How to Survive

Lou, who hands out the boats on the Last Chance dock, found a mail sack under the jetty: five letters older than the jetty, addressed the old way, by what you'd see when you got there. Take each one where its address means, out on the Desert Isle past the town gate. Leave it where nobody's left to take it; hand it over where somebody is.

Steps

  1. Deliver Lou's letters · the Desert Isle
  2. Go back to Lou at the Last Chance dock · the Last Chance dock

Reward

60 gold a letter, then 300 gold and XP from Lou

Dialogue

Starting it

  1. “Found a mail sack under the jetty, fixing a board. Some of these letters are older than the jetty.”
  2. “I opened one. Shouldn't have. Twenty years I've had this face, and it has never once kept a secret.”
  3. “Five of them. Back then nobody wrote a street. They wrote what you'd see when you got there.”
  4. “So here. Read the fronts, not the insides. That's good advice. I've never taken it.”
  5. “They're all on this island, somewhere past the town gate. Mail doesn't get far when nobody's carrying it.”

Talking to them again

  1. “Read the fronts. Not the insides. I'm still not over the inside of mine.”
  2. “Nobody out here had a street. They had a rock, or a fence, or a fella. Go by those.”

Handing it in

  1. “All five. That's the most mail this dock has ever moved.”
  2. “Here. That's the postage, plus about a hundred and forty years of interest.”

After it is done

  1. “Found another sack under the jetty. Turned out it was just a sack. Felt cheated, honestly.”

At the hand-in without the item

  1. “Still got letters on you. They don't deliver themselves. That's the whole problem with letters.”

When your bag is full

  1. “Your bag's full. Clear a little room. Mail's light, but it's not that light.”

hettie letter

  1. “A letter. For me? Nobody's written me in thirty years. Let me see that.”
  2. “It's Pete's hand. He spelled my name wrong. He spelled it wrong on the marriage license too, so at least he stuck to it.”
  3. “Says he'll be home by spring. Doesn't say which spring. I'll keep the plate out.”

virgil letter

  1. “A letter for the ranch? Nobody's written this place since my granddad. Let's see.”
  2. “It's a bill. For a mule. Granddad always swore up and down he paid for that mule.”
  3. “You tell Lou the mule died in eighty-one. I figure we're square.”