Boxtown

Civilization

Population: everyone who ever came. Don't bother trying your door.

At a glance

Kind of world	Civilization
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	Settled Coherence
Quests	Yes: see your Traveler's Guide

Screenshot comingboxtown-stack

Looking up the red canyon from the Drop: the walls stacked twenty Boxes high, painted and patched, strung with laundry lines, a crane on top

What happens when you arrive

Your Box lands with a thud at the bottom of the Drop, a pit in a red canyon at the edge of salt flats. Your core dims with a sound like a sigh. Your Serum stutters and goes out. When you step outside, the canyon walls are stacked twenty high with Boxes: everyone who ever landed here, painted and patched and turned into houses, strung with laundry. A kid on a roof by the crane shouts down: "New one! Mayor's gonna want to see you! Don't bother trying your door again, it won't work."

He's right. Welcome to Boxtown. Population: everyone who ever came.

The rule: nobody leaves

Under the salt flats something called the Hum drinks every core dry.

What's different	What it means for you
Serum fizzles	Any dose you take here fizzles out. Your injector stays sealed so you don't waste an ampoule.
Boxes are dead	No Box carries you out, and sliding remotes open nothing.
The quiet hour	The one exception. You'll find it in the story.
Peaceful	No monsters spawn, and nobody in town takes a swing at anyone.
Somebody's home	You can only build on your own house and out on the flats. Everything else is someone's home.
Beds work	Unusually, you can sleep here.

The people

Who	Where	Who they are
Mayor Odessa Finch	Desk in the Town Hall by day, the Chapel's altar step in the evening.	Thirty-one years here. Warm, unhurried, and "too kind".
Rust	His roof by the Drop.	The kid who watches the Drop. Born here. Has never seen rain.
Old Kettle	The oldest Box out on the flats, past the wrecks, east side.	Two hundred years here, near enough. Talks about the Hum.
Magpie	The Market.	The scrapper. Buys salvage.
Tinker Halvard	The Market.	Fixes what's broken, sells what's not. Can read anything.
Big Lu	The Market.	The cook. First flatbread's free.
Ana Duarte	Later: a stripped Box past the canyon mouth.	A new arrival who won't talk to the mayor.
Temi and Dayo Okoro	Their camp by the canyon mouth.	Brothers who race for every Box the storms drop.
Mrs. Ilves, Tobiah, Maren and Jun	Around the Stack and the Chapel.	Townsfolk with stories of their own (see below).

Screenshot comingboxtown-market

The Market of Fifty Worlds at the head of the canyon: Magpie's scrap stall, Halvard's workbench, Big Lu's stew pot

Your quest: from newcomer to the way out

The quest tracker walks you through each part.

Part	Step	What to do
New One	1	Find Mayor Odessa at her desk in the Town Hall. She gives you a slot on the Stack and 2 Dead Cores.
	2	Climb back into your Box in the Drop. Bertha, the crane, lifts it up the canyon wall into your slot. It's your house now.
Settling In	3	Sell Boneyard salvage (the wrecks out on the flats past the canyon mouth) to Magpie for Dead Cores.
	4	Show Odessa five Dead Cores. She only looks; you keep them. You're one of the town now.
The Readings	5	Buy a Coherence Meter from Halvard (4 cores).
	6	Take a reading over the Hum, out on the flats. The needle drops below nothing.
	7	Visit Old Kettle in his Box on the flats.
The Ledger	8	Read Odessa's Ledger on her desk.
	9	Ask Odessa about her ledger.
	10	On a quiet night at midnight: dose, Box, door.

The secret in the ledger (spoilers)

Old Kettle has noticed that the mayor walks out onto the Hum every second night at midnight with a lantern and a book. Her ledger shows why: "Every second night, at midnight, a tick and the word 'quiet'. An hour or two. The cores light. A Box could go."

The Hum stops every second night, starting at midnight, for about two in-game hours (roughly a minute and forty seconds of real time). Every dead core in the Stack flickers. During the quiet hour your Serum holds and a Box with a working core can leave. Odessa found it in her third year and never told anyone, because if everyone left, there would be no Boxtown.

When you confront her she tells you the truth, and if you have no Serum Ampoule or injector of your own, she gives you one of each. Dose at midnight on a quiet night, get in your Box (your house works), shut the door.

Once you've left that way, you can come and go from Boxtown as you like. Bertha sets you down at your own front door every time.

