that lights up every plain, the source obscured part of the time by the moving of other plains, is the intense point of convergence of every plain. There the interminable terminates.
You look at the bookcases
The bookcases have been shoved together precariously, leaning on one another for support. Each bookcase is labelled in a script comprised
of interwoven azure flowers and thorny stalks. The labels are the
seven eternal categories: damp, forgotten, implausible, pejorative, exhaustive, unsettling and beseeching.
You return books
Firstly Solarity: (first closing Solarity)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Inverted Plains: (first closing Inverted Plains)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Love Letters: (first closing Love Letters)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Lost Time: (first closing Lost Time)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Meaning and Death: (first closing Meaning and Death)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Never More Unseen: (first closing Never More Unseen)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Phenomenology of Unpleasant Pastries: (first closing Phenomenology of Unpleasant Pastries)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Examine 1
The spine reads, Catalogue for the Destine Library by
Confessor Destine.
You read 1
(first taking Catalogue for the Destine Library)
You open up Catalogue for the Destine Library.

The books in the library are apparently organised on shelves according to the seven eternal categories: damp, forgotten, implausible, pejorative, exhaustive, unsettling and beseeching. The location of
some of the more consulted volumes, like Personas of Note and Reliquaries of Power have been highlighted.
You look at 2
The spine reads, Springcraft by Gerald Hatchet.
You read 2
(first taking Springcraft)
You open up Springcraft.

A dictionary of springs, with some hinges thrown in for additional colour.
You look at 3
The spine reads, Strictures of Succession by Robin
Forkin.
You read 3
(first taking Strictures of Succession)
You open up Strictures of Succession.

This is a censorious tome on the rules of succession for the Destine clan. The back pages look to have been torn out quite some time ago.
You look at 4
The spine reads, Pudding Recipes by Scanner
Alltongue.
You read 4
(first taking Pudding Recipes)
You open up Pudding Recipes.

A vast compendium of puddings, a veritable dictionary of desserts,
most of which appear to include lard as their principal ingredient.
Examine 5
The spine reads, Personas of Note by Abbot Spigot.
You read 5
(first taking Personas of Note)
You open up Personas of Note.

a half plains. If you wanted to look up anyone, you would consult this book.
You look up confessor
The entry for Confessor Destine spans several pages but the section on his early life before Confessordom has been blacked out. Through the ink, you can just about make out the name "Beningnell".
You look up Beningnell
Beningnell was the fictitious title holder of the Confessordom for at least thirty years before Grover Destine nobly convinced the Theocracy that Beningnell had in fact never existed. Prior to this, he was considered to be a quiet figure who had the good fortune of being both invisible and incorporeal. How this non-person came to be Confessor is unknown but the revelation of his non-existence was the key factor in Grover Destine's ascension to the title of Confessor.

It all seems so clear now. Confessor Beningnell was a real person, although he may well have been invisible and incorporeal: some of the best people are. Grover Destine, eager for his position, performed the Strictures of Forgetting on Beningnell, uncanonising him, erasing his existence. Worse than simply killing the Confessor, he made it so he had never truly existed. This must be the Confessor's most dangerous secret.
Examine 6
The spine reads, Sinua by Well-Wisher Golden Letter.
You read 6
(first taking Sinua)
You open up Sinua.

This is a guide to the great city of Sinua and all that can be done when insinuating there.
You look at 7
The spine reads, Reliquaries of Power by Federation of
Cons.
You read 7
(first taking Reliquaries of Power)
You open up Reliquaries of Power.

This hefty tome lists what is known and what is suspected of all major and minor reliquaries that the authors thought worthy of mentioning. The tome is much too big and the print much too tiny to browse the
book succinctly, but notable reliquaries could be looked up
in the book.
You look up cloak in the Reliquaries
of powerful cloaks, you'll have to be more specific than that.
You look up Destine Cloak in the Reliquaries
The Destine Cloak: a sheet of regal purple in size 20, is one of two great relics of the Destine clan. It was woven from memories of the First Age and allows the wearer to turn gold into lead with the
Destine Dagger..
You look up Destine Dagger in the Reliquaries
The Destine Dagger: The ceremonial dagger of the Destine Clan, that always must be held by the rightful chief of the Destine Clan. Famously, etched along the blade is the name of the current chief as detailed by the Strictures of Succession. It is said to have the power to turn gold to lead when wielded with the Destine Cloak.
You look at what you're carrying with you
You are wearing:
the destine cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
Reliquaries of Power
Sinua
Personas of Note
Pudding Recipes
Strictures of Succession
Springcraft
Catalogue for the Destine Library
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You look up Winkerchief in the Reliquaries
find no clear or useful reference to winkerchief.
You examine parchment
The parchment, perfectly reformed as it was precisely three days before, is a letter which reads:

Grey news, Confessor. I caught Assenter Cur sniffing around Beningnell's old office in the Holy Chambers. He asked if I had a copy of the Strictures of Forgetting. I think he knows, or at least suspects, what we have done. Send advice soon.
You look up Cur in the Personas
The book lists three members of the Cur clan: Assenter Cur, Counter
Cur and Meredith Cur.
You look up assenter cur in the Personas
The Assenter is a prominent Cur clansman, a founding member of the Gibbous Monks and a theocrat who's role is to agree to every motion raised in the Chamber. Assenter Cur was previously known as Dissenter Cur, the official counter-advocate of the chamber, but a motion by Confessor Destine overturned that role. He lives in Sinua with life partner Counter Cur.
You look up Sow 17 in the Personas
An outlaw in seven plains, hero in three, Sow 17 is banned from re-entering Sinua and has the dubious honour of being the only swine
to have their number taken off the Swinery number register.
You look up counter cur in the Personas
Theocrat of numbers, Counter Cur is most famed for developing the theory that there is not a point at which numbers wrap around and
begin again. The Counter resides in Sinua with life partner Assenter Cur.
You look up the llama in Reliquaries
find no clear or useful reference to llama.
You look up Confidante in the Personas
Confidante Destine: Granddaughter of the Destine Doge, heir apparent
to the Destine clan, and elder sister of Confessor Destine. Declared killed in action during the Hex wars.

before she left to die in the Hex wars.
You look up chief in the Personas
Founder of the Destine clan, the Chief Destine oversaw the carving of the Destine mansion and built his fortune on turning gold into lead.
You examine the suit
(the llama-suit)
From feet to appendages to head, your form is completely covered by a thin-weave suit made wholly from the wool of the pellucid llama. It renders you undetectable to all the senses that matter, including your own.

