Lanternfall

The sky is going out.

Seven Lanterns once lit the world above the clouds. Six have gone dark. The seventh, Vesper, is failing, and by the count of an old ship’s bell you have seven tolls left to do something about it.

You are a salvager sailing the Marigold through the Gloam, a sea of luminous mist above a drowned world. One night you pull a warm, silver capsule from the dark. Inside is Lumen: a small brass lamp-spirit with a crystal heart, who remembers a song, the shape of a door, and the way to wake a star. It does not remember what that costs.

Beside you at the helm is Kestrel, a sharp-tongued mechanic who owes the wrong people money and has never once let you fly alone.

Three powers want what Lumen carries. The Syndicate wants to own the light. The Order of the Wick wants to give it up to a fire. The Makers, long drowned, left something behind in the dark.

You decide what the sky is worth.

What you will do

• Sail between four places, each with its own people, secrets and choices: a brass harbour that sells bottled light, a spire of ten thousand candles, a drowned ship older than the Reach, and a fogbound shoal where something sings.
• Spend your bells carefully. Every journey costs one, and some mistakes cost two.
• Earn, or lose, the trust of your crew. Kestrel and Lumen remember what you say.
• Keep a Logbook of what you learn, because the true ending needs more than courage. It needs the right questions asked in the right places.

Features

• A branching story of about 9,800 words in 41 passages, built with Twine and Harlowe
• Ten endings, including one true ending and two hidden ones
• A seven-bell clock, a trust system, a Logbook, and choices that open and close doors
• A live sky that darkens as the bells toll, and an ambient score generated in your browser
• Replay memory: the Marigold remembers your earlier voyages, and some doors only open the second time
• No downloads, no accounts. It runs in your browser, on desktop or phone.

How to play
Click or tap the glowing lines to choose. Your choices are final within a voyage, so think before you commit, then begin again to see what else the sky holds. Sound starts on your first click, and the button in the corner turns it off. Headphones are recommended. A typical voyage takes 20 to 40 minutes.

Content notes
Themes of sacrifice, grief and peril. A character can die, and one ending involves a character being sold. There is no graphic violence, no strong language and no flashing effects.

Credits
Story, writing and design: Touheed Ahmed
Built with Twine 2 and the Harlowe story format