There is no branch here. "Town Square or Sewers" reads like a choice, but Silver Pines requires both areas, and neither one locks the other out. What players are actually asking is which to do first, and why the sewer entrance refuses to open.
The short answer is Town Square first. Its Town Hall contains one of the three masks, and the manhole inside the building is the recommended first entrance to the Sewers.
Is it actually a choice?
No. Both areas sit inside Downtown, and the game expects you to clear both before the cable car opens. Nothing you do in one closes the other, and no ending depends on the order.
The confusion comes from the map. Downtown branches into Loomis Park, Town Square and the sewer entrances, and the game does not tell you that the two are connected through a manhole inside the Town Hall.
So the honest answer to "town square or sewers" is: Town Square, then the Sewers, and you will pass through the same building twice.
What each area gives you
| Town Square | Sewers | |
|---|---|---|
| Main building | Town Hall | Sluice gate and flood chambers |
| Key item | Weeping Mask, Crank Handle | Sewer map, Bell E |
| Boss | None | Poison-gas boss at the third valve |
| Code | 1893 operations locker | 1467 sewer keypad |
| Gate | Three-mask statue puzzle | Heavy Cog plus Crank Handle |
| Reward | One cable-car bell | One cable-car bell |
Both areas award a bell, and five bells are needed before the cable car runs. That alone settles the question: skipping either one leaves you short.
Why Town Square first?
Because the Weeping Mask is inside the sewer section under the Town Hall, reached through the manhole on the ground floor. If you go into the Sewers from the street first, you will come out underneath the building you still need to search.
Town Square also hands you the Crank Handle, which the Sewers require. Doing the areas in the opposite order means reaching the sluice gate, finding it inoperable, and walking back.
The Town Hall section is also shorter. Three masks, one statue puzzle and a clock, against a multi-level sewer with a boss.
How do you get into the Sewers?
The recommended entrance is the broken boards east of the pet clinic. The other street entrances are either locked from the far side or need the Crowbar, which comes from the Sheriff's Office evidence lockup.
Once inside, the main sluice gate needs two parts: a Heavy Mechanical Cog from the left table in the manhole room, and the Crank Handle from Church Hill. Fit both and the water level drops, opening the lower route.
If the gate will not turn, you are missing one of the two. There is no third part and no code involved.
The Town Square checklist
Three masks have to be recovered and placed on the statues in Loomis Park. The order is left Weeping, middle Malformed, right Blissful, and getting it wrong just means re-placing them.
- Blissful Mask — top floor of the Town Hall, left room.
- Weeping Mask — down the manhole, in the sewer section beneath the building.
- Malformed Mask — take the Unmixed Clay from the blue barrel in the office, mix it at the street cement mixer, fire the filled mould in the basement furnace, then pull it out with the Fireplace Tongs.
Placing the three masks correctly in Loomis Park awards a cable-car bell, and the Town Hall sequence is what lowers the drawbridge out of the square. The clock is a separate puzzle: the hands stop at 10:07, and that leads to the third-floor candlestick room. The operations locker downstairs is 1893.
The Sewers checklist
The sewer route is linear once the water is down. Three flow-control valves have to be opened, and the third one starts a poison-gas fight, so bring a syringe and a shotgun with slugs.
- Valves — open A, then C, then B. B is the one that triggers the boss.
- Sewer map — on the wall just inside the entrance; you cannot collect it from a one-way drop.
- Keypad 1467 — the Market Street sewer door, with the red-line numbers on the clipboard.
- Bell E — behind the sealed chamber that blows open when all three valves are open.
The boss is the reason players stall here. The gas does damage over time, the arena is small, and the recommended answer is a shotgun with slugs plus a syringe rather than a handgun.
What the sewer boss does
The third valve wakes a poison-gas enemy in a small flooded chamber. The gas drains health continuously, the arena has little room to circle, and the fight rewards range over footwork.
Bring a syringe and a shotgun with slugs. A handgun will kill it eventually, but the reload rhythm leaves you standing in gas.
Shortcuts you open
Lowering the sluice gate connects the sewer levels, which turns a one-way descent into a loop. That is the main reason to do the cog and crank step rather than pushing on.
The Town Hall manhole stays open as an entrance, so the building becomes a shortcut between the square and the sewers once the masks are placed.
If you are under-equipped
Do Town Square first. It has no boss, it hands you the Crank Handle, and the mask hunt is mostly navigation.
Leave the Sewers until you have the shotgun and at least one syringe. The gate puzzle can be solved early, but the boss behind it cannot be avoided.
Common blockers, in order
If the sewer door will not open, check for the Crowbar first. If the gate will not lower, check for the Cog and the Crank Handle. If the third valve kills you, buy a syringe before you go back down.
If the statue puzzle does nothing, check that all three masks are actually placed rather than carried. The game does not tell you which one is missing.
For the wider route these two areas sit in, see the walkthrough. For the codes involved, the codes hub lists 1467 and 1893 alongside the other 20 locks.