Chapter Summaries

Fors teased Xio about her trust in Lorry while continuing to write her novel, and Xio set out undercover for East Borough. Meanwhile, Damien reported that the Beria Family was investigating a suspected Rose School member, and Pali Beria Lorry authorized him to use a tracking Sealed Artifact.

• Fors warned Xio not to reveal her unfinished novel about a pirate admiral, and Xio promised to keep it secret.
• Fors told Xio that Lorry had bought breakfast and tobacco for her and taught her a tonic to protect her health while smoking.
• Lorry bought sapphires and verbena in Backlund while Xio disguised herself and traveled to East Borough.
• Klein left the Azure Wind Inn in Bayam to visit the Golden Dream at Vice Admiral Iceberg's invitation.
• Damien told Pali Beria Lorry that the Beria Family was following a suspected Rose School member who had bought ingredients for advancing to Werewolf.
• Pali Beria Lorry approved Damien's use of Hunting Nose and warned him and his uncle that they would have to pay compensation if it was lost.

Lorry completed the purchase of two hundred thousand mu of land and established a seventy-thousand-pound foundation, while Archbishop Saint Anthony advised him about the estate’s workers and his upcoming investiture. Back home, he prepared to entrust Fors with managing the property, and Xio returned with a bag meant for eight people and news that she had spread the word.

• Pali Beria Lorry noticed an advertisement for a rubber plantation and sent a letter to its listed recipient, Sir Wall.
• Fors received two five-thousand-pound bearer cheques through a Bestowal Ritual, raising Lorry’s liquid funds to 68,500 pounds.
• Lorry took a three-thousand-pound cheque from the Posner Face Mask Factory and completed the land transfer and foundation paperwork with help from the Church.
• Archbishop Saint Anthony told Lorry that his identity should pass MI9 review and that his investiture was expected on Sunday, then discussed how to manage the estate’s workers.
• Lorry told Fors he would authorize her to manage the land and urged her to find a reliable butler; Fors decided to ask Audrey for advice.
• Xio returned home, handed Lorry a bag intended for eight people, and said the necessary number of people might be found within two or three days.

Gallows Sauron deduced that Little Pickpocket might have faked his death and that Xio Derecha's nail collection could be connected to his advancement on the Marauder pathway. He directed the group to lure Xio to them by making a vagrant's death look like a curse.

• A short-haired young man reported that Xio Derecha had commissioned the collection of trimmed nails.
• Gallows mocked the young men, then warned them with a thrown knife when one challenged his reasoning.
• Gallows connected Xio to Fors Wall and Little Pickpocket, and proposed that Little Pickpocket had survived by faking his death again.
• The elderly man questioned Gallows because MI9 had found Little Pickpocket's head and confirmed his death through divination.
• Gallows told the short-haired young man to kill the vagrant discreetly and spread a rumor that a curse had killed him, hoping Xio would investigate.

Fors told Lorry about her estranged father, Falcon Wall, who had left her and her mother in Backlund to pursue wealth in East Balam. After learning that Falcon urgently needed money, Lorry decided to travel to the Southern Continent to investigate their connection and see what had happened.

• Fors recounted how her father, a former military officer, moved to East Balam, started a new family, and later arranged a clinic job for her through his old connections.
• Fors named her father as Falcon Wall and joked that Lorry could find him and beat him up.
• Lorry learned through his avatar that Sir Wall was urgently selling his assets, and he planned to use Teleportation to investigate Falcon and his connection to Fors.
• Lorry told Fors he would be away for two or three days and asked her to keep preparing to act after Sunday.
• Lorry told Xio to stop pursuing the commission because he would handle it himself during the trip.

Lorry visited the Golden Dream to ask Edwina about the Mysticism Mentor potion and learned that its approval could take another week or two. He agreed to wait until before the week after next, then left to continue his journey to the Southern Continent.

• Lorry teleported to the Golden Dream and asked Danitz for the five thousand pounds, learning Danitz had already given it to Edwina.
• Klein teased Danitz and the other boatswains by claiming Jodson had a better chance of winning Edwina’s affection and might become the eighth pirate admiral.
• Lorry asked Edwina how long the Mysticism Mentor potion process would take, and she said it could take at least another week or two.
• Edwina told Lorry she was organizing an exploration, and he asked her to have the potion process ready before the week after next.
• Lorry declined Edwina’s offer of breakfast and said he needed to travel to the Southern Continent, while Edwina asked to borrow his Sealed Artifact to research Teleportation charms.

