Airs of Clockwork

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Airs of Clockwork
250
Category	Circumstance
Type	Albion: London – Horological Office
Data ID	134402

Airs of Clockwork is considered a Misc undefined in Sunless Skies.

Circumstance description

"The gears grind on."

Quality status

Airs of Clockwork has different statuses according to your actions, defined by the comment in front of the quality.

Interaction description

• [0] Time keeps on slipping...

Variable description

NewWinchester

• [2] As you finish, the Murderous Sort in the court looks up at the clock with a smug expression. \"Where was I at the time of the murders, mi'lud? Why, I will be right here, mi'lud. And so will all of you.\" By law, the alibi stands."
• [3] As you return from the clock, you pass an Usurious Landlord waving his chalk at a desperate family. \"Three of the clock, I said, and not a second later! Is it my fault that the clocks today are as reliable as your word? Humbug! To the poorhouse with the lot of you!\"

PortAvon

• [2] You return to the train past the now exhausted farmhand, earnestly trying to milk a cow that was milked only a few hours ago and is frankly little happier at the whole affair. He stifles a yawn just long enough to shoot you a foul look.
• [3] You climb down from the clock into a bitter wedding argument. It appears that both bride and groom are already married - to each other. The paperwork does not lie! In shame, both families call the whole thing off, with the unlucky couple left to work out whether they are or not now living in sin."

Magdalenes

• [2] The clock is fixed, though none pay it much attention. The clouds of hookah smoke emerging from the quieter rooms do more to toy with the passing of time than a crate of fresh Hours, never mind a little tinkering around with something as banal as a clock.
• [3] Having fixed the clock, you hunt down the members of your crew who are enjoying the facilities. Most look relaxed and able, save for one who has to be carried back to the train on a stretcher. His face is locked in a rictus grin; still trembling, with eyes wide and requiring regular drops of salt-water to remain moisturised. His worried attendant refuses to divulge the precise nature of his requested treatment. It can however be assumed that he found the exact moment it became too much of a good thing."

Brabazon

• [1] As you leave, your job complete, a small riot is breaking out. It would be larger, but most of the workers are too exhausted and in need of a little rest and recreation. Your adjustments should ensure their working conditions remain arduous rather than torturous, at least for a while.
• [2] You leave to find the exhausted miner being wheeled away, twenty-three hours into what now shows on the paperwork as an eight hour shift. He is fined for not seeing it through to the end."

Carillon

• [2] The Presiding Deviless is waiting for you outside the clocktower, already dealing with a new set of prospective patients arriving before the previous penitents have parted. \"Order them all packed into the brimstone sauna,\" she tells an assistant. \"Then lock the door.\"
• [3] You leave the clock as a strait-jacketed penitent is dragged kicking and protesting from the peace of the gardens to the screams of the dining hall. Through blistered lips, she protests she already ate a thousand nettles today. The devils ignore her obvious excuses. The lunch bell, they respect."

Eagles

• [2] As you finish your work, the Khan's enforcers are wasting no time tracking down London diplomats whose domicile rights have expired. The richest are welcomed to settle the matter with the currency of their choice. The rest soon find their visas claimed by the Eagle, and are deported on the first available trains with little but the clothes on their backs, and no thought given to the damage to the London Embassy's schedules."
• [3] As you conclude your work, members of the Empyrean Foreign Office watch in quiet amusement as the Londoners scrabble to adjust. Later, they will see which contracts and deals with the Embassy can be most profitably broken. For now, however, the show is enough.

Worlebury

• [1] Miserable holiday-makers shuffle past you in a mood of gloom, their holidays abruptly ended and the real world calling again. You have not made any friends here today.
• [3] You return to the pier to find guests who had been looking forward to celebrating the Festival of the Sea instead surrounded by half-painted decorations, bunting still in its crates, and tables laden with undercooked meats that ooze when pierced. Worlebury rumbles to the sounds of disappointment, displeasure, and later, intense food poisoning."

Prosper

• [1] With the clock fixed, a team of cleaners begin scrubbing away the painted protests. They will no doubt be back again soon. Port Prosper is getting large enough to chafe against London's more arbitrary demands, especially ones as inconvenient as an Albion Standard Time that bears no relation to how the people here actually carry out their days."
• [3] Adjusting the clock back to Albion Standard Time proves the Windward Company's case. The mob is forced to admit that their hard work was merely an interesting statistical anomaly and disperses, grumbling, to talk of revolutions, walls, and who should be first against the latter once the former begins. Your name comes up more than once in this discussion.

NatureReserve

• [2] Out in the reserve, the researchers begin making all sorts of discoveries. A whole family of apparently diurnal owls, for instance. A badger set that can be observed without having to stay up all night in a damp ditch watching badgers conspicuously not doing anything everyone isn't already quite aware that badgers do. \n\nThe mood is quite positive, until someone points out that the animals probably haven't taken note of the recent time change. Torn up notes and aborted monographs flutter from the edges of the reserve."
• [3] Meanwhile, an apprentice finishes a survey and concludes, seeing the same counts doubled, that there are now twice as many animals in the Reserve's care as previously suspected. There is an immediate culling, to avoid over-population. Later, realisation puts a real pall on what is otherwise a quite splendid banquet.

