Locked doors and the free-roam welcome are spoken now. Your hero reads aloud every card that has no speaker, but two kinds had never been recorded and played in silence: the refusal at a door that will not open yet, and the card a finished book's free-roam map opens with. Every one of them is voiced now, whichever hero you play.

The map's ring means somebody really is waiting for you. The second-colour ring that marks a person worth going back to now goes up when talking to them would settle something, and comes down once it has. Widow Ashcombe wore one that never cleared however often she was spoken to; Inspector Rook at the station had none after the ledger page was found; and the Forgemaster, Scholar Vane in the cells, Squire Aldric at the rookery and Ember-Wing were all owed visits the map never showed. Rings also stay off ground the fog still hides and doors that will not open.

People you have met further on stop waiting behind you. A character who turns up in more than one place used to go on standing at every earlier spot for the rest of the book, repeating their last line — Inspector Rook in Brick Lane sending you north long after his suspension, Squire Aldric in the yard promising to meet you at the rookery after he had, Scholar Vane at his scriptorium desk while telling you from the cells that he was put there that morning. Once you have met them further along, and they have nothing left to give you, the earlier ones are gone. Traders stay where they are, so nobody leaves with your discount.

What people say when you come back matches what you have done.

  • Mercer no longer thanks you for the attendants' cashbook before you have found it.
  • The Forgemaster no longer greets you as a returning visitor the first time you meet him, which skipped most of what he had to say.
  • Pip at the last lamp stops telling you to fetch what is in your room once you have it.
  • Elder Holt, with only one of the two beasts dead, spoke as though both were still alive. He has two new spoken lines for it.

Battle reports get out of the way. The report after a fight, won or lost, now clears itself in half the time, and a tap still closes it sooner. Both also fade while your hero is behind them, as the rest of the HUD already did.

Fixed:

  • On a smaller screen, a spoken line with replies under it could scroll out of sight while it was still being read; the Keeper's was the clearest case. The line now stays put while the voice speaks, and the replies come up as soon as it finishes.
  • Walking from the library into a book, the journal and the HUD did not fade for a hero standing behind them until the hero had taken a step.
  • The level over each creature in free roam was drawn without its red outline, which is what keeps it readable against snow, stone and forge-light. It has it now.