Chapter Summaries

Vanessa lost her teaching assistant job at Miskatonic University and, after twenty days of failed job searches and homelessness, collapsed in the rain. She lay down in the street and closed her eyes, believing she was going to die.

• Randall told Vanessa that budget cuts had eliminated the history department’s teaching assistant positions and gave her two days to leave the faculty dormitory.
• Randall warned Vanessa to find work and housing quickly, then gave her leave slips so she could use the university carriage.
• Vanessa spent twenty days searching for work and shelter in the depressed city of New Scandinavia, but employers rejected her and she ran out of money.
• Vanessa collapsed in the freezing rain near a relief station, lay back on the street, and closed her eyes as she faced death.

Elliott Sterling, confined to his mansion, discovered a hidden steam-powered difference engine that ran a card game. The machine printed a card about an unemployed girl whose counters showed she was near death, hungry, and hypothermic.

• Elliott complained to Conrad that he was still confined and asked for something entertaining, preferably involving supernatural powers.
• Conrad led Elliott to a secret room hidden behind a bookshelf in the study.
• Elliott recognized the wall-spanning machine as a difference engine, and Conrad explained that it had been cleared and deemed safe by the family’s machine priest.
• Conrad activated the steam-powered engine and inserted a woven programming board to start its card game.
• The engine printed a card about an unemployed girl, while its panel displayed her dwindling near-death counter alongside her hunger and hypothermia.

Vanessa was taken to the hospital while suffering from hypothermia, despite her fear of medical bills. After she revealed she had no money, Dr. Norman offered to settle her bill through a contract, leaving her uncertain what he intended.

• Vanessa’s body carried her into the hospital, where Dr. Norman and the staff rushed to treat her severe hypothermia.
• Vanessa woke in a hospital ward, and Dr. Norman said she needed to stay for at least a week.
• Vanessa accidentally revealed that she had been dismissed from the university and had no money.
• Vanessa suspected that some unknown will had brought her to the hospital and could control what she said.
• Dr. Norman examined Vanessa and told her that she could settle her bill another way through a contract.

After running out of money and ending up hospitalized, Vanessa received donations from her colleagues and students through Director Randall, who took most of the money for himself. Dr. Norman presented her with a Body Donation Contract, but Randall’s questions about the department’s finances made him reconsider; Vanessa remained bedridden and dependent on their decisions.

• Dr. Norman told a new nurse that Vanessa was valuable because of her healthy body parts, despite having no money.
• Director Randall visited Vanessa and said her colleagues and students had pooled eighty-seven Leo for her.
• Randall claimed twenty Leo for himself and demanded seventy percent of the remaining donations, leaving Vanessa thirty percent and charging her for his apples.
• Dr. Norman brought Vanessa’s bills and a Body Donation Contract because she could not pay her medical expenses.
• Randall questioned Dr. Norman about the department’s funding and said body donation might not be a good idea if funding was tight.

After Randall warned Vanessa that the hospital might exploit her donated body, Norman offered her work to pay off her medical bills. Vanessa began a night-shift porter job in the hospital warehouse, where caretaker Lachi told her to keep quiet and pointed out the corpse drawers she could sleep in.

• Randall warned Vanessa that the hospital might collect parts from her body or sell her corpse if its finances worsened, then left her and Norman to talk.
• Norman offered Vanessa a porter job for thirty-five rios a week, with most of her wages going toward her medical bills.
• Norman took Vanessa to the hospital warehouse, where caretaker Lachi reluctantly agreed to take her on and warned her not to ask questions.
• Vanessa asked where she could get a meal, and Lachi gave her food after learning she had not eaten for three days.
• After eating, Vanessa asked Lachi if she could live in the warehouse, and he told her to sleep in one of the corpse drawers.

Vanessa bought a secondhand trench coat and cheap food with her first wages, then reunited with her old orphanage friend Winnie, who gave her sweet honey bread. She returned to her room and savored the treat, dreaming of a more comfortable future.

