Hollowmere, the town that only opens after dark

What it is

Hollowmere was fenced off during an outbreak and never opened again. Nothing moves in there while the sun is up. After dusk it does, and until first light the town belongs to what is left of the people who lived in it.

It is a place to go for a night's work, not a place to live. You keep what you carry out.

How to get there

The gate is on the eastern edge of the village. Walk east until the houses run out and the ground opens up; the old quarantine road runs east from there and ends at a wire gate. You can hear the wind along the road and the gate itself from a distance, and the game names both places as you walk into them: the old quarantine road, then the wire gate of Hollowmere. Stand at the wire and press shift and enter.

The same gate also stands in the war zone, in its far north east corner, for anyone who finds it there; whichever gate you go in by is the one you come back out of.

The gate only opens at night, which is six in the evening to six in the morning by the village clock. If you try in daylight the game tells you exactly how long is left until dusk. A full night lasts twelve hours of village time.

At first light the town empties: everything still standing in there goes down with the dark, and anyone still inside is put out at the wire gate.

What is in there

A market square with a dry fountain, the bodies of the people who were caught in it, and flies. Saint Agnes chapel with its bell tower, and the old graveyard behind it. The infirmary, with its wards, its morgue and a dispensary behind a door. A flooded quarter you can wade through. The old mill, still running on its generator. The school. The army camp that was set up to hold the town and did not. Under the square there is a sewer, through a grate in the street.

The dead walk all of it. You will hear them before you meet them: a low voice, and a dragging step. Some of them are lying among the bodies and do not make a sound until you are close.

Once a night something much heavier comes out. You will know.

What to take

A weapon you trust, bandages, and something to treat a wound with. A bite can turn into grave fever, and grave fever does not stop on its own: it needs antiseptic, a herbal salve, or a doctor. Everything you are carrying goes in with you, and if you fall in there you fall like anywhere else, so think about what you bring.

What comes out of it

Kill one and it leaves a body where it falls. Stand on it and press shift and enter to search it. What you find:

Rotten flesh: no use as food, but a snare baited with it catches more.

Tattered rags: three lots of them boil down into two bandages.

Grave dust: two pinches worked into a handful of herbs make a bottle of antiseptic.

Old teeth: four of them on a length of string make a charm, and a bite is far less likely to turn while you carry it.

To make any of these, put the material in your hand and use it.

Whoever put the body down has the first minute on it; after that anyone can search it.

What it pays

The first ten you put down each night pay in points. After that the night pays only in what you carry out, so nobody can stand in one place and farm it.

Walk out at dawn with five or more down and the village pays a bonus on top.

The one that comes out later in the night is worth a great deal more, and it carries something worth keeping.

The board

Village life, leaderboards, the night watch of Hollowmere shows who has put down the most, the best single night, how many nights people have walked out of, and who has taken down the heavy one.

Village life also has a Hollowmere page that tells you whether the town is open right now, how long until it opens or closes, and how you are doing.