Whispers Below the Cobblestone, unsurprisingly given the name, focuses on a chunk of the City, and all the weird, creepy, and rouge-y stuff beneath its streets. It really feels like this mission has been cut into about 3-4 parts really. One being the tunnels, second being the thieves' hideout, third would be northern part of the map, including the Ravenhurst's manor, and then all the rest of the city feels like a separate part.

You could argue it sounds pretty great and interesting, but it kind of felt to me like every part (except for the two City parts) felt too much like they don't really fit together, like they were consolidated from some other work-in-progress missions of the author, and just glued together. The underground stuff was definitely too much for me, it didn't really work. Like... a some sort of take on the Thieves' Guild OM, or like in "Rogues' Lair" FM. Main focus, the City, being reduced to a side thing, a neccessary thing in the background, with the real focus being everything that is at least one level beneath the surface. I kind of expected? wanted? missed? Verticality, and more elaborate city layout, seems like most of it went into the underground.

I mean, you could say I should have expected that, judging by the title of the FM, no? Well... I kind of hoped it wouldn't be like that.

Atmosphere was great, creepy, and suspensful. Though there is clearly something wrong with the darkness and the shadows in this mission. They are... over-dark, like they are almost broken, artifact-y, and fiddling with gamma settings doesn't do jack shit. Author might have gone for "ultra-total-darkness" for pretty much every part of the city below the streets. It was... too much, it actively hampered with my ability to see things I should see, and get loot I should have seen if the darkness was normal otherwise.

Gameplay is very fine, map loops all around, though I definitely do not recommend going to Ravenhurst's first, it feels like going to that "separate" part of the mission too quickly. I'd leave that for the last, since it's so close to the exit from the level. There is some verticality, but not too much, and not too... greatly though out, just your standard, servicable Thieves Highway.

Story is... okay for the most part, but it isn't a story-focused mission, definitely not. Main objectives are basically "you'll forget why you're doing that, except you're a Thief and that's what you do". No real lore about the City, or connections to the other missions, at least nothing I felt like "OH, I know about this!". Messages between the common peeps felt like they were very disjointed, like they were completely irrelevant to the mission, there was nothing in them that I could have used anywhere. Just some random squabbles and lollygagging. Oh, there was one relevant readable in the Thieves' Hideout, that was like "Your objective? Definitely not in the most obvious place that is locked up!!!". And that meant rummaging about the big hideout blindly, in the dark-that-is-too-dark, trying to find out it if you missed some doors, or something. Turned out the answer was... very close. But that readable definitely didn't help out, and that darkness made it too difficult to see correctly.

FM took me about 1:50h, got something like 75% of the loot total, and I definitely went on looking everywhere I could think of. Loot objective on Expert might be... a little excessive if it's something to the tune of over 3000, especially given the dark-as-fok-undergrounds, where I'd say about 30-40% of the loot is.

Overall, 8-8,5/10, I enjoyed this mission very much, but there were moments while in the Undercity that felt... miserable.