AN INCIPIT GAME · COMING SOON · $3
LUMEN
THE DROWNED ABBEY OF VALLIS TACITA
In 1835 the abbey of Vallis Tacita disappeared under a lake. This summer the drought gives it back. Someone has to row out and save what the keepers left behind.
BEST WITH SOUND.
BEST AT NIGHT.
MOVE THE CANDLE
TAP SOMEONE TO SAY HELLO
- 11
- PLACES TO EXPLORE
- 12
- KEEPERS TO MEET
- 5
- HANDS TO READ
- 1,000
- YEARS UNDER THE INK
PROLOGUE · THE COMMISSION
The best restorer in Galicia does not go into churches.
That is you. A rented flat inside the Roman walls of Lugo, rain on the glass, and Sister Uxía on the phone for the third time. The diocese needs someone to bring the abbey's books out of the mud before the water comes back.
You go for the books, nothing else. But in your kit, without quite deciding to, you have packed your grandmother's brown scapular. And on the black water, rowing home the first night, you catch yourself humming the Salve Regina.
Lumen is two stories laid one over the other, like the writing on its pages: a thousand years of people who kept a light burning in that valley, and one person finding the way home.
AEDIFICAMUS · STILL BUILDING
HOW IT PLAYS
- I. Explore eleven drowned and dry places, from the boathouse to the spring under the altar.
- II. Tilt your phone to rake the candle across a page. Ink that was scraped away rises in the slanted light.
- III. Read each layer in the hand of its century, solve its glyph puzzle, and peel back to the one beneath.
- IV. Listen. Bells, chant and the candle's tone are part of the puzzles.
ONE HAND UNDER ANOTHER
A thousand years of keepers.
880
Froila the Hermit
Kept a small cross by the spring when the first pilgrims crossed these mountains, and taught a shepherd's daughter her letters.
900
Lua
A girl who sang beside the spring, long before there was an abbey. Almost nothing else is known.
1150
Abbess Oda
Came up the valley leaning on a plain wooden crozier and built her house over the spring, with lower walls far stronger than any abbey needs. She never said why.
1250
Brother Anselm
Cantor. He taught the brothers the new four-line staff, and wrote down a song that no one in the abbey had composed.
1400
Brother Tobias
A cold, bored, secretly brilliant copyist who signed his work with a tiny snail in the margin, and argued with the old letters he scraped away.
1600
Sister Ines
Librarian. The ring of keys never left her belt. When the Holy Office came to purge the library, she hid the books instead.
1601
Don Martín de Ulloa
Inquisitor at Santiago, slow to accuse. Where others wrote "hereje", he wrote "probetur": let it be proved.
1631
Sister Beatriz
Given the keys with three words: keep, keep silent, read. She kept the abbey's Book of Life.
1835
Abbot Ferran
The last abbot, reading the Rule through wire spectacles mended with thread, the year the Crown came for the library.
1835
Commissioner Salcedo
Sent by the Crown with a warrant, a notary and twelve soldiers. He left with a lake.
1866
Don Ramón
Parish priest on the lakeshore, who never asked the old man with the boat where he went every Easter night.
2026
Sister Uxía
Archivist in Lugo. She has kept the abbey's keys for fifty years without knowing which door each one opened. She writes in pencil, because pencil can be rubbed out.
THE PLACES
Eleven rooms. Some of them are underwater.
I
The Boathouse
Black water under stone arches. On a high shelf, a ledger wrapped in oilcloth.
II
The Scriptorium
Cold desks, dry inkwells, and a window that still catches the moon.
III
The Cloister
Arches in black water, and an old well with four small bells.
IV
The Chapter House
Where the brothers heard a chapter of the Rule each morning. Here is where they voted.
V
The Choir
Two rows of carved stalls, and a rose window knocked out of true.
VI
The Spring
Twenty two steps below the altar, a crypt older than the church above it.
VII
The Cathedral Archive
Lugo, rain on the window, and a note: Take your time. They waited long enough.
VIII
The Drowned Tower
A bell tower standing alone out of the lake, with burned out candle stubs on the sill.
IX
Froila's Hermitage
A cave on the mountain, a cross cut in the rock, herbs still hanging from the roof.
X
The Tribunal
The old papers of the Holy Office at Santiago, a file tied with faded tape.
XI
The Sacristy
A ring of iron keys on a hook, unused since 1835.
FIVE HANDS
Five kinds of handwriting.
Every century wrote in its own style. By the end you will be reading all five, and the glossary keeps track of every abbreviation you learn.
400s to 900s
Uncial
Rounded capitals from the oldest books.
800s to 1100s
Carolingian Minuscule
The hand of Charlemagne's scholars. Spaced, round, patient.
1300s and 1400s
Gothic Textura
Dense, upright, and woven like cloth. Beautiful and hard to read.
1500s and 1600s
Humanist
Round and clear, revived by Renaissance scribes.
1800s
Copperplate
A clerk's hand. Quick, slanted, made for ledgers and letters.
Orate pro scriptore.
At the foot of the last page of every book, the copyists wrote the same thing. Pray for the one who wrote this.
QUESTIONS
Common questions
When is it coming out?
Soon. Sign up for the Incipit Letter at the bottom of this page and we will tell you the day it is ready.
How do I play?
Lumen is made for phones. Tilt your phone and it becomes the candle, or drag a candle pad if you would rather not tilt.
Is it for children?
It is a mystery made with teens and adults in mind, and it is fine for all ages.
Is there sound?
Yes, and it matters. Some clues are in the bells and the chant, so play with sound on when you can.
What will it cost?
$3, once. No ads, no in-app purchases, no energy timers. Your progress stays on your phone.
Is the history real?
Vallis Tacita and its keepers are imagined, set inside real history: the pilgrim road to Santiago, the Holy Office, the suppression of the Spanish monasteries in 1835, and the villages Galicia's reservoirs give back in dry summers.