Chapter Summaries

After eradicating the plague in the Lun Mine Pit, Li Wei collected his quest rewards and returned to Fog City to rest. He settled into life at home with new appliances and a radio, while the investigation into the plague and the aftermath of the Steel City attack continued without him.

• Li Wei received his quest rewards, including increased lifespan and Constitution, a Puppeteer level increase, and the Command Aura ability.
• Li Wei returned to Fog City by airship while Elizabeth stayed at the Lun Mine Pit to document the holy water and the ongoing recovery.
• Li Wei enjoyed chilled sparkling water made with his new refrigerator and listened to a radio broadcast with Erin.
• Li Wei read reports about the Steel City terrorist attack and the new debate over data security, then decided to stay home unless the Queen ordered otherwise.
• Li Wei asked Erin about the kitchen appliances and rested while wondering how Ovelia's preparations for the Delicat District harvest were going.

Li Wei spent a quiet month following political tensions and reports from across the Empire while avoiding unwanted attention. When Katie warned that his usual formal clothes would be inappropriate for the New Year's banquet, she offered to take him to a shop to get a suitable outfit.

• Li Wei read about the Republic of Francis seeking an alliance with the Empire as tensions with the Kingdom of Kront threatened to lead to war, while Parliament maintained its policy of splendid isolation.
• Li Wei reviewed reports that Uncle Hank's Steam Car exhibition had secured a large order and that Samuel and Washington had been sentenced to hang for treason in Mericia.
• Katie visited Li Wei, complained that her family would not let her travel alone, and told him that the Pink Lady had closed as its former workers found jobs handling punched cards.
• Katie asked Li Wei about his invitation to the New Year's banquet and explained that his usual formal clothes would be considered disrespectful to the royal family.
• Li Wei agreed to go with Katie to a shop that could prepare appropriate clothes for the banquet.

Li Wei visited Roland’s tailor shop with Katie to order a sturdy, understated black suit for the New Year’s banquet. Afterward, Katie asked him to investigate the tale of the Lady of Death, and Li Wei agreed to check the cemetery with her.

• Katie brought Li Wei to Roland’s shop, where he ordered a suit suited to his work as a detective.
• Roland measured Li Wei and told him to return on the fifteenth of next month to collect the finished suit.
• Katie asked Li Wei to investigate a mysterious case in exchange for helping him find the tailor.
• Katie told Li Wei that people who saw a veiled woman in the Upper City cemetery later died, earning her the name Lady of Death.
• Li Wei considered going home but agreed to visit the cemetery with Katie and investigate the story.

Li Wei and Katie investigated the unattended Honor Cemetery after hearing a ghost story and found a black-clad woman grieving at a grave. When the woman noticed Li Wei’s red ring, she vanished after pleading with him to end everything.

• Li Wei and Katie found the Honor Cemetery’s gates open and its gatehouse empty, then entered to investigate.
• Li Wei used Soul Sight and found no one nearby as they searched the cemetery.
• Li Wei and Katie followed the sound of crying and saw a veiled woman kneeling at a headstone.
• Li Wei approached the woman with Katie, and she seized his hand to stare at his red ring.
• The woman pleaded, “Please, end all of this,” before a fierce wind blew her away.

After encountering a ghost at Honor Cemetery, Li Wei investigated the name on a gravestone and learned of Jim Rogers, an artist who vanished after nine people were found dead at his mansion. He decided to visit Blackwood Mansion with Katie the next day to pursue the unsolved mystery.

• Katie grabbed Li Wei and tore his sleeve when a woman vanished near Jim Rogers's gravestone.
• Li Wei noticed the gravestone had no death date and suggested it might mark a missing person rather than a burial.
• Li Wei reported the ghost and the cemetery's lack of a caretaker to the old butler, who showed him a notice inviting detectives to solve the mystery of Jim Rogers.
• Inspector Lestrade told Li Wei that artist Jim Rogers had disappeared over fifty years earlier after nine people were found dead at Blackwood Mansion.
• Li Wei told Katie they would visit the address in the notice the next day.

