• The last section left us moored at Hunter's Keep, so going back to London is a matter of 2 actions.
• Through the power of a x10 Frequency card draw, we immediately get the card that will let us continue the story.
• A calling card calls us to the Orchard House, and we rush there immediately. The place is still fucked, but it's at least presentable now. We go to the Solar, and the first person we see, is, of course, Feducci.
• The meeting starts slow. The Sybarite is in perfect health, and talks about how a messenger bat finally arrived from Vesture. She asks the fortune teller to flip a card, but they only mention that His (un)Amused Lordship should see a doctor. He complains about it. Feducci is a little snarky.
• They continue their conversation, but we leave it behind as we go to the Library to meet The Implacable Detective. She's pouring over an organic map, complaining to us about how the other members are unreliable - Feducci is impatient, His Amused Lordship is distractable - and since Vesture is back in play, that means our research with the Naturalist is no longer a priority.
• She gives us a new map - one very similar to the one we made in Port Cecil - but it's incomplete. She gives us the map for us to finish, but warns us that she does not expect the Naturalist to succeed.
• When we ask her why then she's helping us, she answers that there's a chance she might die before they find the Garden. And if so, she'd like to know the person rowing the boat, and the Naturalist is quite the rule breaker - maybe he'd row the boat upstream instead.
• We show the map to him, and he explains why the Detective buried her research - she's a Constable. She can't ever bring herself to change - to admit that Concord Square is beyond repair. This research would prove that she can change.
• So, using the combination of the map the Detective gave us, and the map we made in Port Cecil, alongside enough Honey to make Mr. Spices jealous, and my Relatively Safe Thee Lane I prepared back in part 5, we manage to solve the puzzle: The threads converge at one place.
• Irem.
• And so, we will make the journey to the city of the future.
• As we approach the Pillared City, we have one last dinner together. He explains that in Port Cecil, we started a ritual using the key, and in Godfall, St Stalactite finished. Crossroads - turn one way, lead one life, turn another, lead another. The patterns are not unchanging, and the crossroads move. By going to Irem, we'll be able to pinpoint the exact place and time.
• We ask him if he remembers the near death experience we had at the bottom of the Thee. he says that he doesn't know - he remembers rowing us, sure, but who was he at that moment? Past, present, future. Perhaps they're also living things, and when they rot, the skeleton they share is all that's left.
• When discussing the Stone Tentacle-Key, he says that you can't change your future without changing your heart. This is how the Regret-Beyond-Death survives: By constantly changing bodies, and changing its Destiny alongside them. With eight keys, we can do something much larger than what we did in Port Cecil.
• Finally, we discuss the beginning of our journey. A meeting in the Medusa's Head, a simple conversation. He apologizes for lying to us at that moment, after all, trust doesn't come easily to him, but he needed access to the Archives and a Ship, and in exchange, he'd give us a way to permanently beat Death. And that's what we're going to do. "Immortality. Ours."
• And so, we finally reach Irem.
• He is confident he knows where to go, and he goes there so quickly we have issues catching up. We will take lodgings in Irem, but the Naturalist will be absent.
• We spend (will spend) several weeks (months? years?) loding in Irem. The Naturalist performs (will perform) several different surgeries on himself. Seventy-seven threads across skin. Dreams of flesh stalks protruding from his back. Blood and Amber that fails with each incision. We will apply every knowledge we have at our disposal: Organic, Monastic, Mechanical, Cartographic, Mnemonic, Temporal.
• And finally, after stitching Seven Stone Tentacle-Keys on his flesh, with Seventy-Seven stitches for each, and Seven Thousand, Seven Hundred and Seventy-Seven more for the sigils, he will kneel before the Seven-Serpant of Irem, and his dreams will leak into the waking world.
• And so, we will follow the thread of fate, into the world of dreams; from the past, to the future, to the present again. He gazes upon us with a sad smile, and walks in three separate directions. The tapestry of the world rips apart.
• We walk a Forking Future, we see its branches - the Discreet Sybarite is the de facto leader of the Dilmun Club, she stymies Feducci, while you do everything in your power to help the Naturalist with his research. We visit the shipyard, and find ourselves elsewhere.
• We walk a Vivisectioned Future, we see its branches - the Naturalist becomes a pet to one of his friends, and she uses him as canvas and experiment for the changes towards immortality. We walk past the sands of the Elder Continent, betrayal and blood in our hands, just for the sake of Immortality. We put a corpse on a table, and stitch seven more stitches onto its body.
• We walk a Manifold Future, London is falling, the Stolen River surges with debris, we try to save who we can, but for each we save, more die. We become prisoners, prisoners of Cline, and take great effort to escape. We submit to a mummification, for there is nothing left without London.
• We walk a Mortal Future. We light candles and read correspondence in Port Carnelian - something encrypted from the Bishop of St. Fiacre's - we help the Burly Surveyor carry his equipment in the prickfinger wastes, trying to find bones of other species. Life goes on, as normal.
• And at the end, when all the cards are laid on the table, there is one more choice to make: Will the Naturalist change himself so thoroughly as to defy his Destiny? Will he accept his Destiny, and become the Boatman? Or do we allow him to die, but tether his spirit so thoroughly that something of his will remain?
• The present is what happens when the future leaves Parabola, though the Youthful Naturalist will take all three paths, and all three futures are true, we can only follow him down one.
• By our hands we decide: Which End will the Youthful Naturalist Meet?

