The Silent Corridors of the Orphanage
White plastered walls, white enamelled railings, white stone floors, white uniforms. The silent corridors are lined with steel doors. Each door has a number. Entered as part of the Light Fingers ambition.
Opportunity Cards
White-bordered cards
Room 101
At the far end of a gleaming basement corridor stands a white door. The doctors avoid it. There is an odour of vinegar and antiseptic. The number on the door is 101.
Open it
You know what is in this room. Everyone knows what is in this room.
CLANG!
You slam the door open. A dozen assorted mops, brooms, teatowels and buckets fall on your head. It's a storage cupboard. Shame you had to make so much noise.
Attracting Attention increase
Room 215
They seem to be areas of London, but not the gloomy metropolis you know so well.
Examine the maps
Unlocks: Shadowy 103, straightforward at 117
They seem to be areas of London, but not the gloomy metropolis you know so well.
Prelapsarian London
You trace a finger along streets that twist into forgotten patterns. You murmur exotic names… Spitalfields. Edgeware. Holborn. Marylebone. Greenwich. Covent Garden. Westminster.
You recognise the writing. This was once the Blind Cartographer's cell. Footsteps approach. You pull a few sheets from the wall and make your escape.
Shadowy increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
25 x Proscribed Material
Room 387
This room is lit by a single sputtering gas jet. A woman, petite and middle-aged, sits on a wooden chair facing away from the door. Walls and celiling alike are covered in scarab beetles. They stir lazily as you open the door, like a tapestry in a breeze.
Talk to the woman
Unlocks: Shadowy 110, modest at 119
'I'm so happy,' the woman says as you enter. 'I never knew I could be so happy.' There are beetles in her hair. She pats at them absent-mindedly.
Beetle Mania
She seems quite sane and happy to talk. They took her six months ago, she says, for no reason she could fathom. They strapped her to a chair, and… the rest is hazy. 'I never much cared for insects before. They scared me. It seems ridiculous now. They are so beautiful, like living gemstones. They do tickle, though.' A scarab climbs out of her collar and skitters across her neck. She giggles with delight.
Shadowy increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Steal some scarabs
Unlocks: Shadowy 110, modest at 119
They're worth a pretty penny. And she's got plenty to spare.
Gathering bugs
The woman never stirs as you tiptoe around the room, plucking scarabs from the wall and dropping them into your pockets. Surely there are more pleasant ways of making money?
Shadowy increase
11 x Phosphorescent Scarab
Room 451
A doctor races past you down the corridor. 'You there, follow me!' he cries, 'We need extra hands for this one!' He leads you to a small cell where several orderlies are struggling to strap a reluctant patient into a chair. He's bull of a man, and he's fighting hard.
The treatment
Assist the doctors in their work, and perhaps you'll finally discover what their work is.
The treatment
You press all your weight onto the patient's beefy arm. The dcotors bustle around you, tightening straps, preparing banks of equipment. They blindfold the patient and smear a sticky yellow fluid across his lips. The man howls and strains against his restraints until you are certain the leather must break. Working quickly, the doctors wheel the chair across the room to an alcove. There is a hatch in the wall. In one co-ordinated movement, they whip off the blindfold and slam the hatch open.
The patient quiets. His breathing slows. A gentle smile spreads across his face. 'Pretty,' he murmurs. 'Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty…'
When they close the hatch, he starts to scream again.
Exploring the Orphanage large increase
Heartless increase
Help him escape
Unlocks: Shadowy 117
Whatever they're doing to this man, you won't be part of it. There's a loose strap on the chair. In all this cacophony, would anyone notice if you pulled it just… so? [Be warned: failing here will attract a great deal of attention.]
