Nightingale: Apparently Chaos Is Self-Sustaining

 

The Night the Chaos Took a Sickie

Craig was out for the night.

This presented CCF with an unusual and frankly unsettling opportunity: an evening in which nothing might go catastrophically wrong.

Naturally, we began by mocking his previous exploits.

There is tradition to maintain.

Without Craig, this promised to be a night where items might actually be put into the correct storage boxes. Backstory might be read. Quest instructions might be followed. Doors might be opened only after someone had checked what was on the other side. Strange glowing objects might even remain unmolested for upwards of thirty seconds.

This was so unlike our usual Friday nights—where near disaster is painstakingly converted into near success—that nobody really knew what to do.

We didn’t actually have a plan.

So we did the chores again.

It seemed safest.

Haute Couture and Structural Trouser Engineering

Myles continued practising his newly acquired tailoring skills, experimenting with better clothing and discovering that Nightingale takes material choice surprisingly seriously.

Different fibres. Different effects. Different bonuses.

The Victorian Realmwalker apparently lives or dies according to whether his trousers have been manufactured from sufficiently magical hemp.

There was, however, one glaring omission in the entire technological tree.

We still can’t make self-cleaning pants, which is a serious concern.

Nightingale contains interdimensional portals, levitating rocks, enchanted umbrellas, magical firearms, arcane machinery and beings from the Fae realms—but apparently stain-resistant trousers remain beyond the limits of human understanding.

Myles also taught Zaph how to make magic pants.

Every great civilisation eventually reaches this milestone.

The Romans had aqueducts.

The Victorians had steam power.

CCF has trousers with enchantment slots.

Dave meanwhile produced the truly important components: buttons and buckles.

These are the things that hold your magic pants up and thereby prevent embarrassing incidents during fights.

History remembers the swordsmith.

It rarely remembers the bloke making the button that stops the swordsmith's trousers falling around his ankles while fighting a six-metre-tall corrupted bear.

This blog remembers.

Previously, in Zaph’s Quest Log...

With the domestic duties complete, it was time to get Zaph caught up and onto Welkin's Reach.

Luckily, our growing network of lodestars meant we could use fast travel rather than repeat every journey on foot. This considerably reduced the chances of someone spotting a mushroom three kilometres in the wrong direction and declaring it strategically important.

A quick jump took us back to the Site of Power, where Zaph could collect the final quests from Desma and talk to Puck about his own quest.

Myles accompanied Zaph through the backlog.

First, cure a corrupted Canute.

Then cleanse the poison root network.

Then smash some runes for Puck.

Then force-feed the cure to the infected guy.

All perfectly normal medical procedure.

Myles is, after all, the group's medic. His bedside manner has now progressed from apply bandage to hold the patient down while administering experimental Fae medicine by force.

Progress.

We aren’t talking about Puck still ignoring Myles.

It’s a sore point.

Puck will happily manifest out of thin air, deliver cryptic speeches to virtually anyone else, discuss the metaphysical nature of reality and generally behave like Shakespeare's more irritating cousin.

Myles?

Nothing.

Apparently twenty-nine years of keeping CCF alive does not qualify one for fairy dialogue.

Project Excalibur

While Zaph and Myles were completing useful tasks, Dave had embarked upon another important undertaking.

Dave learnt how to build a sword.

Not merely find a sword.

Build one.

He forged the haft.

He forged the blade.

He assembled the components.

He enchanted it with fire.

He enchanted it with healing.

He named it Excalibur.

And he skipped the entire stuck-in-a-stone business because, frankly, we had places to be.

Was it better than his previous attempt?

Well, the gear score was higher.

The damage had gone from 52 to 87.

There was healing.

So yes.

It was considerably better.

The only remaining weak component in the weapons platform was Dave.

If future Dave could learn to parry, duck or dodge, the whole package might become formidable.

Current Dave has one combat doctrine:

Rush in swinging.

Followed shortly afterwards by:

Faceplant.

There are military academies with less consistent tactical doctrine.

Return of the Bear

Next came Zaph's final quest in Sylvan's Cradle.

