Your opportunity deck is not available here; however when you return to Zee any cards that were in your hand will still be there. The Bazaar is accessible on Mutton Island.
Mutton Island
Mutton Island houses a small, vibrant fishing community. But you can't buy a piece of fish on the island for love nor money. Where does it all go?
Sidebar text
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago 0-6
Welcome to Mutton Island
Mutton Island! A simple fishing community. Whitewashed stone and weatherbeaten grasses. Hardy folk in nor'easters and galoshes brave the Unterzee for the day's catch.
Take a walk around the island
Do those trees still live? Good God. There's barely a green leaf to be seen in London.
Shadowy Challenge, straightforward at 115
Apple of the eye
Mutton Islanders are a friendly lot. Half-smiling faces turn to you as you walk from the jetty, past the Cock and Magpie and through the serried stone cottages towards the cliff paths.
How fortunate you are, to find an island where they take such care of visitors! You are never alone as on your walk. You cross the cliffs, skirt the hill with the fire-scarred summit and wander through the orchard. The blissful orchard, with its flowering trees and half-hidden red apples. You duck behind a tree trunk to escape the gaze of the locals for a moment. This tree has suffered a carving: a crude attempt at a full-figured woman, marked with the letters MP.
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
The Start of the Day
The glow of new-lit lamps and candles marks the dawn in Fallen London. But Mutton Island is darkest at dawn, dark as the zee.
What are these three up to?
A trio of stern, businesslike locals is making the round of the village, but without match or taper. You could follow them.
Shadowy Challenge, straightforward at 115
Why would they do that?
You recognise the landlord of the Cock and Magpie, and the local… well, he wears a tattered frock coat rather than a collar or cassock, but he certainly has the air of a country vicar. All you know about the woman is that she has a great army of children. The trio make their way around the houses on the island, stopping at each one.
It takes a while to work out what is going on. They're checking windows for light. They are making sure that not a single glimmer of light is visible to the North or East of the island. Where the ships come in from.
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
What are you three doing?
You recognise the landlord of the Cock and Magpie, and the local… well, he wears a tattered grey robe rather than collar or cassock, but he certainly has the air of a country vicar. The woman you only know for having a great army of children. The trio make their way around the houses on the island, stopping at each one. Whatever they are looking for, they seem satisfied.
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
An Island with Secrets?
Mutton Island is barely more than a hamlet. But even tiny communities have their secrets.
Take a quiet look around
There's no fog to hide you here, and only a few shadows. The best cover you can hope for is a low wall decorated with zeeshells.
Shadowy Challenge, straightforward at 115
Charming local customs
Two young fishermen discuss a festival during which the islanders burn a huge wooden snake on the hill. A thatcher is repairing the seaweed bunting on the roof of the Cock and Magpie. A trio of matrons make solemn conversation about apples.
You watch a young woman with a heavy bunch of what look to be real daffodils. She places bunches on doorsteps and hands a single flower to everyone she passes. There are still plenty left when she arrives at the well. She puts half the bunch around the stone lip. Her brow furls in sorrow and regret as she throws the other half down the well.
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
2 change points
Charming local customs
A thatcher is repairing the seaweed bunting on the roof of the Cock and Magpie. A trio of matrons make solemn conversation about apples. Two young fishermen discuss a festival during which the islanders burn a huge wooden snake on the hill. You stop to ask them more about it. They're cagey, but you gather that it's some sort of tribute to a local spirit. It's hard for a Londoner to imagine wasting wood like this, but the men insist their island's survival depends on it. 'Don't worry,' says one. 'They don't put live snakes inside now.'
You watch a young woman with a heavy bunch of what look to be real daffodils. She places bunches on doorsteps and hands a single flower to everyone she passes. There are still plenty left when she arrives at the well. She puts half the bunch around the stone lip. Her brow furls in sorrow and regret as she throws the other half down the well.
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
Gain 2 x Appalling Secret
Too small for secrets?
Two young fishermen discuss a festival during which the islanders burn a huge wooden snake on the hill. A thatcher is replacing the seaweed bunting on the roof of the Cock and Magpie. A trio of matrons make solemn conversation about apples. Is this place too small for secrets?
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
1 change point
The Home of Rubbery Lumps
There's only one public house on the island. The Cock and Magpie is famed for its local cider and, of course, the zee-food.
Try the Rubbery Lumps
The pub fleeces visitors, but who could resist Rubbery Lumps on the very island where they were created?
