Chapter Summaries

Vanessa, Allen, and Elsa subdued Simon, but discovered that he might not yet be fully controlled by [It]. Simon shared what he had learned about [It] as a human-shaped mark on the wall crept toward Elsa.

• Elsa knocked Vanessa out of Simon's line of fire, and Vanessa and Allen used their abilities to subdue him while Elsa was injured in the fall.
• Vanessa believed [Spirituality Pressure] had killed Simon, but he soon regained consciousness, leading Elsa to suggest he might not be fully controlled by [It].
• Simon mistook Vanessa and the others for monsters, but he became willing to talk when Vanessa offered to help him deal with [It].
• Simon said [It] was an ancient entity from the moon and that its power varied with lunar phases, weakening during a full moon and strengthening during a red moon.
• A human-shaped mark on the stone wall moved beside Elsa and began reaching toward her while the group listened to Simon.

Vanessa learned that the entity grew stronger during the blood moon, but Simon revealed that Maeve—not he—had been infested by it. As the Ruins transformed under the blood moon, Vanessa realized Dorothea was alone with Maeve, whose eyes began turning red.

• Vanessa connected the entity's attacks to the three-day blood moon and asked Simon how to defeat it.
• Simon explained that the entity could take full control of its host and transform them into a powerful monster, then agreed to tell Vanessa everything in exchange for help.
• Simon claimed Maeve had touched the cave wall and been infested, contradicting what Maeve had told Vanessa and Allen.
• The full moon on the stone wall turned red, the Ruins came alive, and Elsa picked up Simon's discarded pistol.
• Vanessa realized Dorothea was alone with Maeve, while Maeve stood up outside the Ruins with blood-red eyes.

Dorothea discovered that the Blood Moon had transformed Maeve into a terrifying monster, while Vanessa learned Elsa had been parasitized and watched her take her own life to protect her companions. Vanessa, Allen, and Simon fled the Ruins as the creature pursued them, and Vanessa confronted its final form with [Spirituality Pressure].

• Dorothea sent mirrors into the Ruins, saw a huge furred monster destroy one, and realized it had reached her; fur then fell across her head as something blocked the sunlight.
• Simon explained that Maeve had increasingly looked at him like prey, and Vanessa rushed to leave with Allen and Simon to save Dorothea.
• Elsa warned them to run, then turned her revolver on herself because [it] had parasitized her and she feared harming her companions.
• Vanessa used [Spirituality Pressure] to destroy a humanoid mark, but Simon revealed that [it] could become a huge monster under the Blood Moon.
• Vanessa, Allen, and Simon ran toward the exit as Blood Moon marks emerged from the walls, while the monster pursued them.
• Allen's gunfire failed to slow the monster, and Vanessa used [Spirituality Pressure] again as they saw its enormous, many-armed final form.

Vanessa, Allen, and Simon fought their way out of the Ruins while fleeing the monsters, and Simon revealed why he had saved Vanessa from one of them. The chapter ended with the monster bearing down on Simon and his explanation: “Because she is Maeve.”

• Vanessa restrained the pursuing monsters with [Spirituality Pressure] as she and Simon struggled to carry the injured Allen toward the exit.
• Vanessa used [Secret Art · Trigger] and repeated overdrafts to force the group past more monsters, while her hair began turning white.
• Simon told Vanessa that the monsters would weaken outside the Blood Moon’s reach, and the three escaped the Ruins.
• Vanessa saw Dorothea lying facedown in a pool of blood and started toward her, but another monster charged from the woodland.
• Simon knocked Vanessa out of the monster’s path and stood before it, explaining that he acted because she was Maeve.

Vanessa, Simon, and the monster Maeve fought to stop monsters from escaping the Ruins, with Vanessa and Simon helping Maeve seal the entrance. Afterward, Maeve explained that she had merged with the monster that devoured her and told Simon to kill her and avenge his sister.

• Maeve charged past Simon and attacked the monsters trying to emerge from the Ruins.
• Vanessa used her Secret Arts to help Maeve hold the entrance, while Simon performed a Ritual that weakened the monsters and drove them back into the Ruins’ walls.
• Maeve collapsed the entrance and fell, exhausted and bleeding.
• Maeve told Simon that she had once been devoured but had resisted until she and the monster merged, and that the Blood Moon restored her memories.
• Maeve said her transformation was irreversible, asked Simon to kill her, and called him her brother.

