Stop for a moment, and watch

ID: 238666

Spoiler warning! This page contains details about Fallen London Actions.

From: An Invitation to Linger

Action Cost: 0

What goes on with the changing of the seasons?

Game Instructions: This will refresh 10 actions.

Success

Time and tide

(See table below)

Description summary:
The description depends on the placeholder quality used for this purpose that cycles between its 52 levels once a week.

Placeholder World Quality	Description
1	The smell of fresh new ledgers on the wind. The bustle of commerce slowly coming back to life. The grimaces of children dreading a return to their studies.
2	A stiff breeze blows through the streets, dissipating the scent of lacre which lingered long after the substance itself had melted and run off into the sewers.
3	All that remains of Christmas are fading memories and the stray shrapnel from broken tinsel, lingering on windowsills.
4	A pack of formerly-stray dogs wanders the streets led by an urchin. Around each one's neck is a scarf tied in a flamboyant bow.
5	A wave of indignant screams and terrified neighs creeps up the street towards you. A contraption of brass and steel careening down the street – a horseless carriage, driven (or, at least, occupied) by a Devil.
6	A sinkhole […] gapes open on the street – big enough to trap the wheel of a postal wagon. The postmen are nowhere to be seen; a gang of urchins has gathered, wondering if the coast is clear to begin ransacking the stalled letters and parcels.
7	A Rubbery Lump seller offers you a sample of something coated with dried, powdered spices. It tastes like a droplet of F.F. Gebrandt's imitation chocolate flavour had a torrid but brief affair with sixteen gallons of rose water.
8	A young rat scampers through the gutter excitedly. "I saw it!" he squeaks to no one in particular. "I saw the rose!"
9	Most people complain about the errant smell – though London's never short on those. Zailors, though, keep their thoughts to themselves. They look warily out into the dark.
10	Passing back that way later, you're sure you can hear a faint cooing from the eaves.
11	Coincidence, one devil assures you. Nothing special is happening today. But still – every last one of them must be out for a promenade!
12	You pass back that way later. One of them is still staring. Is she crying?
13	There's no one – and nothing – there. Just the faint sense of an echo.
14	Each of the crates has different markings, and seems to be fashioned from different wood. The haulier gives you a surly look and busies herself with the ropes.
15	If you want tea today, you had best make it yourself.
16	They seem perfectly happy. No portentous lyrics, no ominous, dead eyes. And, crucially, they're singing in the major key. Does that make it more or less unsettling?
17	It seems you are not their target. Still, the banker walking a few paces ahead should watch her back.
18	Does the figurine of the fat, behatted man denote some advantage? Does the spiny one mark the score? And why, no matter how hard you look, can you not determine the shape of that other one?
19	Some establishments, though, embrace the season wholeheartedly, making vague promises of the 'invigorating experiences' that can be had by those who order the buttered eggs.
20	A gentleman in a floral dress walks past, guiding a Terror Bird on a lead. He offers you a warm smile. His bird clacks its beak hungrily.
21	The question of the hour is: in which end of this trade do the cats and dogs feature? Judging by all the cats lurking nearby with hungry expressions, they – or their keepers – are the customers. That's probably for the best.
22	Those tempted to leave their coats and hats at home, though, would do well to remember that Fallen London is ever-unseasonable. Myriad small indignities flow from the Neath's meteorology, like guano flows from a bat.
23	A squabble of urchins lounge on a nearby roof. They keep daring each other toward ever-more-elaborate acts of mischief – fishing up a constable's helmet, trading limericks with a Drownie […] – but none can quite bring themselves to actually move.
24	Except for that, though. Something burns above, through the thick blanket of fog, bright enough to sting your eyes, even scattered and dispersed as it is. You blink, seeing spots, and it's gone, though the night feels anything but empty.
25	It is a […] fact of life in the vast cavern of the Neath that, even without sunlight, summer's sticky presence still manages to make itself felt. Tugboats haul ice from the northern zee. Ladies flutter fans in Tyrant's Gardens. Gentlemen sway uneasily […]
26	Uncontrolled sneezing is dreadfully undignified, and it is rather difficult to maintain one's poise when one's nose is flowing like a Wolfstack gutter. The city is awash with red eyes and […] wheezing. Urchins run a lucrative trade in handkerchiefs […]
27	There is no sun to lounge in, but citizens make do. Parasols and picnics in Jekyll Gardens. Urchins napping on slanted garrets. Sightings of a Wandering Mirage.
