Book Three · The Walkthrough · 5

Marrowmere and the Empress

Link 5 · the falls, the Duchess, the hunter taken, and the boat home

Hic ducissa eum dominum facit.

NewcomerStreamerSpoiler-light; deeper secrets sealedskeleton · the Falls and the Empress are built; the river stops, the turn’s move to this road and the three cinematics are new

4 standing

The plunge poolIn-game, clean pixels, under the book's CRT

At a glance

Where: the mere path, Marrowmere Falls, the Duchess’s ward house and cistern, the river home
Earns: kill: the tide · spare: the brake-chain, and Mardle’s punt
Rule taught: running water is no longer always a wall
Bosses: the Magistrate of Wards; the Duchess of Marrowmere; the hunter, taken
Cinematics: arrival, the source; the turn, the hunter taken; departure, Slack Water TBD: all new
Calm: downstream on Slack Water, to the docks and the herald
Length: Falls 15 to 20 min; the Empress 15 to 30 TBD

Why you are here

A runaway ward in the Greenwood points down the mere path: the Duchess keeps a lake up there. The ledger names her too: she bought Wick his name.

CLIP W5-01phase B: to capture

Cinematic 9, the source (new): Hollin’s lantern down the mere path, the trees parting on the still mere, its water slipping over the lip into the great fall, the aqueduct carrying the rest west. Wick’s line. About 17 s.

The route

The plunge pool. The mere path comes down to the falls’ north shore. The great fall’s whole face, and the god’s line about the lip.
The Stair of Pools. Terraces of pools climbing beside the fall. Running is a wall; still is a road. Its new word is the diverter: a gate cannot make water stop, only choose where it falls. Every stilled crossing makes another run. The Stilt-Keepers wade where you cannot and haul your levers back.
The spray bridge. West into the fall’s mist: cormorants dive out of the white, and a moonbow stands in the spray.
Behind the curtain. The quietest room in the region: the font, Sister Lave, the pelican altar, and Dilly, a runaway ward.
The lip and the head-gate. The Reeve of the Mere keeps the key to the aqueduct that feeds the city and the ward house. Shut it, or not: ask him (he refuses, kindly, and tells you why), bend him, or kill him and turn it yourself. Touch the gate and the copper statues of the founding Duchesses wake. The cost is shown before you choose.
The aqueduct’s service walk west to her house.
The ward house. The wardmote, the ward house, the undercroft with the roll room and the sluice-house; the culvert is a second way in. The Magistrate of Wards reads the year’s infants into the record.
The rite in the cistern. The tide carries Wick into the triangle. The Duchess.
Out to the plunge pool, where a boat is waiting.

SCREEN 5-1The Stair of PoolsA screen from the build of October 2026. The guide’s own capture replaces it.In-game, Marrowmere (v27), play field

THE ONE BELOW

Every cup in her city comes over that lip. She owns the lip.

chorus_falls_sight

WICK

Every stilled fall is a fall somewhere else. I will keep count of who it lands on.

fa_mark_stair

SHOT W5-02phase B: to capture

The Stair of Pools’ second terrace with a diverter’s gate swung and one outlet running, the other still, a Stilt-Keeper wading. Map fa_stair.

SHOT W5-03phase B: to capture

The spray bridge in the mist with the moonbow standing over it. Map fa_stair, T3.

SHOT W5-04phase B: to capture

The Mothers’ Walk at the lip, the Reeve with his long key by the head-gate’s capstan, the ducal village’s wells below the aqueduct in frame. Map fa_mere.

The bosses

The Magistrate reads a name and the water whitens where you stand. Keep off the edges. Panel.
The Duchess. Her wards first, by the blade, by her water, or on their knees (Bend Will and the kneel order: the rite can begin without one child dying). Then the tide: brake the great wheel she left unchained, and wade to her while the water stands still. In phase 2 she kneels at each fallen ward, her back to you. Panel.
Cobb from the Greenwood holds the tide gate shut for you, on any path.