After you come back: the stripped Boxes

Part	Step	What to do
The Stripped Boxes	11	A storm dropped stripped Boxes past the mouth. Find Ana Duarte in hers.
	12	Ask Ana for her plate. She gives you a Filed Registration Plate.
	13	Take it to Halvard at the Market. Under his lamp, the stamp comes up.
	14	Tell Odessa what the plate says.
Maintenance Night	15	Go to the Chapel in the evening, when the bell rings, and tell the town.
The Far End	16	(If you pledged it) stop Port Threshold's Gate Engine.

What the plate says, and the town meeting (spoilers)

The stamp reads: IMPOUNDED. BOX AUTHORITY, PORT THRESHOLD. DEPORTED, NO RETURN. The Hum is Port Threshold's Gate Engine, a crossing far away drinking this world dry to keep its gates open, and every stripped Box that falls on the flats is somebody they turned away.

At the Chapel the whole town gathers, Odessa tells them everything, and you decide what happens next. It's decided once, for the whole town:

Ending	Your choice	What changes
Everyone Home	"Everyone goes home."	Odessa sends her whole hoard of cores to the Drop, and they fly people home in shifts every quiet night. On later visits half the Stack stands empty, doors open, notes inside. Rust has gone to see the rain. Odessa gives you a letter from Rust and a bundle of notes from the empty Boxes.
Open Town	"We stop the drain at its source."	A pledge: the town can't do it alone. It happens when Port Threshold's story ends with the Open Crossing or Lights Out, whoever ends it. Then the Hum is gone for good, doors open all down the Stack, Serum works here, and the Market fills with travelers who chose to come.
Odessa's Secret	"Keep the secret."	You become Odessa's deputy, the one who comes and goes. The town stays as it is. Bring her food from other worlds and she pays 1 Dead Core for every 2 (up to 16 at a time; anything edible except Big Lu's flatbread).

If you pledge and change your mind while you wait, you can still tell Odessa to tell everyone, or to keep it quiet.

Whatever you choose, Odessa gives you her Wayfinder's Lantern and a Spare Core from her hoard.

Odessa's gifts

Item	What it does
Wayfinder's Lantern	Held, it leans toward the way back: the arrival Box, the last door you came through, or home, with the distance in blocks.
Spare Core	Once: hold it up inside any world's arrival Box and it carries you home, no Serum needed. Then it's a Spent Spare Core. Bring it to Odessa and she wakes it again.

Salvage and money

Boxtown's money is the Dead Core: a drained core stamped with the day its Box came down.

The Boneyard is the field of wrecks out on the flats. Break them down and sell the pieces to Magpie. The Coherence Meter points you to the nearest wreck ("Wreck signal: N blocks north-east").

Magpie buys (for 1 Dead Core each)

You give	You get
8 Rusted Box Panels	1 Dead Core
4 Stripped Box Panels	1 Dead Core
4 Rusted Girders	1 Dead Core
2 Old Model Panels	1 Dead Core
2 Box Portholes	1 Dead Core
2 Cable Spools	1 Dead Core
2 Settled Coherence	1 Dead Core
16 Salt Crust	1 Dead Core
1 Old Model Trim	1 Dead Core
1 Dead Box Door	1 Dead Core
1 Old Dead Core	4 Dead Cores
1 Black Box Recorder	8 Dead Cores

Even salt pays, so you can earn without a pickaxe.

Halvard sells

You give	You get
4 Dead Cores	Coherence Meter
1 Dead Core	2 Salvage Flags
1 Dead Core	2 Salvage Lanterns, 2 Cable Spools, 2 Laundry Lines, 2 Box Portholes, 1 Dead Box Door, or 8 Rusted Box Panels
1 Dead Core	8 Painted Box Panels (any colour)

Big Lu sells

You give	You get
1 Dead Core	2 Salt Flatbread
1 Dead Core	1 Mushroom Stew, 3 Baked Potatoes, 1 Honey Bottle, or 4 Cookies
2 Dead Cores	1 Rabbit Stew, or 2 Cooked Mutton

Arrival Storms and salvage rights

Every third morning red dust rolls in off the flats (and a newcomer gets their first one soon after moving in). Rust yells "Storm!" from his roof, and over about three minutes three Boxes streak down onto the salt past the canyon mouth:

• Stripped Boxes from Port Threshold's Box Authority: bare panels, nobody inside.
• Lived-in Boxes, in somebody's home colours, with a frightened traveler still inside.
• The big one: an old model nobody recognises, with its recorder intact.

