Lore
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Hats
A hat is what lets you go further. Wool becomes yarn, yarn becomes the hat, and the powers come from wearing it. A place you have reached stays open. Later hats take more yarn. The last ones are wizard hats, and they are not made in the grove. At the Holly Pools, on a night when the water shows the stars and you at once — and only if the hat you wear already holds enough essence — the reflection is a door. That comes late, and it is hard to reach. The clue is a telescope on the Meridian.
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Essence
Essence is only kept if it is woven into the yarn while the wool is spun. A finished hat cannot be topped up. You earn it by defeating a beast, or Aldric gives it when he decides the work was enough. Ozzy can hand it over for him, and is no quicker. Nyx are a kind, not one animal. Every hundred years a Nyx dies, and that death is where essence comes from. It is not left lying around to collect.
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The castle
Reclaiming Cadbury Castle, with Aldric, is the point of the work. Hats are how you become able to go further toward it. Defeating a beast leaves essence. The castle is not a prize from a single afternoon. The beasts still in it are the Muddle, the Hush, the Tangle, and the Gloom in the deepest part.
