Chapter Summaries

Rorschach interrogated Krop in the cult hideout’s basement, learning how the cult moved supplies into Shadow City and why Krop had stirred the Living Water Body. He left Krop unconscious and summoned Singlev, with the cult’s superiors expected to return within days.

• Freddy named the maid Little Coal Ball, while Rorschach used Arcane Vision to find a basement beneath the hideout.
• Krop told Rorschach that trained bats carried messages and that the cult had ordered him to collect supplies from the sunken ship.
• Krop suspected the ship’s ritual victims were Grey Elves from the Isle of Aer, which matched the vessel’s shipping records.
• Krop admitted he had used Powdered Medicine to agitate the Living Water Body so he could monopolize the water supply and gain control of the Submerged Zone.
• Rorschach had Krop send a routine reply to his superiors, learned they might return within five days, knocked him unconscious, and called Singlev to the basement.

Rorschach and Singlev investigated the cult’s Living Water Body and discovered that tiny microorganisms in it absorbed magic and manipulated water. After testing what they fed on, they realized the cult might return, so they planned to keep watch while continuing their search.

• Rorschach refused the suspicious food and explained that the wrecked ship had been a cult supply vessel carrying likely Grey Elf corpses between the surface world and the Shadowlands.
• Singlev modified a nautical telescope and another lens into a microscope, while Rorschach made glass slides from a broken bottle.
• Rorschach used Arcane Vision to observe the Living Water Body and discovered that microorganisms absorbed magic and moved water in a spell-like way.
• Rorschach fed samples broth, flour, and sugar, and found that sugar made the organisms especially active; Krop briefly woke before Singlev sedated him again.
• Rorschach warned that the cult would return and proposed that he and Singlev take turns resting and keeping watch at the mansion.

Rorschach’s group freed Little Coal Ball and prepared to report their investigation before heading deeper into Shadow City. Meanwhile, the Iron Crown Knights discussed Caroline and Rorschach, then ordered Percival to investigate Benedict and those around him without alerting the elf detective.

• Freddy revealed that Little Coal Ball was a Rat Speaker whom Krop had enslaved, and she showed that she could communicate with bats.
• Rorschach’s group took the unconscious Krop outside and planned to notify the count before continuing deeper into Shadow City.
• Percival told the Knight Captain that the Iron Crown Knights had found no trace of the cult’s ship and that Rorschach had not entered the Shadowlands.
• The Knight Captain ordered Percival to investigate Benedict and everyone around him, warning him not to alert the elf detective.

Rorschach’s group spread word that he was looking for Teacher Caroline and discussed why people ignored the Shadowlands. At the count’s train, Rorschach and Singlev presented the captured cultists, while Freddy and Little Coal Ball waited behind.

• Rorschach said the missing-person notices were meant to spread word that he was looking for Teacher Caroline, and planned to investigate the cult while waiting for her.
• At the subway station, a woman noticed Little Coal Ball and asked about her, but dismissed the group’s warnings about the Shadowlands.
• Freddy explained that people ignored the abnormal as self-protection and described how ambitious people were filtered out of ordinary life.
• The conductor sent Little Coal Ball and Freddy to wait while Rorschach and Singlev went to meet Count Elgin.
• Rorschach accused Count Elgin of detaining the cult’s subordinates, and Singlev dropped the sack of captured people onto the carriage floor and drugged them again.

Rorschach warned Count Elgin that the cult’s higher organization would soon arrive and investigated the increasingly active Living Water Body. After sterilizing it with fire, he offered to teach Elgin how to use it to defend the Submerged Zone.

• Count Elgin told Rorschach that the cult’s believers had been captured and that the marquis had reportedly gained a beautiful magical advisor.
• Rorschach warned Elgin that the cult’s higher organization would likely arrive within days, then learned that the Living Water Body had grown more active.
• Elgin’s guards threw the drugged Krop into the Living Water Body, which tore apart the sack and its contents.
• Rorschach explained that feeding flesh and blood would make the microorganism aggregate grow, then destroyed it in the sewer with five fireballs.
• Rorschach repaired the damaged sewer wall and offered to teach Elgin how to use the Living Water Body against the cult.

Rorschach showed Count Elgin how ordinary sugar could provoke the Living Water Body, then received a crude map of the Shadowlands as payment. He and his companions set out toward the Core Zone to find the Marquis, but became lost in the sewers and discovered a manhole with movement above it.