Only the greatest of hunters can track down and capture a pellucid llama. They are invisible and silent, they emit no scent and move too fast to be easily touched. Fortunately for you, the greatest of
hunters are rarely the best treasure-keepers. You had three pellucid llamas rustled from the pleasure gardens of Leaguer Mel, who's life-work was the capturing of a herd from the outskirts of the Boundless Plains. The rustlers (Carminative Brown, Sow 17, and She-Who-Regrets) believed the plan was their own and even saved you
the trouble of the shearing. Each of them inevitably were found by Leaguer Mel's probability-hounds, along with the rustled llamas. But you fleeced the fleeces from them long before then.
You look up Leaguer Mel in the Personas
Owner of the finest menagerie and pleasure gardens in all the plains, Leaguer Mel is most famed for his impressive collection of pellucid-llamas.
You look up brown in the Personas
find no clear or useful reference to brown.
You look up she-who-regrets in the Personas
find no clear or useful reference to she who regrets.
You look up yourself in the Personas
Your distinct aim these past seventeen years has been to avoid your current identity from appearing in Personas of Note.
You examine the fireplace
The fireplace is more functional than cosy. It's a simple pit beneath
a narrow chimney, as far away from the bookcases as can be in a room entirely covered by bookcases.
You take the curtains
You get the curtains.
You look
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. The empty curtain pole hangs from brackets above the window. The open orange door leads west and the open window reveals the greenhouse roof to the east.
You take the pole
You take the pole. The curtain pole is long and sturdy and unlike most items in the mansion it doesn't appear to be made of any improbably rare material.
Lever confessor with pole
You wedge the curtain pole under the foul Confessor. Using the edge of the bed as a fulcrum, you flip him over. As you do this, one of his pyjama buttons pops off and falls into a crack in the floor. He is now lying on his back, revealing through his half-open pyjamas a tattoo that spreads across his stomach.
You examine the tattoo
The tattoo depicts a serpent twisted around in a sideways figure-of-eight, grasping its own tail in its mouth. This tells you
two things: the Confessor is or was a Leminscater and if he still is one, that means they were not all wiped out by the Knights Linear.
This nugget alone could be enough to secure his downfall.
You look up Leminscater in the Personas
find no clear or useful reference to leminscater.
You take the button
You try to squeeze your fingers into the gap between the floorboards but the gap is too deep and narrow.
Lever confessor
(with the pole)
You wedge the curtain pole under the foul Confessor. Using the edge of the bed as a fulcrum, you flip him over. He is now lying on his
stomach once again.
You take Dagger
The Confessor is lying over the sheath, rendering it completely inaccessible.
Lever confessor
(with the pole)
You wedge the curtain pole under the foul Confessor. Using the edge of the bed as a fulcrum, you flip him over. He is now lying on his back, revealing through his half-open pyjamas a tattoo that spreads across his stomach.
You take Dagger
Taken.
You examine Dagger
This is the Destine Dagger, the ancestral weapon of the Destine clan, passed down from Chief to Chief throughout the ages. Etched into the blade are the words "Confessor Destine".
You look at the plinth
On the top of the stone plinth is an indent in the shape of a dagger. It's empty. On the edge of the hilt is what appears to be a coat hook.

Looking at the plinth close up, you notice set into it is a small open cupboard.
Go west
Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall: the housing for a pellucid llama.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
Go west
In the centre of the polished wooden floor is a round bed on which is the sleeping figure of Confessor Destine himself.

through the cracks in the floor.

Tucked beside the bed is an unseemly bedside table. Opposite the open door east to the corridor is an open watercloset.
You look at the crack
You can just about see the button glinting through a crack in the floor.
Go east
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. An empty bracket juts out above the uncovered window. The open orange door leads west and
the open window reveals the greenhouse roof to the east.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug and the ground underneath is sucked into its weave, taking the button with it, revealing the menagerie below. Directly beneath you is the big mound of hay.
You look at rug
The rug is a thick slab of carpet with a beguiling pattern of interlocking keys and doors, tessellating in queasy spirals. The
button from Confessor Destine's ceremonial pyjamas has been sucked up into the weave of the rug.

You have peeled back the rug, revealing the space about a foot's
length below it.
You take the button
The button appears to be folded into the weave of the rug, safe from your invisible fingers.
You look at the button
The button has been sucked up into the weave of the rug.
You take rug
You lift up the rug entirely and a hole appears briefly underneath it before disappearing, putting the button back as it was.
You attune the button
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the button but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You look at 10
The spine reads, Refresher Settings by Office for the
Proliferation of Lead Products.
You read 10
(first taking Refresher Settings)
In order to keep track of the ordering on the shelves, you shouldn't take any more Exhaustive books until you've put some back.
You put the books back
Firstly Reliquaries of Power: (first closing Reliquaries of Power)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Sinua: (first closing Sinua)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Personas of Note: (first closing Personas of Note)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Pudding Recipes: (first closing Pudding Recipes)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Strictures of Succession: (first closing Strictures of
Succession)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Springcraft: (first closing Springcraft)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Catalogue for the Destine Library: (first closing
Catalogue for the Destine Library)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
You read the Refresher
(first taking Refresher Settings)
You open up Refresher Settings.

The manual for the refresher in the kitchen makes clear that ordinary use is limited to reverting spoiled food to its state three days
prior. It is constrained to this normal settings by the dial at the back. If the dial is set to uncontained, then the refresher will make use of the full power it has available from the lead in its compartment. Unfortunately, the standard amount of lead in the compartment has only enough power for three days any way.
You look at 13
The spine reads, Wanted For Crimes Known by the Knights
Linear.
You read 13
(first taking Wanted For Crimes Known)
You open up Wanted For Crimes Known.

pages. Upon each page is the name of an uncaught fugitive, their details disappearing from the enchanted pages upon their capture.
There are only three names: White Widow, Chromus, and Carminative Brown.
You look up white widow in wanted
WANTED: WHITE WIDOW
He-Who-Wept offers the gift of justice served to whomever slays the White Widow, killer and mother of He-Who-Trembled (formerly known as Erigone). He-Who-Trembled was a sworn brother of the Divergent
Diaspora and life-ally to He-Who-Wept and his murder must be avenged.
You look up Chromus in wanted
WANTED: CHROMUS
The Knights Linear offer a permanent death granted on behalf of anyone who presents them with information leading to the capture of Chromus, (A.K.A. King Ant/the Fathergod/his Chromeliness).
You look up brown in wanted
WANTED: CARMINATIVE BROWN
Leaguer Mel offers the sum of one extraordinary boon for the proven recapture of Carminative Brown for the crimes of Llama-Rustling, Insouciance and Grand Escape Without Explanation. Looks like Carminative got away after all. Shame about the others.
Examine 11
The spine reads, Insects That We're Pretty Sure Aren't Edible
by Ewan Stores and Jan Shore.
You read 11
(first taking Insects That We're Pretty Sure Aren't Edible)
You open up Insects That We're Pretty Sure Aren't Edible.

This book lists all insects that the authors suspect aren't edible but wouldn't want to definitively rule out. Research, we are are assured, is ongoing.
You read 14
(first taking Factional Dispentations)
You open up Factional Dispentations.

An easily-consultable history of various factions and clans.
You look up knights in factional
find no clear or useful reference to knights.
You look up linear in factional
find no clear or useful reference to linear.
You look up Knights linear in factional
A holy order of the Sinuan Theocracy, they strictly maintain that
every plain persists endlessly along exactly one axis. They regularly send scouts out to prove this hypothesis and none have come back yet. This only bolsters their claims.
You look up sinuan Theocracy in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to sinuan theocracy.
You look up leaguer in factional
find no clear or useful reference to leaguer.
You look up the swine in the Factional
The Swinery is a breeding conglomerate that produces swine. Each swine is given a unique number from a register when they are born. When a swine dies, their number is returned to the register. A swine is considered to be the same person as all prior incarnations with the same number. It is for this reason that swine do not make use of mortality refreshers.
You look up Theocracy in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to theocracy.
You look up leminscater in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to Leminscater.
You look up human in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to human.
You look up the ants in factional
find no clear or useful reference to ants.
You look up the lemniscaters in factional
A heretical sect that believe in the infinity of infinities.
You look up the letter beasts in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to letter beasts.
You look at 11
The spine reads, Mythological Possibilities by M. R.
Sleet.
You read 11
(first taking Mythological Possibilities)
You open up Mythological Possibilities.

with the study of mythic potentialities.
You look up the Mythologicians in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to Mythologicians.
Examine 12
The spine reads, Rarer Elements of Noble Design by Hum
the Drummer.
You read 12
(first taking Rarer Elements of Noble Design)
You open up Rarer Elements of Noble Design.

