Your name is Wilhelm, a prospective writer and recreational violinist. You have travelled all across Europe in an attempt to escape your life of poverty, finding refuge in the most unlikely of places. This foreign empire has been quite hospitable to you since you answered their secret telegram back in Paris, but you can't help the nauseous sense of alarm bubbling within your belly.

Nevertheless, you are an English speaker. You are an invaluable asset to these people and they are willing to pay a generous price for your service. You stand alone in your sun-kissed lodging. What will you do?

You try fruitlessly to return the favour.

You never learned to fiddle, so for now we'll call it your VIOLIN. You are about to dive right into a haunting refrain when you realise you must've left your BOW back in Europe.

You can't believe you'd be so negligent.

It's your AUTHORIAL TOME. You use it to practice prose and write shorter fiction. You consider piecing together a few verselets, but it seems you forgot your PRICELESS FOUNTAIN PEN too.

Jesus, you really are a screw-up.

Why, they're your reading glasses. You use them to light ants on fire.

It looks like someone's at your door. You wonder if it's the men come to bring you your furniture.

What's this?

Your door does not have a window.

WILHELM UNLOCKED A NEW SKILL: LENSE LIGHTER.

This ability will be available to you for as long as you have the spectacles in your inventory.

You're sure glad that fire didn't spread to your extremely flammable living quarters.

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that doing such a thing would make you a state enemy. You doubt your glasses could produce enough heat to light up the door. Perhaps if you had something to stoke a larger flame, like a disposable piece of paper, you could set something like a door on fire. Something like that note that you so carelessly burnt.

Hello? Avtokrat? Mrs. Godunov?

No one is here. The messenger must have took off while you were busy shitting about in your room.

It's locked. You'll need to find a key, or maybe some sort of blunt object.

It's a flyer for a musical performer, Anastasiya. You've been told she's lodging in this very cottage, but you've yet to meet her. This particular show is titled "The Harvester".

It mustn't be a very popular show, because there's only a single date on the poster. It's difficult to make out in the dark, but it's slotted for exactly a week from now.

You're sure no one will mind if you take this with you. It's quite an odd place for a poster anyway. Probably Anastasiya herself put it here.

You descend into the BACK-ROOM. It's awfully drafty down here.

This door leads into the cottage proper, but it's locked. The handle is icy to the touch.