The Station Promenade
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The Station Promenade is a new unexplored Path with a large number of Lost on it.
Entry[edit]
To enter you need to wedge tickets and invitations into a door until it’s unable to open then draw a circle on it and fill it, after that you simply kick the door down. If you use red tickets you risk collision with another, more dangerous Path en route.<ref>Entry: Need enough tickets (train, plane, sports, event, concert), permission slips, or invitations to fold them up into wedges and fit between a closed door and the frame. Until the door can’t be opened with any amount of pulling and yanking. Draw a circle on the door and fill the circle in as best I can. Then break down the door while also charging through it.
Jude says not to use red tickets/slips. Risks collision with another Path en-route and it’s not a pretty place to go. Embarrassing/deadly- Excerpt from - [9.3 spoilers] Path Practicalities</ref>
Description[edit]
The Path itself is a station with trains arriving and departing regularly, it is lined with shops and stalls. There is also an area where spectators can watch people attempting the Path.
There are around 200 Lost on the Path, many of them from other Paths. Most of them are simply going about their normal business but the ones that are smiling are hostile and will attack if they're close enough. If a Finder trips or bumps into any Lost, the Path becomes harder and creates more smiling Lost.
On one side there is an alley that is hard to get past due to the amount of smiling Lost that come out of it.<ref>They were talking about the alley, recapping what they knew. The alley was tripping up the finders, a gap between two stores on the left path, that Lost kept coming out of. Smiling Lost. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.1</ref>
The floor consists of red, white, yellow, and black colored tiles, each three feet square. The concourse itself is seven tiles wide. To traverse the Path, Finders have to stick to one pattern of movement throughout their trip, the exact pattern is irrelevant so long as they're consistent in how they move. They have to touch all four colors on four separate turns, then pause for two turns before repeating.<ref>The floor is tiled. We enter one by one and move according to a pattern. I’ll be one of the last to go in and they expect to have a loose system worked out by the time I do. It looks like four colors or designs to the tiles and we use one pattern of movement to touch all four types of tile in four ‘moves’. Wait twice, then repeat. - Excerpt from [9.3 spoilers] Path Practicalities</ref> There's a time limit on how long they can spend on a tile, requiring them to move every few seconds.
Finders can stand on tables and booths but doing so gives them additional rules they have to follow.<ref>“I think you can get on some booths and tables,” Avery reported, to the walkie talkie. “I just did one. I got a bunch of rules I have to follow.” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.1</ref>
Many stationary Lost will interact with Finders if they stand in front of them, such as the flower seller giving a gift.<ref>The ones who don’t move have their little interactions if you stop in front of them. Not that many are in a position to let you stop in front. Try to put yourself in front of the flower seller, and then later there’s another one in a booth with a chair, booth has had a purple front, a few times. Sit in the chair, hear her out, report back. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.1</ref>
Lost can give Finders a job or task, in return they get an outfit that allows them to bypass the movement restrictions.<ref>“Avery Kelly, messenger, running an errand. One minute!”
“Heard,” was Peter Garrick’s response.
There were no movement restrictions while she was on the job, delivering the letter. She didn’t have to worry about tiles, and she only had to worry about going as fast as she could while avoiding the smiling Lost.- Excerpt from Let Slip 20.1</ref>
It's impossible to walk from one end of the station to the other directly, Finders have to board a train to another Path and retain the ability to return by train.<ref>“Then let me tell you the first. It is fundamentally impossible to traverse directly from one end of the Promenade to the other.”
Avery blinked a few times.
“Reaching one end is valuable, as far as the boons imparted,” Miss said. “But you could not do it. I could not do it. The Wolf couldn’t.”
Avery shivered. “So if it’s impossible… how are there boons?”
Miss shifted position, then said, “Directly, Avery. One cannot traverse the Promenade, as you’ve termed it, by the Promenade alone. One must depart by train, retaining the means to return by train. It necessitates the walking of specific paths, which will each be subtly different if entered by way of the Promenade.”- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.6</ref> To do this they must obtain a ticket from one of the Lost at the station by bartering, buying, or performing an errand for them. The Path they travel to will have something intersecting the Path such as tracks, a road, or a tightrope, and they have to wait there while keeping the obstruction in sight and eventually something will take them back to the Station Promenade. If they repeat the process a second time, they will be able to complete the Path. Each time they return to the Path this way it resets the movement patterns of the various Lost and reduces their number.<ref>“The Promenade can’t be traversed directly from start to finish. You will, at a certain point, find that there are no moves available.”