Lorry agreed to join Edwina’s Teleportation charm research, while Xio investigated a vagrant’s suspicious death in Backlund. Gallows Sauron identified Xio and sent three Hunters to capture her.

• Lorry agreed to participate in Edwina’s Teleportation research and followed her advice to travel to Gragos with Danitz and the others first.
• Xio learned from a bartender that a vagrant had been found dead with a black handprint on his neck after people sought the return of their fingernails.
• Xio denied that the death was connected to her commission and left the bar after warning the bartender not to tell anyone she had visited.
• Gallows Sauron observed Xio’s movements and identified her as a trained Hunter who had likely not reached Mid-Sequence.
• Gallows Sauron ordered three Hunters to take Xio down, and they left the restaurant in two groups.

Xio discovered that the vagrant’s murder was part of a plot and was captured after leading her pursuers into an ambush. Gallows Sauron revealed to his gathered followers that the supposedly dead Little Pickpocket was alive and standing before them.

• Xio realized the short-haired man following her had also been near the murdered vagrant and decided to warn him through Fors Wall’s Messenger.
• Xio scattered coins to escape her pursuer, but accomplices ambushed her in the alleys and forced her to use a Black Ring to merge with the shadows.
• Gallows Sauron appeared with Flames Crows, revealed Xio, and used his command to make her agree to return with him.
• At a warehouse hideout, Gallows Sauron told his followers that Little Pickpocket was alive and was right in front of them.

Xio woke in a room full of charred corpses and discovered that the man who had captured her was Gallows Sauron Lorry. Lorry explained how he survived a political conspiracy and began recounting the Percival Family’s hidden heir, leaving Xio waiting to learn what the last Percival had done.

• Gallows Sauron Lorry used his pocket watch to distract the elderly man in the tailcoat and reveal that he was the person they had been searching for.
• Xio woke among charred corpses and recognized Lorry, who had broken her invisibility after she used the Shadow Ring.
• Xio identified Lorry by his irritating manner, and he explained that MI9 had helped him survive a political conspiracy and become an informant.
• Lorry described Baron Percival’s hidden illegitimate son and the family’s plan to preserve its future through a trusted aide and a vineyard in Desi Bay.
• Lorry asked Xio what the last Percival had done, and she warned him not to tell her to guess again.

Gallows Sauron Lorry explained how he used Xio as bait to expose the conspirators behind Percival’s revenge, while secretly protecting her with a Worm of Time. After defeating them, he gave Xio a Hunter Beyonder characteristic and pointed her toward the murdered vagrant’s brother.

• Gallows Sauron Lorry recounted how the young Percival sought help from his aunt’s lover, a powerful Sauron Family member, and how he had used that secret to lure the conspirators out.
• Xio accused Gallows Sauron Lorry of using her as bait, and he revealed that he had secretly protected her by parasitizing someone in the group.
• Gallows Sauron Lorry explained that the conspirators’ leader had died through his own scheme, then gave Xio a Hunter Beyonder characteristic as payment and hush money.
• An old man brought replacement cod cakes, and Gallows Sauron Lorry told Xio that the murdered vagrant had a brother in the workhouse.
• Xio left with the cod cakes after Gallows Sauron Lorry told her he would not return with her and suggested she investigate the vagrant’s brother.

Gallows Sauron Lorry assessed the Hypnosis Pocket Watch and other spoils, then arranged to leave town while considering how to deal with the remaining threat to the Percival Family. In Alese City, Lorry watched a man who might be his target and prepared to confirm his identity through divination.

• Gallows Sauron Lorry recalled the Hypnosis Pocket Watch’s abilities and dangers, and considered offering it to Audrey or Edwina along with a characteristic-shattering service.
• Gallows Sauron Lorry counted his Beyonder Characteristics and other loot, estimating their value at around ten thousand pounds.
• Gallows Sauron Lorry ordered his hypnotized servant to burn the living room, then planned to take the Steam Train to Pritz Harbor at daybreak.
• Gallows Sauron Lorry considered the danger still facing the Percival Family and planned to warn Klein that Sauron Family members would soon arrive in Backlund.
• In Alese City, Lorry watched a man who resembled his target, while Pali Beria Lorry asked whether he was certain and Lorry prepared to use divination to confirm it.

