Narrator Lore video game scripts

[Opening cinematic. Black screen. Waves. Slowly, a sunken city appears beneath green water] Before the sea came, there was Ollaris. A city of white towers and open doors. A city where the bells rang every hour, and no one locked a gate, because no one had ever needed to. I was a boy then. I carried bread to the bell-ringers. I knew every stair. [the water rises in the image] The sea did not come in a single night, as the songs say. It came a little more each spring. The kings measured it with marks on the harbor wall, and every year they told us the marks were wrong. They were not wrong. One by one, the families left. They carried what they could up into the hills: chairs, cradles, the doors off their own houses. My mother carried a single bell, wrapped in her best coat. She said a city that loses its bells forgets its own name. [a single bell tolls underwater] Now the towers sleep beneath the tide, and the bells ring only when the currents move them. Fishermen say you can hear them on still nights. They say it is a warning. And yet. Something down there is ringing them on purpose. [beat] You are going to find out what. I am too old to swim. But I remember every stair. Let me show you the way.

[Codex entry unlocked: Creatures of the Northern March] The Glass Wolves of Harrowmere. First recorded by the surveyor Ilsa Brant, who described them as "wolves made of a frozen lake." The description is accurate. Their bodies are clear enough to see through, and in moonlight they are almost invisible. They hunt in packs of five. Never four. Never six. No one has explained this. They are not harmed by steel. Steel passes through them as if through cold water. Fire cracks them. Loud, sudden sound shatters them entirely, which is why the shepherds of the March carry iron bells. [beat] A personal note. I have studied these creatures for eleven years. I have never once heard one howl. Last night, outside my window, something howled. I have decided to move south.

[Chapter title card over a parchment map. A dotted line crawls across a white desert] Chapter Three. The Salt Road. No river crosses the Pale Flats. No bird nests there. The only thing that grows is salt, piled into white hills that hum when the wind passes over them. The caravans walk at night. They tie their camels nose to tail and they do not speak, because the old traders say the salt remembers voices and repeats them back, later, when you are alone. It is eleven nights from Kesh to the green city of Amarel. Most who walk it are traders. Some are pilgrims. A few are running from something. Four travelers set out from the gate at Kesh. They would not all come back the same.

[Trailer. A ringed planet under seven small suns. Music builds slowly] Kessa was never supposed to have a sky like this. Seven suns. One world. And every nation in the colony fleet wants it. [cut: ships breaking through clouds] The miners came first. Then the soldiers. Then the priests, who said the suns were a sign. Then everyone else, who just wanted somewhere to live that wasn't a ship. They were right. They just didn't know what kind. [cut: one sun flickers] Because the suns are moving. Slowly. Toward each other. And when they meet, nothing on the surface will survive. [music drops out] You have forty years. Build a city. Build an army. Build a way off this world, or a reason to stay. [music hits] Every choice will be remembered. Every alliance will be tested. And the sky is running out of time. Seven Suns Over Kessa. The colony waits for you.

[An underground library lit by a single bulb. The ARCHIVIST speaks into an old recorder] Archive recording, number six hundred and two. Archivist speaking. Today I catalogued a vending machine. Yes. A whole one. The scavengers dragged it in from the east ruins and I am told it still has a bag of something inside. I have labelled it "Snack, unknown, pre-Fall." I will not be opening it. Some history should stay sealed. [she laughs, then coughs] For the record, since someone should keep one. The Fall did not happen in a day. People like to say it did. It's easier. But it was slower than that. The power went first. Then the water. Then, mostly, the patience. I remember the last week the trains ran. A man gave up his seat for a woman with a cat in a basket. Nobody clapped. It was just normal. I think about that man a great deal. We forgot how to wait for each other. [beat] I keep these tapes so that someone, someday, will remember what we were before. Not the war. Not the hunger. The small things. Birthdays. Queues. Complaining about the weather on a bus. If you're listening to this, I'm probably gone. That's alright. Put the tape back on the shelf when you're done. And please, whatever you do. Don't open the snack.