A look around
The patient spasms, catching a doctor in the face with his massive forehead. For a moment, chaos reigns. You tug the hanging strap, unnoticed. The patient is on his feet in a greased second and haring down the corridor, half naked, pursued by flapping white coats. You have a few precious moments to examine the room. There is a locked hatch in the wall, a small glass retort containing a foul-smelling yellow fluid, a number of unidentifiable medical tools. What were they planning to do here? Sounds of a struggle down the corridor. You slip away before you are discovered.
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Magnanimous increase
Room 324
This room has no furniture save for a free-standing mirror. A Young Rake sits cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by combs and bottles of oil. He stares intently at his reflection.
Speak to the Young Rake
Perhaps he knows where to find the Music Hall Singer and her sister.
Unlocks: Persuasive 103, straightforward at 125
Confirmation
The Young Rake refuses to look away from his mirror, but he seems to hear your questions. 'Songbird, yes, she is here. She would sing for the others, but I could not listen. She is many floors above, and I could not leave my love. He is so sad, look.' He touches his reflection, gently, as if to catch a falling tear.
Persuasive increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Stand between him and the mirror
Unlocks: Dangerous 89, straightforward at 106
Are you sure that's wise?
The Songbird
The Young Rake leaps for you almost before you've taken a step, but you were expecting that. You grapple him to the floor, scattering his bottles. The scent of perfume rises. 'She's here!' he screams at last. 'The Songbird! Look upstairs!' You release him and he crawls back to his mirror. 'There there,' he croons. 'There there.'
Dangerous increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Gold-bordered cards
Room 839
This door leads to the roof. It's locked and guarded, but the orderly on duty is given to snoozing.
A spot of pickpocketry
The orderly has a little key on a chain. Can you snag it?
Unlocks: Shadowy 124, chancy at 131,low-risk at 134
An escape route
The orderly snores gently as you ease the rooftop key from his belt. You slip through the door, closing it silently behind you. It's a foggy night: the air is cool on your face. The rooftop is lit with high gaslamps that burn orange in the mist. A grey shape looms above you. Ornate lettering on its steely flank reads 'Market Beast'. Guy ropes complain in the dark like ghosts.
The
Market Beast! You remember it well. Poor Edward's personal dirigible. You have found your escape route.
Shadowy increase
1 x Orphanage Roof Key
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Storylets
The White Corridors
Everything here is white. Walls, floors, uniforms. Silent masked orderlies wander up and down identical corridors. It's easy to get lost.
Prowl the corridors
The Music Hall Singer and her sister are here somewhere. Perhaps you can discover their whereabouts.
Unlocks: Shadowy 117
Secrets behind every door
The corridors are bustling but silent. Orderlies mop the stone floors, doctors and wardens whisper together. Occasionally, somebody will step through one of the innumerable white doors that line every corridor. You glimpse complex arrays of equipment, laboratory benches laden with glassware, a thing like a dentist's chair, a muffled sob. All the rooms are numbered.
Shadowy increase
(straightforward at Shadowy 129)
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Talk to the staff
Unlocks: Persuasive 103, Exploring the Orphanage 3
(straightforward at Persuasive 125)
There is a common room of sorts on the second floor. The lowlier orderlies gather here sometimes to swap jokes and rumours. Can you inveigle yourself into their conversation?
It's a living
This fellow has been working at the Orphanage for many years. Beneath the mask he's a typical Flowerdene thug, best you can tell.
'They only takes orphans,' he says. 'Patients, staff, doctors, all orphans. Simpler that way I spose. No-one to worry aboutcha.'
He leans forward, and his voice drops to a rough whisper. 'You get used to it after a bit. The screaming and that. Some of these patients, they're appier than we'll ever be. It's only when they're separated from their, well, whatever their thing is, that they get upset. There was a man in ere last month, his thing was a little stuffed bear. When they took it away, he dashed his head against the walls until is skull caved in. And guess who ad to clean up the mess?'
Persuasive increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Room 122
Unlocks: Exploring the Orphanage 3
The doctors keep something in the basement. At night, it roars and shrieks and shakes the walls. The entrance is locked and guarded. But they've reckoned without you.
