The Mailroom walkthrough is one shift from clocking in to clocking out: take the elevator down to the basement mailroom of Modesto Inc., punch the time clock, ring the bell, and the bobble-headed assistant appears behind you and hands over the pile of mail. Mephisto comes on over the intercom, tells you what the day involves and points you at the directory book. You then sort, send and burn until you clock out. There is no countdown and no timed input to react to, so the shift is bounded by the punch card rather than a clock.
The Mailroom walkthrough: clocking in and taking the mail
The first three actions of every day are fixed:
- Ride the elevator down to the basement mailroom at 666 5th Street.
- Punch the time clock.
- Ring the bell.
The bell is what summons the assistant, who materialises right behind you and hands over the day's mail. Mephisto then speaks over the intercom, explains what the day involves, and sends you to the book on the desk that lists the staff, the departments and the rules you have to follow. Days are separated by punch cards, and each one brings a different set of challenges and its own sinister development.
Sorting each letter
Every envelope gets the same three-question check at the desk:
- Is the addressee a real person or a real department in the directory?
- Is the information inside the letter correct?
- Is it an advertisement?
All three yes means the letter goes up in a capsule. Any no means it goes in the furnace. The full policy, including the categories that always count as junk and how to inspect an envelope before you decide, is in mail sorting rules.
Sending a letter upstairs
Real mail is loaded into a capsule and sent up the pneumatic tube for the right floor. The floor comes from the directory book: read the department printed under the recipient's name, find that department in the book, and note which floor it sits on. The pipes at your desk are numbered by floor, and on the first day only the Floor 1 and Floor 2 tubes are connected. The full routing routine is in which floor to send mail to.
Burning the junk and feeding the furnace
Everything the policy rejects goes into the furnace, and that is also what keeps the furnace hot. A shift where you throw nothing in leaves it cold, so keep burning the junk as it accumulates. Walking up to the furnace shows a heat readout, so you can check whether it needs feeding before the next batch goes in. What you are allowed to burn is listed in furnace and machinery upkeep.
The other work on your bench
As the days go on, more duties open up alongside the mail:
- Dispatching the frog consignments management orders upstairs, in a container, to the floor they named.
- Dissecting a frog on the bench for the raw material the upper floors need.
- Chopping raw meat on the block and weighing organs on the kitchen scale.
- Grinding ingredients in the mortar and pouring measured liquids for the umbral resources upstairs.
- Restarting the compressor when the machinery stalls.
The frog work and the mixtures are two different jobs, and both are covered in detail: frogs and potion crafting.
The errand list
Side errands run alongside the mail. Across your days you are asked to get a cigarette, get toilet paper, and cast the spell that unlocks the elevator. That last one is the errand that actually takes you out of the mailroom, and the whole list is worked through in hell's exit and the locked door.
Clocking out
The shift ends when you clock out, not when a timer runs out. A wall tally of green checkmarks and red X's records your accuracy for the day, and small slip-ups do not go unnoticed. Getting the sorting right and the mixtures right is what puts you in line for employee of the month. Once the campaign is finished, Endless Mode keeps the sorting going forever.
You can walk away from the desk whenever you like, and the rest of the office building is part of what you are meant to piece together — but the mail keeps moving whether or not you are looking at it.