Recaps

Elsa found Maeve fighting and devouring the Genesis School cultists at an altar, then used Maeve’s healing flesh to rescue the captive children. Elliot reviewed the aftermath in Hearthfire District and learned that Maeve had reached middle rank.

• Elsa entered the altar room and found Maeve and the Genesis School cultists tearing into and eating one another.
• Maeve gave Elsa pieces of her flesh, and Elsa fed them to the injured children trapped on the racks.
• Elsa carried the rescued children out, then returned to help Maeve fight the remaining cultists.
• Elliot checked reports that Hearthfire District was recovering, the Factory Guard had lifted its lockdown, and the Night Watch Bureau had withdrawn.
• Elliot saw a card reporting that Maeve had reached middle rank.

Elliot discovered that Maeve had become his first middle-rank believer, and he investigated how her devouring count had reached 1327. After sacrificing her to the Difference Engine, he learned she had ascended to fourth rank and gained the ability to tear open dreams as she entered them.

• Elliot checked Maeve's advancement records and found that she had devoured 1327 people, then realized the count might include Genesis School cultists and their sacrificial victims.
• Elliot considered using the captured Genesis School prisoners as sacrifice offerings and ordered the believers to guard them closely.
• Elliot had Flora perform a sacrifice for Maeve, noticing that controlling Flora had become less responsive as the hollow in her chest seemed to fill.
• Elliot placed Maeve's card in the fourth-rank slot, and the Difference Engine confirmed her ascension and offered her the ability to tear open dreams and sink deeper.
• Elliot recalled that the Lords of Dreams had torn openings in Elsa's dream when they entered it.

Elliot used the Difference Engine to choose Ascension paths for Maeve, discovering that she could take two Ascensions instead of one. He selected Physical Ascension and Blood Ascension, and the Engine printed Maeve’s newly transformed Card.

• Elliot wondered whether the Difference Engine could tear dreams apart and considered that he had not unlocked all its functions.
• Elliot examined the Ascension choices and saw three Cards depicting different versions of Maeve.
• Elliot chose Physical Ascension, strengthening Maeve’s physical abilities.
• Elliot realized the other Ascension Cards remained and chose Blood Ascension as well.
• The Difference Engine combined the choices with Maeve’s original Card and printed a new Card showing her with blood-red hair and an extra pair of arms made of blood.

Elliot chose [Shadow of the Lunar Eclipse] and [Blood Cocoon] for Maeve as she advanced to middle rank, and he wondered whether her increased spirituality would make her stronger in dreams. Maeve emerged from the altar and immediately tested her new strength against Flora.

• Elliot considered [Blood Cocoon], [Pre-digestion], and [Shadow of the Lunar Eclipse], then selected [Shadow of the Lunar Eclipse] and [Blood Cocoon] for Maeve.
• Elliot wondered where Maeve’s increased spirituality went and suspected it might have a greater effect in dreams, where she could now enter the Deep Zone.
• Maeve stepped down from the altar in the Mansion, assured everyone she was fine, and looked eager to test her strength.
• Maeve crossed the basement in an instant and struck Flora, then pulled her back as she fell.
• Maeve withdrew her fist with a grin and told Flora to take the fight more seriously.

Maeve brought a captured Genesis School Cultist to the training grounds to test how her new [Shadow of the Lunar Eclipse] talent interacted with Clara’s [Possession]. She began the experiment by feeding her severed arm to the Cultist, while Elsa and Dorothea prepared to attack.

• Flora felt Maeve’s touch make her blood rush and realized Maeve’s strength in human form nearly matched her own.
• Maeve carried a captured Cultist from the Underground Prison, eating strips of its flesh when it tried to resist.
• Maeve asked Clara to possess her, but Clara feared being made to eat flesh again until Maeve promised that was not the plan.
• Maeve took Clara and Elsa to the training grounds and explained that she wanted Clara to possess her before she used [Shadow of the Lunar Eclipse] on the Cultist.
• Maeve summoned Dorothea from a mirror and asked her and Elsa to attack during the experiment.
• Maeve tore off her left arm and threw it onto the Cultist, whose flesh rapidly grew and regenerated.

Maeve discovered a way to interrupt the erosion from her [Shadow of the Lunar Eclipse] by combining her possession ability with Clara’s [Possession]. Dorothea then devised a sequence that sent her through a mirror into the Genesis School’s sewer, where Maeve sealed her inside a blood cocoon.