A thick slab bound in letter-leather, with pages made from the pulped wood of the lachrymose oak. It outlines unconventional building materials like tooth-glass and grosvair fur.
Examine 13
The spine reads, Transcendent Gardens by Roly
Lentil.
You read 13
(first taking Transcendent Gardens)
You open up Transcendent Gardens.

In which the five transcendent gardens are described. The Destine Blue Rose Garden is the third of these, famed for its perfect symmetry, complete curse-stone rockery and, of course, the unique blue roses themselves.
Examine 4
The spine reads, Strictures of Deviation by Louis
Filler.
You read 4
(first taking Strictures of Deviation)
You open up Strictures of Deviation.

This is just thinly veiled gossip couched in terms of universal principles.
You look at 12
The spine reads, Sinuan Theocracy Best Practices by
Senator Nag.
You read 12
(first taking Sinuan Theocracy Best Practices)
You open up Sinuan Theocracy Best Practices.

While ostensibly a manual detailing customs and process of the Sinuan Theocracy, it appears to have been written mostly to justify writing a lengthy preamble decrying how the whole system is hopelessly outdated and impossible to change.
You look up sinuan Theocracy in the factions
can look things up in.
You check what you're carrying
You are wearing:
the destine cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
Sinuan Theocracy Best Practices
Strictures of Deviation
Transcendent Gardens
Rarer Elements of Noble Design
Mythological Possibilities
Factional Dispentations
Insects That We're Pretty Sure Aren't Edible
Wanted For Crimes Known
Refresher Settings
a rug
the destine dagger
a pole
some curtains
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You look up Sinuan in the Factional
find no clear or useful reference to sinuan.
You return books
Firstly Sinuan Theocracy Best Practices: (first closing Sinuan Theocracy Best Practices)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Strictures of Deviation: (first closing Strictures of Deviation) You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Transcendent Gardens: (first closing Transcendent Gardens)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Rarer Elements of Noble Design: (first closing Rarer Elements of Noble Design)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Mythological Possibilities: (first closing Mythological Possibilities)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Factional Dispentations: (first closing Factional Dispentations) You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Insects That We're Pretty Sure Aren't Edible: (first closing Insects That We're Pretty Sure Aren't Edible)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Wanted For Crimes Known: (first closing Wanted For Crimes Known) You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Refresher Settings: (first closing Refresher Settings)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
You look
The library is a cramped room cluttered with bookcases that barely leave room for the armchair and the fireplace. An empty bracket juts out above the uncovered window. The open orange door leads west and
the open window reveals the greenhouse roof to the east.
You read 2
(first taking Strictures of Forgetting)
You open up Strictures of Forgetting.

The Strictures of Forgetting is a ritual that can be performed by two determined individuals. The effect of this ritual is to uncanonise someone or something targeted by the ritual. Once uncanonised the target is considered not only to no longer exist but also to have
never existed. This technique is forbidden except by a majority decision in the Holy Chamber.
You look at 4
The spine reads, Calibrations Divine by Merkin
Daily.
You read 4
(first taking Calibrations Divine)
You open up Calibrations Divine.

A dry tome on holy mechanics, the practical application of holy numbers. The diagrams on suspension bridges buoyed by disbelief could be better annotated.
Examine 1
The spine reads, The Last Days of The Red Letter by
Scarlett O'La.
You read last Days
(first taking The Last Days of The Red Letter)
You open up The Last Days of The Red Letter.

This slim volume tells of the downfall of a famous letter-beast in the Divergent Plains. The letter-beast laid claim to the Plains, marking out edges with his endless burgundy tail. Like all letter-beasts, he sublet his territory in exchange for victuals and favours. His
downfall came by the cleaving points of the Knights Linear. The book describes their first encounter:

"I will lease you all the land that you could possibly need, fair Knights, or I am not a letter-beast!" said the Red Letter, with sincerity uncommon in his kind.
"We accept your word as it stands," said the Knights Linear evenly.

But the Knights' need was great and in their attempts to halt the machinations of the Leminscaters they needed much land to grow lead groves. Soon all the land they'd let from the Red Letter had been filled and yet their lead rod requirements were nowhere near met.

"What can I do for you, fine and fair knights?" asked the Red-Letter, smiling with all his sincere mouths and frowning with all his
insincere mouths.
"Letter-beast," said the Knights Linear, "our need is greater than the land that you have let us."
The Red Letter opened his mouths for making deals and closed his
mouths for making idle talk. "Even knights, I could easily let you
more land for an appropriate price."
"You misunderstand," said the Knights, "you said that you would lease us all the land that we could possibly need or you are not a letter-beast. Our need has outstripped the land that you have leased us, and yet you are still a letter-beast."

And so, of course, the Knights Linear were entitled by their creed to undo any breakers of oaths. Upon that day they bisected the great
beast and took all his land, evicting all other tenants and selling
his great hide in millions of rectangular strips. Though the Knights Linear had merely acted justly, they gained the unearned favour of all other letter-beasts, who always rejoice when one of their kind is felled, and the unsurprising enmity of what was to become known as the Divergent Diaspora: a collective formed by many of the Red Letter's landless former tenants who mark their old landlord's demise each year with renewed vows to destroy the Knights Linear.
You take factional
Taken.
You look up divergent Diaspora in factional
You open up Factional Dispentations.

An easily-consultable history of various factions and clans.

Ex-renters of the Divergent Plain, they are spread out almost everywhere else. They nurse a blood feud with the Knights Linear and mourn the loss of the Red Letter.
You take the Personas
You get Personas of Note.
You look up red Letter in the Personas
You open up Personas of Note.

a half plains. If you wanted to look up anyone, you would consult this book.

A letter beast who previously bounded the Divergent Plains. Was killed by the Knights Linear and his body sold for leather to fund their ongoing campaigns.
Review
-> The blue rose motif appears to be everywhere in the Confessor's wing. You wouldn't be surprised if there was something untoward
beneath it all.
-> There must be some trick to opening the brick wall in the cellar, you only wish you knew more about codes.

-> You have discovered that the Confessor Destine no longer has a pellucid llama: his most valuable possession is not in his possession. -> You have learnt that Confessor Destine usurped his title by causing Confessor Beningnell to be uncanonised, removing him from veridical existence.
-> You have seen the Confessor's tattoo proclaiming him a member, at one time or other, of the Lemniscaters.
-> You have unveiled the Confessor's secret stash of lead-sweetened port, a strictly forbidden substance.
-> You have discovered the Confessor has consumed the flesh of swines.
Examine 14
The spine reads, Forbidden Libations by Narcissa
Gout.
You read 14
(first taking Forbidden Libations)
You open up Forbidden Libations.

A list of which drinks are forbidden on each plain. The most well
known is lead-sweetened port, a draught so potent only the Doge is permitted to drink it. He might have eventually ruled overwise, but since cracking open a crate of the stuff fifty years ago he hasn't appeared at any of the drink policy meetings.
You look at the bookcases
The bookcases have been shoved together precariously, leaning on one another for support. Each bookcase is labelled in a script comprised
of interwoven azure flowers and thorny stalks. The labels are the
seven eternal categories: damp, forgotten, implausible, pejorative, exhaustive, unsettling and beseeching.
You read 4
(first taking Well Known Secrets)
You open up Well Known Secrets.

