Shadows Over Loathing: Borge House Guide

This guide explores all the potential ways to navigate through the house as well as the potential rewards available in each route.

Introduction

Welcome to one of the trickiest locations in SoL! This place is notorious for disappearing entirely for the rest of the game once you look at Mr. Borge’s daughter. You’ll randomly find this location while wandering in Grey County.

This guide will explore all the different ways to explore the Borge House as well as walking through the ways to obtain each possible item up for grabs.

Rewards

Before you enter the house, you should know that it is not possible to get every single item in the house in a single play-through. Each route provides greatly different rewards and it is important that you know what options you have before you dive in, especially considering you only have one shot per game.

It is important to note that looking at the daughter at any point (except for a really specific moment) will result in you being immediately expelled and banished from the house for the rest of the game, regardless of how much progress you made. It is important you choose and follow the directions closely so that you don’t get locked out of whatever rewards you wish to acquire.

Path A rewards (getting the towel):

150-lb bag of sugar (quest item)
strand of spaghetti (food): +1 Muscle, +5 Cold Armor (sells for 25 Meat)
baby bottle (miscellaneous): Just sell it (sells for 20 Meat)
farmer’s amaro (potion): +2 Max AP (sells for 20 Meat)
25 XP
farm towel (offhand): Heals your character only for (2X Moxie) and cures all negative status effects on your character (once per fight) (sells for 40 Meat)

Path B (ignoring the towel, getting the barrels):

150-lb bag of sugar (quest item)
strand of spaghetti (food): +1 Muscle, +5 Cold Armor
baby bottle (miscellaneous): Just sell it
farmer’s amaro (potion): +2 Max AP
45 XP
50 Meat

Path C (ignoring the towel, going for the jewelry):

150-lb bag of sugar (quest item)
strand of spaghetti (food): +1 Muscle, +5 Cold Armor
baby bottle (miscellaneous): Just sell it (sells for Meat)
farmer’s amaro (potion): +2 Max AP
25 XP
farmer’s daughter’s necklace (accessory): +6 Spooky Armor (sells for 70 meat)

To choose your route, complete the next section and as soon as that section finishes, jump to the section that contains the route you wish to choose to complete raiding the house.

Getting started (Paths A, B, and C)

Most of the dialogue choices don’t matter for this initial part, so long as you get inside of the house (with little resistance). If you haven’t already completed the Ocean City baker quest line yes (or just like extra copies of quest items), make sure to choose option [3] and ask for some sugar. Do not worry if you don’t have that option available (or miss it), for you also find the same bag of sugar in Ocean City at any time.

Once you enter the house, Mr. Borge will basically explain that you are never allowed to see his daughter.

This means you are essentially locked out from using whatever directional key the daughter is relative to your character so DO NOT PRESS A/Left Arrow or click on the left side of the screen for this particular section until you leave the daughter’s room!

Now that you know, inch your way to the next door on the right, in between the fireplace and the sink, and open the door:

Navigate through the bathroom into the girl’s bedroom:

You MUST walk towards the bed (so that the girl is covered on-screen) and then inch on the right side just until you can reach the farmoile and interact with it:

Most of the dialogue options are pointless (she barely responds to your remarks outside of body language). Obtain the key hidden inside the lamp on the farmoile by choosing the following dialogue options:

[2] Ask if she needs help with the lamp
[2] Light the lamp
[2] Open the lamp
[3] Shut the armorie doors

Now the thing about Mr. Borge’s condition is that you’re not allowed to see his daughter’s face, so it’s fine to turn around if you can’t see her at all. Make absolutely sure the girl is hidden behind the frame before you move towards the door in the front. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO GO FOR THE JEWELRY BOX ON THE RIGHT, SHE WILL INCH OUT AND MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO GO FOR THE DOOR IF YOU DO.
Taking the door will put you back in the room you started in, just on the right side. Carefully inch across the left side, picking up both the spaghetti and baby bottle along the way. DO NOT PRESS D/Right Arrow or click on the right side of the screen until you reach Mr. Borge’s room!:
When you pick up the spaghetti, make sure to hit 2 (NEVER HIT 1 UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE):
Take the bottle:
Re-enter the bathroom door:
This time you will have to go left. Inch towards the David bust and break it to get the thin key:
Use both the thin key you just got as well as the lamp key you got from the girl’s lamp to unlock Mr. Borge’s room:
Inspect the bed to grab the potion:
You can reach for the telephone, but it holds no significance (at least what I can tell) and the choices you make don’t matter. Regardless, you must attempt to open the wardrobe.
Only then will the daughter will finally speak to you (as well as rewarding you with 25 XP). She will tell you not to believe everything her father says, freeing you from her reality-warping gaze while you’re in this room (i.e. do not leave this room until you have taken/ignored the towel). Your choices in this dialogue don’t really matter so just back away quietly once you’re done talking to her: Interacting with the wardrobe keeps the girl stuck in place, so you’re free to interact with the other objects in this room (in case you missed the bed from earlier).
Talk to the girl again and take the key from her (how you do it doesn’t matter since she goes back to being quiet and non-responsive):
Use the daughter’s key to open the wardrobe, revealing the towel stash:

At this point, there are 3 different routes you can consider taking:

Taking the towel (Path A)

Having unlocked the wardrobe, choose any dialogue option to continue the conversation. She will tell you that taking the towel adds an additional restriction; you are also not allowed to see Mr. Borge in addition to his daughter. This essentially locks you out from the entire house except for the exit. Since you’re here for the towel, choose to [1] Take the towel:

With both the daughter and Mr. Borge staring at you, head towards the door and exit the house as you entered:

Ignoring the towel (Path B)

Unlock the other door and proceed to go back into the main living room. Now that you have left Mr. Borge’s bedroom, the restriction is re-applied and you are now NOT ALLOWED to see his daughter again. NEVER TURN LEFT (press A/Left Arrow/click on the left side of the screen) for the rest of this section!. Continue past Mr. Borge until you reach the three barrels on the right side of the room:

The leftmost barrel doesn’t have anything, so proceed to the middle for 20 XP:

Examine the rightmost barrel for 50 Meat:

Finally backed into the corner, turn around and be banished from the house.

Taking the jewelry (Path C)

Go straight for the green velvet jewelry box on the bottom right corner of the room:

Take the necklace (she doesn’t stop you regardless of your choices):

Having trapped yourself to a corner (literally) either look at the girl or move up towards the mirror (for a relatively funny interaction) to be banished from the house:

Banishment

Interestingly enough, if you get the towel and then get banished (by looking at both Mr. Borge and his daughter at the same time), the remains of the house will have two stones rather than one.

After accepting the terms to not look at Mr. Borge:

Looking at the daughter at any time before grabbing the towel or after rejecting the towel:

Thanks to bestwithrice for his great guide, all credit to his effort. you can also read the original guide from Steam Community. enjoy the game.