PortAvonIntro

• [1] The port's clock is running eight hours fast. That makes for a whole day's work that, technically, shouldn't have happened."
• [2] \"You here for the clocks?\" The tired looking farmhand rolls his eyes at you. \"Couldn't you have been here sooner? Could've had me another couple of hours in bed.\"

MagdalenesIntro

• [2] Time is running slow here, though that could be the sleepy atmosphere as much as banal matters of clockwork.
• [3] The clocks are running fast. Fixing them would be a several hour long boon for anyone in the more pleasant treatments."

CarillonIntro

• [1] Devils have an infamously loose relationship with conventional time. At Carillon, however, they pay it grudging lip-service."
• [2] The clock is running fast. One of the clients spots you looking at it and grabs your arm. \"No,\" she begs, before being dragged away by a pair of expressionless nurses. \"No more, please!\"

BrabazonIntro

• [1] The overseers look awkward as you approach the clock. By your estimation, they've been slowing them down to extend workers' shifts. Fixing that would give the workers a much needed break.
• [3] Your guide is a cheerful fellow, oblivious to the fact that the clock is a week slow. \"It's my last day here,\" he tells you. \"Tomorrow, I go back to London. First thing I'm doing, getting a big steak.\" "

EaglesIntro

• [1] The clocks in London's Embassy are running slow, though it matters little to most of the port. The Eagle has no interest in Albion Standard Time, but it's playing merry hell with the London Ambassador's timekeeping.
• [2] The staff at the London Embassy look worried at your arrival. Today is the start of the new Empyrean tax year, and their clocks are running slow."

WorleburyIntro

• [2] The clocks on the pier are running a few hours slow. \"Explore the mists! Trip of a lifetime!\" calls a diving bell attendant, one eye fixed on the slow tick of the minutes hand.
• [3] Festival preparations are in full swing. A glance up at the clock tells you at once that they had better speed up. The three days they think they have left is closer to three hours."

ProsperIntro

• [1] The central port clock is fast. It has also been vandalised by protesters against Albion Standard Time. \"NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT\" has been scrawled over the clockface."
• [2] The clocks are running several hours slow, much to the relief of a fellow Captain with a shipment of Hours from Lustrum. \"Thought I was going to be late again,\" he tells you, quickly unloading his cargo.

NatureReserveIntro

• [2] The researchers look up at the clock, running fast. They beg you to hurry up. Their statistics rely on proper timekeeping.
• [3] The researchers are busy in a meeting, leaving their apprentices to handle Reserve business. One offers to show you to the clock."

NewWinchesterIntro

• [2] The clock is next to the courthouse, where a Murderous Sort is in the dock before Judge 'Hang All The Filthy _______' Stacks. They have blood on their clothes and no alibi.
• [3] The clocks are running slow. \"Please, not yet,\" whispers a nervous tenant. \"I still have to pay this month's rent! My landlord...\""}}

Interactions

Interactions in Brief

Click Expand on the right for more.

Interaction	Action	Result Type	Change
The Royal Horological Office	'A new assignment'	Default / Challenge Fail	= [d:3]
The Royal Horological Office	'A new assignment'	Rare Event	= [d:3]
The Royal Horological Office	'A new assignment'	Default / Challenge Fail	= [d:3]
The Royal Horological Office	'A new assignment'	Default / Challenge Fail	= [d:3]
The Royal Horological Office	'A new assignment'	Default / Challenge Fail	= [d:3]
The Royal Horological Office	'A new assignment'	Default / Challenge Fail	= [d:3]
Royal Horology Exam – Question 3	'Nudge the Chief Horologist'	Default / Challenge Fail	= [d:3]

Interactions in Detail

Click Expand on the right for more.

Story	Action	Required	Effect
The Royal Horological Office	A new assignment	Royal Horological Office Assignment ≤ 0 Completed a Horologist Assignment ≥ 1 ≤ 79 Royal Horological Office ≥ 1	Default: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3] Rare: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3]
	A new assignment	Royal Horological Office Assignment ≤ 0 Completed a Horologist Assignment ≥ 80 ≤ 84 Royal Horological Office ≥ 1 Horological Assignment – Carillon ≥ 1	Default: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3]
	A new assignment	Royal Horological Office Assignment ≤ 0 Completed a Horologist Assignment ≥ 85 ≤ 89 Royal Horological Office ≥ 1 Horological Assignment – Lustrum ≥ 1	Default: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3]
	A new assignment	Royal Horological Office Assignment ≤ 0 Completed a Horologist Assignment ≥ 90 ≤ 94 Royal Horological Office ≥ 1 Horological Assignment – Brabazon ≥ 1	Default: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3]
	A new assignment	Royal Horological Office Assignment ≤ 0 Completed a Horologist Assignment ≥ 95 ≤ 100 Royal Horological Office ≥ 1 Horological Assignment – Port Prosper ≥ 1	Default: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3]
Royal Horology Exam – Question 3	Nudge the Chief Horologist	Horology Test ≥ 2	Default: Royal Horological Office Assignment = [1-9] Royal Horological Office = 1 [Apprentice Third Class] Airs of Clockwork = [1-3] Triggers event:  The Royal Horological Office

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