Li Wei and Katie met George Rogers, who hired Li Wei to solve the riddle required to claim Jim Rogers’s estate by holding a dinner party at Blackwood Mansion. After learning the will had been discovered during a law firm review and was written a week before the mansion incident, Li Wei realized the party had to be held as the will required.

• Li Wei and Katie visited George Rogers, who explained that Jim Rogers’s will required ten people to hold a dinner party at Blackwood Mansion and solve a riddle to claim the estate.
• George hired Li Wei, agreeing to give half the estate to whoever solved the riddle, and Li Wei signed the agreement.
• Li Wei told Katie that George’s nervous behavior suggested he urgently needed the inheritance, despite the dangerous conditions.
• Li Wei and Katie went to the Frank Law Firm, where Lawyer Frank said the firm had recently discovered Jim Rogers’s will while reviewing its documents.
• Lawyer Frank explained that Jim Rogers had written and notarized the will one week before the Blackwood Mansion incident, and Li Wei concluded that the dinner party had to go ahead.

Li Wei and Katie traveled to Blackwood Mansion, a former prison on an island, to attend George Rogers's inheritance banquet and solve Jim Rogers's puzzle. After meeting the butler and settling into converted cells, they heard that everyone had arrived just as thunder broke outside.

• Li Wei and Katie crossed the lake by boat, while the fisherman explained that Blackwood Mansion had once been a prison.
• The fisherman left Li Wei and Katie at the island, and they walked to the mansion and met the butler.
• The butler told Li Wei that George Rogers and his wife, the lawyer, the cook, the maid, Detective Fred, and the two guests were present, with Detective Blythe still expected.
• Li Wei and Katie settled into guest rooms converted from prison cells, and Li Wei considered how the island's isolation might have trapped the victims.
• Katie told Li Wei that everyone had arrived, and thunder sounded as they prepared to meet the guests.

Li Wei and Katie joined detectives Fred and Blythe in the lounge, where they learned that Jim Rogers’s will tied his fortune to opening a door leading to the Dark Abyss. The guests concluded that Jim may have bought the prison to find the door, and the maid summoned them to dinner with George Rogers.

• Li Wei and Katie met detectives Fred and Blythe in the lounge and discussed the deaths at the prison fifty years earlier.
• Fred questioned the maid and learned that she, her mother, and butler Walter had been hired temporarily to prepare the house for the banquet.
• Emma Butler arrived and explained that Jim Rogers’s will promised his fortune to whoever opened the door leading to the Dark Abyss.
• Li Wei, Katie, Fred, and Blythe speculated that the door was hidden in the prison and that Jim may have bought the property to find it.
• The maid announced that dinner was ready and said George Rogers was waiting for them.

At dinner in Blackwood Mansion, George Rogers revealed a mysterious note that set a deadline of dawn for finding a hidden door. Li Wei provided the detectives with records from a similar case fifty years earlier, whose victims included George Rogers's wife and daughter, found hanged in the garden.

• George Rogers showed the group a note promising a final feast and warning that the dream would end at dawn, but he could not identify its author or meaning.
• The group ate dinner, then George and his wife left them to investigate Blackwood Mansion and find the door before sunrise.
• The detectives speculated that the earlier guests had died because they failed to open the door before dawn, and Li Wei produced the police investigation file from fifty years earlier.
• The detectives reviewed the file and learned that the victims had died between four and six in the morning, with several found in rooms around the mansion.
• The detectives discovered that Jim Rogers's wife and daughter had been found hanging from a tree in the garden, where the gallows once stood.

On a rainy night at Blackwood Mansion, Li Wei warned Katie that both the people and the ghosts might be dangerous while they waited to investigate. The detectives suspected Jim Rogers could still be hiding in the mansion and went to search the former guards’ quarters, unaware that a black cat was watching them.

• Li Wei told Katie that Mr. George and the servants could be suspects, and speculated that Jim Rogers might have poisoned the others for the treasure fifty years earlier.
• Li Wei warned Katie that the ghostly woman might be manipulating them and told her to watch out for people as well as ghosts; Katie chose to stay beside him.
• The short, stout detective and the tall, thin detective discussed Li Wei and Katie, then considered whether Jim Rogers could still be alive and hiding in the mansion.
• The detectives reasoned that a secret passage might be in the former guards’ quarters and went to investigate.
• An enormous black cat watched the detectives leave, then leaped down and vanished into the shadows.