Talk your way in
The guards run a profitable sideline, charging their colleagues a fat fee to goggle at the 'Great Blue'. They don't admit just anyone, though.
Unlocks: Persuasive 110, Rostygold x 200
(straightforward at Persuasive 125)
The Thing in the cradle
The guard takes your bribe with a grunt and ushers you inside. The room is bathed in dim blue light, and it takes your eyes a while to adjust. The light is spilling from a metallic cradle suspended from the ceiling. The cradle is strung with rubber pipes and cabling. The pipes snake across the floor to a bank of wheezing equipment. You catch an odour of ozone. After a moment, you realise that the light is coming, not from the cradle, but its occupant.
It looks like an enormous deep sea crustacean - much bigger than a human, even the Hulking Orderly whose uniform you wear. Its legs, belly and carapace are coated in sharp crystalline armour the colour of smoked sapphires. As you step closer, you see that the armour is patchy and diseased, riddled with holes as if attacked by woodworm. You count a dozen clawed legs, held in place with iron hoops. The thing's carapace is dotted with hundred of tiny black eyes. Only half the eyes seem responsive: the rest are glazed and lifeless. The creature pulses blue light arrhythmically, like a guttering gas lamp.
'Come on then,' says the guard. 'You've had your look, now off you go.'
Persuasive increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Sneak your way in
Unlocks: Shadowy 117
(straightforward at Shadowy 129)
At night, the guards keep a respectable distance from Room 122; the noises are unnerving. This could be your opportunity to slip through.
The guard is half-way down the corridor, dozing on his feet. You slip past him, barely pausing to pick the lock, and let yourself into Room 122.
The chamber is bathed in dim blue light, and it takes your eyes a while to adjust. The light spills from a metallic cradle suspended from the ceiling. The cradle is strung with rubber pipes and cabling. The pipes snake across the floor to a bank of wheezing equipment. After a moment, you realise that the light is coming, not from the cradle, but its occupant.
It looks like an enormous deep sea crustacean, far bigger than a tall man. Its legs, belly and carapace are coated in sharp crystalline armour the colour of smoked sapphires. As you step closer, you see that the armour is patchy and diseased, riddled with holes as if attacked by woodworm. You count a dozen clawed legs, held in place with iron hoops. The thing's carapace is dotted with hundred of tiny black eyes. Only half of them seem aware: the rest are glazed and lifeless. The creature pulses blue light arrhythmically, like a guttering gas lamp.
As you stand there, the cables crackle. There is a sudden stink of ozone and burnt rubber. The creature shrieks and roars. Its body lights up like a blue sun. The rubber pipes clamped onto its body twitch and fill with yellowish fluid. Every few minutes, the process repeats itself. You watch for a while and then slip away, while the beast shakes behind you with pain and rage.
shadowy increase
Exploring the Orphanage increase
Leave the Orphanage
In your disguise, you can come and go as you please…
Home…
You've had your fill of this place for the moment. The blank faces, the blank walls.
[This will move you to Spite. You can return to the Orphanage when you are ready to continue the story]
…Sweet Home
You make your way swiftly through the labyrinth - it holds little terror for you now - and into the teeming dunghill that is Spite.
You've moved to a new area: Spite
Room 547
Unlocks: Exploring the Orphanage 6
Records are kept on the fifth floor. If you want to find the Music Hall Singer and her sister, this is the place to look. The Registrar is elderly and frail. Should be easy.
Charm offensive
Elderly she may be, but the Registrar has the demeanour of a dragon napping on a mountain of treasure. Put on your very best smile.
Unlocks: Persuasive 117, modest at 125
Studying love
You set out your tools. A crooked grin. A vaguely scandalous twinkle of the eyes. A deliberately piffling excuse. A veiled compliment. The Registrar melts like a chocolate fancy.