• Vanessa left the hospital and spent seven Leo on a bloodstained trench coat with a medal, after learning it had belonged to a soldier who died demanding compensation.
• Vanessa bought black bread and potatoes, then stopped outside an expensive bakery to stare at its food.
• Winnie recognized Vanessa, listened as she explained her hardship and hospital debt, and gave her a bag of bread scraps and crusts.
• Vanessa returned to her room, opened the bag, and delighted in eating the honey-sweet bread.

Elliot returned to the Difference Engine and found that Vanessa had survived and become a hospital orderly while the game ran unattended. He tried to stop her from wasting food, but the machine jammed on a piece of black bread as Vanessa remained under his control.

• Elliot found a new card showing that Vanessa had become a novice orderly and saw that her near-death status had disappeared.
• Elliot noticed cards for money, a bloodstained trench coat, and potatoes, then pulled Vanessa's sweet bread card from the eating slot to stop her from wasting it.
• Vanessa realized that Elliot's presence had returned and watched helplessly as her body stopped eating bread and picked up a raw potato.
• Elliot repeatedly tried to feed Vanessa the raw potato, then forced a card of hard, dry black bread into the eating slot, where it jammed.
• Elliot decided to leave the jammed card alone after hearing a knock behind him.

Elliot learned of new welfare and healthcare reforms while remaining confined to the mansion, then resumed using the Difference Engine. Meanwhile, Vanessa began work as an orderly and set out to deliver a package to the Wild Dog Gang in the dock district.

• Conrad told Elliot that the Empire had expanded poor relief, approved inexpensive medicines, and introduced a tax-funded social security system.
• Conrad reported that Garrett wanted to hold an art exhibition and that Elliot's mother had increased security, forbidding him from leaving the mansion before year’s end.
• Elliot returned to the Difference Engine, found the stuck black bread card had disappeared, and inserted a card into the [Humble Orderly Position] slot.
• Vanessa reported for work at the hospital, where old Lachi assigned her to deliver a package and retrieve items.
• Vanessa pulled a cart toward Mud Swamp Alley, realizing the package was addressed to the Wild Dog Gang.

Vanessa delivered a hospital package to a gang-controlled alley while an unseen presence controlled her actions and Elliot manipulated events through a mechanical keyboard. After the gang’s contact led her to a room, a short-haired girl opened the package and began checking its contents.

• Vanessa’s hands opened the delivery package in an alley and revealed restricted medicines and medical instruments before rewrapping it.
• Vanessa met Allen in Mud Swamp Alley, and Elliot’s typed gibberish made Allen mistake her for something terrifying.
• Elliot took Allen’s folding knife through a tool card, leaving Allen frightened as he escorted Vanessa farther inside.
• Allen led Vanessa to a room, where a short-haired girl welcomed her and opened the package to inspect it.

Vanessa spoke with Dorothea Ramsey, a medical student secretly practicing surgery, and learned how the new Poor Law would block commoners from gaining the practical experience needed to graduate. Their conversation was interrupted when armed people burst into the room, leaving both women facing an unknown threat.

• Vanessa recognized the woman inspecting the medical instruments as Dorothea Ramsey, a top medical student at Miskatonic University.
• Vanessa accidentally asked Dorothea whether she was a medical student, then claimed they had met at the university.
• Dorothea tested Vanessa with a question about the weight of gold and cotton, then accepted her claim that she had two degrees.
• Dorothea admitted she was practicing medicine illegally because she needed money and surgical experience, and explained that the new Poor Law would prevent commoners from qualifying for medical practice.
• Armed people kicked open the door and aimed their weapons at Vanessa and Dorothea.

Vanessa learned that her body had taken a folding knife directly from Allen’s pocket, shaking her belief that no supernatural forces existed. Dorothea offered an alarming surgical cure for Vanessa’s hallucinations, then sent her to seek help from Randall and deliver corpses to the hospital.