Unlocked with 4 x Maniac's prayer
Splendid!
Now these are the real thing! Little hot gobbets of chewy, invigorating goodness! When did you last feel this wholesome? This alive?
You finish the lumps. What was that? A sound far off, something big hitting water. Like a badger dropped in a fishpond. Probably some local custom.
You've lost 4 x Maniac's Prayer
Wounds decrease
1 change point
Dangerous is increasing.
1 change point
Persuasive is increasing.
1 change point
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago Increase
The Mutton Island Wind
There's not much wind on the Unterzee. But Mutton Island suffers eery gusts and buffets from an inexplicably local fragment of weather.
The voice of the wind
Wait for the wind to come, and listen to it.
Watchful Challenge, straightforward at 115
Toasting the wind
You stand on a cliff-top, looking over the little whitewashed village. Smoke from the chimney of the Cock and Magpie drifts straight upwards. As you watch, the smoke tilts. The sudden wind thins it to a pencil smudge, then nothing. The wind screams unexpectedly, like a god cut in half.
What a noise! It must be the caves around the island channeling the air. At least, that's the most comforting explanation. Below you, the locals each take nips from a shared flask and make a toast towards the mainland. The wind is a Southerly.
Watchful Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
Nightmares Increase
Toasting the wind
You stand on a cliff-top, looking over the little whitewashed village. Smoke from the chimney of the Cock and Magpie drifts straight upwards. As you watch, the smoke tilts. The sudden wind thins it to a pencil smudge, then nothing. The wind screams unexpectedly, like a god cut in half.
The scream subsides, giving way to a susurrus that surrounds you suddenly with the illusion of whispering voices. You could swear you hear words - 'at the edge', 'in the depths', 'under the pole', 'nowhere nowhere nowhere nowhere…'
It must be the caves around the island channeling the air. At least, that's the most comforting explanation. Below you, the locals each take nips from a shared flask and make a toast towards the mainland. The wind is a Southerly.
Watchful Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
All is calm
You stand on the cliff-top, looking over the Island's village. Smoke from the chimneys of the Cock and Magpie drifts straight upwards. There's not a breeze to ruffle your hair nor to lift your collar. Below you, a young woman carries what could be real flowers, handing them out with a curtsey to everyone she meets.
Watchful Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
I bid the wind speak
I laugh with delight to find it gusting here!
Unlock: Stormy-Eyed 1
I open my arms
And I welcome the wind! I ask it what news and it screams in my face! I roar back, my voice blending with the wind's, exultant!
Stormy-Eyed increase (2 change points)
Leaving Mutton Island
Charming it may be. Safe, it probably isn't.
Head to your ship at the jetty
Time to head out to sea.
[Leaving the island will remove your Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago quality].
Out into the Eastern channel and away
Steady as she goes.
You've moved to a new area:
the Broad Unterzee
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago 7-8
The Mouths of Children
A pack of well-scrubbed children are playing near the ancient white-stone well at the centre of the village.
Unlock: seeking Mr Eaten's Name 1
Hear the words
Others listen, but they do not hear.
Babes and sucklings
'Down and down and North and round. Stolen for a city. Gone and done and gone for good. Putting out the candles…'
Your foot taps along to the tune as the children dance around the well. This well is not The Well, but perhaps… Perhaps there is something in all wells that even these innocents can grasp. And not just the children. It wasn't children who left jugs of sour corn beer at the well.
The children dance happily around you. One blonde girl looks up with wide eyes. 'This one! This one knows!' She hugs your leg fiercely.
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago Increase
Nightmares Increase
Dinner in the Fallen Columns
Ruined buildings dot the Western shoreline of Mutton Island. A pair of local ladies are enjoying a fish supper in what was once a neo-Classical library.
Join them for supper
They're eating some kind of shellfish the size of a pumpkin. There's more than enough for you.
Persuasive Challenge, straightforward at 120
What, exactly, are you eating?
The older of the two ladies finishes a chewy mouthful of shellfish and takes a long draw on her pipe. She looks at you and speaks, 'Pull up a bas-relief and sit yer arse down. There's more here than me and Mabel can finish. It ain't proper well-boiled, but it's still good.'
It is good. It resembles nothing so much as a greenish brain, but it has a lemony tang. Mabel nods as you eat and speaks 'Odd beggers, these. Sometimes float up to the shore, all spiky. Tasty, though they do give you queer dreams. Got ter watch out for the ink, too.'