Room 547 is more like an avenue than an office. The document stacks stretch far into the distance, illuminated by pools of gaslight. Little grey files stuffed with horrors. It takes two hours to find the Music Hall Singer and her sister, and by that time you've learned more about The Orphanage than you ever wished to know.
Everyone here is in love with something. Their obsessions are generally violent, and the object of desire can be anything - a person, a piece of furniture, a tramp steamer. These obsessions are all connected somehow to the thing in Room 122, and to a substance that the files refer to only as 'M-M33'.
The doctors of the Orphanage spend their days studying the effects of all-consuming love. Sometimes, this involves separating the test subjects from their passions until they are insane or dead, or 'avulsed', whatever that means. It makes for grim reading.
The Music Hall Singer and her sister Clarabelle are in Room 316, on the third floor. Clarabelle's file is stamped with the word 'INCUBATOR'.
Persuasive increase
An occurrence! Your 'Ambition: Light Fingers!' Quality is now 46!
Room 316
Unlocks: Ambition: Light Fingers 46
The Music Hall Singer and her sister Clarabelle live in the same room on the third floor. There are no guards, and no locks on the door. The room has no furniture, no windows, no decorations of any kind. The women wear white smocks that blend into the walls.
The Sisters
The Music Hall Singer looks up as you enter. Her eyes are the darkest thing in the room. 'So, you're here at last. Too late for her.' Clarabelle sprawls in the corner, idly stroking a white stone wall. Beneath the smock, her belly is as round as a planet.
Clarabelle's love
Clarabelle looks up at you and smiles beatifically, then goes back to caressing the wall. The Music Hall singer pulls you away. 'You're wondering why we don't leave,' She says. 'They kidnap us, they put that… thing in my sister, and they leave us here with the door open. And yet we don't leave.'
She paces up and down the little room. 'You understand how it works here, I take it? They strap you down, they show you something, and whatever they show you becomes the love of your life. Well. Do you know what they showed her?'
Clarabelle smiles up at you like a sleepy toddler. The Music Hall Singer strokes her sister's hair for a moment, then looks up at you, hard-faced. 'The Orphanage,' she says. 'They showed her the Orphanage. They just wheeled her out and showed her the whole place. And now she lives inside her heart's desire.'
The Music Hall Singer leans against a wall and sighs. 'I can't leave her. And she'd die before you could drag her out. You'd have to blind her, or cripple her, or feed her Lethean tea. But that's impossible to find. What? What are you smiling about?'
Persuasive increase
An occurrence! Your 'Ambition: Light Fingers!' Quality is now 46!
Ambition: Light Fingers! The Escape
Unlocks: Ambition: Light Fingers 47, Exploring the Orphanage 6
Everything is prepared. You have Lethean Tea Leaves for Clarabelle, courtesy of Poor Edward. You have the key to the rooftop dirigible station. It's time to leave. Only one decision remains: what is to become of the Orphanage itself?
Burn it to the ground
Let the earth be sowed with salt. The prisoners will roast with their captors. Perhaps that is kinder. Perhaps not.
Unlocks: 1 x Orphanage Roof Key , 1 x Lethean Tea-Leaves
You work your way up from the basement, setting small blazes in out-of-the-way corners. By the time you reach the third floor, alarm bells are tolling. White coated staff race past, bearing buckets and sand. Nobody pays you any attention.
The Music Hall Singer and her Sister are waiting for you in their room. Clarabelle takes the Lethean Tea Leaves and chews them obediently, wrinkling her nose at their bitter taste. You wait by the door, tapping your foot. The fire will be here soon. Screams drift up from the lower floors.
Clarabelle trembles and slumps. The mask of joy falls from her face like a cliff collapsing into the sea.'Where am I?' she whispers.
There's no time to explain. You loop an arm around her waist and the three of you stagger for the roof. The corridors are full of smoke now. Patients howl and bang at their doors.
