Walkthrough: Act 3, Corran

The act at a glance Open page

(Idea) The act's shape, with the Story Bible's beats placed in it:

(Idea) Party: Aske walks with the player for the whole act. Tamsin joins at the Hour Stair and stays to the end of chapter 5. Rook appears at the Sallow warp (by report) and in person at Corran's waking. Aske does not fight: she has not cast in twenty years and casts exactly once, in chapter 5.

(Idea) Play length: about three hours on the main line, plus side content.

Chapter 1: The warps reach home Open page

Glints by daylight

• Where: the Sallow Road (overworld), arriving at Sallowbank by the south road; then Sallowbank square (Event_square).
• When: Act 2 done (act2.done = 1). Sets act3.stage to 1 when the fight is won.
• Who: Tobin, Marra Hesk, Fenn; glints.
• What happens: (Idea) On the road home the player passes the first new warp on the overworld, a thin white crack in a field with frost-like glass around it. Sallowbank looks wrong from the hill: the river is mirror-flat at noon, and glints are in the square in daylight, which has never happened. Marra has the children inside the bakehouse. Fenn is outside alone, pressing both thumbs on a chalk door-mark on the fence and shouting at the glints.
• Player does: move; fight (glint pack, then a glint brute climbing out of the river); talk to Tobin, Marra and Fenn afterwards.
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Return_Hill, Act3_Square_Glints, Act3_Square_After; villager variants Act3_Villager_Tobin, Act3_Villager_Marra, Act3_Villager_Fenn (all three change again after 1.2).
  • Encounters: sallowbank_glints (glint pack), sallowbank_brute (glint brute).
  • Flags: act3.stage = 1.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Sallowbank daytime variant with a mirror-flat river (water shader with reflection turned up, no ripples); the overworld field-warp landmark; glint and glint brute models (VEL-38 and the creature brief); music: the Sallowbank theme, flattened and slowed, under a held drone.
• Screens used: overworld HUD, dialogue panel, battle HUD.

Aske leaves the ferry

• Where: Aske's barn by the ferry (Event_barn), then the ferry landing (Event_ferry).
• When: act3.stage = 1. Sets act3.stage to 2 and companion.aske to 1.
• Who: Aske, Tobin; the training golem.
• What happens: (Idea) Aske is in the barn pulling the sail off the training golem. The glints came up the Sallow from the warp, and the warp has doubled since the prologue. The player has to go upstream to Corran, where the Sallow starts and where the warps go wrong first. Aske has not set foot in Corran for twenty years, and she wants to see its warp before anyone else seals it. She does not offer to come. If the player asks her, she says yes too quickly, then covers it. She wakes the golem (the chest glyph is a Warden mark she does not have to cast to trigger: "It does the casting. I just tell it where to stand") and leaves it standing guard in the square. At the landing she hands the ferry rope to Tobin. It is the first time in twenty years she has not kept it.
• Player does: talk; choose how to ask Aske along (no choice refuses the act; the answers move aske.trust).
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Barn_Golem, Act3_Ferry_Rope.
  • Flags: act3.stage = 2, companion.aske = 1, aske.trust +1 for the answers she likes, and −1 if the player opened either of her letters in Act 2 (letter.twinhold.opened, letter.lanternfall.opened) (plain ones).
  • Props: the golem standing in the square (reuse the Training Golem with an idle "guard" pose).
• Art and audio: (Idea) Golem guard pose; ferry rope prop handed over; Aske's theme (solo, low strings or a concertina) first heard here.
• Screens used: dialogue panel.

(Idea) Lines to keep:

Aske: The glints came down the Sallow. The Sallow comes from Corran. I'd like to see what's at the top of it before someone with a seal does.

Aske (if the player says "Come with me"): Good. — No. Fine. Bring the scarf, it's cold up there.

Aske (handing Tobin the rope): Carry anyone. Free. That's the only rule.

Tobin: I know the rule, Aske. I've watched you keep it for twenty years.

The Sallow warp

• Where: a new location upstream, the Sallow warp (sallow_warp): a bend where the river runs into a crack in the air. Markers Event_seal_stones, Event_dig, Event_fresh_glyph.

• When: act3.stage = 2. Sets act3.stage to 3.

• Who: Aske; three Facet glyph-hunters (a cut with no name, led by (Idea) Sabe, wiry, quick, defensive).

• What happens: (Idea) Two kinds of mark lie around the warp, and Aske reads both without explaining them yet: pale blue Warden seal-stones set in a ring, every one cracked; and amber chips and spoil heaps where someone has been digging warp-born glyphs out of the bank. The glyph-hunters are digging now. Sabe admits the cut has worked this crack for a year: fresh glyphs surface at fresh cracks, and fresh glyphs sell. They name Rook as their best buyer, which matters later. A warp-born glyph is surfacing in the glass at the warp's lip: Crown Surge.

• Player does: talk; choose what to do with the glyph-hunters (section 10 lists the effects):

  • Let them go with a warning (act3.hunters = 1).
  • Take their shards and send them home (act3.hunters = 2; the shards go to the Hour Stair in chapter 3).
  • Fight them for their shards and leave them hurt (act3.hunters = 3; morality falls).
  • Fight them and hand them to the Wardens at Twinhold (act3.hunters = 4; Evane standing rises, Facet standing falls).

  Learn Crown Surge by tracing the fresh glyph (optional; it fades: see section 9).

• Content to make:

  • Yarn: Act3_SallowWarp_Arrive, Act3_SallowWarp_Stones, Act3_SallowWarp_Hunters, Act3_SallowWarp_Fresh.
  • Encounter: sallow_glyph_hunters (only if the player fights).
  • Fragment: crown_surge (warp-born, visible while act3.stage < 10).
  • Flags: act3.stage = 3, act3.hunters 1–4, spell.learned.crown_surge. If the player is missing the Act 2 half (item.corran_half_wave = 0), Sabe's cut has a wave shard in their spoil heap (open question 3), and options 2–4 give it to the player.

• Art and audio: (Idea) The Sallow warp location (concept: Art/Concepts/world/sallow-warp-a.png); cracked pale blue seal-stone prop; glyph-hunter dig site props; a fresh warp-born glyph VFX (frost growing on glass); glyph-hunter model (Art/Concepts/creatures-items/enemies/glyph-hunter-a.png). Music: low warp drone.

• Screens used: dialogue panel, trace screen (learning), battle HUD if fought.

The road to Corran

• Where: the overworld, from the Sallow warp north along the dry bank to where the Shardfield begins. Walk triggers Act3Walk_1 to Act3Walk_3.
• When: act3.stage = 3.
• Who: Aske.
• What happens: (Idea) Three short companion beats as the player walks, like the prologue's walk with Aske. Each walk node offers one question and ends on its own; nothing here is a choice that matters.
  1. Aske on the seal-stones and the dig: she knows a Warden ring when she sees one, and she knows a dig. "Both," she says, and stops talking.
  2. Aske's glyph bands, still turned inside out. If asked: "So I don't have to look at them."
  3. Warm thumbs. Aske asks whether the door-mark is still warm under the player's thumbs. If yes: "Still warm. Huh." She almost says something else.
• Player does: move; talk.
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Walk_1, Act3_Walk_2, Act3_Walk_3. Overworld triggers on markers Act3Walk_1 to Act3Walk_3. Optional random encounters on this stretch: sallow_road_glints, sallow_road_winged.
  • Optional, off the road (spell roadmap): Girdle Gate, a reflected glyph on a standing shard by the road to Corran, shown only while a glass storm blows; the triangle half of Bevel Lash, deep in the Shardfield past the Corran road.
• Art and audio: (Idea) The overworld shifting from farmland to the Shardfield's edge: grass thinning into dry lakebed, the first standing shards. Music: the overworld theme, Aske's motif folded in.
• Screens used: overworld HUD, dialogue panel.

