Alistair and Beatrice, new protagonists, are introduced managing the inventory at the municipal workshop. They discover that the specialized gingerbread shingles intended for the miniature village roofs are dissolving, losing their structural integrity, which they link to the town's ongoing resonance crisis. Beatrice notices the pieces feel light, suggesting the dampening material beneath them might be failing. They consult the manifest and trace the specialized felt insulation, meant to dampen vibrations, back to the rarely used Old Tannery Annex. Their immediate goal becomes investigating the annex to determine if the dampening material has been corrupted, which would explain why the structural integrity of the village is failing despite the use of stabilizing agents.