Opening the Summit, and why the letter has not arrived

The Summit sits at the end of a fixed four-step town chain. An unread letter can stall it until the quest is opened.

Opening the Summit

The quest Beautification Project has one step: meet Adeline in front of the Manor House. It requires no materials, gold or donation box. Entering that spot plays the scene, repairs the stairs from the Narrows and awards 20 renown.

You do not need to save stone or wood for the Summit. Wait for the letter instead.

The letter chain

Four town projects run in a fixed order. Adeline sends each letter a few days after you finish the previous project, and the sequence cannot be skipped or rearranged.

#	Project	What it costs	Then
1	Repair the Bridge	60 Stone and 60 Wood in the donation box on the Eastern Road, then talk to Adeline	wait 2 days
2	Restocking Mistria's Food Reserves	ship 10 crops, then talk to Adeline	wait 3 days
3	The Mill Restoration Project	200 Stone, 150 Wood and 2 Copper Ingot in the box, and 1,000g in hand when you report back	wait 3 days
4	The Summit	nothing at all	-

The first letter arrives on Spring 3 of year one, so the earliest possible Summit is somewhere in the second half of your first spring, and only if you clear each project the day it opens.

Step 3 has two easily missed requirements. You must have the 1,000g on you when you talk to Adeline; it is not deducted with the donated materials. The two Copper Ingot also require a forge and 20 ore, so buy a Forge before this step if possible. The tools guide explains where to get one.

Why your letter has not arrived

The mail system itself never loses anything. Every morning the game checks every letter in the game against its conditions and delivers every one that qualifies, that same morning. There is no daily limit, no queue, no priority order, and no letter that expires. Your mailbox has no capacity, so unread mail never blocks new mail either.

The usual cause of a stalled chain is an unread letter:

A letter’s quest starts only after you open the letter. Collect the mail, read it and close the mailbox to begin the quest.

Since each letter in the chain waits for the previous quest to be completed, an unread letter stops everything behind it, silently and indefinitely. If your chain has stopped, open your mailbox and read everything in it before doing anything else.

The other things worth checking, in order:

• Did you actually finish the previous project? Dropping the materials in the box is not completion. You have to go back and talk to Adeline afterwards.
• Have enough days passed? The gaps are two or three whole days, counted from the day you completed the previous quest.
• Is a renown wall in the way? Later projects need town renown 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90. The Summit has no renown requirement, while the mines do; see below.
• Is the letter waiting for a specific weekday? One later letter in the town chain only ever arrives on a Saturday, which can add up to six quiet days in the middle of the sequence.

Letters do arrive on festival days, and on the day a season changes, so neither is an explanation.

Why Summer 28 matters

The Summit affects a timed festival and a heart event.

The Shooting Star Festival is held on Summer 28, at the Summit. If the Summit is not open on that exact day you get a short scene explaining that you cannot go, and the festival does not come around again for a full in-game year. Since the chain to the Summit is comfortably completable in spring, this is a year-long loss for a few days of delay.

Celine‘s eight-heart story also requires the Summit to be finished before it will trigger, so a romance can be waiting on it without saying so. Her heart events and everyone else’s are on the romance page.

Every other area that is locked, and by what

Other locked areas also open through a specific scene, letter, quest or spell.

Area	What opens it
The Eastern Road bridge, and with it the Saturday market	The first project in the chain above
The mines	A two-part quest that needs town renown 10 before the second letter will send
The Summit	The chain above
The beach bridge	A letter from Terithia, three days after the general store is rebuilt; 150 stone, 300 wood, 50 fibre and 1,000g
The Deep Woods	Burning the thorns with Dragon's Breath, the spell from the fire seal
The two secret caves, in the Narrows and at the beach	The same spell
The Dragonsworn Glade	Eiland at eight hearts
The stone refinery	Town renown 50, plus the inn rebuilt

Renown gates much of the second half of the game. Shipping, museum donations and quests award it, with quests providing the largest share. The renown guide has the full ladder, and the mines page lists the contents of each mine biome.