28	The Bishop of Saint Fiacre is outside his domain, fielding complaints about the noise. He assures the residents of Spite that the Rubbery Campanologist's rehearsals will be carefully monitored in future. In the tower, a bell peals mournfully.
29	The half-drowned tower lurches from the river at an odd angle. One would expect the floors within to be all a-tilt – an inconvenient place to spend an afternoon, rather than a desirable member's club. Perhaps they remodelled after the Fall.
30	The culprit surrenders meekly once the Constables arrive, his eyes confused and shoulders hunched. A doctor examines the corpse on the scene. "Be right as rain once they come back," she says. "Probably won't even scar."
31	The gentleman is harried […] down an alley, whereupon he disappears from your sight. A manservant in the livery of the Shuttered Palace approaches soon after, panting. […] Your curiosity is noted. "Can't stop. Business on behalf of the Duchess."
31 (Estival 2024)	Are there more tigers […] than usual? It is rare to see them outside […]. You catch another flash of orange and black as you cross the thoroughfare. If it were anything else, it might not be noticeable – but […] a small increase in tigers is a significant event.
32	Is it a coincidence that the inner steamworkings of the Moloch Street Express sound so exceedingly similar to the shrieks of […] unwilling prisoners about to be hauled off to Hell? This is the kind of […] philosophising that helps to pass an empty morning.
33	Another day, another tranche of new taxes and tariffs. On knives of flint and ravenglass. On the memoirs of poets. On pottery fired in clay.
34	The offending child is chased throughout the revels. Three more urchins, bearing the battle-paint of the Noughts, sneak in through the front gate while the ticket-takers are otherwise occupied.
35	Is the air a little drier, a little cleaner? A daring individual might even say a little colder. Visions of scarves dance in your eyes. False-Summer is coming to a close.
36	Left on the outside of your window overnight – a tiny cairn made of tiny rats' bones, topped with a tiny skull upon which sits a minute candle. An offering? A shrine? A warning?
37	Cargo ships bring in the last few big hauls of ice from the northern unterzee. Scarves replace straw hats on shop windows. The Masters announce new taxes on warmed cider and mulled wine.
38	She flips over the Lovers. Her querent smiles. She flips over the Wheel. Her querent tilts his head. She flips over the Tower. Her querent opens his mouth to ask a question. […] "Such is life," she says, before directing him to pay.
39-40	The liquid reflects the roof – a stalactite, studded with false stars and shedding amberish light from within. You have the sense of being looked upon from above.
41	You watch in amazement as a member of the Regiment, decked out in an oversized overcoat with gleaming buttons ([…] pinned to her chest like medals) strings a single, improbably long scarlet stocking all over the gaslamps on Flowerdene Street.
42	A Rubbery Lump seller offers you a sample of something coated with dried, powdered spices. It tastes like a squash got into a fistfight with a cassia tree.
43	You almost collide with someone wearing an elaborate demon mask. As you engage in the time-honed dance of figuring out who gets to say the last apology, a small crowd of urchins gathers around you – hoping, beyond hope, that a fight might break out.
44	Revellers take their masks off, briefly, in the crowd – to wipe away tears, to scream, to kiss.
45	Cold wars break out between neighbours – who will be the first to cave and string up some tinsel around the windows?
46	Subjective experience scales to the gamut of the perceived world. Which is to say: all it takes is a little drop in temperature and Londoners are bundling up like they're readying for an Arctic expedition.
47	A Querulous Journalist accosts you with questions: Have you been robbed, assaulted, blackmailed, intimidated, shook up, stood up, trussed up, or just generally inconvenienced? Is there some incident you'd like to blow entirely out of proportion?
48	As is tradition, Murgatroyd's company is once again selling imitation springs of holly – made out of stamped tin with painted leaves.
49	Two professionally-dressed young men lean out of a second-story window. Coffee cup in hand, sharing a smoke, flirting. Management is nowhere to be seen.
50	Enterprising urchins take to the streets with shovels and pails, collecting lacre – hopefully not to use in some kind of vicious prank.
51	Children procure whatever red garments they can find – their parents' smoking jackets, bathrobes, blankets. They take turns playing Mr Sacks. Take my money! Take my home! Take my blood!
52-53	Even down here, out of the sun's reach, this is the darkest time of year. When Law is weakest and dreams scrape at the edges of reality. What forbidden things will you do, this solstice?

[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]

Success Instructions: This card will be available again when Time, the Healer comes.

• Your actions have been refreshed! (Restores ten actions)
•  Time the Healer will unlock An Invitation to Linger again next week! (Sets A Beneficence to 1)