Chapter 2: Corran, the stilled town Open page

The town line

• Where: Corran (corran), the south gate (Spawn_south, Event_town_line).
• When: act3.stage = 3. Sets act3.stage to 4.
• Who: Aske.
• What happens: (Idea) Corran is clear glass to the grass line: houses, a market cart, a man leading a goat, two children running, all mid-step and clear as window glass. Nothing moves and nothing makes a sound. Behind the town the warp stands in the air, much larger than the Sallow warp, and it is quiet in a way the Sallow warp was not. Aske stops at the line where the grass turns to glass and does not cross it. The player goes on alone; she follows a minute later.
• Player does: move; talk.
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Corran_Line. Flags: act3.stage = 4. Location trigger on Event_town_line.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Corran (concepts: Art/Concepts/world/corran-a.png, corran-girl-a.png, corran-overworld-a.png; Art/Concepts/buildings/corran-street-a.png). The glass is a shader over ordinary Facet-town models (dark slate, shard windows), so the town can be un-glassed in chapter 5. Audio: every ambient sound cut at the town line; one sustained high note from the warp. The silence is the music.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, overworld HUD.

The Stilled

• Where: Corran's streets: the gate, the market lane and the square (Event_stilled_goat, Event_stilled_basket, Event_stilled_children, Event_stilled_cart, Event_stilled_teacher_door).
• When: act3.stage = 4. Optional; each look sets one flag.
• Who: the Stilled of Corran (about 200 glass figures, a dozen of them interactable).
• What happens: (Idea) Each interactable figure has a "Look" that gives one line about them from what can be seen: a man halfway through a word, a woman whose basket has eggs still falling out of it, two children racing, one a step ahead. The player can read the Facet sigils painted on their doors and sleeves; each figure's sigil is on a house nearby, so the player can work out who lives where. Every figure looked at becomes a side quest once Corran wakes (section 15).
• Player does: move; look.
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Stilled_<Name> per interactable figure (12 nodes). Flags: corran.looked.<name> per figure. Names: section 13.
• Art and audio: (Idea) A small kit of glass townsfolk poses (walking, carrying, running, talking) built from two or three Facet-villager models with the glass shader; painted sigils on doors that match sleeves.
• Screens used: overworld HUD (look prompt), dialogue panel.

The glass remembers: Aske's story

• Where: three places in Corran: the south gate (Event_reflection_gate), the square (Event_reflection_square), the well (Event_reflection_well).

• When: act3.stage = 4. All three seen sets act3.stage to 5. The well reflection can only be seen last.

• Who: Aske; in the reflections, Ondine Ash and four menders, Aske twenty years younger, the girl at the well.

• What happens: (Idea) The glass of Corran is still Glass: it holds the reflection of the moment it closed. Where the player's shadow falls across a glass figure, the reflection inside it plays that moment back for a few seconds. This is the reflected kind of glyph lore (Story Bible section 3) turned into storytelling. The player sees Aske's story in three pieces, and Aske, standing behind the player, has to watch them too.

  1. The gate: five Warden menders arriving at a run, Ondine at their head. Ondine's order, without sound; Aske lip-reads it aloud: "Seal it. Town and all."
  2. The square: the five in a ring around the well. The young Aske argues with Ondine, is overruled, and lifts her hands. The player sees her cast her part.
  3. The well: a Corran girl running to the menders' ring and pressing a shard into the young Aske's hand as the glass closes over her.

  After each one Aske says a little. After the third she says all of it, in the fewest words she can.

• Player does: move; look; talk.

• Content to make:

  • Yarn: Act3_Reflection_Gate, Act3_Reflection_Square, Act3_Reflection_Well, Act3_Aske_Tells.
  • Cutscenes: three short reflection playbacks (reflection_gate, reflection_square, reflection_well), each 5–8 seconds, played inside the glass figure.
  • Flags: corran.reflection.gate, corran.reflection.square, corran.reflection.well; act3.stage = 5.
  • Optional (spell roadmap): Recall, a reflected glyph that shows in Corran's clear glass only at dawn (spell.learned.recall).

• Art and audio: (Idea) Reflection playback VFX: the figure's glass clouds, then shows a moving image like a reflection in a window at night, desaturated with a pale blue cast. Young Aske (her model with darker hair, Warden coat with bands worn right way out) and four generic Warden menders (Art/Concepts/creatures-items/enemies/warden-menders-a.png). Ondine Ash model. Music: Aske's theme, broken into fragments.

• Screens used: dialogue panel, cutscene (letterbox).

(Idea) Lines to keep:

Aske (after the gate): That's Ondine. She was my commander then.

Aske (after the square): I said it would hold the town with the warp. She said that was the point. Then I cast.

Aske (after the well, all of it): Five of us. Mirrored seal. It held the warp. It held everyone in it. Two hundred people. Twenty years. I keep the ferry because it's the nearest crossing. That's the whole story. Don't make it a better one.

The girl at the well

• Where: Corran square, the well (Event_well).
• When: act3.stage = 5. Sets act3.stage to 6 and item.corran_half_hourglass to 1.
• Who: Aske; the stilled girl.
• What happens: The girl who gave Aske the shard still stands in the glass beside the well, one hand held out (concept: Art/Concepts/characters/stilled-girl-concept-a.png). (Idea) Aske has never learned her name. She takes the shard out of her coat, where it has been for twenty years, and gives it to the player. The player's Act 2 half pulses when the two are close: the wave shard from the Shardfield is the other half. Aske knows what a split glyph is, and knows that tracing it here, next to a live warp, could break the glass instead of thawing it. Nobody living knows how a five-person Warden seal ties a town to a warp. The Keepers might: they keep the record of every seal.
• Player does: talk; look at the two halves (the item screen shows both).
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Well_Girl, Act3_Well_Halves.
  • Items: corran_half_hourglass (Aske's shard). It joins corran_half_wave from Act 2.
  • Flags: act3.stage = 6, item.corran_half_hourglass = 1.
• Art and audio: (Idea) The stilled girl as a single glass statue (no rig; concept above); the stilled well prop (Art/Concepts/world/prop-corran-well-a.png, Art/Concepts/buildings/corran-well-ref-a.png); both shard items as inventory icons; a resonance VFX between the two halves (a thin amber thread of light). Music: a solo instrument, very quiet: the girl's motif, which plays in full in chapter 5.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, items (inventory).

The Girdle house (optional)

• Where: Corran, the glyph teacher's house on the market lane (Event_teacher_door, interior Event_teacher_slate, Event_teacher_shelf).
• When: act3.stage ≥ 5.
• Who: (Idea) the stilled Hollis, the girl's mother, a glyph teacher, mid-lesson with three stilled pupils.
• What happens: (Idea) The door carries the sigil of a cut called the Girdle, named for the edge where a gem's top and bottom halves meet. Hollis's slate shows both halves of the Corran glyph chalked side by side: an hourglass and a wave. This confirms what the player and Aske guessed, and gives the glyph its proper name, Pavilion Wake. On a shelf is a box of practice shards, among them the square half of Prism Snare.
• Player does: move; look; learn (the Prism Snare square half is a fragment; the spell needs both halves, see 3.4).
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Teacher_Door, Act3_Teacher_Slate, Act3_Teacher_Shelf. Items: prism_snare_half_square. Flags: corran.slate_seen, item.prism_snare_half_square.
• Art and audio: (Idea) A Facet teacher's room (asymmetric, chalk slates, a shard rack); Hollis and pupils as glass statues; the chalked slate as a readable close-up prop.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, items.

The colossus at the warp

• Where: Corran, the north edge facing the warp (Event_warp_edge).
• When: act3.stage = 6. Sets corran.colossus_seen.
• Who: Aske; the glint colossus (not fought yet).
• What happens: (Idea) At the warp's foot hundreds of glints have fused into one shape, a giant of quicksilver and cracked mirror plate, sitting with its back to the town like something keeping warm. It is why the warp has not spread into Corran: it is drinking the warp's leak. It is also the reason no one can reach the warp. Aske says the Hour Stair is a week's walk east. The player can't fight the colossus yet; walking closer makes it turn its head, and Aske pulls the player back.
• Player does: move; talk.
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Warp_Colossus. Flags: corran.colossus_seen. A blocking trigger at Event_warp_edge until act3.stage ≥ 10.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Glint colossus in overworld scale (concept: Art/Concepts/creatures-items/enemies/glint-colossus-a.png, model ref glint-colossus-ref-a.png), with an idle "drinking" animation; the warp (concept: Art/Concepts/world/arena-corran-warp-a.png).
• Screens used: dialogue panel.