Lorry and Pali Beria Lorry discussed how possessing a host’s body could affect a Parasite and began formulating rules to preserve their identities. After noticing the lights go out in a house across from the café, Lorry entered a dream and reached its front door, where a man answered his knock.

• Pali Beria Lorry warned Lorry to choose hosts carefully because their habits and instincts could influence the Parasite.
• Lorry proposed that Parasites remember their own identities and resist a host’s habits unless imitating them served a purpose.
• Pali Beria Lorry agreed to try Lorry’s rules and suggested that the avatars could later vote on their approach.
• Lorry and Pali Beria Lorry watched the Detached House across the street until its lights went out, then waited about fifteen minutes.
• Lorry entered a dream as a Nightmare, reached house 101, and knocked on the door; a man inside asked who it was.

In a dream, Lorry visited Falcon Wall and questioned him about his daughter, Fors Wall. Falcon proved their relationship and explained why he had stopped corresponding with Fors, leaving his account of his past unfinished.

• Lorry told Falcon that he had come from Backlund to investigate a case involving Fors Wall, and Falcon urgently asked whether she was all right.
• Falcon invited Lorry inside, apologized for his unexplained irritation, and served him Golden Sunshine.
• Lorry asked Falcon to prove he was Fors's father, and Falcon brought out their old letters and remittance slips.
• Lorry questioned why Falcon and Fors had gone years without corresponding, and Falcon explained that the remittances went to his late wife's bank account.
• Falcon admitted that he had started a new family while pursuing wealth and power, felt guilty toward his wife and daughter, and nearly killed himself after his wife died.
• Falcon said a psychiatrist had advised him to cut ties with his past, but he could not abandon Fors while she was still in grammar school.

Lorry confirmed that Fors and Falcon Wall were father and daughter, then discussed Pali’s investigation and advancement plans with her at a manor outside Alese City. Pali sensed something had changed, leaving Lorry likely unable to return home that night.

• Falcon told Lorry about supporting Fors financially, denied that his son had been kidnapped, and said he was selling assets to fund his business.
• Lorry revealed that Fors owed three soli in water charges, then left; Falcon woke in the Real World after striking his wrist during the dream and wondered whether Fors had asked him for help.
• Lorry and Pali watched a divination confirm that Falcon Wall and Fors shared a father-daughter blood relationship.
• Lorry gave Pali the Serial Killer characteristic and advised her to keep investigating Gibson while pursuing Sequence 5 advancement.
• Pali said she needed help finding the potion ingredients, and Lorry proposed seeking support from the Temperance Faction or trading with Sharron if Klein did not respond.
• Pali sensed that something had changed and told Lorry he would not be going back that night.

Lorry and Pali tracked a Rose School member to a meeting outside Alese City and set an illusion to fight Sutton. The illusion used the Sure-Hit Revolver to ignite the jungle, then vanished and reappeared near Sutton, setting up Lorry’s next move.

• Pali told Lorry that a Rose School member had gone to meet his superior and that the contact was likely a Sequence 7 or Sequence 6.
• Lorry created an illusion of the Sure-Hit Revolver, extended its duration with Exploit, and used Pali’s Mystical Item to locate the monitor.
• Sutton met what he thought was his subordinate, realized the meeting was a trap, and transformed into a Werewolf.
• The Faceless illusion used a Paper Figurine Substitute to evade Sutton’s attack, then repeatedly fired the Sure-Hit Revolver at him.
• As the gunfire set the surrounding branches and leaves ablaze, the illusion used Flaming Jump to reappear less than five meters from Sutton.

Lorry used the Book of Dimensions to guide Sutton’s escape and infiltrate the Rose School by hypnotizing Simon, then left the Southern Continent and entrusted its affairs to Pali. While traveling through the Spirit World, Lorry heard prayers addressed to the Great God of Fantasy.

• Lorry wrote predictions in the Book of Dimensions that helped Sutton survive a gunshot and escape the Faceless illusion.
• Lorry and Pali left the scene, and Lorry warned that the Rose School’s Angels might discover something wrong with the Zombie sent to investigate.
• Lorry reviewed the Prisoner pathway spoils, learned that Simon had become a hypnotized mole, and gave Pali instructions to handle him cautiously.
• Lorry entrusted the Ocean’s Heart and Southern Continent matters to Pali before departing to digest his potion.
• Lorry heard illusory prayers calling on the Great God of Fantasy while crossing the Spirit World.

