Chapter A: The Summons · The Velan Codex

Corran, the morning after

Where: Corran, the town well (Mark_well). Corran's location and markers come from Act 3; this scene adds Mark_well if Act 3 hasn't.
When: act3.done = 1 and act4.stage = 0. The act4 quest starts here.
Who: the player, Aske, Brin (Hollis's daughter, the Corran girl who pressed the shard into Aske's hand, met in Act 3; unstilled and still about nine (Idea)), her mother Hollis, Corran townsfolk.
What happens: The first morning Corran has had in twenty years. Its people are confused and cold, and keep checking that their feet move. Brin sits on the well's rim with Hollis, tracing the Corran glyph on the stone while her mother corrects her thumbs: the lesson the glass interrupted. On the horizon, where the Shardfield's centre should be, the sky shows twice, one above the other: the Heart Pane, lit from both sides at once. Aske stayed the night in Corran and has not slept. She says what it means: both sides have gone to the Pane.
Player does: talk (Aske, Brin, three townsfolk barks); move.
Content to make: Yarn Act4_Corran_Morning (entry, a trigger on arrival), Act4_Corran_Brin, Act4_Corran_Townsfolk (barks; they change after 4.2). No new flag: met.brin is already set in Act 3. No stage change.
Art and audio: Corran unstilled: the same streets as Act 3, glass gone, people in old-fashioned clothes (twenty years out of date) (Idea). Brin and Hollis models from Act 3 (Brin: mismatched sleeves; a half-sigil on her collar). VFX: the doubled-sky glow on the eastern horizon, visible from every Shardfield location for the rest of the act. Music: a quiet variant of the Corran theme with the glass harmonics removed.
Screens used: dialogue box.

Two summons

Where: Corran, the town gate (Mark_gate).
When: after Act4_Corran_Morning; act4.stage = 0.
Who: the player, Aske, Tamsin Vale, Rook.
What happens: The letters come within minutes of each other, from opposite roads. Rook, who left for Lanternfall the night of the wake, walks back in with an amber one. Tamsin brings the pale blue one: if she stayed with the player (act3.records 2 or 4), a Warden courier finds her at the gate with it; if she went back to Twinhold, she walks in with it herself. Tamsin's has a pale blue seal: Prelate Ondine asks the player to the Pane to sing the last note of the second Great Mending. Rook's has amber: Iver the Cutter asks the player to draw the last cut. (Idea) It is the send-off reversed: Aske once gave the player two letters, to Ondine and to Iver (Act 2), and now those two write back. Aske reads neither. She says she'll keep a fire at the rim of the Pane, where anyone may sit, because carrying anyone is the only rule she still keeps, and a fire is the nearest thing to a ferry out there. Tamsin and Rook will both walk in with the player and both know why the other is there.
Player does: talk; choose how to answer each letter (accept, refuse, or "I'll hear them both"). The answers move trust, not the plot: every path stays open until 4.13.
Content to make: Yarn Act4_Corran_Summons. Flags: act4.letter_ondine = 1, act4.letter_iver = 1, tamsin.trust / rook.trust +1 for "I'll hear them both", act4.stage = 1. Items: two letters, quest items with no use, readable in the item list (Idea): Ondine's, "Come and finish what Corran started. I ask it knowing what Corran cost," and Iver's, "Come and end it. Nobody's hands get sealed again."
Art and audio: Tamsin and Rook models (from Acts 1–2). Letter props with the two seals (the Prologue's letter prop, reused). Music: the two themes, Evane and Facet, played one after the other, never together (they meet only in the hold, scene 4.17).
Screens used: dialogue box; item list (read the letters).

From Walkthrough: Act 4 › Chapter A: The Summons