• Maeve possessed the Genesis School flesh while Clara possessed her, and Dorothea and Elsa attacked the mass until Maeve was exhausted.
• Dorothea suggested that Maeve possess Clara before Clara possessed someone else, and Maeve tested the idea with Elsa as Clara’s host.
• Maeve and Clara confirmed that transferring Clara into Elsa stopped the erosion without harming Elsa.
• Dorothea instructed Maeve and Clara through a timed sequence that made Dorothea disappear and emerge from a shattered mirror in the Genesis School’s sewer.
• Maeve transformed into a monster and enclosed Dorothea in a blood cocoon as Dorothea turned insubstantial again.

Elliot admired how Dorothea and Maeve’s abilities complemented each other, then the Difference Engine detected a world shift and changed the Worm’s descent countdown to seven. Meanwhile, Maeve found strange bones in the sewers that Dorothea could not identify as belonging to any known creature.

• Elliot watched Dorothea and Maeve’s teamwork overcome the weaknesses of their abilities and concluded that his varied Believers could create powerful combinations.
• Elliot learned Vanessa had regained consciousness and left to visit Victoria and check on Evan.
• The Difference Engine stopped, detected a world shift, and recalculated the Worm’s descent countdown from 103 to 7.
• Elsa asked Maeve what her [Wild Hunt] had pointed to in the Genesis School hideout, and Maeve revealed that she had found bones in the sewers.
• Dorothea examined the bones and said they matched neither humans nor animals and seemed too twisted to belong to any living creature.

Maeve identified the strange bone as potentially belonging to a Lord of Dreams and planned an expedition into Elliot’s dream to compare it. Elsa tasted powder scraped from the pill her father had left her and reacted with shock, while Elliot arrived at the Library and waited for Victoria, who he suspected was in his dream building the Abode.

• Maeve explained that her Song of Flesh let her sense and gain power from spiritual flesh, and suggested comparing the bone with a Lord of Dreams.
• Dorothea agreed to gather munitions for the expedition, while Maeve contacted Flora, Clara, and others to prepare an ambush and Elsa insisted they first pray for the Lord’s permission.
• Elsa remembered the pill, considered swallowing it, then scraped off some powder and tasted it, only to stiffen and tremble in shock.
• Elliot searched the Library for Victoria, learned from a maid that she had shut herself away there, and waited outside because he suspected she was moving things into his dream.

Elliot discovered that Believer Elsa Ramsey had died just as the Worm's Descent began. In the Abode, Victoria sensed something outside and saw Dream Creatures above the Courtyard.

• Elliot remodeled his dream palace to keep the Believers, Victoria, and the sleeping dog in separate areas, then waited for Victoria to return.
• When Victoria did not appear, Elliot went to the Difference Engine and found a Card showing Elsa Ramsey's corpse.
• Elliot saw Maeve contact Flora and Clara to prepare for combat while Dorothea organized the Believers to move weapons.
• The Worm's Descent countdown reached zero, and the Brass Dial announced that the Worm had descended upon the world again.
• Victoria kept hauling buildings to the Grand Library to build an Abode, determined to save everyone before the Second Era's destruction.
• Victoria sensed something was wrong and spotted Dream Creatures outside, above the Abode's Courtyard.

Dream Creatures invaded the Great Being’s Abode, forcing Dorothea and the others to defend themselves as rifts multiplied. Flora declared the attack a Trial and said the Great Being had sent an Immortal to help, as spider silk began pulling the Lords of Dreams back.

• Victoria saw Dream Creatures charging toward the palace and dismissed the attack as a hallucination.
• Dorothea organized the Believers to fire on a Lord of Dreams after rifts opened in the courtyard.
• Dorothea accused Maeve of summoning the creatures, but Maeve denied it and Flora confirmed she was telling the truth.
• The defenders killed one Lord of Dreams, but more creatures appeared, and Dorothea feared they could not hold the Abode.
• Flora called the invasion a Trial, and Miss Elegy said the Great Being had sent an Immortal to help them.
• Spider silk appeared behind the Lords of Dreams and began dragging them backward.