For a moment, you fear that they've changed the locks on the rooftop station, but after a few frantic twists, the tumblers turn and you stagger into the cool night air. Beyond the dark ring of the Labyrinth, Fallen London glitters.
The Market Beast floats at her berth like a great grey whale. You race for the gondola with Clarabelle in tow, hacking ropes as you go.
A scream rips the night behind you. The Music Hall Singer is grappling with a red-robed figure. In the rising flames, you glimpse a masked face. Edward.
Freed from its moorings, the Market Beast shudders and swings into the air. At the same moment, an explosion rocks the rooftop. Edward is knocked sprawling. The Music Hall Singer races along the ledge and leaps for a dangling guy rope. The dirigible lists briefly, then powers away from the stricken Orphanage, with the Singer spinning beneath. For a second you can still see Edward, a tiny scarlet stick figure, and then the roof is engulfed with flames.
[This is the end of the road for now - but Light Fingers will continue soon]
You've moved to a new area: your Lodgings
An occurrence! Your 'Ambition: Light Fingers!' Quality is now 49!
Your 'Orphanage Roof Key' Quality has gone!
Your 'Exploring the Orphanage' Quality has gone!
Your 'Attracting Attention' Quality has gone!
lose 1 x Lethean Tea-Leaves
Release as many prisoners as you can
The Orphanage will go on - there will always be more orphans. But maybe a few of its victims can find peace.
Unlocks: 1 x Orphanage Roof Key , 1 x Lethean Tea-Leaves
A twist of fate
You work your way up from the basement, unlocking cells wherever you find them. Most of the inmates are too lost in their infatuations to notice, but a few emerge grim-faced, looking for improvised weapons. By the time you reach the third floor, alarm bells are tolling. White coated staff race past bearing straitjackets and pepperbox guns. Nobody pays you any attention.
The Music Hall Singer and her Sister are waiting for you in their room. Clarabelle takes the Lethean Tea Leaves and chews them obediently, wrinkling her nose at their bitter taste. You wait by the door, tapping your foot. Screams drift up from the lower floors. The riot has begun.
Clarabelle trembles and slumps. The mask of joy falls from her face like a cliff collapsing into the sea. 'Where am I?' she whispers.
There's no time to explain. You loop an arm around her waist and the three of you stagger for the roof. The white corridors are a gaslight bedlam. Bodies sprawl on the stone in pools of blood. A doctor begs for mercy from a woman with a chairleg. 'I just want to see the colour!' she screams, swinging for his head. 'I just want to see the colour!'
For a moment, you fear that they've changed the locks on the rooftop station, but after a few frantic twists, the tumblers turn and you stagger into the cool night air. Beyond the dark ring of the Labyrinth, Fallen London glitters.
The Market Beast floats at her berth like a great grey whale. You race for the gondola with Clarabelle in tow, hacking ropes as you go.
A scream rips the night behind you. The Music Hall Singer is grappling with a red-robed figure. In the orange gaslights you glimpse a grimacing mask. Edward.
Three things happen at the same moment. Freed from its moorings, the Market Beast shudders and swings into the air. The door to the rooftop station smashes open, disgorging a gang of half-dressed, blood-spattered rioters. And a shove from Edward sends the Music Hall Singer tumbling from the ledge. Her shriek is quickly swallowed by the hungry darkness of the labyrinth.
The dirigible is moving fast now, powering away from the stricken Orphanage. For a second you can still see Edward, a tiny scarlet stick figure, and then he is borne away by the mob.
[This is the end of the road for now - but Light Fingers will continue soon]
You've moved to a new area: your Lodgings
An occurrence! Your 'Ambition: Light Fingers!' Quality is now 48 - Saviour of Orphans!
Your 'Orphanage Roof Key' Quality has gone!
Your 'Exploring the Orphanage' Quality has gone!
Your 'Attracting Attention' Quality has gone!
lose 1 x Lethean Tea-Leaves