• Allen accused Vanessa of being a dangerous lunatic, but Dorothea identified her as the hospital’s new orderly and calmed the Wild Dog Gang members.
• Vanessa realized that the force controlling her had taken Allen’s folding knife straight from his pocket and wondered whether supernatural beings existed.
• Vanessa asked Dorothea for help with her hallucinations, and Dorothea proposed cutting away part of her frontal lobe with an ice pick.
• Dorothea recommended Randall for psychotherapy, and Vanessa decided to ask him for help.
• Dorothea gave Vanessa a receipt and asked her to take corpses back to the hospital.

Elliot suspected that the difference engine’s card game was real after its characters repeated news he had just heard, and he investigated a card from the game. Conrad confirmed the card contained unusual materials and explained the difference engine’s occult origins, ending with the destruction of the workers who had first built one.

• Elliot heard a game character repeat news about a new Poor Law and wondered if the game was real.
• Elliot took a Simple Folding Knife card to Conrad and asked him to examine it.
• Conrad cut the card open and found glowing golden threads embedded in its cardstock, identifying it as a product of the Troy Society.
• Elliot pretended he wanted to buy more difference engines, and Conrad enthusiastically explained their history.
• Conrad said the Hammer Brotherhood had built the first difference engine before the Golden Dawn wiped them out, sparking a prolonged campaign of destruction against factories.

Elliot learned that Difference Engines were restricted entertainment devices driven by supplied information and preset logic, while Vanessa struggled through her first days working with corpses and gradually adapted. The chapter left Vanessa facing a strange new job after several uneventful days at the warehouse.

• Conrad explained that the Troy Society monopolized Difference Engines and that Elliot's machine used information from the newspaper to shape its games, so Elliot declined to order a new one.
• Vanessa brought a corpse to Old Razi's warehouse, where he taught her to drag it by the armpits instead of trying to carry it like a living person.
• Vanessa stored the body in a drawer, washed herself, and quietly vowed that she would survive.
• Vanessa grew accustomed to hauling corpses and sleeping beside them as the mysterious will controlling her appeared less often.
• After receiving no jobs that took her to the Wild Dog Gang and hesitating to visit alone, Vanessa was assigned a strange job.

Vanessa discovered that an old man marked dead in the hospital ledger was still alive, and Old Razi ordered her to take him to the cemetery. After she protested the hospital’s cruelty, Razi drove her out with the body, leaving her to care for the old man on the freezing journey.

• Vanessa found the old man breathing in the body bag, but Old Razi insisted the ledger and expired hospital funds meant he was dead.
• The old man told Vanessa to take him to the cemetery and said he would die on the way, while Vanessa realized the cold journey was meant to kill him.
• Vanessa broke down, condemning the hospital for trading lives for money, and Old Razi angrily forced her out with the cart and body bag.
• The old man explained that Old Razi had seen his younger, kinder self in Vanessa.
• Vanessa wrapped her coat around the old man and offered him a costly slice of honey-and-nut bread.

After Vanessa buried the old man, Elliot watched the Difference Engine reproduce and manage her clue card, discovering that he could not exploit it to make duplicates. He suspected Vanessa had triggered the clue by acting on her own and began considering what that meant.

• The old man gave Vanessa the key location for his books at No. 37 Pine Resin Alley, then died while eating the bread she had brought him.
• Vanessa buried the old man outside the city and returned to the hospital in silence.
• Elliot watched the scene through the Difference Engine and reflected on Vanessa’s kindness and his own reluctance to help.
• Elliot tore the clue card for No. 37 Pine Resin Alley and saw the machine print a replacement, but it did not create extra copies when he tried again.
• Elliot concluded that the Difference Engine prevented duplication and suspected Vanessa had earned the clue by acting freely.