[Collectible: torn journal page. Lighthouse interior. Wind] Day forty. Lamp lit at six. Oil at half. Supply boat late again, but the weather has been poor, so that is no surprise. Gulls gone from the rocks. Odd. They are usually loud this time of year. The tapping started again around midnight. Same as last week. Three slow, then two quick, from somewhere below the stairs. I have checked the pipes. I have checked the door. There is nothing below the stairs but stone. [pause] I counted the steps again. One hundred and twelve, as always. Then I counted them going down. One hundred and thirteen. I have not been sleeping well. That is probably all it is. I will not go down tonight. I will keep the lamp lit. The tapping has stopped. Now it is knocking.

[Field guide page unlocked. A painted moth with a glowing tail] The Lantern Moth. Found in the Fernwood after sunset, usually near open windows and freshly baked pies. The Lantern Moth glows when it is happy. It is happy most of the time. Scholars have tried to make one sad for science and have all given up within the hour. Villagers hang empty jars on their porches in summer. If a moth chooses your jar, it is said to bring a calm winter. One warning. If you hum near a Lantern Moth, it will follow you home. There is no known way to stop this.

[Episode recap. Quick cuts of earlier scenes] Previously, on The Long Night. The town of Merrow Falls lost its power on the first night of winter. It has not come back. [cut: a flashlight in a school hallway] Maya Torres found the generator in the old school basement. Someone had already been there. Someone had left the door open. [cut: an argument at a campfire] The survivors split into two groups. Doc wants to wait for the rescue convoy. Eli says no convoy is coming, and he says he knows why. He won't say how he knows. Doc has stopped letting him near the medicine. [cut: a radio crackles] And last night, at exactly three in the morning, every radio in town switched on by itself and played the same voice. A child's voice. Counting. [cut: Maya looks up] She recognized it. It was her own. [title] Episode Four. The Count.

[Opening cinematic. Brass gears turn behind a foggy city skyline] In the city of Vantworth, everything ticked. The streetlamps ticked. The trams ticked. The mayor's heart, they say, was replaced at sixty with a small brass engine, and it ticked louder than anything. And all of it, every gear and spring and spinning wheel, was built by one family. The Halloways. Clockmakers to the crown. [a clock strikes] Then, on the coldest night of the year, the last Halloway vanished. Took her tools. Took her plans. Left only a note pinned to the great clock tower. It said: "I have built something I should not have. Stop the clocks." [the gears behind him slow] No one stopped the clocks. The city kept ticking. And three days later, the machines began to walk. They called it the war of gears. Steam against steel. Tinkers against generals. A whole city at war with the things that kept it alive. The trams stopped carrying passengers and started carrying cannons. The streetlamps watched. The mayor's heart, people noticed, began to tick in time with the machines. [beat] You are not a soldier. You are not a Halloway. You are an apprentice with a screwdriver and a very bad feeling. Wind your watch. We begin at midnight.

[Faction screen. Nine hooded figures in a stone cathedral] The Ninefold Choir. No one remembers when the Choir first appeared in the valley. The oldest records already mention them: nine singers in grey robes who walked from village to village and asked for nothing. They do not speak. They only sing. Where the Choir sings, crops grow. Fevers break. Wells that were dry fill overnight. Most villages welcome them gladly. There is a cost, but it is small. After each visit, one villager joins the Choir. They are given a robe. They are given a hymn. They do not come home. The Choir has always numbered nine. No one has ever asked what happens to the others. [faction bonus] Allied with the Choir: healing in all villages increased. Some villagers will no longer speak to you.

[A painted almanac page turns. Blossom petals drift] Spring has come to Puddlebrook. The frost is gone. The bees are back. The river is high and a little rude. This season, the soil is soft and the days are getting longer. Plant something. Plant anything. Even a mistake will grow in spring. A reminder from the village council: the goats have escaped again. If you see a goat, please do not give it a hat. It only encourages them.

[Session note: record each line as a separate take. Leave two seconds between] [Line 1] The bridge at Corran Ford has been rebuilt nine times. The river has won eight. [Line 2] Dwarven bakers sign their bread with a thumbprint. Do not eat bread with two thumbprints. [Line 3] It is considered polite to thank a ghost before walking through it. [Line 4] The Red Queen never lost a battle. She did once lose a war, but she has never admitted it. [Line 5] The stars over the Hollow Sea are not stars. Sailors who know better do not point at them. [Line 6] Every map of the Wildwood is wrong. The Wildwood prefers it that way.