Emma Butler found a concealed door while searching the prison, but someone attacked and abducted her before she could tell anyone. The detectives later found her body outside the open front doors, leaving her killer and the secret behind the door undiscovered.

• Emma Butler used her architectural knowledge to search the prison and identified a hidden door behind a storage box.
• As Emma Butler turned to leave, an unseen assailant covered her mouth and nose and dragged her into the darkness.
• The short, stout detective and the tall, thin detective searched the former warden’s room but found no clues.
• At midnight, the detectives heard a scream and rushed to the entrance hall.
• The detectives found Emma Butler’s body outside the open front doors, with her clothes torn and her limbs twisted.

Li Wei and the two detectives investigated the lawyer’s gruesome death and followed evidence of an attack into the West Wing. They uncovered a possible hidden door, but a pale figure attacked the tall, thin detective and escaped into the stairwell.

• Li Wei and the detectives found the lawyer’s mutilated corpse and noted that George and his wife were missing.
• The freckled maid revealed that the lawyer had gone to investigate the West Wing, so Li Wei and the detectives went there.
• The detectives found the lawyer’s dropped Gas Lamp, a shoe, and drag marks leading to a watchtower chamber.
• Li Wei spotted a hidden-door pattern in the floor and showed the detectives that its bricks formed a whirlpool shape.
• A pale arm grabbed the tall, thin detective, but Li Wei shot at it and the white figure fled up the spiral stairwell.

Miss Lawyer returned as a monster and attacked the group in the lounge, while Li Wei’s team reported facing another hostile creature. The group discovered that someone with a key had released Miss Lawyer, suspected George Rogers, and was left stranded in the dark with the power cut.

• After a gunshot startled the lounge, someone battered down the door, and Miss Lawyer, transformed into a monster, attacked the butler and Katie before crawling away.
• Li Wei and the detectives returned, and Li Wei said they had driven off another attacker.
• Li Wei found Miss Lawyer’s room unlocked and learned that George Rogers also had a key, making him a suspect in her release.
• The short, stout detective noted that two hostile monsters were in the building and the rain prevented them from leaving the island.
• The lights went out, and Li Wei lit a Gas Lamp and noted that their enemy knew how to cut the power.

Li Wei rejected burning down the house for now and joined the detectives in searching for a concealed entrance in the west wing. After they uncovered a spiral staircase leading underground, Li Wei and the short, stout detective prepared to investigate while Katie stayed behind to protect the others.

• Li Wei proposed setting the house ablaze, but the short, stout detective suggested searching for the hidden passage instead, and the group agreed to stay together.
• The group returned to the west wing and searched the circular room while Li Wei guarded the stairs and Katie watched the door.
• The tall, thin detective found a hidden switch that caused the floor to sink and reveal a spiral staircase descending underground.
• Li Wei decided to investigate below with the short, stout detective, while Katie and the tall, thin detective stayed with the others.
• Li Wei recalled the warning about opening the gate to the Dark Abyss and descended the stairs with a Gas Lamp and the Persuader.

Li Wei and the stout detective discovered a bone-filled cavern beneath the prison and confronted George Rogers, who revealed that he had sacrificed condemned prisoners to gain eternal life. Rogers summoned his monstrous wife to attack them, leaving Li Wei and the detective facing the creature.

• Li Wei and the stout detective followed the underground passage into a cavern where skeletal remains were impaled on stalagmites and piled beneath an altar surrounded by twelve stone chairs.
• The stout detective identified scraps of uniform as belonging to prison guards, and George Rogers appeared at the altar with a gun.
• Rogers revealed that he had gained eternal life by sacrificing condemned prisoners to a great heroic spirit beneath the altar.
• Rogers claimed he could reshape people and transform himself, then summoned his spider-like wife to attack Li Wei and the stout detective.

Li Wei confronted Rogers in the Underground Temple, where a bone creature emerged and revealed itself as the true culprit. With the Bone Knight and its skeletal soldiers advancing, Li Wei prepared to fight while the detective escaped.