Elliot trusted the Difference Engine's judgment that the monster was Maeve, and Vanessa intervened as Maeve and Simon faced the truth of her transformation. As Vanessa began a ritual to help Maeve, Dorothea asked where Elsa was, leaving Allen frozen.

• Simon struggled to accept that Maeve had become a monster, while Maeve insisted that Maeve was already dead and withdrew from him.
• Elliot read the Difference Engine's dialogue and trusted its Character Card identifying the monster as Maeve Strauss.
• Elliot placed Vanessa and Maeve in the Conversation slot, prompting Vanessa to separate Maeve from Simon and speak with her.
• Dorothea woke and learned Maeve had saved her; she trusted Maeve despite her frightening appearance, while Allen worried Maeve could never return to the city.
• Vanessa drew a sacrificial ritual in Maeve's blood as Simon tried to tend her wounds.
• Dorothea asked Allen where Elsa was, and Allen went rigid.

Elliot used the Difference Engine to advance Maeve, now a Believer trapped in monster form, to the First Rank and hoped its status restoration would turn her human again. The Engine restored her statuses but offered supernatural abilities suited to a monster, leaving Elliot uncertain whether she could return to normal.

• Allen told Dorothea that Elsa had died by suicide, and Elliot believed she could be resurrected with supernatural materials.
• Elliot saw that Maeve had become a Believer and found that the Difference Engine still recognized her as an ordinary girl despite her monstrous appearance.
• Vanessa took Dorothea’s saved supernatural materials and offered them at the Altar so Maeve could advance to the First Rank.
• Elliot selected Restoration twice for Maeve and triggered her advancement, which unexpectedly granted her two points of Spirituality.
• The Difference Engine fully restored Maeve’s statuses and offered Song of Flesh, Crescent Moon Prayer, and Claw Strike, prompting Elliot to worry that she might remain a monster.

Elliot advanced Maeve and unexpectedly gave her two talents, while Vanessa’s sacrifice restored Maeve to human form. The group celebrated Maeve’s reunion with Simon, but learned that the Ruins had disappeared.

• Elliot selected [Crescent Moon Prayer] for Maeve, then discovered she could also choose [Song of Flesh].
• Vanessa’s sacrifice healed Maeve and returned her to her human form.
• Simon embraced Maeve, who bit his shoulder as they cried and held each other.
• Vanessa suggested retrieving Elsa’s body, but her injuries left her unable to help, so she asked the others to reinforce the Ruins’ entrance.
• Allen and the others returned and told Vanessa that the Ruins were gone.

Vanessa and the others discovered that the Ruins had vanished, while Elliot used Elsa’s corpse to investigate what had happened inside. Elsa found the Ruins restored to their original state and suspected that their history had been reset, but she herself had not reset.

• Vanessa examined the rubble and found no trace of the Ruins’ entrance, while Dorothea and Simon confirmed that the passage had disappeared.
• Vanessa tried to listen for Chi’s Divine Revelation, but Chi gave her no message.
• Elliot equipped the Card of Elsa Ramsey’s Corpse and controlled Elsa inside the vanished Ruins.
• Elsa used Spirit Vision and saw that the blood moon had returned to a full moon and the monsters’ marks had returned to the stone walls.
• Elsa found that the Ruins had returned to their original condition and wondered why history had reset without resetting her.

Elliot worried that Simon’s theft of a Night Watch Bureau pistol would trigger a report from [The Thinker], but the Difference Engine detected nothing. The chapter leaves Elliot wondering whether history had been reset in a way that concealed the theft.

• Elliot examined Elsa’s pistol and realized Simon had stolen it from a Night Watch Bureau detective.
• Vanessa recruited Simon into the Esoteric Cult again and learned he had taken the pistol while planning to sacrifice himself to purify the ruins.
• Vanessa worried that [The Thinker] would report Simon’s theft and considered how to warn Eleanor before the report reached the Night Watch Bureau.
• Eleanor accompanied Dalton to check [The Thinker]’s underground reports for the missing pistol.
• Dalton found no report of the theft, and Elliot wondered whether that part of history had been reset.