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
Gained 100 x
Whispered Secret
Nightmares Increase
Well, that told you
The older of the two ladies finishes a chewy mouthful of shellfish and takes a long draw on her pipe. She looks at you and speaks in a resonant, authoritative tone: 'Bugger off'.
Persuasive Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
You've gained a new quality: Scandal at 1
A night for… what exactly?
The village stirs when honest folk are in their beds.
What are they up to?
Be quick and quiet, for the Mutton Islanders move deftly in the dark.
Shadowy Challenge, straightforward at 120
Dressing the well
You hide behind a long-abandoned and half-ruined rowing boat near the shore. Long after midnight, a party leaves the Cock and Magpie. You see the landlord, the fellow that affects a priestly air, and a few others. They do not walk. They process.
The little group arrives at the well. They adorn it with items from their baskets. Flowers - real ones, by the look of them. An apple, a few dead bats, a stone jug filled with liquid. And what you hope are chitterlings, draped around the well like a garland.
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
Gained 145 x
Whispered Secret
Dressing the well
You hide behind a long-abandoned and half-ruined rowing boat near the shore. Long after midnight, a party leaves the Cock and Magpie. You see the landlord, the fellow that affects a priestly air, and a few others. They do not walk. They process.
The little group arrives at the well. They adorn it with items from their baskets. Flowers - real ones, by the look of them. An apple, a few dead bats, a stone jug filled with liquid. And what you hope are chitterlings, draped around the well like a garland.
You sneak up to the well after they're gone. The liquid in the jug is dark in the moonlight: it smells bitter, mouldy, yeasty. Bad beer?
Shadowy Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
Gain 5 x Appalling Secret.
Gain 1 x Memory of Distant Shores.
Fierce and cold
The landlord of the Cock and Magpie tips his cap to you. 'Best be headin' back in. A fierce cold wind out tonight.'
Shadowy Increase
You've gained a new quality: Suspicion at 1
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
Well Watching
There's always someone hanging around the ancient stone well at the centre of Mutton Island.
Talk to the fellow
That fellow draws a great deal of water. The one in the tattered frock coat, with the air of a vicar. Does he have some disorder of thirst?
Persuasive Challenge, straightforward at 120
A knife and answers
The fellow greets you in a rumbling baritone, and bids you follow him to the Cock and Magpie's kitchen door. He's something between a chef and a custodian of ancient customs.
The Custodial Chef won't let you into his kitchen, but at least he gives you a straight answer about all the water. It's for boiling up Rubbery Lumps prior to frying, he says, waving his carving knife for emphasis. One needs proper well water, from a properly cared for well. And how does one properly care for a well? Oh dear. Did you actually want an hour-long lecture about flowers and beer offerings and ancient practices? Well, you are enduring one nonetheless.
Persuasive Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
Gained 145 x
Whispered Secret
A knife and answers
The fellow greets you in a rumbling baritone, and bids you follow him to the Cock and Magpie's kitchen door. He's something between a chef and a custodian of ancient customs.
The Custodial Chef won't let you into his kitchen, but at least he gives you a straight answer about all the water. It's for boiling up Rubbery Lumps prior to frying, he says, waving his carving knife for emphasis. One needs proper well water, from a properly cared for well. And how does one properly care for a well? Oh dear. Did you actually want an hour-long lecture about flowers and beer offerings and ancient practices? Well, you are enduring one nonetheless.
On the question of why the well needs to be cared for and how the proper water differs from an other water, he is annoyingly vague. 'Because wells are sacred,' is all he will say. Yes, but sacred to what?
Persuasive Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
Gain 3 x Memory of Distant Shores.
Inside the Cock and Magpie
It's not the dour place you might have expected. Bright paint and dried flowers give the pub a cheery, welcoming air.
Take a good look around
Who's that woman in the fading lithograph above the bar?
Watchful Challenge, straightforward at 120
Miriam?
It's Mrs Plenty! Judging from her apron and tankard-cloth, she must have been the landlady at this very establishment. There's something striking about the expression in her eyes. Something greater than the rural resident's desire for the big city. It's a hunger born of fear. The face is expressionless but the eyes scream for escape.
The landlord notices your interest. 'Yuss. Miriam used to run this place a'fore me, with 'er 'usband. Both of 'em tangled up with them Masters up in London. Terrible business. Still, I hear she's played fair well with a bad hand. Even had a go at making Rubbery Lumps. In London! The very idea!' The Landlord roars with laughter. You smile politely.
