This page has spoilers. Story parts are blurred: click one to read it.
The islands are a show, and the Audience are watching: gods who love an old western. Everything below is behind a spoiler blur.
The Ballade
Every god you beat drops a page of an old ballade. Each page belongs to a pianist in a chapel somewhere on the islands.
| Page from | Pianist |
|---|---|
| Crypt 2 | Cyril |
| Crypt 3 | Maude |
| Crypt 4 | Abel |
| Crypt 5 | Odette |
| Crypt 6 | Ira |
| Crypt 7 | Lonnie |
| Crypt 8 | Wladyslaw |
| Crypt 10 | Halvard |
| Crypt 11 | Bruno |
| The last crypt | The last page goes somewhere else. |
Dead letters
Undelivered letters, each with nothing but an address to go on. Who they are for is for you to work out.
To: Whoever's running the cattle place, south-west of town, where the fence starts
To: Ezra Pike. He's up where the rock grows in chimneys, and he isn't going anywhere
To: Survey party, camped at the foot of the big table. The side the sun goes down on
To: Postmaster, Wheel Station. Where the stage road goes under the stone
To: Miss Hettie. The house past the salt flat, with a plate out for a man who's late
What the townsfolk know
Some townsfolk say more, every third talk, once the gods of enough crypts have been beaten and their chests looted (the Gang of Elites counts).
Salty Gull barkeep (unnamed)
After 1 crypt beaten:
- “Heard you went through the door and killed one of them. One of the ones watching. Sky went quiet for a second there. Like a seat came empty in a theatre.”
After 3 crypts beaten:
- “Sky's been flickering since you started on those crypts. Like somebody up there's leaning closer to the screen. You don't lean closer to a show unless it's gotten good. Or you're worried.”
After 6 crypts beaten:
- “Six of them gone, folks say. I don't know how many there are. I know there were more. You can hear it at night. The laughing's thinner.”
Abel
After 3 crypts beaten:
- “The ones out back that get up at night. Fewer of them lately. Like whoever sends them is running short. I don't change the song. The song was never for them.”
Ulf
After 1 crypt beaten:
- “Folks say you killed one of them. Good. Word of advice from a trapper. Something that smart, you don't trap it once. It's got another one of itself put by somewhere. They keep spares.”
Greta
After 3 crypts beaten:
- “Tree in the square dropped a needle this morning. First one ever. I don't want to make too much of it. But that tree's on a schedule. Somebody missed a day.”
After 6 crypts beaten:
- “It stopped snowing for a minute yesterday. Everybody came out and looked up. Nobody knew what to do. So we went back inside. You get used to a thing.”
Sheriff Boone
After 1 crypt beaten:
- “Heard you went through the door at the bottom of a crypt and killed what was waiting. I'd arrest you, but I don't know the charge. Trespassing, I suppose. On a god.”
After 3 crypts beaten:
- “The waves out at the crypts are getting thinner. That's what happens when you run low on extras. You start using the same skeleton twice. I've seen it. Same hat.”
Last Chance barkeep (unnamed)
After 1 crypt beaten:
- “Fella at nine didn't show. I drank his.”
After 6 crypts beaten:
- “Feels like a real saloon lately. Odd.”
Cyril
After 1 crypt beaten:
- “Played it the same as always this morning. Sounded different. Not worse. Louder. Like something stopped talking over it.”
Odette
After 3 crypts beaten:
- “The man in Gallows Rest and me, we've played back and forth for years. Lately it feels like somebody's taking notes. Not the gulls. Somebody further off. Somebody on our side, I think.”
Lonnie
After 1 crypt beaten:
- “Every time somebody comes back from one of those crypts, I hit a note I don't remember learning. Then it's in the song for good. I'd tell the barkeep. He'd want it in ragtime.”
Einar
After 3 crypts beaten:
- “Five of us, I'm told. Five chapels, five songs. Nobody's ever put us in a room together. I think that's on purpose. One song, somebody'd notice. Five, it just sounds like weather.”
After 6 crypts beaten:
- “Lately when I get to the end there's a little more song than there used to be. I don't know where it comes from. I don't stop to ask. You don't stop a song to ask where it's going.”