 |
This article is a stub. You can help Sunless Skies Wiki by expanding it. |
| The Flooded Cellars | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Category | Story Event |
| Type | Story |
| Data ID | 287890 |
The Flooded Cellars is a Sunless Skies Story Event.
Story description[]
You follow the Conformer down staircase after winding staircase, finally reaching a maze of flooded tunnels. The walls bristle with fierce black mould. The water is opaque; you can't see your feet. "Here the most deeply condemned wallow," says the Conformer. "Like this Servitor. Too inflexible to change on its own." A twig-limbed creature slumps in the corner, raising its head only fractionally at her words. She wades past it without a second glance.
Trigger conditions[]
Piranesi: Been Told About the Rules ≥ 1
Location: Piranesi
Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)
Interactions[]
| Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write a Port Report
Ask the Grey Conformer to tell you what she knows of Piranesi. Politely, or she'll just instruct you on etiquette instead.
|
|
The Flooded Cellars
"By its very nature, Piranesi is impossible to measure, so I apologize in advance. My best attempts will only be broad estimates," says the Conformer. "We keep at least twelve and perhaps more than six hundred thousand prisoners. Including the gardens, the exterior is twenty-two square miles in size. The interior cannot be measured conventionally. For some prisoners, it is the size of an island. For others, a continent."
What of the prisoners? Any new arrivals, any recently released? How do they feel about their imprisonment, what were they punished for? She shrugs. She can only offer her vague measurements.
|
|
| Eavesdrop on the Conformer's questions
She has cornered some shivering prisoners, and is interrogating them with a precision and patience more unnerving than any rage.
|
The Conformer's Questions
"When did you last feel anger? Regret? Grief? Why were you condemned? What did you do wrong? Would you prefer to forget?"
She listens to each answer with the barest hint of revulsion. As the prisoners pour out their hearts, they start to look puzzled. Most fall silent. Some try to keep going, talking circular nonsense. They seem to be forgetting their stories as they speak them. When the prisoners finally trail off in confusion, she delivers her advice: Shuck your memories. Abandon emotions. Vacate your soul. |
||
| Approach the Brittle Servitor
Its face (or mask?) is expressionless porcelain. Its lamp is shackled to limbs that are twisted and blackened, like burnt wood.
|
The Brittle Servitor
|
||
| Deliver the good news to the Brittle Servitor
You've successfully petitioned for its sentence to be reduced. But it has not been pardoned entirely.
|
|
The Brittle Servitor
"Is this Servitor now free?" Opalescent sparks dance wildly around its ankles.
You tell the Servitor that its sentence is commuted. It will no longer have to change utterly in order to escape. It can even remain a Servitor, rather than descending into something lesser. But sacrifices must still be made before Piranesi will lose its grip. "This cannot be. This being cannot change. The lesser being will find another way."
 A Remaking by Lamplight
|
|
| Talk to the Brittle Servitor
Change on its behalf, or convince it to change. It's the only way it can escape.
|
|
A Remaking by Lamplight
|
|
| Recruit some wandering prisoners to join the Psalmists at the White Well
If you help them escape, they'll join whatever obscure sect you like.
|
|
Failed event | |
| Chained and unchanged
The prisoners stare at you with blank faces when you talk about the Judas Psalm. Their lanterns stay stubbornly chained to their wrists.
It seems Piranesi wasn't as fertile a ground for converts as you'd hoped.
| |||
| Successful event | |||
| Changed and unchained
You sit down and talk to a group of prisoners about change. Specifically, conversion. You talk about the Judas Psalm, and the power of cursing, and the joy of spite. You talk until your voice is a hoarse whisper.
The Conformer helps, in her own way. "It is better to accept a creed than flounder without one," she says, "even if the creed is vile." It takes a long time, but some of the prisoners come round to the Psalmists' creed. A few lanterns fall from a few wrists. The redeemed-in-spite dash for the exit, promising to board your train outside.
| |||
| Leave Piranesi
"My business here is concluded." The Conformer does not quite smile.
|
|
Ascent
The Conformer marches silently up an endless spiralling stairway, not looking back to see if you're at her heels.
 The Follower
|
|
| Leave Piranesi
"My business here is concluded." The Conformer does not quite smile.
|
Outside Piranesi
The Conformer marches silently up an endless spiralling stairway, not looking back to see if you're at her heels.
When you finally leave the confines of Piranesi, the sky seems dizzyingly wide. The Conformer wishes you well in her leaden voice, and returns to the cottage.
 The Chaplains
|
||
| Leave Piranesi
"My business here is concluded." The Conformer does not quite smile.
|
Ascent
The Conformer marches silently up an endless spiralling stairway, not looking back to see if you're at her heels.
A Formless Thing
|
|
Links[]
Links In[]
The Chaplains, The Rules of Piranesi, The Brittle Servitor, A Remaking by Lamplight
Links Out[]
The Follower, The Chaplains, A Formless Thing, The Brittle Servitor, A Remaking by Lamplight
Template:Navbox story events