• Rorschach used sugar to reactivate the Living Water Body and told Count Elgin he could use it against the cult instead of Powdered Medicine.
• Count Elgin gave Rorschach a crude map of the Shadowlands and said the underground regions had no identification system.
• Freddy suggested splitting up to take Little Coal Ball to Garbage Mountain, but Little Coal Ball refused, and Rorschach decided the bat’s scouting ability made it useful to keep along.
• Rorschach’s group chose to head to the Core Zone and search for the Marquis, but the dwarf’s compass and the map failed to guide them through the maze-like sewers.
• Little Coal Ball relayed that something was moving overhead, and Rorschach’s light revealed a rusted ladder and a trembling manhole cover.

Rorschach and his companions emerged into Shadow City’s Core Zone and fought their way through animated mannequins toward the Inverted Church. They reached the church’s avenue, while a mannequin recorded Rorschach for destroying public property and Singlev and Freddy for stealing firearms.

• The group climbed out of a manhole and found a corpse signpost pointing toward Silver Street and the Inverted Church.
• Rorschach followed a notice directing them to find the Black Monk at the Inverted Church.
• Moving mannequins surrounded the group, and Rorschach used a banishment spell to freeze them before destroying many with a ray.
• Singlev salvaged two firearms as Rorschach recovered and recharged his staff.
• The group continued toward the upside-down church, and a mannequin wrote down their alleged offenses.

Rorschach and his companions entered the upside-down Inverted Church and followed oil lamps through its ruined halls, where a mural revealed the history of the island and the Divine War. The mural ended with the conquered suffering under the victors and a new great existence descending over the sea.

• Rorschach used Levitation Spell to help the group reach the Inverted Church, where they followed a route marked by oil lamps.
• The group discovered a mural showing elves and humans living together before dwarves attacked their settlement.
• The mural depicted the conflict escalating as humans allied with the dwarves against the elves and their allies.
• Rorschach recognized the climactic battle as the Divine War between the Lord of Order and Silvanus, which the Lord of Order won.
• The mural showed the conquered being whipped and strange altars rising as a new great existence descended over the ocean.

Rorschach, Singlev, and Freddy examined paintings in the Inverted Church that depicted Istarani’s rise and defeat, while the Black Monk revealed himself as the church’s last caretaker. He left them facing the revelation that Istarani had abandoned his followers, demonstrating his power by melting their firearms.

• Rorschach and Singlev studied paintings of Istarani’s descent and the resistance that overthrew the Old Empire, and wondered why the Lord of Light and Order had not intervened.
• The Black Monk appeared from the shadows and revealed paintings showing Istarani’s tentacles crowning a queen, spreading across Istarani, and separating the Isle of Aer.
• The final painting showed earthly appendages and golden light attacking Istarani until the wounded god fled into the void.
• The Black Monk accused Istarani of abandoning his people and believers, and his robe unfurled into tentacles.
• Freddy and Singlev aimed their guns at the Black Monk as Rorschach raised a Blue Light Barrier, but the Black Monk’s tentacles pierced it and turned their firearms into black slurry.

Rorschach and his companions fought the Black Monk as he manipulated gravity and attacked with tentacles, while Little Coal Ball rallied the church’s bats. The battle paused amid the swarm, and Rorschach discovered a spiritual glow covering the ceiling that seemed connected to the Black Monk’s strange powers.

• The Black Monk shattered Rorschach’s Blue Light Barrier, then made the room weightless and sent Rorschach, Freddy, and Singlev drifting.
• Rorschach and Little Coal Ball helped their companions maneuver through the air while Rorschach cut the Black Monk’s tentacles and fired Great Disintegration, which the Black Monk evaded by becoming black mist.
• Rorschach’s Decomposition Technique briefly disrupted the gravity effect, but the church flipped again and unsecured objects crashed to the floor.
• Thousands of bats poured into the hall, and Little Coal Ball commanded some to shield the group while the rest swarmed the Black Monk.
• Rorschach examined the room with Arcane Vision and discovered a spiritual glow covering the ceiling.

Rorschach and his companions fought the Black Monk as he altered gravity throughout the space, but the old man pushed Rorschach to discover a new way to use his power. Rorschach created a small domain that resisted the monk’s control and began transforming environmental magic power with his own imprint.