There are two kinds of secrets: living secrets and dead secrets. This book explores some of the more famous dead secrets, facts which people once tried to keep hidden but now are well known. It strikes you that the Confessor must know many of the other kind of dead secret, things that no one else now knows but wouldn't care to know.
Examine 12
The spine reads, Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners by M. S.
Rawl.
You read 12
(first taking Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners)
You open up Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners.

A set of steps for an awkward formal dance of uncertain origins.
Examine 13
The spine reads, Glyphic Grammar by F. Furnaces.
You read 13
(first taking Glyphic Grammar)
You open up Glyphic Grammar.

A compendium of unlikely symbols and their untenable interpretations.
Examine 14
The spine reads, Notes Towards Jamming by Eliza
Enseled.
You read 14
(first taking Notes Towards Jamming)
You open up Notes Towards Jamming.

It's a raft of design notes detailing how a jam lock manipulates probabilities.
Examine 1
The spine reads, Marmalade by Dee 'Six' Crapps.
You read 1
(first taking Marmalade)
You open up Marmalade.

An unlikely tale set in a world in which swamps have a pleasant citric aroma. One rather suspects that Marmalade contains a
satirical subtext several layers of allegory removed from the actual description of events in the novel, such that only the most dedicated and unhinged of literary analysts could discover the true meaning of the work.
You look at 6
The spine reads, Songs and Codes by Bore Boar 44.
You read 6
(first taking Songs and Codes)
You open up Songs and Codes.

The book details the shameful practice of embedding secret codes into songs, whether revealed when played backwards or deciphered from stressed syllables. While disapproving, the work goes into some considerable detail on the mapping of the initial letters of
individual syllables in a song line to letters in code grids. The danger here being that songs can be transmitted unwillingly between people once they stick in minds, and so messages may be spread through seemingly innocent ditties that secretly function as ciphers and crypto-mnemonics.
Go east
You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see that there are no curtains.
Go downwards
Sitting on the edge of the dome, you slide yourself down into the garden below.

The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.
You go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You go to the west
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a leathery red door opens the way west into the rest of the house.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug and the ground underneath is sucked into its weave, revealing a great drop down into darkness.
Subrosa2
SAVESave successful.
Go downwards
The drop would be fatal from here.
You drop rug
Dropped.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug and the ground underneath is sucked into its weave, revealing soil and roots, nothing out of the ordinary.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You take rug
You lift up the rug entirely and a hole appears briefly underneath it before disappearing.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You look at the bricks
Firstly Brick A: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter A. This brick seems smoother than the others.

Then Brick B: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter B.

Then Brick C: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter C.

Then Brick D: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter D.

Then Brick E: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter E.

Then Brick F: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter F.

Then Brick G: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter G.

Then Brick H: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter H.

Then Brick I: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter I.

Then Brick J: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter J.

Then Brick K: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter K.

Then Brick L: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter L.

Then Brick M: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter M.

Then Brick N: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter N.

Then Brick O: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter O.

Then Brick P: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter P.

Then Brick Q: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter Q.

Then Brick R: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter R.

Then Brick S: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter S.

And finally Brick T: Etched into the brick in a series of finely rounded grooves is the letter T.
Press C
You push in Brick C.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AC.
Press f.
You push in Brick F.

D   |   E   |

G   |   H   |   I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ACF.
Press o.
You push in Brick O.

D   |   E   |

G   |   H   |   I   |   J   |


|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ACFO.

You push Brick O in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently ACFO isn't the right combination.
Press ab
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.

You push in Brick B.

C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AB.
You press the A.
You've already pushed Brick A.
Press C
You push in Brick C.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ABC.
Press d.
You push in Brick D.

E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ABCD.

You push Brick D in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently ABCD isn't the right combination.
You press the A.
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.
Press C
You push in Brick C.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AC.
Press h.
You push in Brick H.

D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ACH.
You read the Codes
The book details the shameful practice of embedding secret codes into songs, whether revealed when played backwards or deciphered from stressed syllables. While disapproving, the work goes into some considerable detail on the mapping of the initial letters of
individual syllables in a song line to letters in code grids. The danger here being that songs can be transmitted unwillingly between people once they stick in minds, and so messages may be spread through seemingly innocent ditties that secretly function as ciphers and crypto-mnemonics.
Press d.
You push in Brick D.

E   |

I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ACHD.

You push Brick D in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently ACHD isn't the right combination.
Press aost
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.

You push in Brick O.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 

|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AO.

You push in Brick S.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 

T   |


You've pushed in: AOS.

You push in Brick T.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 

You've pushed in: AOST.

You push Brick T in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently AOST isn't the right combination.
Press chst
You push in Brick C.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: C.

You push in Brick H.

D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: CH.

You push in Brick S.

D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
T   |


You've pushed in: CHS.

You push in Brick T.

D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 

You've pushed in: CHST.

You push Brick T in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently CHST isn't the right combination.
You press acsh
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.

You push in Brick C.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AC.

You push in Brick S.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
T   |


You've pushed in: ACS.

You push in Brick H.

D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
T   |


You've pushed in: ACSH.

You push Brick H in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently ACSH isn't the right combination.
You press the ACFS
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.

You push in Brick C.

D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AC.

You push in Brick F.

D   |   E   |

G   |   H   |   I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: ACF.

You push in Brick S.

D   |   E   |

G   |   H   |   I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
T   |


You've pushed in: ACFS.

You push Brick S in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently ACFS isn't the right combination.
You press aohf
You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: A.

You push in Brick O.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 

|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AO.

You push in Brick H.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |


|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AOH.

You push in Brick F.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |


|   P   |   Q   |   R   |   S   |   T   | 

You've pushed in: AOHF.

You push Brick F in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently AOHF isn't the right combination.
You press shla
You push in Brick S.

|   A   |   B   |   C   |   D   |   E   | 
|   F   |   G   |   H   |   I   |   J   | 
|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
T   |


You've pushed in: S.

You push in Brick H.

|   A   |   B   |   C   |   D   |   E   | 
I   |   J   |

|   K   |   L   |   M   |   N   |   O   | 
T   |


You've pushed in: SH.

You push in Brick L.

|   A   |   B   |   C   |   D   |   E   | 
I   |   J   |

M   |   N   |   O   |

T   |


You've pushed in: SHL.

You push in Brick A.

B   |   C   |   D   |   E   |

I   |   J   |

M   |   N   |   O   |

T   |


You've pushed in: SHLA.

You push Brick A in and after a moment is slides back to its original position along with all the other bricks on the wall. Apparently SHLA isn't the right combination.
Go west
You find yourself in a damp cavern strewn with aged trash that extends out into darkness. You know it's a dungeon by all the dangling manacles. The opening in the brick wall leads back east to the wine cellar.

Lying among the detritus is a pristine white skull.

