'Let the Newest see the News,' the Discreet Sybarite intones.

You put your eye to the box. The glow within is faint: it takes your eyes a moment to adjust. The interior is a vast model of the Neath! There's Fallen London, the lights glittering as when you saw it from New Newgate. The zee is black glass. There's Polythreme, marked with a screaming face. The Iron Republic, clamped by its waterfall at the cavern wall. The tomb-colonies rendered in beeswax and clay. The far ports of the East, the brass road to Hell, the Travertine Column to the surface... and there to the south, the Elder Continent. The Carnelian Coast, crags carved like statues, pale and bulbous suggestions of jungles. Vast cities. A mountain flickering with light. There must be a candle beneath the box. And a half-dozen silver needles on the edge of the Presbyterate territory.

'We still don't know the exact location of the Garden,' his Lordship says. 'We don't even know if it is a Garden, really. But we're getting closer. And we believe that when we enter, we'll understand why there's no death in the Neath. It's something that precedes the Bazaar... but not the Presbyterate. Or the Snuffers. Only bees and birds and moths enter there now. But perhaps we will, soon. I want you on the expedition, when it leaves. You'll ensure the place is treated gently. Won't you?'

The rest of the meeting is a blur of esoteric and geographic debate. You don't follow all of it; but you learn a great deal about the Elder Continent. Enough to fear the place as it should be feared. Enough to know that your patron, and the Dilmun Club, hold the key to deep secrets indeed.

[This storyline ends here for now; but it will continue soon. If you regret your choice of patron, in time you may be able to betray them...]