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The Tacet Tower

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Stephen Reid edited this page Oct 5, 2026 · 5 revisions

Type: Ruined bell tower, and fortress of the None Loom
Region: The Forgotten Village, in The Memoir Mines
Built by: The Delvers of the Forgotten Village, long ago; taken by Null
Holds: The None Loom, one of The Denial Looms, and the stolen element Once's Warp Stones
Creatures: MemoryMoths: Flitters, Dusters and Pinners
Guardian: Murmur, a swarm of MemoryMoths
Status: Silent

"Every Delver in the Mines knew those bells. First peal, down you go. Last peal, come home. Then one day nobody rang them, and nobody came home, and nobody remembered there'd been anyone to come home at all."
-- Pell PealKeeper - Last Bellringer of the Forgotten Village

Overview

In music, tacet is the instruction for a part to fall silent. The Tacet Tower is a ruined bell tower at the heart of the Forgotten Village, deep in The Memoir Mines. For generations its bells rang through every tunnel of the Mines, signalling the start and end of each shift, so that every Delver knew when to go down and when to come home. When the village was forgotten, the bells fell silent, and the Tower was forgotten with it.

That is why Null chose it. A village forgotten twice over, by the people who lived there and by everyone who might have remembered them, is the one place in Threadbare where nobody would ever think to look. Somewhere in its belfry, the None Loom fixes every fibre into a forgetting. The Tacet Tower is None made into a place: nothing here remains.

The Forgotten Village

The Forgotten Village lies halfway between the Lantern Rows and the Deep Seams, behind gates that stayed sealed for as long as its name was lost. Its houses are cut into the rock of a great cavern, their doors still hung with Delvers' lamps, their tables still set. Nobody lives there now. Only the MemoryMoths move through its streets, and the LanternLichen on its walls has gone dark.

The StoryWeaver opens the village by restoring its name, retelling the stories of its people and matching names to deeds and places across the Mines (see The Memoir Mines). On first entering, they find the None Loom here, guarded by swarms of MemoryMoths, and must retreat to prepare.

The Tower

The Tower rises from the middle of the village square to the roof of the cavern, built of old mine stone and braced with timber, like the pit-props of the tunnels below. Mine-cart rails run in at its foot, and the winding gear that once lowered the Delvers' cages still hangs rusted to its side. Its stairs have fallen away in places, its floors are cracked open, and its bell ropes hang broken through the shafts between them.

At the top, the Tower's bells still hang in the belfry, silent, crusted with the dust of the Mines and thick with nesting moths. The None Loom stands among them.

The StoryWeaver climbs it floor by floor, through sound-based challenges and battles that test every skill they have: sneaking, grappling, battle and puzzle. The layout of each floor is still in development.

The StoryWeaver's Sound Kit

The combinations. In Pitch Perfect, in the temples of the Order of the Humming Hem in The Song Sanctuaries, Moss MothBane teaches the StoryWeaver the right combinations of notes and pitches for deterring MemoryMoths, in a music puzzle.

ChimeStones. To play those combinations, the StoryWeaver needs ChimeStones: small stones, each tuned to a single note and coloured to match it. When thrown, a ChimeStone rings out a pocket of vibration that no moth can settle in. Thrown in sequence, they play a tune. The ChimeStones are found at the Performance Playa, in the keeping of Rook RagRavel and the Tattered Troupe, and are earned in A Dress Rehearsal: the StoryWeaver takes the lead role in a play staged by the Troupe, sneaking, battling and acting their way past costumed actors playing InkDrinkers, Storyvores and other Fray, on a tiny stage of wooden props and painted backdrops.

Set pieces. The StoryWeaver can place:

  • HummingBells, planted to make a steady hum that holds a passage safe.
  • Tuning Forks, staked and struck, which stun one kind of moth across an area.
  • Wind Chimes, hung as a passive alarm that reveals hidden moths.

The Moths of the Tower

The None Loom weaves many kinds of MemoryMoth, and all of them are disturbed by vibration: none can settle where a true note is ringing. Three kinds are known (see MemoryMoths):

Kind What it does How the StoryWeaver drives it off
Flitters The regular MemoryMoths. They strike and slash at the StoryWeaver Any ChimeStone note scatters them
Dusters Sprinkle memory-dust across the ground as they fight. A StoryWeaver caught in a dust cloud forgets where they are, and finds themselves back at a random KnitWitch point A planted HummingBell, whose steady hum clears the dust
Pinners Land on the StoryWeaver and pin them down for a set time. Pinned too many times, the StoryWeaver unravels A ChimeStone combination, played in time, which shakes them off

Allies

  • Moss MothBane of the Order of the Humming Hem, found in the Song Sanctuaries, who teaches the StoryWeaver the combinations of notes MemoryMoths cannot bear.
  • Refrain RoundSong, Cantor of the Order, who welcomes the StoryWeaver to the temples of the Humming Hem.
  • Rook RagRavel and the Tattered Troupe, who give the StoryWeaver the ChimeStones after A Dress Rehearsal.
  • Tamber ToneForge, a SongSmith who travels with the Tattered Troupe, and tunes the ChimeStones used in its shows.
  • Pell PealKeeper, the last bellringer of the Forgotten Village, found in the belfry. She has forgotten almost everything, even her own name, but she still remembers the order of the bells, and hums it.
  • The Musician, who turns up where least expected, with a cryptic hint.

The Guardian

The guardian of the Tacet Tower is Murmur: a swarm of thousands of small MemoryMoths moving together as one. Murmur gathers itself into shapes, and each shape attacks in a different way:

  • The Whirlwind, which picks the StoryWeaver up and throws them.
  • The Hammer, which comes down to squash the StoryWeaver.
  • The Giant Moth, which slashes at the StoryWeaver.

The only way to beat Murmur is with the Tower's bells. The StoryWeaver must clear the moths from each bell and mend its rope, then ring the bells in the right order and at the right time, playing the old peal that once called the Delvers home. Pell PealKeeper hums the order. Every phrase that rings true disperses part of the swarm and weakens it, and Murmur re-forms smaller each time, changing its shape and its attack. A missed note gives the swarm time to gather again. When the last phrase rings out, Murmur can no longer hold together, and scatters into ordinary MemoryMoths that drift away into the tunnels.

With the bells ringing again, the StoryWeaver destroys the None Loom, which unravels back to loose fibre, and takes Once's Warp Stones home to the Eternal Loom. As the peal echoes through the Mines, the LanternLichen glows gold again along the walls of the Forgotten Village, and Pell PealKeeper remembers her name.

In the Threadbare Plot

The Tacet Tower ends the arc for the None Loom in Act Two of the Threadbare Plot, guided by the LoomWarden Echo. The StoryWeaver passes through LinenVille into the Memoir Mines, restores the name of the Forgotten Village, and finds the None Loom there. They retreat, learn the combinations of notes that deter MemoryMoths from Moss MothBane in the Song Sanctuaries, and earn the ChimeStones from the Tattered Troupe at the Performance Playa, before returning to the village to climb the Tower.

For Contributors

  • Silence is the enemy, sound is the tool. Every challenge in the Tower should turn on noise and its absence.
  • A working tower, forgotten. The Tower was built for the Mines. Keep it in the language of the Delvers: pit-props, cages, rails, lamps and shift bells.
  • Every moth has a counter. New moth kinds need a colour, a behaviour, and a note or combination that drives them off.
  • Remembering is the victory. The Tower is won by ringing the peal that brings the Delvers home, not by force. See Content Guidelines.

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