Calming visit

The calming visit is an Apothecary service for the residents of Hearth. In the user's words: "open a hole in the ground, an astrocyte tendril pokes out, vfx sparkles, and calming done."

How it works#

• Buy it in town for 3 Supply, at most once per return.
• It plays on your next arrival home, after the return's strain is counted.
• Every resident's stress falls by 2, and Hearth strain falls by 2. Neither goes straight to 0.
• It does not use the return's one recovery step, because it acts on residents, not on the Ranger.

What plays#

About 3 seconds, once:

1. A small ground opening appears.
2. An astrocyte process reaches up through it, in the approved rope-tendril style.
3. A sparkle passes along the process and out to the residents.
4. The residents play rest, then idle.
5. The process withdraws, and the opening closes.

It plays in Stella's supported area, west of the north line, clear of the walking lines and visible from the plaza. The same effect serves Link in rooms, but there the process stays up.

In the brain#

The visitor is an anchored astrocyte reaching up, the user's choice. No body travels, because astrocytes stay put and act through their processes. It is not a doctor and sells no treatment: calm comes from neighbours' contact, not a dose. The user first wrote "doctor", but cells must never be humanoid and nothing is sold as treatment.

Development#

• 1 Nov: the user redesigned the Apothecary ("nothing bottled") and set the look. 2 Nov: the user approved the redesign after fresh HUD shots.
• Claude B built buyCalmingVisit and calmingArrival. The alpha's Threadway Apothecary sells it, and the alpha's return calls calmingArrival.
• The ground opening, tendril and sparkle are VFX work listed as gap 6 in doc 31.

See also#

Companion stress · Hearth strain · Supported ground · Apothecary · Astrocyte

Sources#

1. 215bfbf88:docs/game-balance/31-turn-based-encounters.mdcopy
2. b89f778c2:src/main-game/alpha/public/encounter/src/services/catalog.jscopy
3. b89f778c2:src/main-game/game/state.jscopy