CLIP W5-05phase B: to capture

The brake: Wick throwing the Mother Wheel’s brake on its red spoke, the whole tide standing still, the run across the stilled ring to strike her on her seal. About 10 s.

The Duchess's cistern — SCREEN 5-2The Duchess’s cisternHer wards stand between the tide gate and the brake. Read the tide.Press shot, live capture of the v83 build, CRT off, the play field only

SHOT W5-06phase B: to capture

The cistern in phase 2, the water risen a step, the Duchess kneeling at a fallen ward with her back turned. Map: the cistern. Play field only.

THE DUCHESS

I bought you that name, Aldric. It was dear, and it was never meant to open doors. Only the one.

duchess_title

Sealed · Mid-gameThe turn: the hunter takenBreak the seal to read

With two houses ended, Snuff meets Wick on the Duchess’s road: “That road? Then I’m coming. Hunter’s law: nobody hunts alone.” He walks at Wick’s back into the siege, gives one tip, does one good deed, and says his last line in his own voice. Then, on the hunter’s ground, the lantern comes out of the fog turning gold.

SNUFF

Running water, Wick. You’ll not cross it.

hn_m3_empress

The fight against a friend: dodge the net and the hook, because the stake only ever follows a pin or a hook, and strike his back while he hauls in a thrown net. The first stake that lands is the one death the god stages. Beaten, Snuff can be spared or killed. Panel.

CLIP W5-07phase B: to capture

Cinematic 10, the hunter taken (new): Snuff’s lantern on the Duchess’s road, warm white turning gold, the god’s hand on him. About 15 s. Captions on.

SHOT W5-08phase B: to capture

The hunter’s ground in the fog, Snuff with his lantern raised and the embers over his face. Play field only.

On the original order this turn came in the High Priestess’s house; on the guided road it moves to the Duchess’s road, because she is the third house TBD: the lines for this road are being re-cut.

Home on Slack Water

SCREEN 5-3Slack Water on the riverMardle poling the boat down the river. A screen from the build of October 2026.In-game, the ferry, clean pixels (v64)

At the plunge pool, an old man in a sea-green coat is waiting in a boat called Slack Water. He rows Wick home downstream: past the gorge, past the city’s lights, to the gutter’s docks, where a herald is crying the King’s summons. He says one thing on the way about what Wick has done; which thing depends on what he did.

MARDLE

Dead ride free. Yours was paid. Years back.

fr_fare

CLIP W5-09phase B: to capture

Cinematic 11, Slack Water (new): the boat going down the gorge, the great fall shrinking behind, Mardle poling past the city’s lights toward the docks and a herald’s bell. About 18 s.

From now on the haven’s grate opens onto the river, and Mardle will ferry Wick between the haven, Marrowmere and, later, the marsh.

Backtrack

With the tide (kill path), or as ferry stops with Mardle’s punt (spare path):

The gutter’s river: the old mill island and the sunk laundry barge mid-river TBD: new stops.
The maze’s fountain island (tide only): a relic, and the Hedge-King’s root, which makes his hunt easier.
The Greenwood’s stream-cut glades.

SHOT W5-10phase B: to capture

Wick crossing a run of the gutter’s river with the tide to the mill island. New stop: capture once built.

Secrets

Sealed · Mid-gameAt MarrowmereBreak the seal to read

The roll. In the ward house’s roll room, Wick’s own entry: “died on the road”, the marsh named, Mother: (struck through). An older entry: Title purchased.
The wardrobe. Three sets of robes: his, cut to his measure; Andrevel’s, older, with a marquis’s coronet; and a third, half-sewn, to a woman’s measure.
The brake’s chain. The empty hook is in the sluice-house above. She had the chain taken off herself.
The still water. Whenever the tide stands, the basin is a mirror, and in it robed figures stand on the gallery, smiling.
The washerwoman. This is where you learn who she is. Wick does not.

Stream notes

TIPFor streamers

The Falls are the most beautiful place on the road. Take the spray bridge slowly.
The head-gate is a moral choice with its price shown. Poll it.
The turn is the game’s hardest emotional beat. Do not skip the cinematic.
The boat ride home is a rest. Let it play.