in: Story, Side stories, Quests, Recruitment quests
The Uninteresting Ones
Approved Quest · facts checked 2 November 2026
The Uninteresting Ones is the side story of Mote. Mote fears that small things stay invisible until somebody important decides they matter. The story ends when Mote can stop an investigation, report uncertainty and still value the work.
Steps#
| Step | Title | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| M0 | A pause between two pulses | Prologue P2 | Mote watches the gap after a pulse. A mark is added only if the Ranger really saw the cycle. |
| M1 | The unremarkable sample | Act I, after I3 | Two patches, one changed and one ordinary. Mote wants both recorded. |
| M2 | The one-off order | Act II, II3 | The single supervised order to Mote before any recruit. Optional. Grants nothing lasting. |
| M3 | A report that might be wrong | After II5–II6 | A report of "new visitors" at the border needs better evidence. |
| M4 | East watch, not a prize | II7 | Mote takes the east-line watch at Hearth. Not recruitment. |
| M5 | The question that has legs | III6 | Optional field invitation. The Ranger shows who covers the watch, then invites Mote. |
| M6 | The corrected report | III7 | The report is corrected, alone or with Mote. The finding is the same either way. |
| M7 | Uninteresting, and kept | Late Act III | Mote sorts records into observed, inferred and still unknown. Completes the story. |
| M8 | The work continues without Ranger | Epilogue | An ambient coda. No reward. |
“Nothing happened. I checked twice.”
Recruitment#
Step M5 is Mote's recruitment step, mote:M5. It is optional and independent of the story's completion at M7. The player can accept, choose "not this outing" or decline. If Mote is the first recruit, the Coordinator unlocks. Before inviting, the player must show how Mote's east-line watch is covered or accept a visible gap. See Recruitment.
Reward#
Completing M7 unlocks the Imprint Clear Interval once. The dossier describes it as keeping real timing and route cues readable a little longer. It does not grant Survey or recruit Mote.
Development#
- Design: the dossier (Part IV) stages every step. Its scenes and dialogue are proposals; the user approved implementing the side plot on 31 October.
- Rules: Claude B's side-story catalog (
claude/skillsda795feb, pinned in the alpha) encodes the steps. M5 carriesrecruits: 'observer'. The user ruled on 2 November that recruitment goes only through quests. - Rooms: the user approved Claude A's room layouts
paired-patches(M1) andcorrected-report(M6 Version B) on 31 October. - In the alpha The Placeholder alpha's controller records
watched-cycle, which M0 needs. It does not record the M1 patch evidence, and no chapter after II1 exists, so the story cannot progress past its start there. This wiki has read the code, not played it.
See also#
Sources#
- .GAME_PLAN/ARBORWAKE_COMPANIONS_NARRATIVE_AND_SYSTEMS_DOSSIER_v0.5.md (working copy, not in Git)
- .GAME_PLAN/ARBORWAKE_THE_LONG_WAKE_v0.5_CHANGE_HANDOFF.md (working copy, not in Git)
b89f778c2:src/main-game/game/vendor/services/sidequests/catalog.jsb89f778c2:src/main-game/game/controller.js
What links here (24)
- Act I: The Long Wake
- Act II: The Boundary Is Not a Wall
- Act III: What Stays After the Signal
- Act IV: The Interval
- Act V: The Break
- An Errand That Was Already Underway
- An Hour Without a Request
- Arborwake: The Long Wake
- Clear Interval
- Ensemble scenes
- Epilogue: The Next Ordinary Day
- Evening Pair
- Imprints
- Mote
- Prologue: The Last Regular Evening
- Recruitment
- Someone Else's Shift
- The Border of an Agreement
- The Five Stretches
- The Names at the Edge
- The Part Between
- The Stretch Between Neighbours
- Who Takes the New Road?
- Withdrawn story directions