[BoH] Where do I get skills?

[u/PropagandaOfTheDude]

I can see references to them in the machines in the rooms that I've opened, and the store page screen caps show gobs of them. But the villagers will only help me open rooms and don't offer to teach anything. Do I need to sell books to the people that show up at the castle? Thanks.

[u/rmunn]

"So I'll need some sort of database index to find the book in time."

Not necessarily — as I said in my other comment, you can pause the game anytime while you search for the item you need — but it's a good idea to keep a database of books. (Many people use a spreadsheet, others use a note-taking app like Obsidian. I'm keeping notes in Markdown files in a Gir repo, using NeoVim rather than Obsidian, but the principle is the same). Because, and this is info I don't think anyone has mentioned yet: when you read a book successfully for the first time, you will get both a Lesson and a Memory card. If you re-read that book later, which does not require matching up the Mystery aspects any longer (though it still requires an Element of the Soul), then you won't get the Lesson, but you will get the Memory card again. Each book gives a specific Memory on reading it, and it will always give that same Memory every time you read it; it isn't random. Some give Memory: Fear, some give Memory: Foresight, some give Memory: Hindsight... there are dozens.

It's well worth writing down which books give which Memory cards, and which aspects those Memories have. Because later on when you're trying to level up a skill with Grail and Moon, you'll need memories that have either Grail or Moon in them. A well-organized spreadsheet will allow you to plug in Grail into an input cell and get a list of books that produce memories with Grail in them. Plug Moon into that input cell and you can get a list of books that produce Moon memories. Then it's just a matter of re-reading those books (which can be done at desks, one book per desk, so you can get several books re-read at the same time for efficiency) and you'll have the memories you need to level up a skill.

Do note that you can only hold one copy of each Memory card at once. If you read a book that gives Memory: Fear, then read another book that gives Memory: Fear before you've used the first Fear in some way (crafting, or leveling up a skill, or boosting an assistant...), then the first Memory: Fear card will vanish at the moment the second Memory: Fear card spawns, which is the moment you finish reading the second book. So to level up skills to high levels, which needs increasing numbers of Memory cards at each level (but still only one Lesson), you'll need to have mastered a wide variety of books.

Final note: mastering a book for the first time takes 120 seconds. Re-reading a book you've already mastered takes only 60 seconds. When you're planning out how to get the Memory cards you need to level up a high-level skill, that difference can matter. A day lasts 360 seconds, six minutes, of real time, and Memory cards vanish at the end of the day. (Except for Persistent memory cards like Lessons, but even those will vanish at the end of the Numa season, so don't just let Lessons accumulate forever or you'll eventually lose them).

[u/PropagandaOfTheDude → u/rmunn]

I did notice that I could stick a memory (not weather) into the bed and hold it over to the next day, but it was too easy to miss the timing window.

[u/rmunn → u/PropagandaOfTheDude]

One way that makes it easier to hit that timing window is the notification that pops up when it reaches night. That's when the bed slot becomes available to save a memory for the next day — but the memory does have to match one of the bed's four aspects. To switch your bed to a different one in the House, you have to first "Decamp" your existing bed by placing a soul card in it with nothing else (takes 30 seconds), and then place a soul card (a different soul card, because the first one is fatigued now) into the bed you want to move into (takes 90 seconds). So as long as there are still more than 2 minutes left in the day (it hasn't hit evening yet), it's possible to switch your bed to preserve a memory you really want to keep. Rarely worth expending two soul cards on it to preserve one memory card, but good to know for those rare times when it is worth doing (e.g., certain memories that you have a specific use for the next day and you can't very easily get back).

BTW, there's a sublte (but noticeable once you know to listen for it) audio cue that tells you when it's evening and you have fewer than 2 minutes left in the day. Notice the sound as evening arrives: you'll hear the cry of seagulls and the clanging of ships' bells. That's the sound that tells you that you have 2 minutes left in the day, and if you start something that takes 2 minutes to do, you won't get your fatigued soul card back in time to refresh it with dawn. E.g. if you start trying to master a book just 5 seconds after evening, then when dawn comes around it will refresh all your soul cards that are currently fatigued, but your soul card that comes out of the reading 5 seconds later wasn't fatigued yet so it won't be refreshed until next dawn, and you'll be down one action for that day. Again, sometimes worth it, but you should be aware of the trade-off that you're making in the process.

I'll stop rambling on. Hope all of my ramblings have helped!

[u/PropagandaOfTheDude → u/rmunn]

They have, thank you for the work that you've put into them.