Victoria joined the battle against the Dream Creatures after realizing they were real, while Dorothea coordinated with the Immortal attacking them and questioned whether the invasion meant something had gone wrong. The chapter left Victoria recognizing the Immortals’ weapons as products of the Second Era and wondering whether the Great Being had mastered humanity’s industrial power.

• Maeve admitted she could not match the unidentified Immortal, who had swiftly killed several Lords of Dreams, and Dorothea warned that the creatures might still overwhelm her.
• Dorothea asked Miss Elegy to return to the Present World and notify Elsa, then prepared to coordinate Maeve and the Immortal in battle.
• Victoria used her Rationality state to confirm that a Dream Creature was real and stopped it from attacking the palace with spider silk.
• Victoria concluded that the Great Being had allowed her to help the Immortals fight the Dream Creatures and accepted that she might be part of its plans.
• Victoria recognized the Immortals’ standardized firearms as products of the Second Era, when humanity used industry and gunpowder to drive monsters into the Dream.

Elliot investigated Elsa’s mysterious death and the Dream Creatures appearing in his dream, then discovered he could not remove the entry cards. The believers seemed to be trapped in the dream as Victoria faced a swarm of monsters.

• Elliot found that Elsa had died after taking a small amount of powder from the pill, though Maeve had taken it before without harm.
• Elliot used Elsa’s intact corpse to retrieve the pill and wondered whether her death was connected to what she had seen with [Burial].
• Elliot questioned whether the [Worm] and the Lords of Dreams were separate threats and wondered where the Dream Creatures had come from.
• Elliot decided to recall the believers from his dream, believing he could simply remove his card from [Dream Entry].
• Elliot found that his card and the other believers’ cards would not come out, and realized everyone might be trapped in the dream.

Elliot discovered that everyone in the dream was trapped there and mobilized the Hearthfire District to send fighters, weapons, and ammunition to defend the palace. As he shifted factories to full wartime production, he learned that events across the district were being canceled for the same unexplained reason.

• Elliot realized that dying in the dream could mean dying in reality and used Flora's body to forbid the Believers from killing themselves.
• Flora announced that the dream could no longer be left and that the Believers had to hold out against the Lord of Dreams; Dorothea sensed the Great Being's presence and spread the order.
• Elliot took control of Elsa and mobilized the Communion and Hearthfire District to send combat teams, weapons, and ammunition into the dream.
• Elliot approved full wartime production at the district's factories and noticed that his control let him conceal much of the mobilization from the outside world.
• Elliot asked Conrad to cancel his engagements, but Conrad reported that most organizers had already canceled their events, claiming they were unwell.

Elliot investigated a sudden crisis that severed all contact with the Great Beings and discovered that the Dream World’s upheaval had altered events around the Difference Engine. He found that Xixi had vanished and Phoenix Everhart had spoken with the corpse of Believer Elsa Ramsey.

• Elliot ordered Conrad to investigate reports that people everywhere had fallen ill, then suspected the [Worm's Descent] had caused a wider Dream World crisis.
• Conrad reported that the Church and the Reforging Flame had lost their connection to the Great Beings, leaving Formless Arts unusable and preventing anyone from returning from the Great Beings' Abodes.
• Elliot inspected the Difference Engine and discovered that [Retainer Xixi] had disappeared, possibly after its [Learning] countdown was fast-forwarded.
• Elliot found a new Card for [Phoenix Everhart] and searched the Believer interaction logs to learn which Believer had encountered him.
• Elliot discovered that Phoenix Everhart had conversed with the corpse of Believer Elsa Ramsey.

Elliot investigated how Phoenix Everhart could have spoken with Elsa’s corpse before she died and realized the encounter may have taken place in the Ruins. He found a mural depicting the Blood Cocoon, discovered Evan’s Spirit in his dream, and watched the battle turn in the Believers’ favor before seeing Maeve go to eat again.

• Elliot deduced that Phoenix Everhart may have entered the Ruins and spoken with Elsa’s corpse, causing the Difference Engine to record him as a Card.
• Elliot controlled Elsa’s corpse in the Ruins and found an old mural depicting the Blood Cocoon talent he had selected for Maeve.
• Elliot discovered that Evan’s Spirit, like Elsa’s, had appeared in his dream, and wondered whether they had come to him because they could not return to their own dreams.
• Elliot saw the Believers’ reinforcements shift the dream battle from a desperate defense toward suppressing the middle-rank Lords of Dreams.
• Elliot noticed Maeve had gone up to eat again.