Elliot considered how the Secret Society might exploit [The Thinker]’s blind spots, while Vanessa’s group regrouped at the mansion after evading the Night Watch Bureau. A mysterious man entered the ruins and examined Elsa’s corpse, and Vanessa remained confined at home until the Society could obtain the materials she needed to advance.

• Elliot concluded that he needed to ask Miss Elegy about ways to deceive [The Thinker], then used Vanessa to tell the others that they were safe.
• Simon and Maeve learned that the Secret Society had deceived [The Thinker] and had members inside the Night Watch Bureau, and they left the wilderness with the others.
• A gentleman walked through the rubble into the ruins, found Elsa’s corpse, and decided her death was not connected to the destruction of the Second Era.
• After the man left, Elsa’s eyes shifted toward where he had gone, and she wondered whether he had been present in the history that was reset.
• Simon and Maeve moved into the Hearthfire District mansion, while Vanessa stayed home because she lacked the fingers needed to go out undetected and needed hundreds of supernatural materials to advance.

Elliot considered buying supernatural materials to support Vanessa’s Society and Elsa’s resurrection, but learned that the Sterling Family’s supplies were limited and mostly unusable by ordinary believers. After taking the available stock for Flora, he asked Conrad whether he knew of [Worm].

• Elliot reviewed how Vanessa’s canteen recruited believers to gather supernatural materials and lamented that the Night Watch Bureau’s lockdown had halted its expansion.
• Elliot asked Conrad about purchasing supernatural materials, claiming that Miss Elegy had requested them as payment for investigating the Family Annihilation Case.
• Conrad explained that supernatural materials were Path-specific, deteriorated within six months, and difficult to purchase while the Night Watch Bureau watched the family.
• Elliot learned that the Sterling Family had only a few hundred pieces for Flora and ordered Conrad to transfer all of them to him.
• Elliot changed the subject and asked Conrad whether he had heard of [Worm].

Elliot asked Conrad about [Worms], but the old butler warned that they were extremely dangerous beings whose very existence could bring trouble. After Flora arrived in the Imperial Capital, she proposed using her payment to establish an orphanage in the Hearthfire District, only for Conrad to reveal that the law reserved orphanages to the Royal Family.

• Elliot asked Conrad about [Worms], and Conrad reacted with alarm before urging him to forget about them.
• Elliot received supernatural materials that could help Vanessa advance, though he still needed more to cover Elsa's resurrection.
• Flora arrived at the Sterling Family mansion, explored its mechanical features, and told Elliot she had brought books to help investigate the Family Annihilation Case.
• Flora asked to use her payment to establish an orphanage in the Hearthfire District, where children could be cared for and attend night school.
• Conrad told Elliot that establishing an orphanage was illegal because only the Royal Family could create one.

Elliot learned that the Sterling Family’s history books differed from public accounts and asked Flora about [Worm], a forbidden being said to have ended the First Era. He was left wondering whether Maeve could safely use her talent to summon it.

• Elliot learned that private orphanages were illegal, so he agreed to subsidize the Canteen rather than establish one and considered building a library in the Hearthfire District.
• The old butler warned Elliot that the Sterling Family’s history books differed from public accounts, prompting Elliot to suspect that the Empire and its nobles had falsified history.
• Elliot asked Flora about [Worm], and she revealed that it was a terrifying being linked to the end of the First Era.
• Flora told Elliot that the Mourning Poetry Society’s records about [Worm] were incomplete, that it had supposedly come from another world by accident, and that the word was taboo.
• Elliot worried that Maeve’s talent for summoning [Worm] might be too dangerous to use.

Elliot advanced Vanessa through the Tree of the Supernatural and unlocked a new Concealment ability that could affect the First Layer of History. His attempt to erase himself and Vanessa from history failed to make ordinary people forget them, leaving him to suspect that the world they inhabited was not the First Layer of History.

• Elliot had Vanessa sacrifice the supernatural materials he had bestowed on her so he could advance her Tree of the Supernatural.
• Elliot selected Spirit Vision for Vanessa and discovered a new node branching from Concealment.
• Elliot selected the Concealment node and learned he could use Spirituality to write himself into or conceal himself from the First Layer of History.
• Elliot concealed himself and Vanessa from history, but his believers still remembered Vanessa.
• Elliot had Vanessa speak to strangers, but people still recognized her existence and Night Watch Bureau detectives questioned her.
• Elliot wondered whether the history they lived in was not the First Layer of History.