Zaph and Myles climbed the Fae tower and descended into the ruins.

Dave had done all this the previous week, so while waiting he sharpened and polished his sword.

And no, that’s not a euphemism.

Deep beneath the ruins, Zaph and Myles once again encountered Azazel, the giant corrupted bear.

Last time we met Azazel, proceedings had followed the traditional giant-monster format:

1. Monster appears.

2. CCF attacks monster.

3. Monster regrets several recent life choices.

4. Loot.

Azazel had apparently spent the intervening week reviewing the match footage.

This time, instead of accepting another drubbing with professional dignity, he ran towards the corrupted trees, sprouted tentacles and started healing himself.

“That’s new,” said Myles.

Then the screaming started.

Loud, girly screaming.

The kind of screaming that travels remarkably well through ancient stone ruins, across dimensional barriers and apparently all the way to the Druid village.

Dave heard it.

At last.

His moment.

Dave grabbed Excalibur and portaled to the Site of Power.

Finally, his hour was here.

Leroy Jenkins.

Down the tower he came to join his friends in battle fierce against the corruption.

A corrupted giant bear with tentacles?

No problem.

That’s what axes are for.

Regeneration?

That’s what the flaming sword was for.

Whether Excalibur's healing enchantment was intended to compensate for Dave's continuing refusal to defend himself remains unclear, but one designs systems around known failure modes.

Soon Azazel had succumbed to another comprehensive butt-kicking.

One imagines he rued the day he crossed paths with CCF for a second time.

More specifically, CCF without Craig.

If Craig had been there: TPW.

Without him, we wiped the floor with Azazel and turned him into a rug.

Correlation is not causation.

But sometimes correlation is standing next to the smoking crater holding a shovel.

Zaph collected his rewards and we headed for Welkin's Reach.

Welcome to Welkin’s Reach. Mind the Ground.

We gave Zaph the standard tourist orientation.

Here are the floating rocks.

These are the magic springboards.

This is the map, which has details missing for reasons known only to the cartographer and Satan.

That large yellow expanse is the desert.

Heatstroke is a serious concern.

Please ensure your umbrella has been enchanted correctly before attempting unscheduled aviation.

Then we took Zaph on the flight to the Zeppelin.

Strangely, unlike Craig, he didn’t fall out of the sky and die halfway there.

It is almost as though he read the blog and put the correct enchantment on his umbrella.

This sort of behaviour could revolutionise the group.

Once aboard, Zaph collected the Unlock the Lesser Observatory quest, and we headed into the desert to solve some Bastilles of Agility puzzles.

And then something peculiar happened.

It Feels Like We Are Playing With Craig

For the next hour, all three of us channelled Craig.

We went to the wrong location.

We solved puzzles without understanding what we were doing.

Zaph somehow unlocked three of them.

Dave and Myles had unlocked only two.

So we did another one.

Nobody could explain exactly why some counted and some didn't.

This is standard CCF puzzle procedure.

The important thing is not understanding the system.

The important thing is repeatedly poking it until numbers increase.

Dave then became distracted by glowing blue crystals on a platform.

Normal service had resumed.

Five Chimes, Three Men and One Dave

Eventually we travelled back to the Lesser Observatory.

The door was open.

Good start.

We descended several levels, killed Bound, solved puzzles, spoke to Puck and returned to the main floor using a portal.

So far, suspiciously competent.

We climbed the stairs towards the next level.

The doorway wouldn’t let us through.

Apparently we had missed a puzzle.

Back down we went.

What followed was a demonstration of an important mathematical principle:

Three grown men cannot reliably solve a puzzle involving five chiming pieces if Dave is one of the men and Dave keeps activating his piece in the wrong sequence.

There would be a pattern.

Myles would explain the pattern.

Zaph would confirm the pattern.

Dave would acknowledge the pattern.

The sequence would begin.

And then—

BONG.

Dave.

Wrong one.

Again.

Humanity put people on the Moon with less discussion.

Eventually the door opened.

Behind it was a curious glowing rune.

Normally, this would be the point where Craig clicked it while everyone else was still saying, "Nobody touch—"

But Craig wasn't here.