Chapter 3: The Hour Stair Open page

The climb

• Where: the Hour Stair (hour_stair): the foot of the cliff (Spawn_foot), the gate landing (Event_gate), then twelve bell landings (Bell_1 to Bell_12). The archive is behind the twelfth.
• When: act3.stage = 6. Sets act3.stage to 7 at the gate.
• Who: Aske; a Keeper gate-warden; Keeper scribes on the landings; Tamsin Vale (at the sixth landing).
• What happens: (Idea) A spiral stair cut into a cliff above a misty gorge, a bronze bell at every turn. The gate-warden lets in anyone with clean hands and a reason. A fallen player (section 11) is turned away here and has to take the smugglers' climb from the Undermere instead (6.3). Halfway up, Tamsin is waiting on a landing. The Wardens sent her for the Keepers' record of the Corran seal, because Ondine wants to seal Corran again and needs to know how the first seal was made. Tamsin is glad to see the player and stiff with Aske, whom every Warden child has been taught to despise as the captain who walked out.
• Player does: move; talk. If the player's standing with the Evane is high (rep.evane ≥ 20), Tamsin offers her Warden writ to open the archive, which skips Hale's trial (3.2) but not the records (3.3).
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Stair_Gate, Act3_Stair_Gate_Refused, Act3_Stair_Tamsin, Act3_Stair_Scribes (ambient lines per landing).
  • Flags: act3.stage = 7, companion.tamsin = 1, act3.writ_used if the writ is used.
  • Fragment: Linger, a whole glyph cut into the seventh bell's frame (Event_linger_glyph). Learning it is optional but the trial is much easier with it.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Hour Stair location (concepts: Art/Concepts/world/hour-stair-a.png, Art/Concepts/buildings/hour-stair-kit-a.png); Keeper scribe model (Art/Concepts/characters/keeper-scribe-ref-a.png); Tamsin model. Audio: one bell struck on the hour of the in-game clock; wind; a faint choir hum from the gorge (the Drowned Choir legend, Story Bible section 1). Music: the Keepers' theme, a slow ostinato that never speeds up.
• Screens used: overworld HUD, dialogue panel, trace screen.

Keeping the hour: Hale's trial

• Where: the twelfth landing (Event_hale), then the bell court (battle arena).
• When: act3.stage = 7. Sets act3.stage to 8.
• Who: Keeper Hale; Aske, Tamsin; the hour sentinel.
• What happens: (Idea) Hale has kept the sealed records for forty years and does not open them for the Wardens, the Facets or the curious. He opens them for anyone who will keep an hour: stand in the bell court through one full turn of the great bell while the hour sentinel, the Keepers' guardian, tries to make them leave. He teaches Hasten first, hand over hand, because "nobody should face the hour with a short breath." The fight is long, slow and fair. When it ends, Hale notes the time and opens the door.
• Player does: talk; learn Hasten (taught: Hale traces it with the player); fight the hour sentinel. If Tamsin's writ was used, Hale still teaches Hasten but skips the fight.
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Hale_Meet, Act3_Hale_Teach, Act3_Hale_Trial, Act3_Hale_After.
  • Encounter: hour_trial (hour sentinel).
  • Spells: hasten (taught).
  • Flags: act3.stage = 8, spell.learned.hasten, hale.trust +1 for keeping the hour (not on the writ route).
• Art and audio: (Idea) Hale model (Art/Concepts/characters/hale-ref-a.png); bell-court battle arena (round, a great bell overhead, brass-gold spiral glyphs in the floor); hour sentinel model (Art/Concepts/creatures-items/enemies/hour-sentinel-ref-a.png); Hasten VFX in Keeper brass-gold. Music: battle theme built on the Keepers' ostinato.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, trace screen, battle HUD, glyph prompt.

The sealed records: the Breaking

• Where: the Hour Stair archive, a round room with a still pool at its centre (Event_pool).
• When: act3.stage = 8. Sets act3.stage to 9.
• Who: Hale, Aske, Tamsin.
• What happens: The records give the truth of the Breaking. Asymmetric glyphs were already straining the Mere; the Evane's first Great Mending, meant to stop them, broke it in a single night. Both sides caused it; each tells only the half that blames the other. (Idea) How the records show it:
  • The "records" are the Hundred-Year Hour. The Keepers held the hour of the Breaking open in this pool for a century, to study it and to undo it, and failed. Hale lets it play for the player: the five factions in a mirrored chorus round the whole Mere, singing and drawing it still; lake-folk on the shore drawing unlike shapes, the first asymmetric glyphs, and the Glass already pulling apart under them; the chorus pulling the Glass taut over the strain; and the crack running from shore to shore.
  • The legends were both true. The choir that sang the Mere still and sank with it is the Drowned Choir, the Still Choir's own forebears, which is why the Still Choir quietly writes to the Facets. The girl with the circle and the square drew Facet Seal over her village that night: it saved her village, and drawing it added to the strain.
  • Hale sealed the records because both courts would use half of them. Each Speaker of the five factions is shown them once, on taking office; none has ever repeated them.
• Player does: watch; talk. Each companion reacts: Tamsin badly (this is her turning point, Story Bible section 5); Aske hardly at all ("Sounds about right").
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Records_Open, Act3_Records_Breaking, Act3_Records_Tamsin, Act3_Records_Aske.
  • Cutscene: hundred_year_hour (about 60 seconds; reuses the reflection-playback look from 2.3 at a larger scale).
  • Flags: act3.stage = 9 (set after 3.4), lore.breaking = 1.
• Art and audio: (Idea) The archive pool room; the Still Age Mere and the Breaking in the pool (concept: Art/Concepts/world/still-age-mere-a.png); a crowd of mirrored Evane chorus figures and asymmetric lake-folk, both as simple silhouettes. Music: a choir, unaccompanied, that cracks into silence when the Mere does.
• Screens used: cutscene, dialogue panel.

The Sallow warp, the same pattern small

• Where: the archive, the warp ledger lectern (Event_ledger).

• When: right after 3.3.

• Who: Hale, Aske, Tamsin.

• What happens: (Idea) The Keepers record the first hour of every warp. Hale opens the ledger at the Sallow warp, and it is the Breaking at the size of one river bend: a crack that a cut of glyph-hunters widened over a year, digging warp-born glyphs to sell; then the first Warden mending, five menders and no guard, the night before the glints came to the farm door, which tore it open. That mending is why the glints reached Sallowbank, and why the player's first cast happened at all. Below it, in a newer hand, is the second mending: Ondine's, the one she asked the player to guard in Act 2. Aske already guessed it at the warp. Tamsin did not; one of the five menders named for the first mending is her own teacher. The same ledger has the Corran seal: a five-person mirrored seal ties whatever it holds to the warp it holds. Undoing it needs the warp quiet and something the seal can't reflect. Hale: "A mirror can only be undone by what it doesn't show." In other words, a Facet glyph.

• Player does: talk; choose what happens to the truth (section 10):

  1. Leave the records sealed, as Hale wants (act3.records = 1).
  2. Copy them for Tamsin, so the Evane hear it from an Evane (act3.records = 2).
  3. Copy them for the Facets, so Lanternfall hears it: the player carries the copy and gives it to Rook when he arrives at Corran (5.3) (act3.records = 3).
  4. Ask Hale to open them to both courts at once. Hale agrees only if he trusts the player (hale.trust ≥ 1: they kept the hour, or brought him the hunters' shards) and the player stands well with both sides (rep.evane ≥ 10 and rep.facets ≥ 10) (act3.records = 4).

  If the glyph-hunters' shards were taken in 1.3 (act3.hunters = 2), the player can hand them to Hale for the archive (hale.trust +1). The Keepers' confiscated-glyph shelf in the same room holds the triangle half of Prism Snare. Hale gives it to anyone who brought him the shards; anyone else has to steal it.

• Content to make:

  • Yarn: Act3_Ledger_Sallow, Act3_Ledger_Corran, Act3_Records_Choice, Act3_Archive_Shelf.
  • Items: prism_snare_half_triangle.
  • Flags: act3.records 1–4, act3.stage = 9, lore.sallow_warp = 1, hale.trust +1 for the shards, item.prism_snare_half_triangle; stealing it: morality −5 and act3.stole_half = 1 (the Side Quests tab's "Back on the Shelf" reads it).
  • Spells: prism_snare once both halves are held (split glyph; trace both at once).