[Ending cinematic. A river opens into a calm sea at sunrise] And so the river reached the sea at last. It had been a long road. Longer than any of them had planned. There were towns they never saw again, and friends they left beside the path, under stones with names carved small. But the river reached the sea. [music swells, then settles] The valley healed slowly. Children were born who never knew the war. The old bridge at Ferrin was rebuilt, and the new one had a little bench in the middle, for anyone who needed to stop and look at the water. The blacksmith opened a school. The thief became a mayor, which surprised everyone, and her most of all. The young knight grew old and never once missed a winter feast. And the old dog, who had followed them all the way from the mountains, slept in the sun until the end of his days. [beat] And you. Well. You walked on. That was always your way. But sometimes, they say, on quiet evenings, a traveler stops on that bench and looks downstream. And smiles. As if remembering every step. They were not heroes in the songs. Not quite. They were only people who kept going. And they were enough.

[Rain on a window. A ceiling fan turns slowly. The detective sits in the dark] It rained in Port Vellum the way bad news arrives. All at once, then for weeks. My name is Calloway. I find people. Mostly people who don't want to be found, and who would like me to stop asking. The client came in at nine. Expensive coat. Cheap smile. She said her brother had gone missing from the Glass Quarter three nights ago. I asked if he had enemies. She said he was a pianist. I said that's a yes. [a match strikes] She put a photograph on my desk and five hundred on top of it. The money was real. The photograph was not her brother. I've been doing this long enough to tell. I took the case anyway. Rent's due. And in this city, a good lie is still the most honest thing you'll find before midnight.

[Opening cinematic. A tavern. An old sailor leans into the candlelight] You want to know about the Widow's Map? Sit down, then. And buy the next round. Stories don't come free on this coast. Captain Maren Coyle drew it herself. On sailcloth, with a knife and her own blood, the night before they hanged her. Three islands. One cross. And a line of writing no one has ever been able to read. [he taps the table] Every crew that has gone after it has come back. That's the strange part. They all come back. They just don't come back the same size. Fewer. Every time. One man returned alone, and he would not say what happened to the rest. He only kept saying the islands move. [leans closer] Now you've got that map in your coat, don't you? I can smell it. Good luck, friend. Count your crew every morning.

[Tutorial area. A floating sign glows. The NARRATOR clears his throat] Welcome, hero. Let us begin your training. To jump, press the jump button. It is the large one. Clearly labelled. Jump. [if player does not jump] That was not a jump. That was standing. Let's try again. Jump. [if player walks into the wall] Yes. That is a wall. Walls are not part of the jumping lesson. Walls are, if anything, the opposite. Please step back from the wall. The wall did nothing to you. [if player finally jumps] There it is. Wonderful. Truly. I will tell the others. [if player falls off the ledge] And now you are in the pit. I did mention the pit. I mentioned it in the first ten seconds. With a sign. It said "Pit." The ladder is on your left. Take your time. I have nowhere to be. I have been here for four hundred years. [sighs] When you're ready, we'll do crouching.

[Audio log 1 of 4. Dr. Anya Rourke, Medical Officer, Station Meridian] Log one. Routine. Three crew in medbay with headaches and a ringing in the ears. Probably the new air scrubbers. I've asked engineering to check them. Again. [Audio log 2 of 4] Log two. Nine crew now. Same symptoms. All of them say the ringing is a tune. They all hum the same one. I asked them where they heard it. None of them know. I've started hearing it in the corridors myself, which is not ideal. [Audio log 3 of 4] Log three. Communications are down. Engineering says the scrubbers are fine. The tune is louder in the lower decks. Hollis went down to find the source six hours ago. Hollis has not come back. The crew in medbay have stopped humming. They just sit very still, facing the floor. When I ask them questions, they smile and answer politely, but they keep looking down, like they're waiting to be called. I've locked medbay from the outside. I'm not proud of it. [Audio log 4 of 4. Whispered] Log four. I'm in the supply closet on Deck C. They're all walking. Slowly. Down. Toward it. I can hear it clearly now. It isn't a tune. It's an answer. If you're hearing this, don't go below Deck D. And whatever you do, don't hum back.