“The value in this information is that we won’t waste our time trying?”
“You can traverse it by getting on a train. You’ll want a ticket from someone already on the Promenade, you’ll want to barter, buy, or do a favor for them. Be careful, some will want you to get them off the Path.”
Clay was nodding slowly.
“While you have the ticket, get on the appropriate train, walk the Path that train takes you to, could be five steps, could be having to walk that entire Path, but you’ll run into tracks, a tightrope, a road, something intersecting the path. Wait. don’t take your eyes off it, don’t close your eyes for longer than an eyeblink, or the track will disappear. It will come. It takes you back to the Promenade, should deliver you further up than you were. Resets some movement patterns, the population of Lost should be less dense. There’ll be a pattern of movement that can take you through. Don’t believe it. You need to do the same thing again. You have to run a second path, that relates to the first you walked.”- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.9</ref>
Miss knows something about the arrangement of the shop that eludes human eyes.<ref>For the second tip, you may hint that I know something about the arrangement of the shops on the Promenade, that eludes human eyes- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.6</ref>
Residents[edit]
The Station is described as having a large number of inhabitants, many of whom have come from other Paths. Lost that have been seen on the path include:
- A small dog balanced on a ball
- A man with a fish for a head
- A ten foot figure wearing an armless clock that obscured his body and wore child sized dolls around his neck
- A girl with a tiger mask
- Seven kids with brightly colored pleated skirts and shorts for school uniforms equipped with pencils or rulers.
- A girl in a dress and pigtails that puffed out behind her like an umbrella
- A damp man wearing only a small towel
- A beast that looks like a mix of canine, feline, and lizard
- A groom and bride that are perpetually separated from each other
- A man with a high collar and hat, only misty shadow between hat and collar
- A spider crammed into a business suit with a bowler hat
- An owl with four legs carrying a city on its back
- A woman running from a collection of buzzsaws, axes, blades, and explosives
- A young girl holding a potted plant with foliage obscuring everything above her upper body
- The flower seller
- A small fridge with two legs
- A hidden other that was only visible while moving
- An other with a piece of paper stuck to his forehead with a smily face drawn on it
- A normal looking woman whose tea doesn’t appear to obey the laws of physics
- A woman with a chalice shaped pin and tea in her hat, holds multiple tea cups in each hand
- A woman in a posh outfit trimmed with teeth, her eyes were also rimmed by teeth
- A man in a leotard carrying a dumbbell
- A ballerina with a blue tutu whose head is always facing away
- The Wolf
- A boy with a humming bird's face
- A tiny woman carrying a large baby
- A woman with an oversized teapot
- An other with eyeholes carved into a bucket on his head and carrying a sword
- A kid with a dog mask and a mechanical mouth
- A woman that slaps at you and growls
- An earthworm in the shape of a women
- A family in a swimsuits carrying an inflatable pool, a glass of water and a goldfish bowl with a shark in it
Others that are injuried or die come back to life after the attempt to walk the path is over.<ref>Avery knew from the last visit to the Promenade that Lost -and Others like John- would be fine whatever happened. They’d reappear. But not for this visit.- Excerpt from Let Slip 20.1</ref>
Points of Interest[edit]
Touching certain items changes the rules of the Path, these items seem to correspond to the objects used during the awakening ritual.<ref name=":0" />
- Timepiece – By touching a clock you can stop the timer that requires you to move.<ref>Numbers + having someone by a clock every move to hold/release time and buy time for notes - Excerpt from [9.3 Spoilers] Path Practicalities</ref>
- Fate – When the wires are held they prevent people entering or leaving the station.
- Edge – Prevents the smiling Lost from attacking you.<ref name=":0">There was a chant coming through on the walkie-talkies now.
“Over the edge, John!”
