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Beams and Empty Bird-cages
Piranesi ambience
Category Story Event
Type Story
Data ID 288161

Beams and Empty Bird-cages is a Sunless Skies Story Event.

Story description[ | ]

You've finally reached Piranesi's ceiling, and at times it threatens to bump your head. You follow the Performer, navigating a latticework of wooden beams and tightropes, pushing aside dangling chandeliers, chains, and birdcages.

Prisoners wander back and forth across the slender beams, moving with a practised grace. Some of them seem to have been trapped in the hanging cages themselves.

"These prisoners know the Third Rule," says the Performer. "They can teach it to you."

Trigger conditions[ | ]

Location: Piranesi
Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)

Interactions[ | ]

Actions Requirements Effects Notes
Ask the prisoners about the Third Rule
Finally, you'll be able to understand the laws of this place.
A Simple Question
When they hear your question, the prisoners are oddly evasive. One claims to have contracted amnesia. One pretends not to speak your language. Another – bearded, elderly – hops to a neighbouring beam with the precision of a trained ballerina and scampers away. You'll need to try a different tactic.
Convince a prisoner to tell you the Third Rule
You collar a moon-faced young man and employ all your charm and rhetoric, with just a hint of coercion.
Failed event
Failure
It's no use. "I can't tell you!" sobs the round-faced prisoner, swinging his lamp so violently you're almost knocked to your doom. "I can't, I can't, it wouldn't be right!"
Successful event
Success?
The prisoner's doleful eyes meet your own, and he gives in. He leans forward, and whispers the Third Rule in your ear.

You flinch back, and narrowly avoid toppling to your death. There's a sudden, unbalancing weight at your wrist. A lamp, shackled to your arm. Piranesi begins to expand around you, staircases lengthening, walls retreating.

The Glib Performer cackles.

You've broken the Third Rule of Piranesi: "Don't learn the Third Rule." You're alone, and imprisoned, and must change before you can hope to reach the exit.
Threaten the prisoners until they start talking
You collar a moon-faced young man and employ the maximum amount of coercion, with a solid helping of ear-boxing.
Failed event
Failure
It's no use. "I can't tell you!" sobs the round-faced prisoner, swinging his lamp so violently you're almost knocked to your doom. "I can't, I can't, it wouldn't be right!"
Successful event
Success?
The bruised prisoner's doleful eyes meet your own, and he gives in. He leans forward, and whispers the Third Rule in your ear.

You flinch back, and narrowly avoid toppling to your death. There's a sudden, unbalancing weight at your wrist. A lamp, shackled to your arm. Piranesi begins to expand around you, staircases lengthening, walls retreating.

The Glib Performer cackles.

You've broken the Third Rule of Piranesi: "Don't learn the Third Rule." You're alone, and imprisoned, and must change before you can hope to reach the exit.
Trick the Performer into revealing the Third Rule
The Chaplains are forbidden from telling prisoners the rules. He'll be imprisoned for revealing it to you.
Failed event
Failure
You needle him, you threaten him, you hide clever traps in a dozen stupid questions. But the Performer merely smirks. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know."
Successful event
Success?
While the Performer is distracted, you persuade the prisoners to play into your ruse. You ask them, one by one, about the Third Rule. Their answers are plausible but wrong.

After the twentieth incorrect answer, the Performer loses patience. "You're all stupid!" he shouts. "The Third Rule is—" He claps his hands to his mouth, too late.

A sudden weight at your wrist. A lamp, shackled to your arm. Piranesi begins to expand around you, staircases lengthening, walls retreating. You've broken the Third Rule of Piranesi: "Don't learn the Third Rule."

The Performer is silent, staring at the lamp chained to his own wrist.
Leave Piranesi
"Maybe next time," mutters the Performer.
Leave Piranesi
"Maybe next time," mutters the Performer.
Leave Piranesi
"Maybe next time," mutters the Performer.


Links[ | ]

Links In[ | ]

Piranesi ambience A Crumbling Arch

Links Out[ | ]

Youarenotalone A Formless Thing, Chippedmugoftea The Chaplains, Youarenotalone The Follower, Lantern Incarceration


Template:Navbox story events

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