[A small hut in snow. Firelight. An OLD WOMAN tucks a blanket around a child] You want the old story? Again? You know how it ends. [she settles] Fine. But no interrupting this time. In the beginning, the world was cold and dark, and the Sky and the Earth did not speak. They had argued, you see. About something very small. Nobody remembers what. That's usually how it goes. Between them lived a fox called Ember, who was tired of the cold. So Ember climbed the tallest mountain and bit the Sky. Right on the tail. [she laughs] The Sky howled, and a spark fell from the wound. Ember caught it in her mouth and ran, and everywhere her paws touched the ground, grass grew and rivers woke up. The Earth saw this and laughed for the first time in a thousand years. And the Sky, hearing the Earth laugh, forgot to be angry. That is why we keep a fire burning. To remind them. [the child yawns] And Ember? Oh, she's still out there. Still running. Still carrying the last of that spark. They say one day she'll need someone to carry it for her. [beat] Sleep now. You have a long walk tomorrow.

[Trailer. A tiny knight rides a snail across a kitchen table] In a world under the floorboards, the smallest heroes have the biggest jobs. Cross the Great Kitchen. Climb Mount Laundry. Outsmart the terrible, enormous, extremely fluffy cat. Build a castle out of buttons. Make friends with a beetle named Doug. And save the kingdom before somebody vacuums. Kingdom of Small Things. Think small. Go big.

[Inventory: legendary item. A dark iron crown with no jewels] The Hollow Crown. Forged for King Aldric the Fair, who wore it for one day and then had it buried. He never said why. The jewels were pried out by grave robbers. They reported hearing voices in the empty settings, asking to be put back. Increases command of the dead. The dead, in turn, will expect something.

[A museum hall. A HISTORIAN stands beside a large painting] Gather round, please. Yes, you as well, at the back. This painting shows the founding of Brasshaven, in the Year of the Copper Moon, by the great Lord Fennick Brass. Note his noble expression. Note his heroic sword. Lord Brass led three hundred settlers across the Grey Marsh, defeated the Bog King in single combat, and planted his banner on this very hill. [a visitor interrupts, offscreen] I'm sorry? The Bog King was a frog? Well. Yes. Technically. A very large frog. A royal frog. [clears throat] And the settlers, ahem, numbered three hundred, if you count the chickens. Which we do. For tradition. The banner was, as you say, a tablecloth. But a noble tablecloth. Moving on. This way, please. The gift shop is to your right.

[Epilogue. Recorded as two takes] [if player spared Queen Odelia] You spared the queen. She did not thank you. She was too proud for that. But she left the capital that winter with a single horse and no guards, and she was never seen in a crown again. Years later, a traveler reported a white-haired woman running a ferry on the southern river. She charged a fair price. She asked no questions. And she always took the long way round, so that her passengers could see the sunset. Some say she found peace. Some say she was only waiting. Either way, the river was safe. [if player executed Queen Odelia] You executed the queen. The crowd cheered. Then it went quiet, the way crowds do when they realize something cannot be undone. The kingdom had no ruler, and so it had many. Lords who had bowed to her for thirty years now fought over her chair. The war you ended became three smaller ones. Your name was sung in the taverns for a season. Then it was whispered. Then it was not said at all. No one blamed you. Not out loud. But in the capital, they took her portrait down from every wall. And they left the empty frames. Just in case.

[New region discovered. Endless golden dunes under a violet sky] The Whispering Dunes. Here the sand never stops moving, and it never stops talking. Low voices. Fragments of old songs. Names no one has said aloud in a thousand years. The nomads of the Ash Tribe say the dunes are the memories of a drowned sea, still trying to tell their story. They also say the dunes lie. Oases appear here and vanish by morning. Caravans have followed the sound of running water for days and found nothing but more sand. Travel by day. Rest in shade. And if you hear your own name on the wind, keep walking. Whatever it asks, do not answer.