Lorry discovered that the Book of Dimensions was relaying prayers from followers of the God of Fantasy and arranged for the Church to learn of their activity in the Southern Continent. He then killed his Gallows Sauron incarnation, manipulated the old man in the tailcoat’s memories, and left him carrying a portrait concealing a Worm of Time as the old man sailed for Trier.

• Lorry traced prayers to the God of Fantasy through the Book of Dimensions, sealed the artifact to cut off the connection, and sent the discovery to Pali Beria Lorry to report to the Church.
• Lorry met Gallows Sauron Lorry on an unnamed island, obtained the Hypnosis Pocket Watch, and killed the incarnation with a blade of flames.
• Lorry had a Scholarly Man paint a portrait resembling an ancestor of Baron Percival, then collected Gallows Sauron’s Conspirer Beyonder Characteristic and the sleeping Worm of Time.
• Lorry altered the old man in the tailcoat’s memories so he believed he had retrieved the portrait to present to his young master, and hid the Worm of Time on the painting.
• The old man in the tailcoat took the portrait aboard a passenger ship bound for Trier while Lorry watched from the harbor and left.

Lorry told Fors that he had found and spoken with her father, Falcon Wall, in the Southern Continent, and confirmed they were father and daughter. After learning the truth about her mother's bank account, Fors returned the money and agreed to travel with Lorry to the Southern Continent.

• At Bayam's port, Danitz warned Klein that pursuing the Black Death was dangerous, but Klein insisted he only wanted the bounty.
• Lorry told Fors that he had met Falcon Wall in the Southern Continent and confirmed through a dream and divination that Falcon was her father.
• Fors explained that her mother's account had been emptied before her death and asked whether Falcon's guilt and suicide attempts were true; Lorry said an ordinary person could hardly lie in a guided dream.
• Fors and Lorry went to Backlund Bank, withdrew the account's 2,463 pounds, and Fors asked Lorry to return the money to Falcon.
• Fors said she did not want to meet Falcon, then asked whether the Southern Continent was enjoyable and accepted Lorry's invitation to go there.

Fors and Lorry visited Falcon Wall’s villa, where Fors met her young half brother and entertained him with magic tricks and candy. Falcon recognized Fors as she left and realized he had to let her live her own life, though he was still overcome with emotion.

• Fors picked up the boy’s ball and returned it over the courtyard fence.
• Fors performed a trick that produced milk candy, then entertained the boy with more magic.
• Falcon heard his son describe the visitors and recognized Fors’s companion as the police officer from his strange dream.
• Falcon chased Fors and Lorry but lost sight of them, then heard the officer tell him to go back and start a new life.
• Falcon saw his son holding the black briefcase and watched Fors and Lorry wave farewell, accepting that he had lost the right to interfere in his daughter’s life.

Lorry and Fors tried a local coffin-shaped form of transportation after Lorry divined that riding it posed no risk. As they settled together inside the coffin, Fors reached out with an icy hand.

• Fors spotted the coffin-shaped transportation, and a local man offered to arrange a larger one for her and Lorry.
• While Fors waited for shaved ice, Lorry divined that riding the coffin-shaped transportation outside was safe.
• Fors shared her mixed-fruit shaved ice with Lorry, and the two ate together while they waited.
• Eight local bearers arrived with a black coffin, and Lorry and Fors agreed to travel to the King's Inn.
• Lorry helped Fors into the velvet-lined coffin, climbed in beside her, and watched the lid close.
• An ice-cold hand suddenly reached toward Lorry.

Fors and Lorry returned to Backlund after their trip to the Southern Continent, and Lorry went to the Bravehearts Bar to seek contact with the Temperance Faction. After briefly unsealing a Wraith characteristic to draw someone’s attention, he waited at an inn, where a mysterious woman appeared in the window’s reflection.

• Fors and Lorry shared a bed, and she asked him to tell the final two stories from his novel.
• Fors prayed to Mr. Fool, explaining that she could not deliver Mr. World’s letter because she was traveling on the Southern Continent.
• Klein relayed Fors’s message to the Moon, then raised the letter-delivery payment to seventy pounds, which the vampire accepted.
• Lorry used Teleportation to bring Fors back to Backlund, where she reunited with Xio and shared stories from their trip.
• Lorry went to the Bravehearts Bar to seek a deal with the Temperance Faction, then unsealed the Wraith characteristic at an inn and waited for someone to arrive.
• A woman in a Gothic court dress appeared in the window’s reflection and watched Lorry hesitantly.