The High Sancta (Guide)

Early Firmament Content and Onwards

The High Sancta Summary
Locked Semi-Fixed-Length Activity
Setup				Progress				End
1 A				2-24 A				2 A
Progress Details			Play cards to raise Towards a Violant Sky to 12 while passing Counterlight challenges.
Items Inputs/Outputs Outputs Memory of a Much Stranger Self
Raw EPA						10.21

How to unlock

Though The High Sancta is accessible as part of the Firmament storyline, the action cost and exact mechanics are slightly different. This guide focuses on the repeatable activity.

Access to The High Sancta is in Zenith, unlocked with Firmament 300. The storylet Sneaking into the High Sancta begins this activity.

Progress

From Sneaking into the High Sancta, there is a resource cost of 30 that can be paid with 12 x Anticandle, 60 x Memory of Light, or 300 x Khaganian Lightbulb. While not all of this is necessarily consumed by the activity, it is staked. Note that Shield yourself with Memories of Light also requires Irrigo to play.

These options set the hidden quality Counterlight Source to 1, 2, or 3 respectively for changes to the text. They also set Counterlight to 100 and redirects to The Violant Threshold. This sets Towards a Violant Sky and Blindfolded, For Your Own Good to 1.

The activity enters a two step cycle, controlled by Blindfolded, For Your Own Good.

When Blindfolded, For Your Own Good is 1, the player draws 3 cards. The drawn cards come from three pools based on Towards a Violant Sky. Each card gives a 12.50 in items and Impressions in Violant equal to 850 + 100 x Towards a Violant Sky. This changes Blindfolded, For Your Own Good to 2 and clears the hand.

When Blindfolded, For Your Own Good is 2, the player again draws 3 cards, though they are each identical copies of Lost in the Black, and the only option is Stumble onwards. The odds of success are equal to the current value of Counterlight. On success, Blindfolded, For Your Own Good is lowered to 1, the hand is cleared, and there is some chance of losing 5 x Counterlight, although if Counterlight is 65 or less, then only 1 is lost.

On success or failure, the player loses resources based on Counterlight Source: either 1 x Anticandle, 5 x Memory of Light, or 25 x Khaganian Lightbulb. On failure, the player is forced to leave the area, returning to Zenith. This gives the Burden Wings of Change (see Wings of Change for details).

After 12 cycles, the player is forced to leave. Alternatively, if the player wishes, they can leave early through Leaving the High Sancta, as long as Blindfolded, For Your Own Good is 2 (i.e. took a Lift your blindfold action). Leaving in any way gives the quality Violant Sights which locks the activity until Time, the Healer comes around.

Wings of Change

Wings of Change is the cost of involuntarily leaving when failing the Counterlight challenge on Lost in the Black. This is a Burden that raises Wounds, Scandal, Suspicion, and Nightmares gain. It adds a card called The Sound of Wings to several locations.

It can be removed in the Cave of the Nadir to gain 25 of items.

Cards

Cards are grouped by the required Towards a Violant Sky to draw them. There are 9 playable cards in each group.

Analysis

Each card played when Blindfolded, For Your Own Good is 1 gives and an amount of Impressions in Violant proportional to Towards a Violant Sky. This pays out in Memory of a Much Stranger Self when leaving according to the integer division of Impressions in Violant / 1250. As a table:

Sky	Self
1	0
2	1
3	2
4	3
5	4
6	5
7	7
8	8
9	9
10	11
11	12
12	14

Average

Based on Counterlight loss on Lost in the Black at certain values of Towards a Violant Sky, we can construct a table of the probability of progressing to the next value of Towards a Violant Sky. This table also assumes that Unsigned in Triplicate is always played when drawn due to its slightly higher value.

Sky	Payout	Actions	Progression Chance
1	10.0	4	1.0
2	32.5	6	1.0
3	55.0	8	0.95
4	77.5	10	0.9
5	100.03	12	0.85
6	122.57	14	0.8
7	157.6	16	0.75
8	180.13	18	0.7
9	202.63	20	0.65
10	237.63	22	0.64
11	260.13	24	0.62
12	295.13	26	N/A

Optimum

The optimum run of this activity is to successfully raise Towards a Violant Sky to 12. It takes 1 action to start, then playing 12 of any card followed by Lost in the Black. Afterwards it takes 1 action to play Tell him of the Apocrypha you witnessed. This adds up to 26 actions.

Each card gives 12.50 with the exception of Unsigned in Triplicate which gives 12.60. Unsigned in Triplicate can be played at most 4 times and any other cards 8 times for 150.40. 14 x Memory of a Much Stranger Self are given for full completion. A cost of 30 is spent to progress through Lost in the Black 12 times. This is a max profit of 295.40 for a final 11.36 EPA.