• Art and audio: (Idea) Ledger lectern prop; a confiscated-glyph shelf of labelled shards.

• Screens used: dialogue panel, items, trace screen.

The bell-ringer (optional)

• Where: the Hour Stair, the third bell landing (Event_ringer).
• When: act3.stage ≥ 7.
• Who: (Idea) Old Pim, a Keeper bell-ringer who has rung the third bell for sixty years.
• What happens: (Idea) Pim's knees have gone and the third bell must be rung on the hour, every hour, or the Keepers will notice. The player rings it three times at the right in-game hours (a timing errand). Pim teaches Toll in return: "One loop, one rope. The bell does the rest, later."
• Player does: talk; wait; ring; learn Toll (taught).
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Ringer_Ask, Act3_Ringer_Ring, Act3_Ringer_Teach. Quest: side_bell_ringer. Flags: side.ringer.asked = 1 when Pim asks (starts the quest), side.ringer.rings (0–3), spell.learned.toll.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Pim (a keeper-scribe variant, older); bell-rope interaction; Toll VFX.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, quest log, trace screen.

Chapter 4: The glint colossus Open page

Ondine at Corran

• Where: Corran square (Event_menders), the ring of menders around the well.
• When: act3.stage = 9 and the player arrives back at Corran. Sets act3.stage to 10.
• Who: Prelate Ondine Ash; four Warden menders; Aske; Tamsin.
• What happens: (Idea) Ondine has come to do it again. The colossus has stopped growing but the warp has not, and she will lay a second seal over the first at dawn: Corran will be held for another lifetime, and the warp with it. Her menders are setting pale blue seal-stones in a ring round the well. Aske walks into the ring and stands next to the girl. It is the scene Aske has avoided for twenty years. Ondine is not cruel and doesn't pretend: she knows what the first seal cost, she has read the Hour Stair records (every Speaker is shown them once, on taking office), and it changes nothing for her, because the seal held and the valley was saved. If Tamsin carries the records (act3.records = 2 or 4), she says so to Ondine's face, and Ondine answers her calmly, which is worse. Then the colossus stands up. The warp has been fed by the menders' stones, the same thing that happened at the Sallow warp. The menders fall back; Ondine pulls them out of Corran. Her terms: "Bring it down, and I'll wait. Fail, and we seal at dawn with you inside it."
• Player does: talk; one choice in the argument (backs Aske, backs Tamsin, or stays quiet). If the player has standing with the Evane (rep.evane ≥ 20), they can also ask Ondine to leave the stones unset; she refuses, and then sets fewer of them, which makes the colossus fight's first phase shorter.
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Ondine_Arrive, Act3_Ondine_Aske, Act3_Ondine_Tamsin, Act3_Ondine_Terms.
  • Flags: act3.stage = 10, ondine.met_corran = 1, act3.stones_fewer if asked.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Ondine model (Art/Concepts/characters/ondine-ref-a.png); Warden mender model (four instances, mirrored poses); seal-stone props (reuse from 1.3, uncracked); colossus stand-up animation. Music: Ondine's theme (stately, symmetrical phrases), crossed with Aske's.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, cutscene.

(Idea) Lines to keep:

Ondine: You argued then too. You argued well. Then you cast, because you knew I was right.

Aske: I cast because I was a coward with a good excuse. You had the excuse.

Ondine (to Tamsin, if she has the records): I've read them, child. Every Speaker has. The Mere broke because we were too gentle with them. I don't intend to be gentle twice.

The glint colossus

• Where: Corran's warp (battle arena corran_warp; concept: Art/Concepts/world/arena-corran-warp-a.png).
• When: act3.stage = 10. Sets act3.stage to 11 on victory.
• Who: the glint colossus; Aske and Tamsin watch from the edge (Aske does not cast; Tamsin does not fight, because the open question on companions in battle is still open, see open question 6).
• What happens: (Idea) A three-phase boss on a glazed square at the warp's foot, the stilled townsfolk at the sides.
  1. The Mass (full health to 60%). A sweeping arm every 7 s; each hit on the colossus sheds a glint, up to three alive at a time. The arm draws back across the warp-light first: Repel staggers it in that window and cancels the blow. Gale clears the glints; Coil chips the body.
  2. The Crack (60% to 25%). Its chest plates crack and show the warp inside. Hits to the chest during a stagger do double damage: stagger it with Repel or Bulwark (Repel into Facet Seal), then Bevel Lash or Toll. Every 12 s a Warp Pulse does 20 damage that ignores shields; Hush stops it (if learned in Act 2).
  3. The Pull (25% to the end). It turns to the stilled townsfolk at the arena's edge and starts pulling them toward the warp. A 40 s timer shows on screen, and its blows come every 5 s. Linger halves the timer's pace while it lasts; Hasten helps land long threads. If the timer runs out, one glass figure cracks (it does not break, and the figure heals in chapter 5, but Aske reacts), and the fight goes on.
• Player does: fight; cast.
• Content to make:
  • Encounter: corran_colossus (the colossus with glint adds).
  • Yarn: Act3_Colossus_Before, Act3_Colossus_After; bark lines during the fight from Aske and Tamsin.
  • Flags: act3.stage = 11, corran.cracked_figure if The Pull's timer runs out.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Glint colossus battle model with a chest-crack VFX (the warp showing through cracked mirror plates), a pulling animation, and a death that splashes into a mirror-still pool; the cracked glass figure; the warp quietening (white light dimming). Music: boss theme with a heartbeat drum that stops when it falls.
• Screens used: battle HUD, glyph prompt, spell book (mid-fight, as now).

Chapter 5: Undoing the stilling Open page

Two halves

• Where: Corran square, the well (Event_well).
• When: act3.stage = 11. Sets act3.stage to 12 when Pavilion Wake is learned.
• Who: Aske; Tamsin; the stilled girl.
• What happens: The warp is quiet for the first time in twenty years. (Idea) Aske turns her glyph bands right way out, the Warden marks facing the world again, for the first time since Corran. She stands at the player's back with her hands over theirs, the way the Act 1 Brace lesson was taught, and the player traces both halves at once: the hourglass under the left thumb, the wave under the right. The glyph is split and taught at the same time: the halves are fragments, but Aske's hands steady the trace. It takes. Aske says nothing about her thumbs, and the player can ask. Then she asks for her shard back: "It's hers."
• Player does: learn (trace Pavilion Wake: hourglass on the left, wave on the right; see section 9); hand the hourglass shard back to Aske.
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Halves_Bands, Act3_Halves_Trace, Act3_Halves_After.
  • Spells: pavilion_wake (new data file).
  • Flags: spell.learned.pavilion_wake, act3.stage = 12, aske.bands_out = 1, item.corran_half_hourglass = 0 (back with Aske).
• Art and audio: (Idea) Aske's glyph bands turned out (a material swap: pale blue Warden marks glowing); trace screen with two fragment images (one per half) instead of one; Pavilion Wake VFX in amber with a thin pale blue edge where it meets Aske's hands.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, trace screen (learning).

The Unstilling

• Where: Corran square, the well; the warp behind.
• When: act3.stage = 12. Sets act3.stage to 13.
• Who: Aske, Tamsin; the stilled girl and all the Stilled.
• What happens: Aske casts again, once. (Idea) She draws Brace, the Warden glyph she taught the player in Act 1 and has not cast since Corran, across the warp to hold its edge shut while the glass lets go. Otherwise the warp would take the town the moment it is released. At the same moment the player threads the door-mark into the Corran glyph: Thaw, Repel into Pavilion Wake, both thumbs down from the mirrored Ls into the hourglass and the wave, in one stroke. An Evane spell runs into a Facet spell, which is the thing a mirrored seal cannot reflect. The glass thaws from the well outward. The girl wakes first.
• Player does: cast: the glyph prompt shows the whole thread. A fizzle costs nothing but time ("Again." "I'm sixty, not a hundred. Again."); there is no fail state. The cast's quality decides how the glass goes: from about 85% up it all thaws in one wave; below that it thaws street by street.
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Unstill_Aske_Casts, Act3_Unstill_Prompt, Act3_Unstill_Wake. Uses <<prompt_cast thaw>>, which needs the prompt command to accept a composite id (see section 17).
  • Composite: thaw (Repel into Pavilion Wake; new data file). The thread is Thaw; the event is the Unstilling.
  • Flags: act3.stage = 13, corran.unstilled = 1, aske.cast_again = 1.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Key art: Art/Concepts/creatures-items/spells/corran-unstilling-a.png. The glass shader animating off the town in a wave from the well; Aske's Brace across the warp (pale blue, mirrored, the only Warden light in the scene); the Thaw VFX (two pale blue Ls running into an amber hourglass and wave). Audio: every ambient sound that was cut at the town line comes back at once (birds, goat, the falling eggs), then the girl's motif in full.
• Screens used: glyph prompt, dialogue panel, cutscene.