• Rorschach used a Fireball to draw the Black Monk away from the painting, then struck him with Deity Expulsion and damaged his tentacles.
• The Black Monk completed an incantation that intensified gravity, pinning Rorschach, his companions, and the bats to the ground.
• Rorschach used Expulsion and then Reverse Ray to briefly restore normal gravity, while the Black Monk urged him to control his power in a different way.
• Rorschach gathered his companions close and formed a small domain where gravity and magic power returned to their prior state.
• Rorschach infused environmental magic power with his own imprint, sustaining the domain as he glimpsed a point of convergence resembling the Archetype Layer.

Rorschach disrupted the balance between his domain and the Black Monk’s, weakening the monk and ending the confrontation. The Grey Monk explained that Is had abandoned his believers during the ancient conflict between earth and sun, leaving Rorschach’s group with a challenge to their view of the god.

• Rorschach reached for the vanishing node, triggering a surge of cold and stagnation that caused the domains to collapse and sent the Black Monk falling.
• Rorschach slowed the monk’s fall and stopped Singlev and Freddy from attacking him; the monk’s robe had turned mostly gray, though Is’s power remained.
• Singlev and the monk traded insults, while Freddy pointed out that the monk had still put them through a terrible ordeal.
• The Grey Monk apologized for losing control of Is’s corruption and said the group had attacked first, though Singlev defended their suspicion of him.
• The Grey Monk said Is had left Istarani during the Silent Era, abandoning his believers and breaking their covenant as the battle between earth and sun intensified.
• Freddy argued that Is had helped the kingdom escape the Old Empire and the Lord of Order, but the Grey Monk rejected the idea that gods acted out of charity.

Rorschach and his companions learned about the Marquis, the Shadowlands, and the Underground Cult from the Black Monk before leaving the Inverted Church. After they departed, the monk concealed signs of a disrupted ritual and received visitors seeking wanted fugitives and a young mage.

• The Black Monk told Rorschach that the Marquis ruled Shadow City through strict decrees and warned him to avoid the Shepherd and to turn right if seeking the Marquis.
• The Black Monk described the Shadowlands as a patchwork of remnants and gave Rorschach's group clean water and bread before sending them out through the main hall.
• Rorschach's group left the church, which rearranged itself behind them, and the Black Monk tidied a room containing a detailed map and signs of a disrupted ritual.
• The Black Monk addressed the Golden Man in a painting, then met the Marquis's herald, who brought wanted notices containing two blank sheets.
• The Court Mage's nervous elf messenger asked whether the Black Monk had seen a young mage, and the monk told him that a brat was about to come knocking.

Rorschach and his companions traveled to the Marquis’s estate to discuss the Return Mother Cult’s activity in the Shadowlands. After hearing Rorschach’s evidence, the Marquis questioned his purpose, and Rorschach asked to meet the Marquis’s magical advisor.

• Freddy hailed a carriage to take Rorschach, Singlev, and Little Coal Ball to the Marquis’s estate, and the driver warned them not to open the curtains.
• Rorschach saw strange spiritual lights gather around the carriage and watched a pale hand reach toward Little Coal Ball before withdrawing.
• Rorschach told the Marquis’s servants that he had come about the shipwreck in the Submerged Zone and the cult, and the servants escorted him and his companions into the estate.
• Freddy asked to tour the estate, so the Marquis sent him, Singlev, and Little Coal Ball away and spoke privately with Rorschach.
• Rorschach described the cult’s activities and its shipwreck, then asked the Marquis for help and permission to meet his magical advisor.

Rorschach met his former teacher Caroline, who had become the marquis’s magical adviser in the Shadowlands. Caroline began explaining how she had witnessed a secret transaction between the Earth Mother Cult and Istarani’s Twelve Knight Orders, which led to the knight orders pursuing her.

• The marquis refused to help Rorschach investigate the Holy Mother Cult and asked him to persuade his magical adviser to leave, while revealing outsiders could escape Shadow City’s curse by leaving Istarani within three days.
• The marquis hosted Rorschach, Singlev, Little Coal Ball, and Freddy for dinner, where they rejected his custom of eating a roasted creature beneath a white cloth.
• A servant led Rorschach to the Golden Harp Theatre, where he found the magical adviser Caroline living in a nearby house.
• Caroline welcomed Rorschach and explained that she had come to Istarani to observe the stars before discovering a transaction between the Earth Mother Cult and the Twelve Knight Orders in Storm City.
• Caroline recounted how she had secretly watched the cultists meet the knight orders at a dock and said the knights exposed their identities when they pursued her.

Caroline explained why the Istarani authorities and Magic Towers could not be trusted, and why the Marquis of the Shadowlands was unlikely to defeat the cult. When Rorschach urged her to escape, Caroline revealed that she was waiting for an opportunity with help from the resistance on the Isle of Aer, where the Burning Lion Knights were preparing to attack the rebels.

