One of the main activities in Book of Hours is unlocking and refurbishing rooms. The first ones can be easy, but the requirements get harder for the more… guarded rooms. Here’s how you can get the requirements to unlock them.
Oh, and if you’re new to the game, check out my handy Getting Started guide for some tips and tricks.
How to unlock rooms
To unlock rooms, you will need assistance. This can be one of the villagers you’ve befriended, or some hired help from the Sweet Bones public house. But not just any assistance, your sacrifice help needs to be skilled in the right ways. The room above, for example, requires 6 Edge, OR 6 Forge, OR 6 Winter. That’s right, you only need to exceed one of the requirements.
If they meet the requirement, great! Drag them into the room and start exploring. If not, you will need to enhance their knowledge first.
I’m also working on a catalogue of rooms, with unlock requirements for each one.
To put it simply:
- Hire the right assistant
- Improve their skills
- Send them into the room before the day ends
How to hire assistance
Assistants are found in the village. You can hire four villagers with known stats, or explore the tavern for a semi-random passerby looking for work. Note that depending on the options you chose at the start, one of the villagers will be your friend and help you free of charge. Others will require recompense for their services.
Assistants only stick around until the end of the day.
The assistance you can get:
Denzil Smith
Found in the forge (the building on the right of town, below the post office). Talk to him with Health, Chor, Ereb, Shapt or Mettle. Has 2 Edge and 2 Forge. Will talk about Metal.
The Rector (Reverend Timothy)
Found in the Rectory (funny that), the builting at the top-right of town. Talk to him with Phost, Shapt or Wist. Has 1 Knock and 2 Lantern. Will talk about Candles.
Mr Kille (Coffinmaker)
Lives in a building to the left of the Rectory, at the top of the village with his wife. Use Wist at the house to draw out Mr. Kille, who has 1 Sky and 2 Winter. Will talk about Wood.
Mrs Kille (Midwife)
Lives in a building to the left of the Rectory with her husband. Use Chor or Ereb at the house to speak with Mrs. Kille, who has 2 Grail and 1 Heart. Will talk about Cloth.
Unusual Help (Passing By)
Go to the Sweet Bones tavern and put in any Soul Element, with money as the topic. This does not consume the coin.
When the search is complete, you will find a passer-by looking for work. While there are a few recurring characters, the one you get seems random. From the preview, like the one above, you can see the aspects they will have once hired. They will have 4 of each aspect.
Add them to the Talk verb with enough payment and they will join you for the day. Also remember that you can look for help more than once if the first find doesn’t have the expertise you need.
Improving Assistant Skills (Collaborate)
Assistance is well and good, but their base skills will only go so far. To unlock the deeper rooms of Hush House, you will need to inspire their more… esoteric knowledge. Talk to a hired assistant about something, and they will take on the aspects of your chosen topic of conversation.
In the example above, talking with the Rector about Sunny weather will add 2 Lantern and 2 Sky to their base skills.
Talk to them multiple times to increase their skills, but note that there are multiple “topics” of conversation, and you can only talk about each topic once:
- Element of Soul (you can upgrade them to increase their potency)
- Memory (Weather is also a memory)
- Tools (which are found throughout the manor)
- Food (bread, grape, honey, etc. Found throughout the house, and some can be crafted)
- Beverage (wine, tea, coffee, etc. Found throughout the house, some can be crafted)
- Special. Each person has a special topic relevant to them, like Metals for the smith. For Unusual Help, these often make logical sense: the Painter is interested in pigments, and so on.
Talk to each person about multiple topics to get them to the skill level you need, then send them to the room you’re trying to unlock.
Most importantly, remember: YOU ONLY NEED ONE OF THE REQUIRED ASPECTS.
Good luck, librarian.
