SILVERWAKEThe story
The story is there if you want it, and it never interrupts a fight. A player who reads nothing still knows what matters: silence the ten bells, and the dead can go.
The abbey kept a vigil over its dead for one night each, then lantern-bearers carried each soul out along the moon's silver road to the sea. One night, the vigil was never allowed to end. Ten great bells hold that night in place, and each is kept by a Guardian who refuses to let go. You are the last lantern-bearer. Silence the bells. Let the dead go home.
The Wake
The Order of the Silverwake built its abbey down the side of a mountain above a grey sea. Its one rule is the first thing carved in the game:
ONE NIGHT FOR EVERY SOUL. We sit with the dead from vespers until the dawn is spoken. Then the bearer comes, lifts the light, and carries it down to the water. We do not hold them longer. Love that holds too long becomes a cage.
Each soul's light was tended through its night. At dawn the Archon of the Wake, the Order's highest office, spoke the dawn: the hour bell struck twelve and the Lanternbound flew. These were winged bearers in thruster armour who never set foot on hallowed ground. They carried each light from the Lantern Docks along the causeway and out over the sea on the moon's reflection, the silver wake.
The abbey grew into a city to serve that one rule. Then, one night, the dawn was never spoken. See The abbey and its bells for what became of it.
Where the story lives
| Where | How to find it |
|---|---|
| Bosses | Each speaks an opening line and last words, the first time by default. Settings under Boss dialogue changes that to always or never. Most last words are worth waiting for: the Guardians are mourners, not villains. |
| Vigil Stones | 50 carved slabs in the walls. Hover beside one to read it. An unread one keeps a slow glint moving along its lines. |
| Fallen bearers | 10 suits of empty armour, hanging where they fell. Hover beside one to read its last words. One of them matters to Sorrel. |
| Four people | They wait along the way and speak only if you stop. See NPCs. |
| The rooms | Clocks stopped at 11:59, departure boards reading SUSPENDED, ten bell moulds with nine empty. Nothing points these out. |
| The Codex | Keeps everything you have heard and read, so you can go back to it. |
From a fallen bearer, to give you the flavour:
Woke at the dock again. The dock remembers us. That is supposed to be a kindness. Bearer Iolo
The game, in the story's terms
You never need any of this, but the rules of the game are also rules of the world:
| In the game | In the story |
|---|---|
| Lantern Docks | The bearers' berths. A bearer's light is tethered to the berth it last rested at, and it wakes there after it falls. |
| A new run | The night is rung again. It is always the same night. |
| XP | Every creature of the Wake hoards a little stolen light. When it falls, your lantern takes that light in and burns brighter. |
| Hull plates | Lanternbound plate, made to carry the dead safely through any weather. |
| Slow-mo | The Stillbell, the bearer's small bell, held and never rung. It makes a hush in the abbey's rhythm. |
| Parry | The bearer's ward: the turn of the wrist that shielded a light from wind. |
| Melee weapons | Tools of the Wake, turned against it. |
| Echo lairs | The bells remember. A silenced Guardian is rung back once, weaker in will but not in strength. |
| Boss Arena and Rush | Recollections: your memory of a fight. Nothing is freed and nothing is lost there, so no one speaks. |