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St Anthony's Lighthouse | |
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Category | Random Event |
Type | Random |
Data ID | 315627 |
St Anthony's Lighthouse is a Sunless Skies Random Event.
Story description[]
The lighthouse looms out of the mists like a pale candle. Its light burns a searing path, breaking through the wispy susurration of the fog.
A single platform clings to the lighthouse, allowing for engines to dock. The upper gantry hangs far above it, like a sentinel.
A pair of elderly keepers maintain the tower. They permit guests use of their converted fuel house. It is not much of a generosity.
Trigger conditions[]
Location: The High Wilderness
Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)
Interactions[]
Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes |
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Offer the keepers an Unidentifiable Squirming
Rumours say that the keepers can tame the writhing appendages that speckle the misty sea.
Game note: Locomotives with the Butchery ability can sometimes harvest Squirmings from the surrounding sea of mists. |
Service rendered
The Lugubrious Keeper grunts with recognition when he sees your caged squirming. His whiskers twitch as he wets his lips. He pulls open the cage and hauls up a loop of the squirming to his mouth and bites down hard. Blood the colour of cheap inks runs down his chops. He grunts again, this time in satisfaction.
Begging your pardon, he disappears up the stairs leading into the tower. Some minutes later, he returns, carrying the supine squirming. It is dry as a bone, as though drained.
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Climb to the top of the tower
The view up there must be worth seeing.
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Watched
A ladder bolted to the side of the lantern room allows access to the lighthouse top. The mists come in thick and fast, hampering visibility. You find yourself groping for the next rung only to miss, and find yourself swinging, half on and half off the ladder, hanging in the air.
Suddenly, you see movement far below. The mists cascade away, as something vast approaches the lighthouse. You hold very still for several minutes, your arms burning and prickling with sweat. Eventually, the mist roils and flickers, as the thing sinks below the mistline. It takes some minutes before the sea is calm once more.
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Advanced query needs investigation | |
Rare event (75%) | |||
Peril overcome
The climb is harrowing, the iron stairs are rickety, and unsteadily bolted to the lighthouse's inner wall.
You emerge. At the top of the lighthouse, the mists fall away altogether. You can see the lights of Worlebury, dappled and jolly with festive lights. Engines pass in the distance, intent on some destination far from here. You linger for a time, watching the world go by without you.
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Take tea with the keepers
The keepers are notorious recluses. Perhaps they'll be more amenable if bring them some home comforts.
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A respite?
The Other Keeper is on his break; wellington-booted feet draped over the mildewy couch. When he sees your crew carrying in a caddy, he smiles, revealing two rows of stubs where teeth once where.
The Insalubrious Keeper appears frowning and stained, drawn by the rattling of stained crockery Grudgingly, he sits and permits the Other Keeper to serve him tea in a chipped cup. They drink in resentful silence. "You must visit again," the Lugubrious Keeper eventually spits out, indicating the door.
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Join the Lugubrious Keeper on his watch
The keepers keep a grubby calendar on the wall, dividing the days into a cycle of duty and rest. Green ink informs you of their current whereabouts.
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The progress of light
You find the Lugubrious Keeper is out on the roof. He shambles toward you, a frown upon his face. He indicates the mists that teem over the lighthouse, before gesturing you to follow him.
He leads you around the upper gantry with surprising dexterity for his bulk. Before every ladder, he stops and points down, where something swells in the mists. An arc of light from the beacon slides in like moonlight under a stormcloud. As the light touches the mist, the swells subside and bob away.
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Advanced query needs investigation
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Join a game of chess
The Other Keeper and the Lugbrious Keeper have an unusual chess-set. It is three-sided.
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Failed event |
Advanced query needs investigation |
The game turns
Your pieces are a motley collection; misshapen and haphazardly carved. Some are unique, never seen on other boards. Other pieces are formed from amalgamations of traditional ones. This, for example is two white bishops and a red.
The rules are similarly motley, and you struggle to keep up. The Other Keeper takes your green queen when you are forced to surrender a knight's move so that it may 'grieve'. The Lugubrious Keeper's king swoops in in a dual-diagonal to finish you off.
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Successful event | |||
A tactician's gambit
The Other Keeper explains the rules: the ascendance of the pawn, the captivity of the bishops and the oscillations of the king. There are rules for queening, there are rules for grieving. The Other Keeper smiles apologetically. They have a lot of time on their hands.
Despite the complexity, your strategy triumphs. The Lugubrious Keeper is too aggressive; the Other Keeper too cautious. Both of them seem to panic when your bishop threatens to reach the other side and apostatise. You capitalise. The Other Keeper hands you some trinkets from his store: two long, glistening spines.
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Watch the mists with the Lugubrious Keeper
The Other Keeper is in bed today; a sore stomach. The Lugubrious Keeper requests your assistance on the gantry.
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Failed event |
Advanced query needs investigation |
Not unnoticed
The Lugubrious Keeper will patrol the gantry while you direct the beacon in the lantern room. He has flares should he require assistance.
You pass several slow hours in the sealed, chilly room. The mists are thick and the revolution of the beacon slow. Several flares go off all at once. Looking out, you see holes open in the mist, like suppurating sores on an arm. Red and blue and inky violet eyes set in some half-submerged bulk. They speckle the sea in front of the tower, close and watchful. They blink as one, The door to the lantern room bursts open. The Keeper, come to help you direct the light. Together, you manoeuvre the great wheel until the light is pointing directly into the sea. The eyes blink and submerge.
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Successful event | |||
A journey in light
The gantry is mizzled with mist; clammy and insubstantial as a spectre's sighs. The Lugubrious Keeper leads you around the tower's perimeter. He instructs you in the sealing of oil lanterns and fixing them to the iron railings.
It is arduous, tedious work. Your hands cramp; his are already almost claws. But by the shift's end, the tower is illuminated in a blaze of flickering lamps. Light seeps over the mist like oil over water. The Lugubrious Keeper spits into the mists, grimly triumphant. He insists you take an old lantern as a reward. It is peppered with lesions, formed from protruding needles, and stained an unwholesome violet.
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Enjoy a nautical supper with the Other Keeper
He is polishing knives in the squalid kitchenette today. Flensing knives, carving knives, boning knives. His long fingers tremble over the steel.
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Appetites
The Other Keeper disappears your squirming somewhere in the cellars; you hear the knock and drag of his feet as he manoeuvres the thing below.
When he reappears, he is lugging a rattling crate of ingredients. Dried onions and shallots, bottled spices, fresh meat – pale and wobbling. The air is soon filled with the mouth-watering scent of fresh seafood. You face each other over the crooked kitchen table, divided by a greasy candle. Food, the Other Keeper tells you between mouthfuls, is the greatest act of love one can bestow upon the body. He insists on doing the dishes himself.
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Advanced query needs investigation
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Links[]
Links In[]
Links Out[]
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