So, deprived of our designated disaster initiator, we all clicked it.

And nothing happened.

We talked to Puck to complete the quest.

Yadda, yadda, yadda...

Something, something else...

Congratulations.

Presumably the lore was excellent.

Filling in the Blanks

Zaph logged off early, leaving Dave and Myles alone with a large map containing suspicious amounts of unexplored territory.

This could not stand.

We would explore the entire map of Welkin's Reach.

Properly.

Systematically.

With a plan.

The plan was simple:

Float to Grid A1.

Then proceed clockwise around the outside edge of the map.

It felt like Burke and Wills without horses.

Or adequate preparation.

Or any particular reason for being there.

But we had a plan.

And like every plan involving Dave, it failed upon first contact with something shiny.

A1 lay in a perfectly straight line.

How hard could that be?

Very, apparently.

Just to the right was a ruin sitting on a floating rock.

Then another ruin.

And another interesting thing.

Our straight line gradually became a zig-zag resembling the final moments of a fly trapped inside a conservatory.

Eventually we reached the vicinity and turned towards A7.

A magic launch pad hurled us high into the sky.

Back to the plan.

Dave ate some food for an extra stamina boost, checked the map and placed his own marker on A8.

Why A8?

Because the map was wider than Myles's screen.

Cartography by hardware limitation.

The Great Empty C

At B8 we discovered an Intellect puzzle floating in the sky.

We dropped a lodestar there so we could easily return.

According to The Plan™, our next destination should have been H8.

Then Dave noticed that most of the C row of grid sections remained blank.

So we diverted to C5.

And discovered the reason the entire line was blank.

There was nothing there.

A rare moment in which the absence of map information perfectly represented the available content.

However, Dave did spot some interesting ruins high on a mesa around D3.

Later, these would become the interesting ruins at D4.

Whether the ruins moved or our cartography continued to be powered primarily by optimism is not important.

We digress.

Back to B8.

From there we travelled down towards H8.

The map filled in nicely as we glided over hostile camps and bounced off floating rocks because we had missed the magic launch pads on top of them.

At this point the map had become covered in scrawly red lines showing everywhere we had travelled.

It looked less like an explorer's chart and more like evidence being prepared for a psychiatric assessment.

The Merchant of H1

From H8 we crossed the bottom of the map towards H1.

There we discovered an Essence Trader.

Picture the quintessential tinkerer selling overpriced junk that nobody wants.

That man.

Dave studied the prices.

Perhaps, he reasoned, 130 Essence for a cog wasn't actually ridiculous.

Maybe buying it gave you several cogs.

Perhaps the listed price represented a bundle.

Perhaps Nightingale had simply failed to communicate this clearly.

An experiment was required.

Dave spent 50 Essence on fish stew.

One bit of fish.

Mystery solved.

The trader was indeed taking the piss.

Still, just in case we are ever sufficiently desperate to pay these prices, we built a lodestar there.

CCF logistics doctrine: complain bitterly about a location, then build permanent infrastructure enabling immediate return.

Launch Pad Occupied

Only one section of the loop remained.

We needed to fly up the left-hand side of the map and return to A1.

Easy.

Except there were four automatons standing on the launch pad.

It turns out fighting enemies positioned on a magical platform designed to violently fling anything touching it hundreds of metres into the air introduces certain tactical complications.

Approach enemy.

Swing weapon.

Step slightly too far forward.

WHEEEEEEEEEEE.

Return from low orbit.

Try again.

Eventually we killed them.

Because CCF may not be elegant, but we are persistent.

The return to A1 was uneventful.

Been there.

Done that.

Mapped it.

Probably.

Chests Are Not Transdimensional

Back at the Zeppelin base we decided to improve our outpost.

Workbenches would be useful.

Beds would be useful.

Civilisation would be useful.

Myles installed a crafting bench and a saw bench because he needed lumber to make a hammer so he could repair things.

A straightforward industrial chain.

Dave attempted something more ambitious.

He built an advanced sewing bench.

Except he couldn’t finish it because he needed twine.

So he built a basic sewing bench to make twine.