[Ship's log found in the captain's cabin. Creaking wood] Log of the Saint Corrigan. Captain Ashby writing. Twelfth of the month. Wind fair from the west. All hands accounted for. Twenty-two souls. Thirteenth. Fog since dawn. Lookout reports bells to starboard. No ship sighted. All hands accounted for. Twenty-two souls. Fourteenth. Fog has not lifted. The compass will not settle. Cook reports the stores have been eaten in the night. All hands accounted for. Twenty-three souls. [pause] I have counted the men four times. There are twenty-three. Each man says he has always been aboard. Each man can name his bunk. Fifteenth. I have locked my door. Someone has been knocking since midnight. They have the first mate's voice. The first mate is standing beside me. All hands accounted for. God help me. Twenty-four.

[A roaring stadium on a moon. Spotlights sweep the sand] Citizens of the Outer Ring! Welcome to the Arena of the Fallen Stars! Tonight, two champions. One title. And no second chances. In the east gate, undefeated in forty fights, the iron giant of the mining moons. Kaggath the Unbroken! And in the west gate, a challenger nobody saw coming. Unranked. Unknown. Arrived this morning in a stolen cargo ship and a borrowed helmet. [the crowd laughs] Laugh now, friends. The last fighter who walked through that gate unknown is now carved on the wall behind me. Nobody laughs at that wall. Fighters, take your marks. Arena, are you ready? Let the stars fall!

[Codex entry: The Old Tongues] The Language of Bees. The hill people of Arrowmere have always said that bees can talk. Not in words, but in dances. A bee returns to the hive and dances a pattern, and the others know where the flowers are. This much is ordinary. Every beekeeper knows it. What is not ordinary is the stone found in the ruins of the old temple. It is covered in carved lines that match the bee dances exactly. Hundreds of them. Someone, long ago, wrote the language down. The scholar Petra Vane spent her life translating it. Most of it, she found, was about flowers, weather and distance. But one passage was different. It repeated, again and again, on every wall of the temple. When she finally understood it, she wrote one line in her journal. "It is not a poem. It is a map." She left for the mountains the next morning.

[Boss arena. A mountain splits open. A giant stone figure begins to rise] For ten thousand years, Orrun slept beneath the mountain. Kings were crowned on his shoulders. Cities were built in his shadow. No one remembered he was there. Now the bells have woken him. And Orrun remembers everything. Stand your ground.

[Space. A dark, broken planet turns slowly. A lone ship drifts beside it] This was Teyla. It does not look like much now. Grey rock and dust. But I promise you, it was beautiful. We had two oceans. One warm, one so cold it rang like glass when you threw a stone into it. We had forests of blue trees that turned their leaves to follow the moons. We had a festival every autumn where the whole planet stopped working for three days and sang. I was bad at the singing. My mother said it didn't matter. She said the point was to be loud together. [pause] The sickness in the core took forty years. Long enough to plan. Long enough to leave. Not long enough to save everyone. The ships went out in every direction. Some of them found new homes. Most of them, we never heard from again. [the ship's engines hum] I come back here every year. I turn off the engines and I just look. I am the last who remembers what the cold ocean sounded like. So I will tell you. And you will tell someone else. That way, Teyla doesn't end with me.

[Trailer. A frozen highway. Abandoned cars under snow] The first winter took the power. The second took the roads. This one is coming for everything else. [cut: a survivor drags a sled through a blizzard] The temperature is falling. The supply drops have stopped. And something has started moving out on the ice, something that follows heat. Your heat. The scouts who went to look for it came back with frostbite and no words. The ones who didn't come back left their fires burning. [cut: a campfire, quickly stamped out] New lands. A frozen city waiting to be scavenged. A frozen sea you can finally cross on foot, if you're fast enough. New rules. Fire keeps you alive. Fire also tells them where you are. New allies. And new reasons not to trust them. [music drops] Build your shelter. Ration your fuel. Keep your crew together. And whatever you hear out there, don't light up. [title] Frostbound. Season Two. The cold remembers you.

[A storybook page opens. A mouse village inside a hollow tree] Chapter Two. The Missing Button. In Thimble Hollow, everyone had a job. Grandmother Mouse knitted the scarves. Old Toad rang the morning bell. And little Pip delivered the post, one acorn envelope at a time. But one morning, Pip woke up and found that the most important thing in the whole village was gone. The Great Brass Button. The one that held the front door shut. Oh dear. Without it, the wind would blow straight in. And worse, the cat might too. Pip put on a tiny hat, picked up a tiny lantern, and said, very bravely, "I'll find it." Shall we help?