Chapter 1: The warps reach home

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.

From Walkthrough: Act 3 › Chapter 1: The warps reach home