• Caroline told Rorschach that Istarani’s authorities had obstructed her investigation and the local Magic Towers had refused to help, so they could no longer trust the guild.
• Caroline explained that the Marquis feared losing control of the Shadowlands and used torture to deter residents from cooperating with the cult.
• Caroline rejected the claim that the Marquis was an Archmage and described him as an agent of the Shadowlands, far weaker than Kano or Poincaré.
• Rorschach urged Caroline to leave Istarani and contact Kano, but Caroline revealed that the resistance on the Isle of Aer had helped her hide and that she was waiting for an opportunity.
• On the Isle of Aer, the Burning Lion Knights gathered near a swamp, and their commander ordered them to kill the Mudblood rebels and burn their stronghold.

Istarani’s forces prepared to crush the Grey Elf resistance on the Isle of Aer, while villagers fled ahead of the approaching purge. After Istarani soldiers killed an old Grey Elf praying at her altar, a strange plant rose from the earth and killed the squad.

• The commander of the Burning Lion Knights distributed Holy Oil to his men before the operation against the Isle of Aer’s resistance.
• A Grey Elf mother led her children toward the woods, while the old woman stayed behind to pray for her son in the resistance army.
• A squad of Istarani soldiers broke into the cottage and stabbed the old woman, then cut off her ear.
• As the soldiers left, the old woman’s prayer grew louder, and they understood her words as a repeated threat to kill them.
• Frenzied vines burst from the swamp and well, turning the Raw Lobsters into nourishment for strange plants.

The Istarani Kingdom’s forces burned Grey Elf villages and laid siege to Berlanster, where the Isle of Aer’s restorationists had declared plans to form their own parliament. As both sides prepared for a nighttime clash, their commanders distributed spell scrolls and ordered their fighters to use every available advantage.

• Cops attacked the Grey Elf village with Frenzied Flowers, and the villagers fled through fire as hidden Grey Elves watched their homes burn.
• The kingdom’s army advanced toward Berlanster, where restorationists had seized the town and announced plans to establish an Isle of Aer parliament.
• The Burning Lion Knights surrounded Berlanster and prepared an ambush, with Knight Captain warning Brother Henry that the resistance might attack at night.
• The Knight Captain issued Darkvision scrolls to the first wave of knights and ordered them to use the scrolls only on command.
• The elven commander issued the resistance invisibility, sleep, Armor of Spirit, and illusion scrolls, then urged a recruit to use human magic against the kingdom’s forces.

The Grey Elves gathered to rescue Berlanster and confronted the Kingdom’s forces in a night battle. Their defenses and relentless attacks turned back the cavalry charge, and Silsha killed Henry, leaving the rebels cheering for freedom.

• The rebel leaders decided to relieve Berlanster, and their scattered forces regrouped in the marshes.
• The Lobster Soldiers bombarded Berlanster’s walls, but trees grew to fill the breaches as the Knight Commander learned that spellcasters were among the rebels.
• Henry and the Burning Lion Knights charged the Grey Elf formation at night, killing several rebels and scattering their ranks.
• The Grey Elves obstructed the cavalry and surrounded the knights with spears and farm tools, refusing to retreat despite their losses.
• Silsha emerged from invisibility and stabbed Henry through a gap in his armor with a rusting dagger, and the rebels cheered her name.

The Grey Elf Resistance celebrated its victory over the Burning Lion Knights as Silsha became a symbol in its mobilization campaign. On the main island, rising bread prices and political arguments accompanied the defeat’s repercussions, until Alfred violently silenced a legislator who advocated compromise with the rebels.

• The Grey Elf Resistance entered Berlanster in triumph after inflicting heavy losses on the Burning Lion Knights, who stayed in their camp while other Kingdom forces retreated into hiding.
• Silsha stamped the last Uprising Mobilization Letter and questioned why the Resistance emphasized her role, but an elder explained that her story encouraged their compatriots.
• News of the Isle of Aer’s defeat reached the main island, where bread prices rose and legislators debated suppressing or negotiating with the rebels and the Kingdom’s military structure.
• Alfred and his knights entered the lower house, where Alfred declared that no one should call for compromise with the rebels.
• When a legislator challenged Alfred’s interference, Alfred smashed the legislator’s head through a table, denounced the legislature, and ordered his knights to imprison him on a charge of lèse-majesté.