Maeve helped the Communion hold the palace by enduring the Lords of Dreams and devouring them, while Elliot’s power strengthened her further. As Victoria prepared to leave with stolen building materials, she sensed Evan nearby and turned to find Vanessa behind her.

• Dorothea sent Maeve to draw the Lords of Dreams’ attention while the Communion’s Believers killed them.
• Maeve discovered she could endure the monsters’ attacks and began eating corpses, living Dream Creatures, and severed tentacles to recover her strength.
• Elliot used [Dream Memory; Blood Moon] to activate Maeve’s [Blood Moon Slaughter], letting her fight back as the battle stabilized.
• Victoria ran low on spirituality, rested, then gathered bricks and stones to take with her.
• Victoria sensed Evan in the courtyard and turned around to find Vanessa questioning why she was stuffing bricks into her skirt.

Victoria and Vanessa discovered that the dream world was sealed off and the Great Beings were preparing to flee history, while Elliot wondered whether the Worm’s Descent and his own talent were tied to an Important Historical Node. The chapter ended with Elliot suspecting that the node might be important to him rather than to history.

• Vanessa arrived in Victoria’s Abode, and Victoria realized Evan was there too as she questioned why everyone from her Grand Library had been pulled into the dream.
• Vanessa told Victoria that they could not leave the dream and that the Seven Orthodox Churches had lost contact with the Great Beings.
• Victoria theorized that every Abode had been invaded and explained that sealing an Abode meant preparing to flee history with its believers.
• Victoria concluded that the Great Being had gathered her, Vanessa, and Evan to take them along, while Elliot realized he had deliberately brought Vanessa and Evan had arrived on his own.
• Elliot wondered whether the Great Beings were fleeing because of the Worm, checked his Path Card, and suspected that an Important Historical Node might be important to him rather than to history.

Vanessa and Victoria watched an intelligent, enormously powerful dream creature break into the Courtyard and kill Maeve. As the monster charged at Victoria, Vanessa stepped in front of her and unleashed a burst of white light.

• Vanessa asked Victoria whether their gathering marked an important historical node, and Victoria said she had sensed no such point.
• Vanessa used Spirit Vision to reveal Evan’s phantom and discovered she could direct him, while Victoria could not.
• Victoria explained that the great beings planned to seal the Abode and leave the Second Era, but Vanessa wondered whether the seal was meant to keep dream creatures out.
• A huge, intelligent dream creature tore open a rift in the Courtyard and killed Maeve, whose death the Brass Dial recorded.
• The creature charged at Victoria, and Vanessa stepped in front of her and released violent white light from her eyes.

Vanessa used [Spirituality Pressure] to kill a powerful dream monster, while Maeve resurrected after her death by devouring its corpse. The blood moon repeatedly disappeared and returned, and Victoria warned that more dream creatures were approaching.

• Vanessa struck the charging monster with [Spirituality Pressure], stopping it and leaving it mangled for Victoria to finish off.
• Elliot realized Vanessa's spell had been far more powerful than usual, though he did not know why.
• Vanessa recognized the flesh devouring the monster as Maeve and recalled that [Blood Moon Slaughter] granted Maeve one resurrection under the blood moon.
• The blood moon vanished and returned, changing Maeve's recovery speed and leaving Vanessa unsure whether Maeve could resurrect again.
• Victoria sensed more intelligent dream creatures approaching and told Vanessa to prepare for another fight.

Vanessa and Victoria teamed up to fight a powerful dream creature, using Vanessa’s Spirituality Pressure to hold it still while the others attacked. Afterward, Vanessa told Victoria that Maeve could restore her spirituality, but the method was to eat Maeve’s flesh.

• Vanessa demonstrated her powerful Spirituality Pressure, and Victoria stopped her from aiming it at her again.
• Victoria told Vanessa to conserve her power while the Immortals handled ordinary dream creatures, and they planned for another powerful monster.
• When a huge rift opened, Victoria used spider silk to swing Vanessa in front of the monster so Vanessa could stun it, allowing the Communion believers to fire and Victoria to strangle it.
• Vanessa told Victoria that Maeve had a way to restore her spirituality, then revealed that the method was to eat Maeve’s flesh.