Salvage rights go to the first flag on the roof. Use a Salvage Flag beside a fresh landing to claim it (Magpie gives every new one their first flag free). The Okoro brothers run for every landing from their camp; Dayo always goes for the big one. Beat them and the Box is yours: its chest holds 1 to 3 Dead Cores, whatever its traveler carried from their world, and some painted panels. The big one also holds an Old Dead Core and a Black Box Recorder. The shell is salvage too.

Screenshot comingboxtown-storm

Red dust over the salt flats, a Box streaking down out of the sky, Dayo Okoro sprinting toward the landing

Out of the Storm: if a lived-in Box still has its traveler inside, go and tell them where they are. They walk the road into town, and the town pays you 3 Dead Cores.

The Okoro Brothers: the Okoros' own Box came down with its recorder smashed; they open every Box hoping one remembers the road home. Bring a Black Box Recorder to Temi at the camp. Magpie pays 8 cores for it, or you can share it with the Okoros. Share it and you're crew: they give you the Salvage Buggy.

The Salvage Buggy

Built from four wrecks and an old air pump, it drives in any world. W and S throttle and brake (then reverse), A and D steer. It's quicker off the line than a jeep and faster flat out, climbs a block without slowing, throws up a dust trail, and seats two. It lives in your Garage on the Companion Wheel; the Salvage Buggy Key calls it or puts it away.

The townsfolk's stories

Who	What they want	Reward
Mrs. Ilves (east wall)	To mend her Box the way it was, to sit in it and remember the rain: a Box Porthole, a Salvage Lantern ("the wire-jar kind") and a Dead Core.	4 Dead Cores
Tobiah (west wall)	He has forgotten which world was his. Take Tobiah's Plate to Halvard, with a pinch of Settled Coherence to eat the salt off the stamp.	An Old Dead Core and 2 Dead Cores
Maren and Jun (by the Chapel)	Maren is afraid one Box can't carry two people to one world. Ask Halvard. Then bring him 2 Dead Cores and he'll cut them Core Rings.	3 Dead Cores

How the stories end (spoilers)

Tobiah is from Coldhearth. It snowed, and he had a dog called Moss. Halvard's answer for Maren is yes: two in one Box go wherever the one who dosed is going.

Your house

Your slot on the Stack is a real Box with its door facing the canyon. Everything you build on and around it stays. If the Box itself is broken, it's rebuilt the next time you're set down in it. Once you're free to come and go, it carries you like any other Box.

What to bring home

• Salvage blocks for building: Rusted, Stripped and Painted Box Panels, Old Model Panels and Trim, Box Portholes, Dead Box Doors, Cable Spools, Salvage Lanterns, Laundry Lines, Rusted Girders, Salt Crust.
• Settled Coherence (see below).
• Odessa's Wayfinder's Lantern and Spare Core.
• The Salvage Buggy, if you shared a recorder.

Serum and getting home

• The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules, but they won't work here until you find the quiet hour.
• Native stand-in: Settled Coherence, the glittering crust on the oldest Box panels. Use a Settled Panel and it gives up its crust (it grows back in a few minutes). It does nothing in Boxtown, but at home the Synthesizer takes it in place of Somnium Powder.
• The way out is the quiet hour: every second night from midnight. Dose, get in your Box, shut the door.

Tips

• Your first five cores take one wreck. Strip the nearest Boneyard wreck and sell it all to Magpie.
• Keep an eye on the clock: the quiet hour starts at midnight and doesn't last long. Be in your Box with your dose ready before it starts. Odessa's ledger tells you whether tonight's the night.
• Keep away from the Hum at night, as everyone warns you.
• Carry a stack of Salvage Flags when you hear Rust shout "Storm!" and run. The Okoros are fast.
• Bring food from other worlds if you become Odessa's deputy: the town pays for it.

Birds

Birds you can photograph for your bird log here. Open one to turn it round, watch it move and hear its call.

• Laundry Wren: common
• Hum Nightjar: rare

Everything this world adds

14 blocks and items (click to open)

Dead Core

Old Dead Core

Settled Coherence

Coherence Meter

Salt Flatbread

Filed Registration Plate

Wayfinder's Lantern

Spare Core

Spent Spare Core

Salvage Flag

Black Box Recorder

Salvage Buggy Key

Tobiah's Plate

Core Rings

The traveler's tape

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

My Serum died the second I landed. I've been here nine days. There's a whole town of us, stacked up the canyon walls in our own Boxes, and they gave me a house made out of mine. The kid on the roof by the crane knows everything. The mayor's kind. The mayor's too kind. I think she knows something. If you end up here: sell your salvage to the scrapper, keep away from the Hum at night, and watch where the mayor goes after dark.