Vanessa enjoyed a quiet routine after the force controlling her vanished, while Elliot watched her ignore the old man's lead. During a delivery for the Wild Dog Gang, Vanessa found Winnie waiting in gang territory and learned she was meeting a friend there because she wanted someone to protect her.

• Elliot stopped directing the game himself and watched Vanessa while studying the Difference Engine, but she ignored the old man's lead and settled into her routine.
• Vanessa visited Winnie with roasted potatoes, and her affection for her friend grew as she noticed Winnie touching up her makeup before leaving work.
• Vanessa delivered a job for the Wild Dog Gang, spoke with Miss Dorothea, and declined her offer to contact Director Randall.
• While hauling a corpse back through the alleys, Vanessa spotted Winnie waiting at the entrance to an alley in Wild Dog Gang territory.
• Winnie told Vanessa she was waiting for a friend, then admitted she hoped someone in the gang would look out for her so she could survive.

Vanessa reunited with Winnie, who gave her bread and bellflowers before leaving with Allen. As Vanessa returned to the hospital, she encountered a dark figure blocking the alley, and her usual warning failed to make the danger feel ordinary.

• Vanessa silently reflected on Winnie's sacrifices and urged her to seek someone richer, but Winnie defended Allen and went to meet him.
• Vanessa recognized Allen as the man who had guided her to the Wild Dog Gang, and he reacted fearfully to her.
• Winnie returned with bread and a pot of bellflowers, gave them to Vanessa, and left with Allen.
• Vanessa headed back to the hospital with the flowers and her flatbed cart as night fell over New Scandinavia.
• Vanessa confronted a dark figure blocking the alley and warned that her cart held only corpses, then gripped her nail-studded club.

Vanessa was attacked by a starving madman while transporting a corpse, but her fear turned to rage when he stopped to devour the cargo. As she moved to take up her club, Elliot merged her card with the weapon to create [Armed Girl] and turned toward [Man in a Frenzy].

• A crazed man chased Vanessa through the alleys and slammed her into a dead end.
• The man ignored Vanessa and began tearing open the cargo sack to gnaw on the corpse.
• Vanessa recovered enough to crawl toward the alley exit, but stopped when she saw her dropped nail-headed club.
• Vanessa’s fear gave way to anger as she thought about losing her hospital job and considered taking control of her fate.
• Elliot watched Vanessa’s card enter the [Combat] slot and combined [Nurse Girl] with [Nail-Headed Club] to create [Armed Girl].

Vanessa fought a frenzied man while Elliot manipulated combat cards to control her actions. After she killed the man, he rose again as a Resurrected Corpse, and Elliot prepared to continue the fight.

• Vanessa struck the frenzied man in the head with a nail-headed club, but it became stuck in his skull.
• Elliot moved the [Armed Girl] card between the [Attack] and [Dodge] slots as Vanessa resisted his control and charged the man.
• Vanessa dodged the man's charge and kicked the club through his skull, apparently killing him.
• Vanessa tried to leave, but the controlling will stopped her as the man's body twitched and rose again.
• Elliot identified the enemy as [Resurrected Corpse] and placed its card into the [Combat] slot.

Vanessa, guided by Elliot, killed a seemingly inhuman attacker in an alley and delivered her goods to the hospital. The next day, the grisly corpse gave rise to a city legend about the hospital’s new orderly hunting for “patients.”

• Vanessa dodged the attacker’s blows with Elliot controlling her movements and stabbed him in the throat with a Folding Knife.
• Vanessa charged the attacker with a spiked wooden club, pulled the Folding Knife from his throat, and stabbed his eye before smashing his head until he died.
• Vanessa recoiled from the blood and stench, then loaded her goods onto the cart and continued to the hospital.
• People who saw Vanessa carrying her bloodied Nail-Headed Club and hospital-emblem body bags stepped aside as she passed.
• The next day, people found the attacker’s mutilated corpse and linked it to Vanessa, spreading a legend about the hospital’s new orderly searching for “patients.”