At a glance
- Hints
- Ambry in the Pleasance’s grotto, any time after the gardens
- Hunts
- three, from the third act on, as his price
- The late fight
- Ambry himself, once five houses have fallen
- The third form
- the mist, from drinking him
- The mist’s rooms
- seven, in places already walked
- Required for any ending
- none of it
The Man of Secrets’ prices
| When | His price for a new hint |
|---|---|
| The first talk | free: he shows you the water-gate |
| The first act (no house ended) | blood: 0.10 of the orb, “for the roses” |
| The second act (one or two ended) | blood 0.20, or the whole mana orb |
| The third act (three or four ended) | the whole mana orb and 0.10 blood, or a task |
| The end of the game (five or more) | a task; until it is done, 0.35 blood |
Asking again about the same place is free. He never takes Wick below a quarter of his blood, and the god’s own nudge always works for nothing: Ambry is quicker, never the only way.
Not your blood tonight, my lord. The other thing. The dark you carry. It feeds me as well as any cup.
I told you that one already. I do not sell a thing twice.
The hunts
When the price becomes a task, Ambry has heard of a thing that has started walking where it should not. Each one, done, pays for three hints. All three are designed, not yet built TBD.
- The Hedge-King, in the maze’s fountain court: a man-shaped mass of clipped yew and the drained gardeners’ bones. He lashes down the maze’s lanes and walks the hedges as if they were floor. The maze’s straights become his lanes. The fountain island’s root (Link 5, with the tide) makes him easier. Andrevel’s crypt (Link 2) holds his lead.
- The Rat King, in the gutter’s sewer lane: a knot of rats bound at the tails, the size of a cart. He summons lone rats: feed on them mid-fight.
- The Barghest, on the Downs’ corpse road: a black dog the size of a horse. He is a hound, so the crows cannot phase him; his howl grounds the flock.
I hear there is a thing that has started walking where it should not. Bring me word it has stopped, and I will owe you.
Ambry, late
Sealed · The endingThe challenge at the rosesBreak the seal to read
Once five houses have fallen, the roses on the grotto door offer a choice: CHALLENGE HIM. Before that he declines: “Not tonight, my lord. You are not old enough yet to ask me that.” He is a vampire older than the founders, and the grotto is roofed, so the crows will not rise, and he throws off the bat. He throws the light where you are going to be: never stand where you were walking. At half his wounds, the Mist: he is not there, and then he is on you. Panel.
What drinking him gives: a full orb and full mana; the mist (the third form); and, in the design, his night-sight and one secret kept on your objective line for the rest of the game TBD.
What is lost: he is dead, and the grotto sells nothing any more. His unfinished hunts are void.
The grotto is quiet. Nobody here sells anything now.
He sold the last one. There is no one left to ask but me.
The mist’s seven rooms
Sealed · The endingWhere the mist goesBreak the seal to read
The mist goes under doors and through vents, cracks, gratings and flues. Each of these is a new small room, or a door made passable, in a place you have already walked. Every one is a reward: lore, a relic, a fragment, never a key. All are designed, not built TBD.
| Place (walked when) | Through | What is there |
|---|---|---|
| The Tower’s keep (Link 2) | the old garderobe shaft | the Earl’s sealed muniment room: the muster rolls of the seven turns |
| The exchange (Link 3) | the strongroom’s air vent | the Prince’s private book: his wager on his own death, read in full |
| The Empress’s ward house (Link 5) | under the nursery’s locked door | the roll of the infants turned in at the wheel, with Hollin’s name crossed out |
| The convent (the open world) | the cells’ door gaps | the Hush’s silent chapel: the sisters’ voices, kept in jars |
| The Magician’s house (the open world) | the air shafts in the walls he built to the priest’s measure | a room the guild built and walled up again: the haven’s first plan |
| The Pleasance (Link 1) | the crack behind Ambry’s empty chair | Ambry’s coffin room: six hundred years of what he overheard, the last secret he kept |
| The haven (the prologue) | under the drowned nave’s sacristy door | the priest’s own cupboard: a fragment of the god’s origin |
Every story door has salt on its sill or the priest’s seal on its lock, and refuses the mist. Wind blows it apart, fire burns it off, and running water is still a wall.
The rest of the side roads
| Where | What | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| The Wastes | five regions, five Anchorites, honest or trick | Walkthrough 8 |
| The kindred | twelve people on the roads whose stories rhyme with Wick’s | Walkthrough 8 |
| The circus at each pitch | the games of chance; the paper wagon; the animals | Walkthrough 3 |
| The court’s vault crypt | Andrevel’s crypt, a relic, the Hedge-King’s lead | Walkthrough 2 |
| The river stops | the mill island, the sunk laundry barge, the fountain island | Walkthrough 5 |
| The Greenwood’s cart | a late raid with the band, once the church has opened TBD | Walkthrough 4 |
| The Ring before the end | scenery, and a line | Walkthrough 8 |
| The confession | eight fragments of the god’s story, earned by failing in the Wastes | The One Below |
Whether the finished game counts relics, lore rooms and fragments in a list the player can see is not yet decided TBD. When it is, this chapter will carry the full checklist.