Alright, so, this is obviously the part where we choose the ending to the storyline. Here's my rationale:

Acceptance is out of the question. His Fate was determined before he was born, by Masters who could not give less of a shit about him, because of a skeleton that won a Children's Card Game. Acceptance means giving up entirely. Fuck that.

The opposite, Cunning, is to absolutely refuse him ever becoming the Boatman, and going through every possible way to break that thread of Fate. Unfortunately, as we walk through this future, we also realize that this has catastrophic side effects - he breaks Fate so thoroughly that it starts to affect the real world, with fate itself trying to kill him, so he can fulfill his destiny, and with massive collateral damage on the way. The Presbyterate grows expansionist, and all of London seems to die as a result of this. Though there is a chance these tragedies don't come to pass - the point seems to be that, in breaking destiny, he slips through the cracks of destiny, and changes himself completely - that's not a bet I'm willing to make. I want to save this poor fool, but his life is not worth the lives of the rest of London - and who knows what else, really. (I also have a bit of foreknowledge here that he seems to keep a small aspect of himself even after his transformation, so it's not complete Ego Death, but that's still not worth it for me).

Then, we have the middle ground option, Malleability. He will still become the Boatman, but a part of him will remain, and in that part, he's able to break and bend the rules, and do as he pleases. This does mean he's still bound to the boat for eternity, but he has some power of it, which is, if nothing else, a consolation prize. As mentioned previously, I'm also a player of the Marvellous (Power Ending baby), and in my canon, I gave Beechwood mercy, fulfilled Virginia's, the Topsy King's and the Manager's Hearts' Desire, and intend to eventually fulfill Mr. Pages'. Also, I'm now Mr. Cards, which means the Marvellous is now my responsibility (and so is the payment of the prizes), and not paying the Boatman would be a massive dick move (he deserves a nap. or several.) Finally, keeping the Naturalist's Destiny, as implied by the Bishop of St. Fiacre's, would also mean that we are on the path to fulfilling his Heart's Desire.

So the solution for me, is obvious.

• "He will die, yet his spirit will live. He will row the slow boat, but he will disembowel the laws that would set its course. He will steer Death itself like a ship's wheel at his whim."
• We see a future where we go to the Desert of Delight, and in it, we die scorched. The Naturalist - now the Boatman - wakes us up with a splash of water, and tells us how he was silly for ever fearing this. There are so many places he can go now, so many things he can do. "We have all the time a corpse will ever need."
• And so, we have chosen the path, and we will return to Irem. The Youthful Naturalist's story is done, and so is our part in it.
• But... we are not quite done.

From London to Cline to Venderbight, from Port Cecil to Godfall to Gaider's Mourn, from the Unterzee's spiralling depths, your life's map will always lead you to Irem.

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