Current Status at the Echo Bazaar

More status dumping! Already! I’m super-addicted to this game.

This is a continuation from last time, and will cover mostly interesting changes and additions.

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Current Description

ArachneJericho, a sagacious and captivating individual of mysterious and indistinct gender

Stats

Dangerous: 21 (can you tell I… just don’t care about this stat? :) )
Watchful: 90
Persuasive: 57
Shadow: 23 (sort of the bare minimum to engage in the soul trade successfully, which also depends on Persuasive)

Current Level of Heart’s Desire Ambition

Right now I’ve moved past the stage of getting First City Coins (thank the gods) and have moved on to the bit about discovering information about the Topsy King: his history, in particular.

The Topsy King, as you might have noticed, is a bit mad. This part of the adventure requires access to the Flit—but you can get access to the route without going through grinding Shadowy up to 60 (if you have this ambition; and maybe the others).

After the Flit, you need access to the Shuttered Palace. The ambition will not offer you any help here, woe, so you’ll have to gather the huge amounts of wine needed yourself.

Thus far I have discovered he used to be a musician and writer of operas. It didn’t work out so well.

Right now I’m stuck on finding the woman I was supposed to meet in the Forgotten Quarter, but she never showed up as far as I can tell. The first option (simply visiting the address) does nothing except raise Watchful, which is highly, highly disappointing when you’ve reached the level cap.

The other options involve either lots of grinding up of Persuasive (and Watchful if you aren’t me ;) ) and/or really expensive items, like the Patent Scrutinizer Deluxe (400 echoes at the bazaar). Well, it wouldn’t be an ambition if it wasn’t hard, so I suppose I have nothing to complain about.

I estimate 7 days before I can do anything about this stage of the Ambition, assuming I straight-grind either money or Persuasive, but not both; if I’m doing both, it’ll take much longer, perhaps twice as long. Le sigh.

New Stuff

Ridiculous Hat: -10 to all stats, which I sometimes need in the Forgotten Quarter.
Tasseled Walking Stick
Bottled Oblivion: -5 to all stats.
Talkative Rattus Faber: -5 to all stats. Sometimes I do need -20 to Watchful.
Malevolent Monkey: no longer with me, sold for wine. I have a Cardsharp Monkey from the Ambition, who does still give +2 Watchful.

New Accomplishments

Increased level of Scholar of the Correspondence, which is coming in handy in various places, including dreams, the ambition, death, and insanity.
Free of Surface Ties (which is turning out to be a pain in the chess dream)
Darling of the Ambassador’s Ball

An Acquaintance!

Wry Functionary 4.

Ambition Stats

Ambition: Heart’s Desire! is overall at 12
Scrawled Notes on the Wall: 1 (and it’s gone now; I’ve got access to the Forgotten Quarter through London Street Signs early on)
Bishop of St. Fiacre’s 4
Topsy King 9

Contacts (Significant)

Bohemian 26 (yeah!)
The Great Game 19
Constables 34 (I imagine I can get a lot of surface currency in the Shuttered Palace now)
Church 19
Hell 6 (going down steadily, but it’s stopped since I started concentrating on Watchful/Persuasive over Shadowy)
Society 31
Duchess 12

A lot of the Bohemian and Society connections I actually got in the Forgotten Quarter.

Routes

Forgotten Quarter
Flit through Heart’s Desire! Ambition
Shuttered Palace where most of my ambition activities are at now; I must say, this ambition takes me places

Nightmares

I’m concentrating on multiple lines of nightmares. This slows down progress on any one, but I hope to get them high before I go insane again.

Is Someone There? 4 Not yet reaching the level where I get Memories of Light, whatever the heck they do
Burial of the Dead 3
A Game of Chess 5
Fire Sermon 3 For some reason, it unlocks a card in A State of Some Confusion that allows you to lower nightmares.

New Story Stuff

No longer hosting an inconvenient aunt. Two aunts down, ? to go.
Occasional Guest at Mr Wines’ Revels 2
No longer on the trail of the Cheesemonger.
Agent of the Cheesemonger 1 instead!

Minor Attributes

Subtle 12
Heartless 2
Hedonist 5
Magnanimous 14
Melancholy 8
Steadfast 3 (no more raises? :( )
Daring 2 I expect this to go up. Stealing souls from devils is quite daring, yo.
Forceful 2

Plans

1. Overgoat! One day, one day, when my ambition runs out.
2. Already spied on the Topsy King. Eh, get some amount of Rostygold, much more interesting when involving my ambition.
3. Prisoner’s Honey! Lots! To get rooms at the Bethlehem. I see that I can turn Connected: Bohemian into honey. *rubs hands*
4. Heart’s Desire Ambition, which is turning out to be harder and also fun.
5. Advance every Nightmare storyline. This actually takes precedence over the Ambition, e.g., I’ll spend money on laudanum first.
6. Already went very insane at Nightmares 14 at one point. It was not special. I am disappoint.
7. Continue the cause for Shepherd of Souls! It boosts many of the connections needed to call in favors at the Shuttered Palace, yes it does, even if the Soul Trade story is not itself advancing very much for me.