Corran wakes

• Where: Corran square, then the town.
• When: act3.stage = 13. Sets act3.stage to 14.
• Who: the girl, (Idea) named Brin; her mother Hollis; the woken townsfolk; Aske, Tamsin; Rook (arriving); Ondine (at the town line).
• What happens: (Idea) Brin finishes the movement she started twenty years ago: she presses the hourglass shard into Aske's hand, where Aske is holding it out to her, and closes Aske's fingers over it. It is the same hand, twenty years older. "Give it to Mam. She'll know." The townsfolk wake into a day that is twenty years late. Some are glad, many are frightened, and a few are angry at once. A woman runs to the gate to find her sister and finds an old woman, or no one. Hollis comes out of the Girdle house still holding chalk. Rook arrives from Lanternfall, which felt the Glass ring a second time, and is quiet for once. The glyph-hunters at the Sallow warp were his suppliers, and the player can say so. If the player copied the records for the Facets (act3.records = 3), they give him the copy here. Ondine stands at the town line, where Aske stood on arrival, and does not cross it. She doesn't apologise. She says the warps are now Aske's to close, all of them, and leaves to call the five factions together. That sets up the second Great Mending at the Heart Pane (Act 4). Corran's warp shrinks to a hairline and stays that way: the first warp anyone has seen narrowed by both sides' magic at once, without a seal.
• Player does: talk (to Brin, Hollis, Rook, Tamsin, Ondine, and any woken townsfolk the player looked at in 2.2).
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Act3_Wake_Brin, Act3_Wake_Hollis, Act3_Wake_Rook, Act3_Wake_Ondine, Act3_Wake_Tamsin, and Act3_Woken_<Name> for each of the twelve figures from 2.2.
  • Flags: act3.stage = 14, met.brin, met.hollis; Rook's reaction depends on act3.hunters.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Corran un-glassed: the same models with the glass shader off; Brin, Hollis and townsfolk as rigged Facet villagers; Rook and Ondine models. Music: Corran's own theme heard for the first time (Facet: off-beat, two lines that don't mirror).
• Screens used: dialogue panel, overworld HUD.

Aske stays the night

• Where: Corran south gate (Event_town_line).
• When: act3.stage = 14. Sets act3.done = 1.
• Who: Aske; Tamsin.
• What happens: (Idea) Aske joins neither side. She gives the hourglass shard to Hollis, turns her bands back inside out, thinks about it, and turns them right way out again. She walks the player to the town line and stops there again, this time on the inside. She is staying the night in Corran. She tells the player where the warps go next (the Heart Pane, where Ondine is going). She won't stand with either side at the Pane. She'll go to its rim and keep a fire there, where both camps can sit. After that, home to the ferry: Tobin will have lost the rope by now. Her wave at the bend in the road comes in Act 4 (4.3), when she sets off with the handcart, not here. Tamsin stays with the player into Act 4 if act3.records is 2 or 4; otherwise she goes back to Twinhold to ask questions, and comes back to Corran with Ondine's letter (Act 4, 4.2). Rook leaves for Lanternfall that night and comes back with Iver's.
• Player does: talk; move on.
• Content to make: Yarn: Act3_Aske_Farewell, Act3_Tamsin_Choice. Flags: act3.done = 1, companion.aske = 0, companion.tamsin (kept or cleared).
• Art and audio: (Idea) Aske standing at the town line inside Corran as the player leaves; her theme, resolved for the first time.
• Screens used: dialogue panel.

Chapter 6: The Undermere Open page

The Undermere is the underworld for players on the evil path (Codex section 7): (Idea) caverns under the Shardfield whose roof holds the world's reflection upside down. Its main entrance is a cave mouth between leaning shards a short walk from Corran, and the caverns run up under Corran's warp. It is a whole second road through Act 3, not a dead end: a fallen player can finish the act through it.

(Idea) Who counts as fallen. Personal morality (morality, section 11) is tracked separately from standing with each side. A player is fallen at morality ≤ −20. Fallen players are turned away at Evane and Facet gates (the Hour Stair gate in this act), and the Undermere opens to them as a hub. Unfallen players find the entrance guarded and are sent off ("Clean face. Go home.").

The way down

• Where: the Undermere mouth (undermere, Spawn_mouth), a ladder down to the first cavern (Event_ladder).
• When: morality ≤ −20 and act3.stage ≥ 4. Sets undermere.stage to 1.
• Who: (Idea) Mott, the Undermere's door: an ex-Warden and ex-Facet with one sleeve of each and loyalty to neither.
• What happens: (Idea) Mott has heard of the farmer who rang the Glass and has heard what they have done since. He lets them down and explains the Undermere's one rule: nobody down here asks which side you were on. The cavern roof shows Velan upside down: fields, the Sallow, the Hour Stair cliff, Corran glittering. The outlaws use the roof as their map.
• Player does: talk; move.
• Content to make: Yarn: Undermere_Mott_Door, Undermere_Mott_Refuse (unfallen). Flags: undermere.stage = 1, met.mott.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Undermere location (concepts: Art/Concepts/world/undermere-a.png, undermere-overworld-a.png; Art/Concepts/buildings/undermere-den-a.png, undermere-kit-a.png); the roof reflection as an inverted, darkened render of the overworld; Mott (outlaw model, Art/Concepts/creatures-items/enemies/undermere-outlaw-a.png, unmasked). Music: the overworld theme played backwards and slowed, under dripping water.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, overworld HUD.

The den

• Where: the Undermere den: a shanty town of shard huts and rope bridges (Event_market, Event_ring, Event_board).
• When: undermere.stage ≥ 1.
• Who: Mott; outlaw casters of both sides; (Idea) a fence called Vey who sells stolen glyph fragments.
• What happens: (Idea) The den is the evil path's hub: a black market (stolen fragments for copper, including ones the Evane have sealed and the Facets would give away for free), an outlaw duelling pit (not PvP; NPC duels; a beaten outlaw pays a little copper), and a job board of bad jobs. It is also where the way back starts: the Atonement board is a slate by the ladder with no takers (6.5).
• Player does: talk; buy; fight (duels, optional); take jobs.
• Content to make: Yarn: Undermere_Den, Undermere_Vey, Undermere_Pit, Undermere_Board. Encounters: undermere_duel_1 to undermere_duel_3 (outlaw casters). Shop: undermere_fence stock list (section 9). Flags: undermere.duels_won.
• Art and audio: (Idea) Den set (Undermere kit); stolen pale blue and amber banners; outlaw caster variants (Evane-leaning and Facet-leaning). Music: a den theme with two melodies played against each other.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, shop (VEL-62), battle HUD, quest log.