John wrestled with the Others that were close. The fork rose, then fell again.
The edge?
“Go!”
John moved, lurching, rolling with arm strength alone, even though his leg was so destroyed it didn’t rotate with him, his lower body numb.
“And hold on!” Nicolette shouted.
That was- that was important. He went to the edge of the Promenade, and he grabbed onto a pole.
Timepiece for Time, cable for the threads of Fate. The edge…
Another catch?
He dangled, hanging off the edge, nothing but sky below him.
The smiling Others hung back, waiting, weapons ready. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.a</ref>
There are presumably objects representing Death, Fortune, and/or Nature as well, but their effects are unknown.
Declan suggested that the parts of the path that didn't get destroyed might give hints about how to solve it.<ref>“If it’s a puzzle and you can destroy stuff or make the Wolf destroy stuff, and if the game is made so you have to be able to finish or escape the puzzle, then you can destroy everything and look at what’s left. Those are the things essential to finishing, right?” - Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.10</ref> He also suggested that the Wolf attacked them either because they spent too much time in there or had too many people.<ref>“Yeah. Okay,” Avery said. She looked at Declan. “Good. I’ll ask Jude. The big thing we’re wondering is about the Wolf showing up. We don’t know what triggered it. But once she showed, it all went to pieces.”
“Time limit?” he suggested.
“I dunno. Time didn’t matter, exactly, and a huge part of what we were doing was moving around, moving so people were near the-”
“Clocks, yeah,” Declan said, tapping the page. He frowned down at the page. He looked up. “What is this?”
“Something unfinished but big,” Verona told him. “And we want Avery to be part of the first group to figure it out.”
“Huh. ARG? Or early access game? Trying to be world’s first for a raid?”
“Not sure I know what half of that means,” Avery said. “Anyway, I’m helping out a bigger group…”
“No limits on team size?”
Avery shrugged. “I guess you could send a hundred people as long as they didn’t get in each other’s way.”
“I wouldn’t want that to be a thing,” Declan said. “If I was making the game. Too easy.”
“With all the different rules and hidden stuff it’s not easy,” Avery replied.
“I’d make it so that if you have too many players trying, the bad guy comes in.”
“We were all, hm, in play, for a short bit before.”
“Time limit then,” Declan said.
“Time was stopping.”
“Could’ve been a clock going, so you can’t take forever with your turns,” Declan replied, shrugging. “Or there’s a clock ticking in the background and each person you bring in over the limit reduces the time. Send in one person, you have an hour, send in two, you have half an hour. Send in…”
“Twenty and we have only a couple minutes?” Avery asked.- Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.10</ref>
Boon[edit]
The Garrick Finders have managed to find a large amount of magical items while exploring the path.<ref>“There might be a lot of stuff there,” Nicolette said. “He asked me to come in and see him so I can look over some items he picked up recently. If he’s finding a lot of stuff there might be a lot of stuff at the location to divvy up. I’ll be augur-identifying any functions I can.” - Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.3</ref>
The trains potentially offer access to Paths that are otherwise inaccessible, dangerous to access, or haven't yet been discovered.
Once completed you gain the ability to turn ordinary doors into a gateway to other paths, the first ones to solve it got a boon opened numerous doors every time but as things settle down it will probably only grant one door at a time.<ref>“I’ll take you when you’re ready,” Jude said, from the sidelines. “Wherever you’re going. Free Avery up to do what she needs to.”
“You’ve done the Promenade?”
“Team of four, yeah. I get less doors, but I get enough. Further down the road, when the boon’s more spent, picked up by more people, it might be one door at random, with the right cue. I got pretty lucky.” - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.10</ref> It's the type of Boon that needs to be surpressed. You also gain access to a city and the various Constructs it's built around.<ref>- Excerpt from Let Slip 20.2</ref>
History[edit]
Avery Kelly and Jude both tried to walk the Path with the rest of the Garrick Finders only to be interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected Other.
Trivia[edit]
Miss has passed through before.<ref>“Do you know anything about the Station Promenade? It’s kind of a hub?”
“Yes. I’ve passed through- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.6</ref>
References[edit]
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