Watchful Increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase (2 change points)
Gained 145 x
Whispered Secret
Acquainted with Miriam Plenty's Past Increase (1 change point), unless it is 3 or higher.
Miriam?
It's Mrs Plenty! Judging from her apron and tankard-cloth, she must have been the landlady at this very establishment. There's something striking about the expression in her eyes. Something greater than the rural resident's desire for the big city. It's a hunger born of fear. The face is expressionless but the eyes scream for escape.
The landlord notices your interest. 'Yuss. Miriam used to run this place a'fore me, with 'er 'usband. Both of 'em tangled up with them Masters up in London. Terrible business. Did you 'ear what they say he did? I never did know if that were true. Still, I hear she's played fair well with a bad hand. Even had a go at making Rubbery Lumps. In London! The very idea! She's gone far from 'er roots if she can stomach doin' 'em in that water.' The Landlord roars with laughter. You smile politely.
Watchful Increase
Gain 2 x Inkling of Identity
Gain 2 x Incendiary Gossip
Acquainted with Miriam Plenty's Past Increase, unless already 3 or higher
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago increase
Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago 9
Crash!
There are no lights on the Eastern side of the island. By the sound of it, a steamer just found that out the hard way.
Rescue the crew
Grab them before the Unterzee takes them.
A grim business
Why are the rocks of the Eastern shore ungraced by any lighthouse or warning fire? D—n these islanders!
You wade out chest-deep and drag the few spluttering zailors who remain to shore. They lie on the rocks, heaving and coughing out oily black water. Of course, they don't have a penny between them. They'll not forget this, though.
Magnanimous hasn't changed, because it's higher than 12
You've lost a quality: Heartless.
Ruthless hasn't changed, because it's higher than 12
Your 'Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago' Quality has gone!
Connected: The Docks has increased to 20! (from 11) (somewhere between 133 and 164 CP)
Help yourself to 'salvage'
If none of the crew survive, the ship's cargo is anyone's for the taking. But you'll have to deal with any that swim to shore.
Rocks of one sort or another
The steamer lies in ruins, her belly carved out by the Unterzee's hidden black fingers.
The few zailors that survived the wreck swim desperately to the rocky shore. Handy, these rocks. You pick one up and smash their brains out. Such a pity there were no survivors. You help yourself to the hold of the glim-ship before the locals arrive for their share.
Ruthless Increase
Heartless Increase
Magnanimous Decrease
Gain: 600 x Glim
Your 'Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago' Quality has gone!
A Great Feast
Mutton Island bubbles with excitement. Tonight, the Cock and Magpie will host a great feast. The chef draws bucket after bucket of well water in preparation.
Attend the Feast
All are welcome tonight. There will be laughter, cider and 'Rubbery Lumps the way they should be - none of your city nonsense'.
All night long
'It's the well water, see,' slurs a young man who has been making friends with cider. 'Can't make proper Rubbery Lumps without a proper well. Stands to reason. We look after the well here. Treat it right. And the Drowned Man looks after us.' The landlord comes over, slaps the young fellow, and takes his cider away.
The Rubbery Lumps are served! Carried out of the kitchen by two burly women on a huge platter. There's a rush resembling a rugby scrum, but you manage to get a few of the chewy pieces. Dear God! They're magnificent! The carnival Lumps are a sham! You forget propriety as you stuff them down in moments.
Everyone at the Cock and Magpie is wild eyed, vital, delicious. Once the Lumps are gone, the locals break out fiddles and clear the chairs for dancing. The party goes on all night. And night lasts forever in the Neath.
Dangerous Increase
Persuasive Increase
Shadowy Increase
Watchful Increase
Nightmares Decrease
Your 'Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago' Quality has gone!
A Procession to the Cliff-top
A warm night on Mutton Island. A balmy wind blows from the West, rich with promise. Locals pick their way up the narrow path to the cliff-top.
Follow them up the path
Remaining silent and unseen as you navigate a narrow path over a long drop: it's like being back in the Flit.
Shadowy Challenge, straightforward at 115
A night to remember
You don't know the cliff paths like the locals do, and you have to climb more than walk. Your skin is sheened with sweat by the time you reach the top. They've started without you. How rude.
