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⌾Servant of the Lake Walkthrough
Puzzles

The Parlor Block

Every Servant of the Lake parlor puzzle solved: the nine-button box, William's cigar fire, the painting sequence, flower binary and the lullaby order.

Last updated 2026-08-14

Light spoilers. This page names rooms, items and characters you meet, but keeps the story beats out of it.

A keyhole view of the parlor showing a woman with a baby, a standing man in a top hat and a seated man by the fireplace
Day 1 Evening — the reunion, seen the way a servant sees it·Official screenshot, Rusty Lake

The parlor on Day 1 Evening is the densest puzzle block in the game: six puzzles in one room, each feeding the next, ending in a lullaby that only accepts one order.

Start with the wine cabinet code 1753 — everything here chains off it.

1. Broken bottle

Reassemble the pieces on the floor. Straightforward fit puzzle, no trick.

2. Nine-button box

Press the buttons in the order the wine cabinet clue gives you. The cabinet is the key; the box is the lock.

Reward: cigars.

3. The cigar fire

William swallows the cigar and his mouth catches fire. This is scripted — you are not being punished.

Click his teeth to put it out:

  • left tooth and right tooth steer the direction of the water
  • centre releases the water

Aim, then release. Reward: a spoon.

4. Painting sequence

There is clue text to read first. It describes an order; click the objects in the painting in that order.

Reward: a fish.

5. Flower binary addition

Diagram of the flower binary targets 2, 3, 7, 9, 13 and 22

Upper level of the red cabinet. This is the most mechanical puzzle in the game and the one people most often mistake for broken.

  • You start at a value of 1.
  • There are four digit switches to flip.
  • You need to hit each target flower count in turn: 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 22.

Six rounds, ascending. It behaves like four binary bits summed — flip the combination that reaches the current target, confirm, then move to the next. If a target seems unreachable, you have a switch stuck on from the previous round.

6. James's lullaby

Diagram of the eight-step lullaby click order

The last puzzle of the day and a strict sequence. Click in this exact order:

  1. James's eyes
  2. the moon
  3. the swaddling cloth
  4. the ring
  5. the necklace
  6. the lips
  7. the clouds outside the window
  8. Alexandra's eyes

Eight clicks. Wrong order and the scene silently resets rather than telling you what went wrong, which is why this reads as unresponsive rather than incorrect.

Achievement in this room

Waking William. Click his hat, ears and tie at random, and read which way his eyes point to work out which to click next. It is a guess-and-read loop rather than a fixed answer.

Where this sits

Day 1 Evening, after the tea service, before the attic. Full route on the Day 1 walkthrough.

Still to be confirmed

We could not verify the following against more than one source, so we have left it out rather than guess. This page is updated as confirmations come in.

  • The nine-button press pattern — the source guides show it only as an image of the wine cabinet clue.
  • The exact object order in the painting sequence.
  • Which four switches map to which digits in the flower binary puzzle.