The smugglers' climb (the fallen road to the records)

• Where: from the den up a crack in the gorge to the Hour Stair's archive window (Event_climb_start, Event_archive_window).
• When: undermere.stage ≥ 1 and act3.stage = 6 or 7. Sets act3.stage to 8 (the trial is skipped) and undermere.stage to 2.
• Who: Mott; Aske (who comes, because she said she would, and says nothing about it); Hale and Tamsin (inside).
• What happens: (Idea) Fallen players can't use the gate, so they climb. Mott knows the old route the Keepers' own runaways used. The player comes in through the archive window and finds Hale waiting: Keepers notice everything. Tamsin is in the archive too: the Wardens sent her up the stair for the Corran record (3.1). She does not like how the player came in, but she stays with them. Hale opens the records anyway. He keeps the truth for anyone who will look at it properly, and he says so. The player can instead knock Hale out and take the records (morality −10). The truth is the same either way: 3.3 and 3.4 play from here. Without Hale's trial there is no Hasten, but Mott's fence sells a stolen Hasten fragment.
• Player does: move; climb; talk; choose (talk to Hale, or knock him out).
• Content to make: Yarn: Undermere_Climb, Undermere_Window_Hale, Undermere_Window_Rob. Flags: undermere.stage = 2, act3.stage = 8, companion.tamsin = 1, hale.robbed if robbed (Hale won't let the records be shared with both courts afterwards: option 4 in 3.4 closes).
• Art and audio: (Idea) A climbing route on the cliff (reuse the Hour Stair kit's rock); the archive's back window.
• Screens used: overworld HUD, dialogue panel.

Under Corran's warp

• Where: a cavern under Corran (Event_diggings), where the warp's root comes through the cave roof as a crack of white light.
• When: undermere.stage ≥ 2 and act3.stage ≥ 6.
• Who: Mott; outlaw quicksilver-diggers.
• What happens: (Idea) Outlaws are digging glint quicksilver out of the underside of Corran's warp and selling it as a crafting material. They are a third cause of its widening, and nobody in either court knows about them. The fallen player can come at the colossus from below: breaking the diggers' props drops the colossus's first phase (it loses the quicksilver it was drinking). The cost is that the diggers lose a season's work and blame the player.
• Player does: talk; choose (protect the dig and take a cut: morality −5, quicksilver as loot; or break the props: morality +5, the colossus fight starts at its second phase, The Crack, the diggers turn hostile); fight (if the diggers turn hostile).
• Content to make: Yarn: Undermere_Diggings, Undermere_Diggings_Break, Undermere_Diggings_Cut. Encounter: undermere_diggers. Items: glint_quicksilver (crafting material, Items design VEL-61). Flags: undermere.diggings 1 (cut) or 2 (broken), undermere.stage = 3.
• Art and audio: (Idea) The warp root from below (an inverted crack of light); a dig rig of rope, buckets and shard props; quicksilver droplets VFX.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, battle HUD.

The long way up

• Where: the Atonement board by the ladder in the den (Event_atonement); the deeds happen all over the act's map.
• When: the quest long_way_up appears when the player first falls (morality ≤ −20), and the board is in the den. Once the quest has started, deeds count until the player is Clean again (morality > −10), even after the gates open to them.
• Who: Aske (if in the party), Mott.
• What happens: (Idea) A way back always exists, but it gets harder the further the player has fallen. The mechanism (section 11): every atonement deed is worth the same +5 morality, but each band of the fall is twice as deep as the one above it, so climbing out of each band takes twice the deeds of the last. Aske is the mentor for this: she is the proof that walking away is possible, and she says what it cost her. The deeds are concrete repairs to this act's damage: return a stolen fragment to Hale, carry woken Corran folk's news to Lanternfall, rebuild the glyph-hunters' boat, stand a night watch at Sallowbank with the golem. They come from the Atonement board, and any ordinary good side quest done while fallen also counts as one deed.
• Player does: talk; take deeds; do them.
• Content to make:
  • Yarn: Undermere_Atonement_Board, Atonement_Aske (Aske's talk about walking away), one node per deed.
  • Quest: long_way_up (section 8).
  • Flags: morality +5 per deed; atonement.deeds (a counter for the log).
• Art and audio: (Idea) The Atonement board prop (a slate with chalked jobs and no names); a short "climb" sting when the player rises out of a band.
• Screens used: dialogue panel, quest log, profile (morality and standing, VEL-62).

(Idea) Lines to keep:

Aske: I walked away once. Took me twenty years to stop walking. Yours'll take less if you start now.

Mott: Nobody takes the board. That's why it's still up.

Quests Open page

(Idea) Written like Data/Quests/prologue.json. Flags are integers; a missing flag reads as 0. The conditions use the flag, all, any and not forms the quest code already parses, and startWhen.

Main quest: Act 3

{
  "id": "act3",
  "title": "Corran",
  "description": "The warps have reached Sallowbank, and they come down the Sallow from Corran. Go upstream. Aske is coming with you, to the town she froze twenty years ago.",
  "startWhen": { "flag": "act2.done", "op": "!=", "value": 0 },
  "stages": [
    {
      "id": "glints_by_day",
      "text": "Glints are in Sallowbank by daylight. Help hold the village.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 1 }
    },
    {
      "id": "aske_comes",
      "text": "Ask Aske to come upstream with you.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 2 }
    },
    {
      "id": "sallow_warp",
      "text": "Look at the Sallow warp on the way upstream.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 3 }
    },
    {
      "id": "reach_corran",
      "text": "Go to Corran; Aske comes with you.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 4 }
    },
    {
      "id": "glass_remembers",
      "text": "Look into the glass of Corran.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 5 }
    },
    {
      "id": "the_girl",
      "text": "Find the girl at the well.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 6 }
    },
    {
      "id": "hour_stair",
      "text": "Climb the Hour Stair and find Keeper Hale.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 7 }
    },
    {
      "id": "keep_the_hour",
      "text": "Get into the Keepers' archive.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 8 }
    },
    {
      "id": "sealed_records",
      "text": "Read the sealed records, and decide who else reads them.",
      "completeWhen": {
        "all": [
          { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 9 },
          { "flag": "act3.records", "op": "!=", "value": 0 }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "back_to_corran",
      "text": "Get back to Corran before the menders seal it again.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 10 }
    },
    {
      "id": "colossus",
      "text": "Bring down the glint colossus at Corran's warp.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 11 }
    },
    {
      "id": "two_halves",
      "text": "Trace the two halves of the Corran glyph together.",
      "completeWhen": {
        "all": [
          { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 12 },
          { "flag": "spell.learned.pavilion_wake", "op": "!=", "value": 0 }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "unstill",
      "text": "Thread the door-mark into the Corran glyph.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 13 }
    },
    {
      "id": "corran_wakes",
      "text": "See Corran wake.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "act3.done", "op": "!=", "value": 0 }
    }
  ]
}

The Undermere (fallen players) Open page

{
  "id": "act3_undermere",
  "title": "The Undermere",
  "description": "The gates have started closing on you. There's a ladder under the Shardfield for people the gates close on.",
  "startWhen": {
    "all": [
      { "flag": "morality", "op": "<=", "value": -20 },
      { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 4 }
    ]
  },
  "stages": [
    {
      "id": "way_down",
      "text": "Find the way down near Corran.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "undermere.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 1 }
    },
    {
      "id": "smugglers_climb",
      "text": "The Hour Stair gate won't open for you. Take the smugglers' climb.",
      "completeWhen": {
        "any": [
          { "flag": "undermere.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 2 },
          { "flag": "act3.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 8 }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "under_the_warp",
      "text": "See what is being dug out from under Corran's warp.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "undermere.stage", "op": ">=", "value": 3 }
    }
  ]
}

The long way up (redemption)

The stages read the same morality flag, so a player who fell only a little starts near the top: the first incomplete stage is the one they are on.

{
  "id": "long_way_up",
  "title": "The Long Way Up",
  "description": "Nobody takes the Atonement board. That's why it's still up. Every deed counts the same; the deeper you are, the more of them it takes.",
  "startWhen": { "flag": "morality", "op": "<=", "value": -20 },
  "stages": [
    {
      "id": "out_of_the_depths",
      "text": "Climb out of the depths: do one deed from the Atonement board, and one more for every 5 below -80.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "morality", "op": ">", "value": -80 }
    },
    {
      "id": "out_of_the_dark",
      "text": "Climb out of the dark: do 8 deeds from the Atonement board.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "morality", "op": ">", "value": -40 }
    },
    {
      "id": "back_to_the_gates",
      "text": "Earn your way back through the gates: do 4 deeds from the Atonement board.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "morality", "op": ">", "value": -20 }
    },
    {
      "id": "trusted_again",
      "text": "Be trusted again: two more deeds.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "morality", "op": ">", "value": -10 }
    }
  ]
}

Morality only moves in steps of 5, so the bottom of each band is −15 (Wary), −35 (Fallen) and −75 (Dark). The deed counts in the stage text are for a player at the bottom of the band that stage climbs out of: 8 deeds from −75 to −35, 4 from −35 to −15, 2 from −15 to −5. The log should show the real number left (floor((threshold − morality) / 5) + 1, since each stage needs morality strictly above its threshold), which needs the quest log to support a computed count (section 17).