The priestly fellow is wearing an elaborate feathered head-dress and little else. The other locals surround him in a circle, hunched over in hooded robes. One holds an ear of corn, another a stone jug, another a clay tablet. The priest speaks to his congregation. He persuades, cajoles, demands. You can't make out the details. The bent robed figures answer him in hissing whispers.
Finally, they nod in agreement. The circles turns as one to grab one of their number, a man (or woman?) with a lamp. They carry him (or possibly her) to the edge of the cliff and hurl the flailing body over the edge, down into the oily black waves far below.
Their business done, the locals remove their robes and wander amiably back to town. They all seem quite jolly. Apparently the night's business went well. They retreat to the Cock and Magpie for a pint.
Gain 2 x Extraordinary Implication.
Gain 7 x Appalling Secret.
Your 'Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago' Quality has gone!
A Wind to Chill the Heart
It's not cold, exactly. But there's something about this wind from out of the North that makes you hug yourself and turn your collar up.
What does it portend?
Take a walk around the island. You'll not be sleeping anyway.
Watchful Challenge
Down the well
The wind from the North blows around you and through you. Is that a tiny light you can see, far off to windward? No, it's closer than the horizon. It's coming from… You turn past the Cock and Magpie. The light is coming from the well.
You walk over. The light from the well is a faint, frail thing. But in the darkness of the Neath, it's enough to see the dried flowers and beer offerings around the stone. You steel yourself and look down. Down in the well, under the water, there are candles: candles, burning under the water… You find yourself toppling forwards into the opening. No. This isn't for you. Not yet. Thoughts that aren't yours touch your mind. You run.
Watchful Increase
Gain 2 x Extraordinary Implication.
Gain 7 x Appalling Secret.
Nightmares Increase
Your 'Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago' Quality has gone!
A scrap of a Diary
The landlord of the Cock and Magpie has an old, yellowed scrap of handwritten paper in his back pocket.
It would be criminal not to
How does the man expect you to not pick his pocket?
Shadowy Challenge, straightforward at 120
Plenty of secrets
'..but not even these promises and threats from His Lordship will stop me. What do I care for velvet and pearls? Them folks in London will laugh at a simple woman from Mutton Island putting on airs and graces.'
'No. It calls me. From the well, from dreams, from the North. I will bloody well go North and I will bloody well find the name. Lords and Masters be buggered! I don't give a monkey's arse for them now! Not even if they promise me baubles and titles that are most distracting…'
Shadowy increase
You've gained 2 x Extraordinary Implication.
Your 'Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago' Quality has gone!
You've gained 60 x Cryptic Clue.
Acquainted with Miriam Plenty's Past increase (Unless Higher than 2) (1 change point)
Extraordinary Implication 1
Discuss these Extraordinary Implications with the Custodial Chef
That frock-coated chap in the Cock and Magpie has the air of a guardian of secret knowledge. Perhaps he's willing to discuss your secrets with you.
'Do you know anything of…'
[Break the Extraordinary Implications down to Whispered Secrets.]
To unlock, you need 4 x Extraordinary Implication, Watchful 100.
The bones of a mystery
You discuss the names of cats; the secret ways of the island; the visitors who do not carry lamps. There is power in these little secrets.
You've lost 4 x Extraordinary Implication
You've gained 1000 x Whispered Secret
You've gained 1 x Memory of Distant Shores
'I have long puzzled over…'
[Break the Extraordinary Implications down to Cryptic Clues.]
To unlock, you need 8 x Extraordinary Implication, Watchful 120.
Implication and insinuation
It can be difficult to separate the ambiguous from the meaningless in what he says. But there are truths to be unravelled from the wounds of the earth, from the cries of zee-birds lost to the sun, from the voices that will not be drowned.
You've lost 8 x Extraordinary Implication
You've gained 1000 x Cryptic Clue
You've gained 2 x Mystery of the Elder Country
'These books you've spoken of…'
Does he have something you need?[Create Uncanny Incunabula]
To unlock, you need 10 x Extraordinary Implication, Watchful 140.
'Here it is written…'
You discuss these matters deep into the night, while he fetches stained volumes of lore from the attic. Together you discuss the significance of the marginal notes, and make more of your own. The strange urgencies of moonish light; the significance of candles; the many names in which wells are sacred, some of which he admits to knowing. When you're done, he gives you two volumes, rather reluctantly, as a gift…
You've lost 10 x Extraordinary Implication
You now have 2 x Uncanny Incunabula
You've gained 1 x Tale of Terror!!
Nightmares increase