Discarded on one side is a huge sack of gold coins.
You examine the manacles
attraction.
You examine the coins
The sack is almost overflowing with gold coins of various shapes and sizes. With inflation as it is, they're all practically worthless.
You take the sack
You get the sack of gold coins.
You touch the sack with Dagger
With the full weight of the cloak upon your back, you touch the tip of the dagger on the gold within the sack. The sack immediately becomes lighter in your grasp as the coins, staying the same size, grow duller in colour. They lose their lustre and become grey; one moment they are gold and the next they are lead.
You scan the skull
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the skull but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You take the skull
You get the skull.
You look
You find yourself in a damp cavern strewn with aged trash that extends out into darkness. You know it's a dungeon by all the dangling manacles. The opening in the brick wall leads back east to the wine cellar.
Review
-> The blue rose motif appears to be everywhere in the Confessor's wing. You wouldn't be surprised if there was something untoward
beneath it all.
-> Ongoing: you've found a skull, but you've yet to discover who it once belonged to.

-> You have discovered that the Confessor Destine no longer has a pellucid llama: his most valuable possession is not in his possession. -> You have learnt that Confessor Destine usurped his title by causing Confessor Beningnell to be uncanonised, removing him from veridical existence.
-> You have seen the Confessor's tattoo proclaiming him a member, at one time or other, of the Lemniscaters.
-> You have unveiled the Confessor's secret stash of lead-sweetened port, a strictly forbidden substance.
-> You have discovered the Confessor has consumed the flesh of swines.
Go east
Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall has swung ajar. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You examine trash
Scraps of bone, cloth and rusted shards litter the cavern floor.
Inventory
You are wearing:
the destine cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a skull
a sack of lead coins
Songs and Codes
Marmalade
Notes Towards Jamming
Glyphic Grammar
Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners
Well Known Secrets
Forbidden Libations
Personas of Note
Factional Dispentations
The Last Days of The Red Letter
Calibrations Divine
Strictures of Forgetting
the destine dagger
a pole
some curtains
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You examine the coins
The sack is full of perfect lead replicas of the gold coins that were previously in the sack.
You look
You find yourself in a damp cavern strewn with aged trash that extends out into darkness. You know it's a dungeon by all the dangling manacles. The opening in the brick wall leads back east to the wine cellar.
You put the skull in the Refresher
You put the skull into the refresher.
You turn on the refresher
The light flashes, signalling that the skull within has aged, despite the uncontained dial setting, only three days. Looking inside, you see a skull.
You check your inventory
You are wearing:
the destine cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a sack of lead coins
Songs and Codes
Marmalade
Notes Towards Jamming
Glyphic Grammar
Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners
Well Known Secrets
Forbidden Libations
Personas of Note
Factional Dispentations
The Last Days of The Red Letter
Calibrations Divine
Strictures of Forgetting
the destine dagger
a pole
some curtains
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You turn the dial
The refresher ceases its vibrating as you turn the dial back to contained.
Open Refresher
You open the refresher.
You look in the Refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently open.

Inside the refresher is a skull.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You put the attuner in the compartment
get the attuning set only to disrupt its fortune matrix in some
kitchen appliance.
You look up the skull in the Reliquaries
find no clear or useful reference to skull.
You look at 6
The spine reads, Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity by
Pupil Dandelion.
You read 6
(first taking Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity)
You open up Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity.

In this, one of her later volumes, Dandelion puts forward a lengthy treatise arguing that the best way of determining the father in uncertain cases is by the application of pataphysical enchantment.
What one of those is, is anyone's guess.
You look at 6
The spine reads, Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads by
Perses the 13th.
You read 6
(first taking Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads)
You open up Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads.

What makes a toad unsightly isn't its texture or croak, for that much we expect from a toad. No, what makes a toad truly dreadful is its resemblance to ourselves. Its stretched mouth and bulging eyes and
face of warts would not be hideous if we did not have mouths and eyes and warts of our own.
Examine 1
The spine reads, Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice by Guy
Sogg.
You read 1
(first taking Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice)
You open up Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice.

From a brief scan through the pages, Guy is making an impassioned plea to the Sinuan Theocracy to reassess the justice of the Knights Linear. While the Confessor has made room for the tome in his library, none of the recommendations have been taken up.
Examine 9
The spine reads, Forbidden Foods by the Theocracy of
Sinua.
You read 9
(first taking Forbidden Foods)
You open up Forbidden Foods.

An up-to-the-minute list of all edibles of which the Theocracy proscribes consumption. Eating the flesh of fellow sentient beings is banned with a discretionary exception made for apostates. Lead-sweetened port, pellucid-llamas, and plains of any size also make the list.
You attune the skull
(with your attuning set)
You run the attuning set lightly over the skull but the lead rods barely even shimmer; it doesn't need attuning to you.
You put the sack in the compartment
The lead compartment is closed.
You open compartment
You open the lead compartment, revealing a power rod.
You put the coins in the compartment
You put the sack of lead coins into the lead compartment.
Close lead compartment
You close the lead compartment.
Open Refresher
(the refresher)
That's already open.
You put the skull in Refresher
(Refresher Settings)
There is no more room in Refresher Settings.
You look at Refresher
(the refresher)
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently open.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You open power compartment
(first ignoring unnecessary text "compartment")
You open up Reliquaries of Power.

This hefty tome lists what is known and what is suspected of all major and minor reliquaries that the authors thought worthy of mentioning. The tome is much too big and the print much too tiny to browse the
book succinctly, but notable reliquaries could be looked up
in the book.
You drop the books
Firstly Refresher Settings: As you put down Refresher Settings you
feel a brief moment of unburdening, a release from the tyranny of holding, gathering, collecting.
Then Forbidden Foods: Dropped.
Then Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice: Dropped.
Then Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads: You drop Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads.
Then Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity: You drop Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity.
Then Reliquaries of Power: Dropped.
Then Songs and Codes: Dropped.
Then Marmalade: You drop Marmalade.
Then Notes Towards Jamming: Dropped.
Then Glyphic Grammar: Dropped.
Then Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners: You drop Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners.
Then Well Known Secrets: You drop Well Known Secrets.
Then Forbidden Libations: You drop Forbidden Libations.
Then Personas of Note: Dropped.
Then Factional Dispentations: You drop Factional Dispentations.
Then The Last Days of The Red Letter: Dropped.
Then Calibrations Divine: Dropped.
And finally Strictures of Forgetting: Dropped.
You turn on Refresher
coins you placed within it. The light flashes off of it and the
machine is unfathomably black with the complete absence of light for a long time before returning to its usual state. Looking inside, you see what is unmistakably a human head.
You examine the head
It's the head of Confidante Destine from the portrait.

The story is clear now: Confidante Destine never died ashore, but here in the mansion with her title appropriated by the Confessor himself.
It will be difficult for Confessor Destine to spin something innocent out of this.
You take the head
(first opening the refresher)
You get the human head.
Go west
A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. An open bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.

You can also see Strictures of Forgetting, Calibrations Divine, The Last Days of The Red Letter, Factional Dispentations, Personas of
Note, Forbidden Libations, Well Known Secrets, Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners, Glyphic Grammar, Notes Towards Jamming, Marmalade, Songs
and Codes, Reliquaries of Power, Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity, Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads, Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice, Forbidden Foods and Refresher Settings here.
You put the head in Chamber
You put the human head into the beetle chamber.

The pupae have begun crawling across the face, tearing the flesh.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

The pupae now cover the head, with half the nose already gone.
You wait
You wait a few moments.

The pupae have started work on the the hair, it begins to swiftly disappear.
You keep going
You wait a few moments.

The pupae have now torn through the head, with most of the skin gone and you suspect they're making progress on the brain.
Continue
You wait a few moments.

The hair and skin have disappeared and you see inside that most of the brain and fat of the flesh has been consumed. The flesh eating beetles don't appear to be interested in the eyes though.
Continue
You wait a few moments.