Side quest: the bell-ringer

{
  "id": "side_bell_ringer",
  "title": "The Third Bell",
  "description": "Old Pim has rung the third bell of the Hour Stair for sixty years. His knees have stopped agreeing to it.",
  "startWhen": { "flag": "side.ringer.asked", "op": "!=", "value": 0 },
  "stages": [
    {
      "id": "ring_three",
      "text": "Ring the third bell on the hour, three times.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "side.ringer.rings", "op": ">=", "value": 3 }
    },
    {
      "id": "learn_toll",
      "text": "Let Pim show you the bell's glyph.",
      "completeWhen": { "flag": "spell.learned.toll", "op": "!=", "value": 0 }
    }
  ]
}

Spells gained Open page

Pavilion Wake, the Corran glyph **(Idea)**

• Lore: found by the Girdle cut of Corran near their warp, years before the stilling, and being taught to Hollis's daughter on the night the menders came. A girdle is the edge where a cut gem's crown and pavilion meet, the seam between two halves. The pavilion is the lower half, under the girdle, which is where the stilled are held (spell roadmap). The glyph makes glass give way like ice in spring: it doesn't break the Glass, it lets it move again.
• Data (pavilion_wake): Facets, asymmetric (the hardest in the set: one thumb stops at three corners while the other never stops); amber #FFC66B. Shape, size, breath and effect follow the spell roadmap.
  • Left thumb (Aske's half, corran_half_hourglass): an hourglass. From the top outer corner, inward along the top, sharp corner, diagonal down to the bottom outer corner, sharp corner, inward along the bottom, sharp corner, diagonal back up to the start. The two diagonals cross in the middle. Three corners.
  • Right thumb (the Act 2 half, corran_half_wave): a low wave moving outward: a smooth hump, then a smooth dip, ending on the middle line. It is half as tall as it is wide. No corners.
  • Size 30 mm; breath 1,000 ms; learnTraces 3.
  • Battle: 25 damage; breaks any shield on the enemy; frees the caster from stagger, slow and silence; double damage against glass creatures (glints, the glint colossus). Shield-breaking and cleansing are both on the spell roadmap's "What the code would need" list.
  • Field: frees what is held in glass: glass-locked doors and chests, warp-sealed paths and, threaded as Thaw, the Stilled of Corran.

Thaw, Repel into Pavilion Wake **(Idea)**

The thread is Thaw (thaw); the event it makes in 5.2 is called the Unstilling.

• Lore: the door-mark is older than the Wardens (Story Bible section 2). Threaded into a Facet glyph it becomes the thing a mirrored seal can't reflect. It mixes the sides like Bulwark (Repel into Facet Seal) and Thornshield (Coil into Facet Seal), and it is the first thread anyone has used to mend rather than fight. Repel is the Evane half because it can never be sealed and every player has it.
• Data (thaw): parts ["repel", "pavilion_wake"]; colour #FFE08A, the cross-side pale gold Bulwark has; breath 0.85 × (600 + 1,000) = 1,360 ms. Hasten's +40% for 12 s gives about 1,904 ms (see open question 5).
• Battle effect: 40 damage, 3 s stagger, breaks every shield and clears every harmful effect on the caster; double damage against glass creatures.
• Field effect: undoes a stilling.
• At the Unstilling: Aske casts Brace across the warp at the same moment (her one cast in the act).

Other cross-side threads to point players at

Act 3 is where the Story Bible puts cross-side composites. These need no new data (generic threads), but NPCs should name them:

• Linger into Prism Snare (Keepers into Facets): slowed, then held. Hale's scribes argue over whether it is allowed.
• Hasten into Bevel Lash (Keepers into Facets): the breath bonus lets the long Bevel Lash land cleanly; Rook names it.
• Bulwark (Repel into Facet Seal): already a named composite; Aske suggests it for the colossus's second phase, where its stagger opens the cracked chest.

The spell roadmap also names threads found in this act: Blight (Toll into Wither), from a Keeper's old field notebook at the Hour Stair; Rebound (Girdle Gate into Repel), a gift from a Facet cut sheltering from the storm on the Shardfield road; and Deep Cut (Crown Surge into Bevel Lash, both Facet), taught by Iver's cut if the player robbed the Vault for him (vault.outcome == 1), otherwise found carved in the Undermere.

Choices, morality and reputation in this act Open page

(Idea) Three numbers, as Codex section 7 suggests: personal morality, and standing with each side, rep.evane and rep.facets. All three start at 0. Standing moves on whose interests the player serves; morality moves on how they treat people. Section 11 gives the bands. All three run from −100 to 100 and move in steps of 5, as in the other acts (VEL-63). Trust is a separate 0–5 count per person (tamsin.trust, rook.trust).

The act's choices alone can't push a player who arrived clean into the Undermere: the worst run through chapters 1–5 is −15 (Wary). Players reach it by bringing a fall in from Acts 1–2 or from side quests' hidden moral choices (Codex section 8).

Falling and the way back Open page

(Idea) Bands of morality. Each band is twice as deep as the one above it:

Every atonement deed is worth +5. Because the bands double, climbing out of each takes twice the deeds of the one above. From the bottom of each band: 2 deeds from Wary to Clean (−15 to −5), 4 from Fallen to Wary (−35 to −15), 8 from Dark to Fallen (−75 to −35), and one from −80 into Dark, plus one for every 5 below −80. A player at −80 needs 15 deeds to be trusted again; a player at −20 needs 3. Falling stays quick (one bad act can cost −10 or more), so the cost of each extra step down grows the deeper the player goes. This is how this walkthrough reads "exponentially harder the further they fall" (Codex section 7; Story Bible section 8, Decided).

Locations

All (Idea) except where the Story Bible describes the place. Spawn, exit and marker names follow the prologue scenes (Event_* for triggers, Walk_* for road beats); Spawn_* and Exit_* are proposed.

Sallowbank (`sallowbank`, existing) Open page

• Changes: daytime glint variant (mirror-flat river); the golem standing in the square from 1.2 onward; Tobin at the ferry instead of Aske.
• Spawns: Spawn_south (from the road), existing farm and barn spawns.
• Exits: Exit_upstream (north bank path to the Sallow warp), existing exits.
• Triggers: Event_square (1.1), Event_barn (1.2), Event_ferry (1.2).

The Sallow warp (`sallow_warp`, new) Open page

• Layout: a river bend under a low bluff. The warp hangs over the water at the bend; the cracked seal-stone ring is on the near bank; the glyph-hunters' dig is cut into the bluff.
• Spawns: Spawn_downstream. Exits: Exit_downstream (Sallowbank), Exit_north (the road to Corran).
• Landmarks: the warp; the cracked ring; the dig.
• Triggers: Event_seal_stones, Event_dig, Event_fresh_glyph (interactable, Trace, unless spell.learned.crown_surge).

Corran (`corran`, new) Open page

• Layout: a small Facet town on the Shardfield's edge: one crooked main street from the south gate to the square and well, a market lane off it with the Girdle house, a ring of houses, and the north edge facing the warp across a glazed open square (the battle arena).
• Spawns: Spawn_south, Spawn_undermere (a crack in the north edge, from 6.4).
• Exits: Exit_south (overworld), Exit_undermere (only for fallen players).
• Landmarks: the well with the girl; the warp; the Girdle house's sigil door.
• Triggers: Event_town_line, Event_reflection_gate, Event_reflection_square, Event_reflection_well, Event_well, Event_warp_edge (blocking until act3.stage ≥ 10), Event_menders, twelve Event_stilled_<name> looks, Event_teacher_door, Event_teacher_slate, Event_teacher_shelf.
• States: stilled (glass shader on) until corran.unstilled; awake afterwards. One scene, two states.