• The Grim Reaper Doll cut off the Human Spider’s arm and then sliced the creature in half as it attacked Li Wei.
• Li Wei challenged Rogers’s belief in his immortality, and Rogers revealed that he had been promised eternal life in exchange for sacrifices.
• Rogers fell into the altar’s bones, which swallowed him and rose into a Bone Knight with Rogers’s face embedded in its chest.
• The Bone Knight demanded his fragment and charged Li Wei, who attacked with his revolvers and received the quest to escape the Underground Temple before dawn or eliminate the enemy.
• Li Wei sent the short, stout detective away as skeletons descended from the pillars to join the Bone Knight, then summoned the Grim Reaper Doll for the battle ahead.

Li Wei fought the Skeleton Warrior underground while Katie and the others confronted the transformed Miss Lawyer in the hall. Katie destroyed Miss Lawyer, and Li Wei blew the Skeleton Warrior apart with an explosive device delivered by the Black Cat Doll.

• The short, stout detective escaped from the underground passage and told everyone that Mr. Rogers had become a monster and that Li Wei was still fighting below.
• Miss Lawyer’s monstrous form leaped into the hall and attacked the butler, but Katie and the tall, thin detective struck back.
• Katie’s punch smashed Miss Lawyer through a granite wall, killing her.
• Li Wei found that destroying the Skeleton Warrior’s head had not stopped him and decided to destroy his whole body.
• Li Wei used the Grim Reaper Doll to create an opening, then sent the Black Cat Doll toward the Skeleton Warrior with an explosive parcel.
• Li Wei shot the Skeleton Warrior with high-explosive rounds, detonating the device inside his chest and tearing his body apart.

Li Wei destroyed the Skeleton Warrior’s crystal sphere, absorbed another soul fragment, and received a whip skill that left him horrified by its unwanted knowledge. After returning from the island, he helped Military Intelligence Section Seven handle the incident and learned that the temple beneath the inn was linked to Lance, whose scattered soul fragments had been sealed across Fog City.

• Li Wei shattered the Skeleton Warrior’s crystal sphere, and his ring absorbed the soul within it.
• Li Wei spent his reward points on Library and Combat, which changed into Whip Technique and filled his mind with disturbing whip-related knowledge.
• Li Wei returned to the mainland with the others, reported the island incident to Military Intelligence Section Seven, and offered the three surviving servants jobs in his household.
• Li Wei asked the old butler about Site No. 1 and learned that the Underground Temple was connected to Lance, whose soul King Arthur had split and sealed away.
• The old butler explained that Lance’s soul fragments were believed to be sealed somewhere in Fog City and that Jim Rogers had likely assumed an actor’s identity after retiring.

Li Wei prepared to renovate his Clock Tower after hiring a butler and two maids, and discovered a system quest that unlocked building decorations. After trying several themes, he chose an unconventional style for the tower and paid eight thousand pounds for it.

• Li Wei rejected Butler Kane’s suggestion to rent or buy a villa, saying he wanted to make an impression as a detective.
• Li Wei hired Butler Kane and two maids, then arranged for Erin to stay with Uncle Hank while the Clock Tower was renovated.
• Li Wei received the Makeover quest, which unlocked a building decoration system that cost money to use.
• Li Wei tested futuristic, luxurious, paranormal, and other themes before finding a style he liked.
• Li Wei chose the new Clock Tower theme for eight thousand pounds.

Katie visited Li Wei at the Clock Tower and discovered that he had completely renovated its interior in an opulent aristocratic style. She admired the tower, especially its infinity pool, but questioned why so many doors were decorated with skulls.

• Katie arrived at the Clock Tower and was surprised by its newly luxurious entrance and grand hall.
• Li Wei showed Katie the renovated tower, including its guest rooms, recreation room, banquet hall, and infinity pool.
• Katie praised the renovation and said nobles in Fog City would compete to visit, then asked whether she could stay there.
• Katie pointed out the skull decorations on the doors, and Li Wei awkwardly defended them as mysterious and fitting for their work.