The final patches of fat are consumed and the pupae drop off the now pristine skull.
You take the books
Firstly Strictures of Forgetting: Taken.
Then Calibrations Divine: Taken.
Then The Last Days of The Red Letter: You get The Last Days of The Red Letter.
Then Factional Dispentations: You get Factional Dispentations.
Then Personas of Note: You get Personas of Note.
Then Forbidden Libations: You get Forbidden Libations.
Then Well Known Secrets: As you take Well Known Secrets you spare a passing thought for all the things that have passed through your appendages to be stashed or stowed or forgotten about, thousands of medium sized dry goods disappearing into your past.
Then Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners: Taken.
Then Glyphic Grammar: You get Glyphic Grammar.
Then Notes Towards Jamming: Taken.
Then Marmalade: You get Marmalade.
Then Songs and Codes: Taken.
Then Reliquaries of Power: You get Reliquaries of Power.
Then Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity: As you take Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity you spare a passing thought for all the things that have passed through your appendages to be stashed or stowed or forgotten about, thousands of medium sized dry goods disappearing into your past.
Then Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads: As you take Treatise
Regarding Unsightly Toads you spare a passing thought for all the things that have passed through your appendages to be stashed or
stowed or forgotten about, thousands of medium sized dry goods disappearing into your past.
Then Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice: Taken.
Then Forbidden Foods: You get Forbidden Foods.
And finally Refresher Settings: Taken.
You return books
Firstly Refresher Settings: (first closing Refresher Settings)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Forbidden Foods: (first closing Forbidden Foods)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice: (first closing Enquiry Concerning Linear Justice)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads: (first closing Treatise Regarding Unsightly Toads)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Pataphysics as a Guide to Paternity: (first closing Pataphysics
as a Guide to Paternity)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Reliquaries of Power: (first closing Reliquaries of Power)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Songs and Codes: (first closing Songs and Codes)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Marmalade: (first closing Marmalade)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Notes Towards Jamming: (first closing Notes Towards Jamming)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Glyphic Grammar: (first closing Glyphic Grammar)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners: (first closing Quanto-Dispaine for Beginners)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Well Known Secrets: (first closing Well Known Secrets)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Forbidden Libations: (first closing Forbidden Libations)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Personas of Note: (first closing Personas of Note)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Factional Dispentations: (first closing Factional Dispentations) You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then The Last Days of The Red Letter: (first closing The Last Days of The Red Letter)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then Calibrations Divine: (first closing Calibrations Divine)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Strictures of Forgetting: (first closing Strictures of Forgetting)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Inventory
You are wearing:
the destine cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a skull
the destine dagger
a pole
some curtains
a substance scanner
a parchment
the vax
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You hang the pole
What do you want to hang the pole on?
You hang the pole on the bracket
You put the pole on the bracket.
You examine the bracket
Above the window is a bracket where the curtain pole currently sits.
You hang the curtains on the pole
You put the curtains on the pole.
Close window
You close the window.
You close the curtains
You close the curtains.
Go east
(first opening the window)

You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see the closed curtains.
You put vax in the cupboard
You put the vax into the cupboard.
You take vax
You get the vax.
Empty vax
(first opening the vax)
You empty the vax gently onto the master bedroom floor.
You rub vax on the crack
(first closing the vax)
The button is sucked into the vax and is now floating in the vacuum tube within it.
You take the button
(first opening the vax)
Taken.
Examine button
The button, smooth and made of lead, is from Confessor Destine's ceremonial pyjamas.
You check what you're carrying
You are wearing:
the destine cloak
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a button
the vax
a skull
the destine dagger
a substance scanner
a parchment
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
Review
-> The blue rose motif appears to be everywhere in the Confessor's wing. You wouldn't be surprised if there was something untoward
beneath it all.

-> You have discovered that the Confessor Destine no longer has a pellucid llama: his most valuable possession is not in his possession. -> You have learnt that Confessor Destine usurped his title by causing Confessor Beningnell to be uncanonised, removing him from veridical existence.
-> You have seen the Confessor's tattoo proclaiming him a member, at one time or other, of the Lemniscaters.
-> You have unveiled the Confessor's secret stash of lead-sweetened port, a strictly forbidden substance.
-> You have discovered the Confessor has consumed the flesh of swines. -> You have found out that the scattered remains of the prior heir to the Destine Clan were in the Confessor's dungeon.
You scan bush
(with the substance scanner)
You run the substance scanner over the rose bush but the scanner doesn't pick anything up of note.
You go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. An open blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
You look up roses in Gardens
find no clear or useful reference to roses.
You read 16
(first taking What We Did During Our Holidays)
You open up What We Did During Our Holidays.

A collection of exciting vignettes involving explosions, foot-chases, and murder without consequence. The foreword says that the stories are all based on the truth but that is true of all good lies.
You go east
(first ignoring unnecessary text "beseeching")
In the dim light, you can't see much beyond your immediate surroundings.
You drop rug
You manage to find a small patch of space to lay out the rug among the tight maze of flowers: the only other place flat enough would be the rockery.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug and the ground underneath is sucked into its weave. Beneath is a solid mat of thick packed soil, the roots for the roses must be concentrated elsewhere.
You put rug in the rockery
You put the rug on the rockery.
You look under rug
You pull back the rug and the ground underneath is sucked into its weave. Beneath the rockery is a tangle of roots that all feed into a large pot.
You look at the pot
A vast brass pot is buried beneath the rose bush, the thigh-thick
roots drooping into its stygian depths. It's too deep and the space left by the roots too narrow to see what could be in the pot.
You scan pot
(with the substance scanner)
You run the scanner over the lip of the brass pot, the scanner runs through a series of trace organic substances you'd expect to find in soil, including LAVENDER which would explain why the roses have the smell they do. Finally it settles upon SUBSEA.
You look at 5
The spine reads, History of Subsea by Dariush Djinn.
You read 5
(first taking History of Subsea)
You open up History of Subsea.

Subsea is a bright blue rock found at the bottom of the ocean. This book explains the processes by which it is recovered from the ocean floor and ground into a fine powder and from there used to make blue dyes.

Subsea is a blue dye! The Confessor has a pot of blue dye beneath his famous rose garden, that's why they're blue! No, more than that, the symbol of the Destine clan, the blue rose itself, is a lie.
You return books
Firstly History of Subsea: (first closing History of Subsea)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
Then What We Did During Our Holidays: (first closing What We Did
During Our Holidays)
You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
And finally Transcendent Gardens: (first closing Transcendent Gardens) You slot the book back on the shelf where it belongs.
You go east
You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see the closed curtains.
Go west
In the centre of the polished wooden floor is a round bed on which is the sleeping figure of Confessor Destine himself.

Tucked beside the bed is an unseemly bedside table. Opposite the open door east to the corridor is an open watercloset.

You can also see a pile of dust here.
You rub vax on the dust
(first closing the vax)
The pile of dust is sucked into the vax and is now floating in the vacuum tube within it.
You hang Cloak on the door
Putting things on the purple door would achieve very little of use.
Close watercloset
You close the watercloset.
Hang cloak
What do you want to hang the destine cloak on?
You look at the watercloset
The closed closet appears to be made of sickly chrome alloy, squatting jaundiced in an alcove of the room.