Victoria and Vanessa helped stabilize the battle against the Lords of Dreams, while Victoria discovered that eating Maeve’s flesh restored her Spirituality. Elliot suspected the Worm was changing the Dream World, and the chapter left him wondering what stronger threats might still emerge.

• Victoria hesitated over eating Maeve’s flesh, but bit into it when her Spirituality ran low and found that it tasted sweet and restored her strength.
• Maeve shared more of her flesh with Victoria, who spun a web while the Communion and the others fought the endless Dream Monsters together.
• Elliot watched the battle line stabilize and wondered whether the Great Beings had sealed their Abodes to keep the Lords of Dreams out.
• Elliot suspected the Worm had removed restrictions on the Lords of Dreams, allowing stronger ones to enter Abodes, and wondered whether an unseen being was guiding the Dream World’s changes.

Elliot connected the believers’ loss of control to the Dream World and suspected it was a conscious force lifting its restrictions. After learning that Michel and Sidney were leading troops to support the Expedition, Elliot inferred that the expeditionary army was fighting the Lord of Dreams.

• Elliot noticed Evan’s phantom growing more solid and wondered whether Evan was being resurrected after losing control.
• Elliot linked Elsa, Dorothea, Vanessa, and Flora’s conditions to the Dream World and theorized that it was deliberately causing anomalies to break free of its restrictions.
• Conrad told Elliot that Michel had invited him to join a force departing to support the Expedition, with Sidney leading alongside Michel after their reconciliation.
• Conrad said he could not reveal the Expedition’s purpose because Elliot was still before the Veil, but Elliot could reach his own conclusions.
• Elliot reasoned that the Great Beings’ Abodes had been attacked by the Lord of Dreams and concluded that the expeditionary army was likely fighting it.

Elliot realized Michel’s expedition invitation was a royalist attempt to win the Sterling Family’s support, but refused to join because he would not leave the Hearthfire District. At the Third Prince’s Palace, Sidney told a woman that Elliot had declined, disappointing her expectations for an important historical node.

• Elliot reasoned that Michel’s invitation was meant to distance him from the Old Nobility and draw the Sterling Family toward the Royal Family.
• Elliot told Conrad to send Michel a polite refusal, explaining that he would not join the expedition.
• Conrad accepted Elliot’s decision and went to write back to Prince Michel.
• Sidney knocked three times on a pitch-black room in the Stage-Play Difference Engine, but received no answer.
• A lavishly dressed woman asked Sidney whether Elliot had agreed, calling the invitation an important historical node.
• Sidney said Elliot had refused, and the woman dropped her grape in surprise.

Sidney asked Lillian about Phoenix, who had betrayed the Hollow Cathedral and stolen a world-changing relic, then invited her on an expedition. Meanwhile, Vanessa and Victoria discussed Maeve’s apparent growth in strength and realized it contradicted a rule about dreams, leaving them unsure how she was gaining power.

• Lillian told Sidney that Phoenix had been spotted in the Hearthfire District and had erased his tracks.
• Lillian said Phoenix had betrayed the Hollow Cathedral and the [Shell of Regret], then refused Sidney’s invitation so she could pursue him.
• Vanessa noticed Victoria repeatedly watching Maeve while the two fought from Victoria’s expanding spiderweb.
• Victoria explained that she was conserving her strength and questioned why Maeve seemed to grow stronger by eating flesh and blood.
• Victoria told Vanessa that people could not gain power using things from a dream, though they could collect supernatural materials there.

Victoria warned Vanessa that gaining power in dreams caused irreversible loss of control and transformation into Dream Creatures. Vanessa realized Elsa’s powerful Nightmare Form might be connected to that process and wondered whether Elsa’s resurrection in the Dream World would make her more like a true Nightmare.

• Victoria explained that using Formless Arts or making sacrifices in dreams caused the attempt to fail and the caster to lose control.
• Victoria warned Vanessa that people who lost control in dreams would irreversibly transform into Dream Creatures.
• Vanessa connected Elsa’s loss of control and powerful Nightmare Form to the Nightmares in the Dream World.
• Vanessa wondered whether Elsa’s resurrection amid the Dream Creature corpses would strengthen her Nightmare Form and make her unable to function in the Present World.
• Victoria asked Vanessa whether she had noticed that something seemed off about Evan.