The Austere Acolyte

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"There's a story I heard when I first apprenticed here. That there was someone who worked here who swallowed one of the black pellets, and it made them impervious to grief. There was nothing they could see that was worse than what they already knew. I think that would be a great strength to have, don't you?"[1]

The Austere Acolyte is one of Station III's most accomplished workers.

Scalpel and Tongs[edit]

"She lifts the body onto a marble slab. Without pause in her lyrics she prepares a scalpel. Your presence does not seem to bother her."[2]

A fenced-off industrial area.
Station III

The Austere Acolyte is a skilled mortician who processes the various corpses that arrive on Station III.[3][4] These deceased consumed Soothe and Cooper's Heartease Tonic, which caused metallic deposits to grow in their bodies around the sources of their emotional distress.[5] The Acolyte extracts these deposits, and cracks open their outer layers to retrieve their heartmetal cores.[6][7] She then uses her thick goggles to analyze the secrets within the cores[8][9] to appraise their value to the Masters[10] and other recipients.[7] While on duty, she wears black protective gear from head to toe,[11] and has a group of Clay Men to help with transport.[12] Underneath her goggles, her eyes are a charming green.[13]

A music note.
Sing-a-long

The Acolyte always sings a nonsensical,[14] improvised tune[15] to insulate herself from the negative emotions released during heartmetal extraction.[16][17] She does not seem to mind the morbid nature of her work and has a stoic disposition,[18][19] but it is hinted that she may be struggling with feelings of grief.[20]

In the Sunless Skies timeline, the Acolyte, now known as the Austere Assistant, has moved to Winter's Reside in Pan.[21] She works for the Calendar Council now, and extracts feelings of injustice from volunteers[22] by drawing them out as splinters of bone and pulling them out with tongs and saws.[23] With enough of these splinters, she and the Council believe they could one day slay a Judgement.[23] Old habits persist: she still sings as she works.[24]

The Acolyte's Twin[edit]

"There are some things we were not meant to know, they say. But you wouldn't be down here if you took that seriously."

Beyond this point lie spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, or Mask of the Rose. This may include midgame or minor Fate-locked content. Proceed with caution.

You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.


"She was a doctor, healing the malaise of countesses and publishing research about the applications of mushroom-derived spirits. Her twin lived with her, at her expense, but preferred more bohemian entertainments. The Acolyte describes what their life together was: sepia anatomical charts next to dream-animals done in viridian paint. Prisoner's Honey jostling retorts full of medicine. Silk scraps in the bandage drawer."[25]

"The Austere Acolyte's twin was not her twin, not her sister at all. The Acolyte never had a sister. This being took up wearing a mirror of her face, early in her childhood. It was drawn by her early promise, by the likelihood of her success."[26]

A spoonful of honey.
Prisoner's Honey

The Acolyte does not recall how she came to work at Station III,[27] but she does remember her former life as a doctor and researcher in London. She lived with a bohemian twin sister, and the two were very close despite their contrasting fields of interest.[28] Unfortunately, the Acolyte's sister died permanently in an accident following a shared honey-dream.[29][30] The exact details are unclear, but it is stated that the sister returned from the dream in "bad shape" with cracked and frozen skin, and that the incident involved a footbath of silvery fluid.[29][30] The Acolyte tried to resuscitate her sister,[29] but was left badly scarred and burdened with guilt for her efforts.[31][32] She now regards her current work as penance for her failure.[33]