The closet is full of inscrutable holes and nozzles for human functions.
You examine the door
The door to the master bedroom is upholstered in several layers of purple keratin lace, made from untangled letter-beast claws.
You hang Cloak on the watercloset door
(first taking it off)
You put the destine cloak on the watercloset.
You open the watercloset
You open the watercloset and the cloak behind the watercloset door is once again hidden from view.
You look at the cupboard
The cupboard is set into the plinth, tastefully out of sight. You've left it wide open with the vax inside it.
You close the cupboard
You close the cupboard.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a button
a skull
the destine dagger
a substance scanner
a parchment
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You put Dagger in the sheath
You put the destine dagger into the sheath.
You take the pole
You'd have to remove the curtains first, otherwise this is asking for tangling.
You take pole
You get the pole.
You put the Scanner in the bowl
You put the substance scanner into the bowl.
You put the button on Confessor
Putting things on Confessor Destine would achieve very little of use.
Lever confessor
(with the pole)
You wedge the curtain pole under the foul Confessor. Using the edge of the bed as a fulcrum, you flip him over. He is now lying on his
stomach once again.
You hang the curtains
What do you want to hang the curtains on?
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a button
a skull
a parchment
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You go east
You stand on the apex of the perfectly reflective dome embedded in the side of the Destine mansion. The blue rose garden lies below you to
the east. If you squint at the night, you can just about make out the intersection that leads back to the Mambling Plains.

To your west is the open window to the Confessor's library, through which you can see the closed curtains.
Go east
Sitting on the edge of the dome, you slide yourself down into the garden below.

The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.

You can also see a brass pot here.
Go west
Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a leathery red door opens the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, lying flat by your feet.
Open Lead
You open the lead compartment, revealing a sack of lead coins and a power rod.
Close Lead
(the sack of lead coins)
The sack is bulging with coins so much it can't be shut.
Close compartment
You close the lead compartment.
Review
-> You have discovered that the Confessor Destine no longer has a pellucid llama: his most valuable possession is not in his possession. -> You have learnt that Confessor Destine usurped his title by causing Confessor Beningnell to be uncanonised, removing him from veridical existence.
-> You have discovered that the famous blue rose of the Destine clan
is caused by the rose drinking water dyed subsea blue.
-> You have seen the Confessor's tattoo proclaiming him a member, at one time or other, of the Lemniscaters.
-> You have unveiled the Confessor's secret stash of lead-sweetened port, a strictly forbidden substance.
-> You have discovered the Confessor has consumed the flesh of swines. -> You have found out that the scattered remains of the prior heir to the Destine Clan were in the Confessor's dungeon.

You've now found all seven deceits of Confessor Destine. Now all that remains is to ensure that everything is back where you found it before leaving through the intersection.
You put the sack in Refresher
It's always preferable to clean out refreshers before reusing to avoid cross-contamination.
You examine Refresher
The refresher is a small transparent box that sits on the counter and hums constantly. It's a common sight in kitchens, used for
rejuvenating food that has turned bad. When activated, it can
restore food to whatever state it was in three days prior to use. It's currently open.

Inside the refresher is a red smear.

There's a panel at the back for finer calibrations.
You look at the smear
A copper-coloured stain that smells of iron. It cakes the bottom of
the refresher.
Clean smear
(with the Winkerchief)
You scour the inside of the refresher with your winkerchief, soaking
up the red stain until the device is as pristine as it was before.
You put the coins in Refresher
You put the sack of lead coins into the refresher.
You turn on Refresher
The light flashes, signalling that the sack of lead coins within has aged, despite the uncontained dial setting, only three days. Looking inside, you see a sack of gold coins.
You go down
With a quick intake of breath you quickly shimmy down the bone ladder.

Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall has swung ajar. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You press ahlt
With the wall wide open, pushing the bricks does nothing.

With the wall wide open, pushing the bricks does nothing.

With the wall wide open, pushing the bricks does nothing.

With the wall wide open, pushing the bricks does nothing.
You look
You find yourself in a damp cavern strewn with aged trash that extends out into darkness. You know it's a dungeon by all the dangling manacles. The opening in the brick wall leads back east to the wine cellar.

You can see a sack of gold coins and a skull here.
Go east
Three brick walls of the wine cellar are lined with racks, burgeoned with bottles. The western wall has swung ajar. The bone ladder leads back up to the kitchen.
You close the wall
You place two appendages against the rough brick wall and push. At first it doesn't budge. The fear of leaving a trace rises. But with a little more force it slides shut.
Inventory
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
a button
a parchment
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief
You put parchment on the stove
You put the parchment on the stove.
You turn on the stove
The letter wrinkles up and quickly turns to ash as heat pours out from the stove.
You turn off the stove
You turn off the stove and the heat quickly dissipates.
You take the ashes
Taking hold of the ashes would be impossible, it'd run through your fingers or cling to your suit.
Empty vax
(first opening the vax)
You empty the vax carefully onto the upper walkway floor.
Up
walkway juts out, a long drop on either side. On its western end, an open purple door leads into the master bedroom, and on its eastern end an open orange door leads into the library.

A stone plinth in the shape of a down-turned dagger is the only furniture here, and the ceiling mural is the only decoration.

You can also see a pile of dust here.
You attach the button to the pyjamas
You tie the button back on to the loose thread of the confessor's pyjamas.
You hang the pole on the curtains
Putting things on the curtains would achieve very little of use.
Close Refresher
That's already closed.
You close the red door
You close the red door.
You close the blue door
You close the blue door.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
Go west
(first opening the blue door)

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, lying flat by your feet.
Go west
(first opening the red door)

A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. An open bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
You close the purple door
You close the purple door.
You close the orange door
You close the orange door.
You close the bone door
You close the bone door.
You go to the west
(first opening the bone door)

Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall: the housing for a pellucid llama.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
You look at what you're carrying with you
You are wearing:
your llama-suit

You are carrying:
the somnuliser
the attuning set
a Winkerchief

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You go east
The Blue Rose Garden is comprised of a single rose bush grown to magnificent proportions. Its offshoots form a prickled boundary, enclosing the garden. At precise intervals, blue roses grow. From a rockery in the centre of the garden, from which all the offshoots
stem, is the core bush and from it grows a pristine bouquet.

The Destine mansion rises up to the west. A maze of flowers are reflected in the tooth-glass dome of the greenhouse, its sliding door almost completely flush with the unpanelled pane.
You close sliding door
The door scrapes shut, its jam lock jamming it shut once again.
Review
Most of the Confessor's secrets are bound to be in his wing of the mansion: you've got to find a way in.

-> You have discovered that the Confessor Destine no longer has a pellucid llama: his most valuable possession is not in his possession. -> You have learnt that Confessor Destine usurped his title by causing Confessor Beningnell to be uncanonised, removing him from veridical existence.
-> You have discovered that the famous blue rose of the Destine clan
is caused by the rose drinking water dyed subsea blue.
-> You have seen the Confessor's tattoo proclaiming him a member, at one time or other, of the Lemniscaters.
-> You have unveiled the Confessor's secret stash of lead-sweetened port, a strictly forbidden substance.
-> You have discovered the Confessor has consumed the flesh of swines. -> You have found out that the scattered remains of the prior heir to the Destine Clan were in the Confessor's dungeon.