Except he couldn’t finish that because he needed fibre.

At this point we rediscovered one of Nightingale's most inconvenient laws of physics:

The enormous chests full of crafting materials we'd carefully accumulated were back in Sylvan's Cradle.

Chests are not transdimensional.

Apparently our network of magical portals spanning impossible realms cannot transport the contents of a cupboard.

Victorian science has limits.

Dave therefore went gathering.

He found an oasis and harvested all its water weeds while his helper chopped down trees.

Myles flew out and installed another lodestar there.

This was partly for logistical reasons.

It was also because one never knows when CCF might require a refreshing dip at the end of a sweaty day exploring the desert.

Infrastructure planning must consider staff wellbeing.

A Little Off-the-Books Side Adventuring

Remember those interesting ruins on the mesa?

D3.

D4.

Somewhere beginning with D.

Dave decided this was the perfect opportunity for he and Myles to undertake a little unofficial exploration.

This was entirely sensible because nothing says responsible decision-making like starting an undocumented dungeon shortly before finishing for the night.

At the top of the mesa we found a non-functional portal.

Lots of crickets.

And a bunker.

We may or may not have explored our way through the bunker.

We may or may not have slaughtered the Bound.

We may or may not have solved puzzles and collected Essence.

There is, legally speaking, insufficient evidence.

At the bottom of the bunker we discovered a buried portal.

Nearby was a switch.

Craig wasn't with us.

This created a vacuum.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Myles channelled Craig.

“what does this switch do?”

Flick.

The switch activated the portal.

It also spawned a large number of extremely pissed-off Bound who had apparently been enjoying a quiet nap until two middle-aged Realmwalkers broke into their bunker and started operating the machinery.

There followed the traditional exchange of cultural perspectives.

They attempted to murder us.

We murdered them first.

With the Bound defeated, the portal stood ready.

We considered going through.

Then wisdom prevailed.

Some experiences are better shared.

More importantly, some disasters require Craig to be present so we have someone to blame.

We left the portal for another night.

Tonight's Campfire Song – A Chaunting Lay by Zaph

As evening settled over the desert, Zaph's contribution to the oral tradition of CCF was reconstructed around the fire.

Not the original tune, obviously.

This is a respectable Victorian expedition.

Mostly.

The Ballad of the Sensibly Enchanted Umbrella

Across the dunes went Zaph one night,
Umbrella glowing, enchantments right.
No sudden plummet, no crater below,
Just smugly drifting where sane people go.

Puck told a tale of the Fae and their schemes,
Of portals and bargains and troublesome dreams.
Zaph nodded wisely, then wandered away,
Having retained not one word Puck had to say.

Three days of desert, springboards and sand,
With half of the map still vaguely unplanned.
The quest log insists there is something to do—
We'll probably discover exactly what,
sometime around quarter past two.

Did We Learn or Achieve Anything This Week?

Against all reasonable expectations, yes.

We learnt:

Scarves are not a good substitute for coats.

This feels like information the British Empire should already have established, but apparently experimental verification was required.

Craig makes Dave look competent…. It’s a low bar

Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.

Or distort comparative performance metrics.

Giant scorpions on launch pads should be banned from games

This requires no further explanation.

Any game designer responsible knows what they did.

We achieved:

Dave achieved – Leroy Jenkins (Forget to parry)

Excalibur works.

The defensive controls remain theoretical.

Myles achieved – Buttons ()

Some achievements require explanation.

This isn't one of them.

Buttons.

Craig achieved – I am Sick (Of falling from the sky)

He wasn't even present and still managed to receive an achievement.

That takes talent.

Zaph achieved – I am done (With the Sylvan Realm)

At last.

The quests are complete.

The desert awaits.

The Lesser Observatory is open.

Puck is talking to everybody except Myles.

And somewhere beneath a mesa is an activated portal surrounded by recently deceased Bound, waiting patiently for CCF to return with Craig.

Because an evening without Craig may be efficient.

It may be orderly.

It may even involve correctly enchanted umbrellas and items placed in the right boxes.

But sooner or later somebody still has to flick the switch.