The aforementioned story is missing one key detail: the Acolyte never had a twin sister, and the entity living with her since childhood was actually a mysterious humanoid wearing a "mirror of her face." The identity or nature of this being is unknown, but it was drawn to the Acolyte by her high potential for "success." The Acolyte's "sister" was herself a consumer of Heartease Tonic before she died, and it is implied that her false identity was the secret she struggled to keep repressed.[34]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Ask what she thinks of the work she does, Sunless Sea
  2. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea
  3. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "The Austere Acolyte [...] takes a crowbar to the box. The corpse inside is permanently dead, [...] She lifts the body onto a marble slab. [...] she prepares a scalpel."
  4. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "Deliveries go up this path," she says, [...]"
  5. ↑ Ask how the metal balls are formed, Sunless Sea ""Soothe and Cooper's Heartsease Tonic," she says. "Take it when you're sad. Take it when there's something you don't dare speak about. [...] it turns cold in the body. It forms around the thing you don't want to say, and holds it in." [...] the metal sets hard, [...] some users find it necessary to keep drinking tonic [...] until the balls have grown as large as organs."
  6. ↑ Watch with medical interest, Sunless Sea "The Austere Acolyte makes an incision [...] laying bare a heart-sized sphere of silver metal. It has grown there, [...] She has to break two of the ribs now to take out the ball. [...] With a giant nutcracker, she cracks the sphere, [...] Finally in the center she comes to something heavy, small, and black. [...] She puts the black and heavy thing into a jar [...]"
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Deliveries to the smith, Sunless Sea "She piles up a crate full of discarded heart-metal, if you're willing to be made to fetch and carry now [...] The smith follows your glance. "Heat's not good for the Clay Men," he says. "But the Acolyte doesn't much like it either, all bundled up the way she is.""
  8. ↑ Watch with medical interest, Sunless Sea "[...] in the center she comes to something heavy, small, and black. She lifts it out with tongs and looks at it through her goggles. [...] She puts the black and heavy thing into a jar [...]"
  9. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "When the Acolyte gets to the center, she pushes the ball towards you. As an afterthought she lets you borrow her goggles as well. The secret, when you can focus enough to make it out, is this: [...]"
  10. ↑ A historian, Sunless Sea "[...] she seems sad as she plucks out the dark harvest and drops it in its jar. "They were in love with a writer who was dead before they were born," says the Acolyte. "And kept it a secret from embarrassment. The Masters will like that.""
  11. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "An Austere Acolyte steps into the light. She is covered head to foot in protective black, her fingers thickly gloved [...]"
  12. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "[...] you are standing in the mist watching a parade of Clay Men. They hoist the boxes on their shoulders and march away, [...] towards the building with the steeple. An Austere Acolyte leads them, [...]"
  13. ↑ Express your personal admiration for her, Sunless Sea "The eyes behind the goggles are an unexpected shade of green."
  14. ↑ Follow because the singing has got into your bones, Sunless Sea "The Austere Acolyte sings all the time when she is not speaking. [...] the next verse. It concerns the smell of hot brick, the chime of ashes [...] When you go back over the words in your head, you're not sure they make even that much sense."
  15. ↑ A young man, Sunless Sea ""Bibles bound in crocodile leather," sings the Acolyte as she works. Not quite up to her usual form, you think."
  16. ↑ Ask why she sings, Sunless Sea ""There was another apprentice who worked with me," [...] he thought the singing was foolish. Only lasted a few days before we had to pack him off to the Royal Bethlehem.""
  17. ↑ The sister, Sunless Sea "Even from here you sense the breathtaking hatred, [...] "Your pony is made of fresh baked bread," sings the Acolyte in your ear. [...] You find yourself standing very close to the noxious black pellet, [...] "...and butter is its saddle," she sings soothingly, leading you away [...]"
  18. ↑ Ask where the corpses come from, Sunless Sea ""Here and there," she says. It's not that she's trying to be coy. You don't think she much cares about the answer. "Most are from the Surface, one way or the other.""
  19. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "It is plain she's unimpressed by what she's seen of you so far. "Deliveries go up this path," she says, [...]"
  20. ↑ Ask what she thinks of the work she does, Sunless Sea ""There's a story I heard [...] there was someone who worked here who swallowed one of the black pellets, and it made them impervious to grief. [...] "I think that would be a great strength to have, don't you?""
  21. ↑ Supper, Sunless Skies "An Austere Assistant, head to foot in black, stands beside it."
  22. ↑ Supper, Sunless Skies ""The injustice that was done to you – what happened? What did they take from you?" [...] The answer rises in your gorge. It pulls pieces of you with it."
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Your freedom, Sunless Skies "You were caged like a beast. [...] Splinters of bone, biscuit-brown, press up through your flesh. [...] The Austere Assistant uses tongs to pull the shards free. [...] she reaches for a bone saw, carving off those pieces that your body is unwilling to relinquish. [...] she examines the shards under a dim light, [...] "These are excellent. With enough such sacrifices from aggrieved souls, we could strike down a sun.""
  24. ↑ Eat, drink: partake as the Assistant bids you, Sunless Skies ""Your pony is made of fresh baked bread," sings the Assistant. You swallow the biscuits like pills, choking them back with swigs of heady red wine."...and butter is its saddle," she continues, soothingly."
  25. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea
  26. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea
  27. ↑ Ask how she came to be here, Sunless Sea "[...] she can't recall how she got here. She remembers what happened in London, and then there's a gap, and then her first memories of this place are of the shape of the steepled building, [...]"
  28. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "[...] she tells you what happened before. She was a doctor, healing [...] and publishing research about the applications of mushroom-derived spirits. Her twin lived with her, [...] but preferred more bohemian entertainments. The Acolyte describes what their life together was: sepia anatomical charts next to dream-animals done in viridian paint."
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 Story description, Sunless Sea "Prisoner's Honey jostling retorts full of medicine. [...] The twin is gone now: something about an accident, a footbath full of silvery fluid, skin cracked and frozen. A resuscitation attempt that went wrong, preventing any return from death."
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Press for more details, Sunless Sea "[...] the twin had returned in bad shape from a shared dream. How her skin was covered with a tracery of bleeding lines. The shock this caused to the body. The inevitable death."
  31. ↑ Ask how she came to be here, Sunless Sea ""This comes from before," she says, drawing back her protective clothing. Between her glove and her sleeve is a web of old white scars, as though her skin had frozen and cracked and healed again."
  32. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "The body inside [...] could be, her twin. "Her death was my fault," says the Acolyte bleakly."
  33. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "Afterward her memories are blurred, until they pick up again here. She regards her present occupation as penance of some kind."
  34. ↑ Story description, Sunless Sea "When the Acolyte gets to the center, she pushes the ball towards you. [...] The secret, when you can focus enough to make it out, is this: The Austere Acolyte's twin was not her twin, not her sister at all. The Acolyte never had a sister. This being took up wearing a mirror of her face, early in her childhood. It was drawn by her early promise, by the likelihood of her success."
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