You've now found all seven deceits of Confessor Destine. Now all that remains is to ensure that everything is back where you found it before leaving through the intersection.
Subrosa3
SAVESave successful.
Go west
(first opening the sliding door)
On a regular night it would be bound to be jammed shut, but there's a possibility it could open in your favour.
You attune the sliding door
(with your attuning set)
The lead rods of the set shimmer and you feel an intense feeling of rightness with the sliding door: it is attuned to you, for now.
You open the sliding door
The door slides open.
Go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. A closed blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You close the sliding door
The door scrapes shut, its jam lock jamming it shut once again.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
Go west
(first opening the blue door)

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, lying flat by your feet.
You close the blue door
You close the blue door.
Go west
(first opening the red door)

A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. A closed
bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
You enter the intersection
You step through the intersection and after a long walk through mud, you change your outfit in the next plain, and then again in the next, shedding cover identities like second skins as you move your way towards the centre of the plains: to the city of Sinua.

When you arrive you are who you once were, the Orloger, a theocrat
with an obsolete role whose absence from the Chamber was surely not missed. You declare that you will be leading the next session to Assenter Cur who doesn't appear surprised at your sudden arrival.

Within the hour you are standing before the Holy Chamber, dozens of theocrats" eyes upon you, the Confessor himself sitting in the centre.

"Murder, pig-eating, heresy and usurpation," you begin. "These are the charges I level at Confessor Destine."

A wave of shock ripples across the theocrats. You lay before your
peers the seven deceits of Confessor Destine, each time raising your voice above the outraged cries of the crowd. Throughout, the Confessor remains silent, coldly assessing you.

"But do not take my word," you say, "search the Destine mansion and there all the evidence you will find.

"Search all you like, you will find nothing of the sort," the
Confessor says with a slither of a smile. You suspect he discovered
his home was broken into and took steps to conceal what might have
been discovered.

And right enough, no evidence of serious ill-doing was found although he had no time to procure a new llama and the rose cuttings taken turned white when grown elsewhere. While still the Confessor, all
trust in Destine had eroded and a faction installed his absent grandfather the Doge as head of the clan.

And as for you? Your position in the Theocracy is no longer tenable, sneakthieves are not untrusted no matter their motives. As they drive you out the chamber you cast your eyes across Sinua: if it takes seventeen more years, you will be back and back for good.
Reveal
During your visit to Confessor Destine's Mansion, the following things were left out of place.

The pair of eyes was left in the beetle chamber.
The gourd was left open.
The quailer was left singing the wrong tune.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command or REVEAL the items that were not left as they were found?
You go west
(first opening the window)
The window can only be opened from inside the library.
Go west
The greenhouse of the Destine mansion is a tooth-glass dome. The glass reflects back the light and heat of a microscopic sun that slowly orbits a huge grosvair tree. A variety of plants grow, bloom and die
on a long plant bed.

On the east of the greenhouse an open sliding door leads back out to the rose garden. A closed blue door leads west into the house.

The hayberry bush is bare, its leaves small and its branches stubby. Hard red berries hang like droplets from the banberry shrub. The spindleweed leaves are long and thin.
You close the sliding door
The door scrapes shut, its jam lock jamming it shut once again.

Small yellow flowers blossom across the hayberry bush. The banberry shrub is covered in dozens of black obloid berries. The spindleweed stalks have grown higher and the leaves broader.
You take the banberry
You pluck one of the berries from the banberry shrub as it ripens before you.

Hard green fruit bodies hang from the hayberry bush. The banberry
shrub is crinkled and grey with mould. The plant bed is thick with spindleweed.
You take the banberry
Before you can pluck a berry, the plant wilts in front of you.

The hayberry bush is laden with bright red round berries. The banberry shrub is a small sapling. The spindleweed is in thin yellow strands.
You close the sliding door
That's already closed.

The hayberry bush is dead, rotting on the soil. Large white flowers blossom on the banberry shrub. Tiny sprouts of spindleweed are
growing.
Go west
(first opening the blue door)

Confessor Destine's personal kitchen is small: certainly less than
half an acre of countertops. In the centre, by the refresher, is a heating stove and a cooling slab. An open blue door leads into the greenhouse to the east, whilst a closed leathery red door bars the way west into the rest of the house.

Clashing with the kitchen's decor is an ugly square rug, lying flat by your feet.
Go west
(first opening the red door)

A tall round chamber, the reception room for The Confessor's personal wing of the house. The north door leads off into other wings of the mansion where other members of the Destine clan live and work. A long slope curves up round the chamber, looping several times. A closed
bone white door leads west and an open red door east.

Along the walls are three paintings, framed in silver, bronze and
iron.

The Confessor's guard slumbers in her ornate iron armour by the door leading north to the rest of the mansion.
You go to the west
(first opening the bone door)

Confessor Destine has little taste in either selection or arrangement. The open bone door leads east.

Unfortunately, most of the 'menagerie' is made up of stuffed exhibits.

First the visitor is greeted by a pile of hay in an empty stall: the housing for a pellucid llama.

Then they see a worried looking bird mumbling to itself in a cage.

Finally, at the back of the room, they see a glass chamber swarming with shiny black beetles.
You take the eyes
You take the pair of eyes. These eyes are mottled chrome yellow. In
the right hands, everything these eyes ever saw could be known.
Close Chamber
You close the beetle chamber.
You feed berry to the bird
You pop the berry into the quailer's mouth and it gulps it straight down before starting a different litany.

The quailer sings again its ugly song:

sealing our secrets
and taking our tears.

Each of the 4 lines of this song has 5 syllables in it.
.
You enter the intersection
Telling someone's secret always reveals two people. To speak these deceits in front of an assembly of theocrats would be to reveal yourself as a sneakthief. It would be your own undoing as well as the Confessor's.

Confident that Destine would be none the wiser about your break in,
you take a few months planting seeds of doubt through proxies. You leave dossiers on the desks of rival family members and leak libellous details to pamphleteers in Sinua. You are in the chamber dressed as an Orloger, your first skin. Beningnell's illicit uncanonising has just been discovered through forensic continuity rituals and Cecil Destine has confessed to his part in it in exchange for banishing to the Hex lands. The Confessor's face is haggard, worn down by the burden of the last few months.

"All in favour of appointing a new Confessor?" calls Boar Bore 44. The chamber is unanimous.

"I veto!" shouts the Confessor.

"Veto this!" cries the Bore, goring him with his left tusk, rending
him unfit to practice. The Confessor grasps his side as he is dragged screaming from the chamber.

In the fallout none are blameless and all suspect all of conspiring with Destine. None are blameless, that is, except for you who have
been absent from the chamber all these years. Within the month you are chosen as the new Confessor, which was your goal all along...
You press space
A year later you sit in your booth, listening to a confession.

"I am not Confessor Destine," says the voice behind the screen, "I no longer have that title. My clan has cast me aside, I no longer bear that name. I am nameless and I am leaving and I will stop at
nothing to bring you down."

But you leave nothing unconsidered.

"You are not leaving for you never were to begin with," you say as you signal to Assenter Cur across the chamber and pull out a copy of the Strictures of Forgetting...
Reveal
Congratulations on leaving no trace. Throughout the game there are multiple hints that the protagonist is not a human. They are in fact a giant ant with opposable digits, best known in the theocracy as the Orloger. Their role in the theocracy was to count the turning of the ages (to prevent the Lead Age from ending and a Golden Age from arising). Since the Theocracy of Sinua successfully prevents the ages from turning (by way of various rituals), the Orloger doesn't have an active role. Like any theocrat, they can submit and vote on measures
in the Holy Chamber; but like most, there's not much expectation that they actually will (in part due to the power the Confessor has over proceedings with his power of veto). As such, they can get away with being absent for decades on end without anyone really noticing.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command or REVEAL the full identity of the protagonist?