Following up Rumours of Cornelius (Guide)

Late Railroad Content

Furnace has been kidnapped. Now what? In order to get the tracklayers back to work, you'll need to appoint a temporary leader, and for that, you may want to track down Cornelius. You can also appoint a random tracklayer, but tracking down Cornelius has its own advantages later on in the Railway storyline.

To advance Following up Rumours of Cornelius (FuRoC for short) beyond 3, you will need to have built a Cabinet Noir at Balmoral. Also, you can start raising this quality as soon as you've built the Station at The Magistracy of the Evenlode.

1. Go to Evenlode station. At the local Offices of the Tracklayers union, either Ask the local opinion of Furnace Ancona, or Demonstrate your commitment to the Prehistoricists, then ask about Furnace Ancona. (Which option you get depends on which factions you have supported so far.) This will set your Following up Rumours of Cornelius quality to 1.
2. Raise your Investigating... to 5, then go back to the Evenlode local. Follow Up What You've Learned of Cornelius to set the FuRoC quality to 2.
3. Same deal, except this time you need Investigating... 12. Keep investigating this question of Cornelius to raise FuRoC to 3.
4. Go to Balmoral, and Steal a curious document from the Tracklayers' Office. Decipher it in your Cabinet noir to raise FuRoC; you will need Deciphering... 5. You will need to repeat this several times to raise your FuRoC to 7. You can actually raise it to 8, but you should only need 7.
5. Go back to London. Your clickpath will be Into the Boardroom > Review the Agenda > Convene a Meeting > Consider your options for replacing Furnace > Plans and Plots > Track Down Cornelius. This sets the quality to 9 and redirects to Speaking with Cornelius. Once you're done talking to him, return to your meeting.

Further options will depend upon your A Pawn among Tracklayers and Bridge Troubles qualities (the latter is hidden). These are, essentially, the random tracklayer's loyalty and your own stated intent of how you want to handle Furnace's absence. You will have to appoint someone else as leader of the Tracklayer's Union, at least temporarily, in order to reset the Tracklayers' Work Stoppage and continue building your railway. You will be able to continue Furnace's story once you have built Station VIII.