Elliot chose Concealment’s [Veil] for Vanessa, then used Sacrifice to advance her to Third Rank and selected [Hypnosis]. After Vanessa completed the Sacrifice, she challenged Dorothea to a fight.

• Elliot chose [Veil] from the Concealment talent options for Vanessa.
• Elliot used Sacrifice to advance Vanessa to Third Rank.
• Elliot chose [Hypnosis] over [Spirituality Trigger] and [Eye of True Knowledge].
• Vanessa completed the Sacrifice at the Mansion in the Hearthfire District and challenged Dorothea to fight.

Vanessa tested her new [Hypnosis] ability on Dorothea, combining it with [Spirituality Pressure] to make Dorothea obey her. When Flora returned, she found Dorothea cooking and suspected Vanessa had gained a Formless Art that improved her cooking.

• Vanessa asked Dorothea to spar and explained how [Hypnosis] required eye contact.
• Dorothea used mirrors to block Vanessa's gaze, but Vanessa threw a pistol at them to shatter the mirrors.
• Vanessa used [Spirituality Pressure] to restrain Dorothea and then hypnotized her into obeying.
• Flora arrived with a carriage-load of belongings, and Vanessa, Allen, and Flora carried them inside.
• Flora found Dorothea cooking, tasted the food, and asked what she had sacrificed to gain a cooking-related Formless Art.

Miss Elegy learned how much had changed while she was away, and Vanessa put Dorothea to work researching the Mourning Poetry Society’s books. Elliot confirmed that [Spirituality Pressure] could create openings for [Hypnosis], assessed the cost of advancing Vanessa, and considered how to find supernatural flesh for Maeve’s [Song of Flesh].

• Miss Elegy heard the others recount the recent events and learned that the books she brought might no longer be needed, but Vanessa eagerly began studying them with Dorothea’s help.
• Elliot confirmed that [Spirituality Pressure] could hold someone still long enough for [Hypnosis] to take effect, and he considered how hypnotic suggestions could influence a target’s feelings.
• Elliot examined Vanessa’s advancement and estimated that raising her to the fourth rank would require at least fifteen hundred supernatural materials, so he decided to focus on other believers later.
• Elliot examined Maeve’s Card and considered using her [Song of Flesh] to gain power by eating supernatural flesh.
• Elliot rejected the idea of using Elsa’s corpse for Maeve’s ability and decided to wait until Elsa was resurrected and could give her consent.

Elliot searched for supernatural flesh and blood that Maeve could eat, rejecting the idea of using Elsa's corpse and settling on a plan to help Maeve through her first Dream Entry. In Maeve's dream, Vanessa summoned two Lords of Dreams and told Maeve to eat them.

• Elliot considered Elsa's corpse, plague-infected bodies, and monsters from the Ruins as possible sources of supernatural flesh, but rejected eating Elsa and could not locate the Ruins.
• Maeve reflected on how Elliot and the Society had saved and accepted her, then fell asleep before her first Dream Entry.
• Maeve awoke in a desolate dream world with Vanessa, who noticed that Maeve had collected twenty-seven supernatural materials.
• Vanessa used a Bone Flute to summon two enormous Lords of Dreams and explained that they were nonaggressive monsters that dropped materials when killed.
• Vanessa told Maeve to eat both Lords of Dreams.

Maeve discovered that eating Dream Monsters rapidly advanced her supernatural abilities, while Elliot and Vanessa investigated the looming Theresia Festival. Vanessa’s growing closeness with the Eldest Princess led to an invitation to stay at her home.

• Maeve ate a Dream Monster through her innate ability, and Elliot saw that her progress gauge had become nearly half full.
• Vanessa urged Maeve to keep eating Dream Monsters so she could reach the second rank before the Theresia Festival.
• Elliot suspected the nobles might sacrifice civilians at the festival and planned to protect the Hearthfire District if necessary.
• Vanessa researched the festival at the Library with the Eldest Princess’s help and studied the Mourning Poetry Society’s Secret History with Dorothea.
• Dorothea reunited with Elsa after Vanessa and Elliot brought Elsa back through a dream, and Elliot considered using [Bestowal] to send Elsa remotely.
• Vanessa told Elliot she would not return the next night because the Eldest Princess had invited her to stay at her home.