The Hour Stair (`hour_stair`, new) Open page

• Layout: the foot of the cliff; the gate landing; a spiral stair of twelve bell landings; the bell court (arena) above the twelfth; the archive behind it (pool, ledger lectern, confiscated shelf); the archive's back window over the gorge.
• Spawns: Spawn_foot, Spawn_window (from the smugglers' climb).
• Exits: Exit_foot (overworld).
• Landmarks: the bells; the great bell over the court.
• Triggers: Event_gate, Bell_1 to Bell_12 (ambient lines), Event_ringer, Event_linger_glyph, Event_hale, Event_pool, Event_ledger, Event_archive_shelf.

The Undermere (`undermere`, new) Open page

• Layout: the mouth and ladder; the first cavern under the reflected roof; the den (market, pit, board); a tunnel north to the diggings under Corran's warp; a crack up the gorge to the Hour Stair's window.
• Spawns: Spawn_mouth. Exits: Exit_mouth (overworld), Exit_corran, Exit_climb.
• Triggers: Event_ladder, Event_market, Event_ring, Event_board, Event_atonement, Event_climb_start, Event_diggings.

Overworld Open page

• New region: the Sallow's upper valley and the Shardfield's southern edge, with landmarks for the Sallow warp, Corran (Art/Concepts/world/landmark-corran-a.png), the Hour Stair (landmark-hour-stair-a.png) and the Undermere mouth (landmark-undermere-a.png).
• Triggers: Act3Walk_1 to Act3Walk_3 (1.4).

Characters Open page

Every voice line below is (Idea).

(Idea) The twelve named Stilled, each a woken side quest in 5.3: the man with the goat (Oren), the man halfway through a word (Abel), the woman with the eggs (Della), the racing children (Kit and Pip), the cart-driver (Teg), Hollis's three pupils (Tam, Bel, Corr), the well-wright (Gessa), the door-painter (Lune), the old man asleep on the bench (Fitch). Each has kin outside Corran who aged twenty years.

Encounters Open page

(Idea) Enemy ids, stats and behaviour follow the bestiary (VEL-59), which is sized against the Training Golem (120 HP, 12 damage every 6 s). The encounter ids are this walkthrough's. Player HP is still undefined. Encounters list one enemy per file today, so packs need multi-enemy encounters (noted below).

(Idea) Code needs from these encounters: several enemies per encounter (glint packs, colossus adds); enemy shields (the outlaws' Bulwark); enemies that flee (glyph-hunters); a delayed enemy attack (the sentinel's toll); phase changes at health thresholds; a timer aimed at scenery (The Pull).

Hooks for side content Open page

• The woken of Corran. Twelve named townsfolk with kin outside who aged twenty years (13). Deliver news to Lanternfall, find a sister in Halfway, return the goat Oren was leading (it wandered off twenty years ago; its descendants are in Sallowbank). Each one is a morality-positive side quest and can count as an atonement deed.
• The golem on watch. Sallowbank's golem stands guard in the square from 1.2. Night-watch side quests with Fenn; the golem's chest glyph slowly fading.
• Fenn's chalk. Fenn's chalk door-mark held the glints back for a moment in 1.1. Hook for a later act: is Fenn an even pair too?
• The glyph-hunters' fate. Depending on act3.hunters: Sabe's cut rebuilding, in a Warden cell, or in the Undermere.
• The Still Choir's guilt. The Drowned Choir was the Mending's choir (3.3). A Hushfold quest where Choirmistress Wen reacts to the player knowing.
• Crown Surge's fading. A warp-born glyph that is gone after act3.stage 10, then only at fresh warps (glyph hunts) or as a stolen copy at the Undermere fence: the first test of time-limited glyphs.
• The bell-ringer (3.5) and the Prism Snare halves (2.5, 3.4).
• The quicksilver trade. Glint quicksilver from the Undermere diggings as a crafting material (Items, VEL-61), and who buys it.
• Tamsin's teacher. One of the five menders in the Sallow ledger (3.4). Tamsin wants to find them before Act 4.
• Other stilled places. If Ondine sealed Corran, did she seal anywhere else? Hale's ledger has more five-person seals.

Flags read from earlier acts Open page

VEL-63 should check these against Acts 1 and 2.

Screens used Open page

Built today: overworld HUD with interaction prompts, dialogue panel, battle HUD, glyph prompt, spell book, trace screen (learning), pause menu. Needed for this act (Screens spec, VEL-62):

• Items (inventory): the two halves, Prism Snare halves, quicksilver.
• Trace screen with two fragments: split glyphs (Prism Snare, Pavilion Wake) show each half's fragment image over its own thumb.
• Glyph prompt for a composite: <<prompt_cast thaw>> shows the whole thread.
• Quest log: with startWhen quests and a computed count for long_way_up.
• Profile: morality and standing with each side, with the current band.
• Shop: the Undermere fence.
• Cutscene (letterbox): reflections, the Hundred-Year Hour, the Unstilling.

Open questions for Ray Open page

• Which Evane spell threads into the Corran glyph? Recommendation: Repel, the door-mark. It is the protagonist's first spell, older than the Wardens and never sealable, so the thread that makes the Unstilling is the first spell plus the newest. The alternative is Hasten (time moving again), which ties the act to the Keepers but asks for a much harder thread. Settled: Repel. The thread is Thaw (thaw), Repel into Pavilion Wake, because Repel can never be sealed and every player has it (VEL-63).
• What does Aske cast? Recommendation: Brace, the glyph she taught hand over hand in Act 1 without casting. It pays off that lesson, and it is a holding spell, not an attack. The alternative is the Repel she cast as part of the seal, undone. Settled: Brace, across the warp, at the same moment the player casts Thaw; it is her one cast (VEL-63).
• What if the player never picked up the Act 2 half? Recommendation: make it unmissable in Act 2 (VEL-56), and keep the fallback in 1.3 (the glyph-hunters dug a copy) as a safety net.
• Name of the Corran glyph: "Girdle Thaw" (girdle_thaw) and the Girdle cut, following the Facet naming rule. Recommendation: Pavilion Wake (pavilion_wake), the spell roadmap's name and shape (hourglass and low wave), in the Spell Book; "the Corran glyph" stays what characters call it until 2.5. The Girdle cut and the Girdle house keep their names (VEL-63).
• Thaw breath (1,360 ms): too long for an unlevelled player without Hasten. Recommendation: keep 0.85 × (600 + 1,000) = 1,360 ms. Hasten is taught on the main line right before it (3.2) and gives about 1,904 ms for 12 s, and the cast has no fail state; check on the device (VEL-63).
• Do Tamsin and Rook fight in battle in Act 3? Recommendation: no, not yet. They travel and talk; companions in battle is a systems decision (Codex section 12) and Act 3 doesn't depend on it.
• "Falls to one side": what does falling mean? This walkthrough uses personal morality only for the Undermere, and keeps standing with each side separate (Codex section 7's idea). Recommendation: keep them separate. Falling deep into one side's camp should feel like zealotry, not outlawry.
• The exponential way back. Doubling bands with a flat +5 per deed (section 11). Recommendation: keep; it is simple data, and the quest log can show the exact count. The alternative (deeds worth less the deeper you are) is harder to explain on screen.
• Is the Undermere closed to unfallen players? Recommendation: closed as a hub, but its diggings (6.4) reachable from Corran's north edge once Corran wakes, so everyone can find out about the quicksilver trade.
• Ondine knew the truth of the Breaking all along. Recommendation: yes. It makes her sincere rather than ignorant, which fits "sincerely believes it saves more lives" (Story Bible section 5).
• Aske after Act 3: home to the ferry, waving this time. Recommendation: she stays the night in Corran (5.4). In Act 4 she goes ahead to the Heart Pane's rim and keeps a fire where both camps can sit, and joins neither side, which keeps "joins neither side" true; after that she goes home to the ferry. Her wave at the bend moves to Act 4 (4.3), when she sets off with the handcart (VEL-63).
• New names (Sabe, Brin, Hollis, Old Pim, Mott, Vey, the twelve Stilled, the Girdle cut): all (Idea); replace freely.
• Front matter: this file is not a tab in the live doc yet; order: 8 assumes the prologue and Acts 1–4 walkthroughs take orders 5–9. site.json is untouched, per the ticket. The Lead decides whether it becomes a doc tab and site page.