Post by Running on Sept 16, 2015 16:15:58 GMT
Good, they’re not following. I should have some time here to work on this at last.
I’m not the first one to end up in this place, and I suspect I won’t be the last. Hence, this lovely survival guide. So convenient that despite the occasional dearth of technology, this world has pens that record dictations for you. I suspect my handwriting would be atrocious at the moment.
From the records I’ve found, any person from our world who is thrust into this world starts off in this place. A circular room, with stone walls and wood panelling whose patterns have been too worn by the centuries to make sense. There are a few holes in the wall that once must have been windows. It’s relatively safe, if a bit dull. I suspect it was a library, but all the books have long since left it.
Well, until recent events, all books except one.
Suffice it to say there are no books here. A few shelves still stand, but mostly there’s just a mess of splintered wood.
Why am I even making a survival guide? Unless it’s a guide how to go gallivanting about this world if you have a death wish. No. I can’t give up now. With my hard earned wisdom, I could at least make the next poor sap’s experience a little easier, just as I planned at the beginning. It just will be a more modest guide. Note to self, cross this from the transcript. Oh come on, the pen can write down what I’m saying but it can’t do that? Fine, I’ll cross it out myself. Later. Can’t have the next person completely lose faith in me and ignore my advice.
I should really begin by talking about the channels, as that is where all the differences begin. This world is scored with an immense network of them. In some places there are only a few meters between them, while in others you can walk for a couple miles before coming upon one. They’re filled with water as far as I can tell, but anyone can see that they don’t seem particularly natural. The water is too still. When you stare too long, it seems that there are wisplike forms spiraling in the depths, but they vanish after an instant.
Some say it is a grand masterpiece of the heavens, although I find it more akin to a drunken beast raking its claws through the earth. I’ve heard they form a pattern when viewed from above, but it’s rather difficult to get that vantage point. Plane travel doesn’t exist here, and I haven’t the opportunity to go and ask for a hot air balloon ride. Or pay for it. I was planning to look at the channels from a mountain range, but that...suffice it to say said plan did not work out. If I get through this, maybe I will try again. In case it wasn’t starting to be obvious, the channels render travel difficult.
The only way to cross the channels are the thornbridges. They’re not hard to miss: like a mass of twisted black roots braided together, emerging from the ground on one end and sinking back into it on the other. Some even have some additional tendrils that swirl around each other on either side of the bridge to form rails. I think they’re alive. I may have taken a sample after getting proper supplies to cut through the stone-like tendrils, but then, well...Don’t take samples.
People have tried to make their own bridges, but they have an uncanny tendency to fall apart. Boats and rafts crossing almost inevitably send their passengers into the depths. So unless you are extraordinarily talented at jumping, you’ll have to rely on the thornbridges.
I’d enclose a map of the thornbridges, but that would be rather useless. They change. A lot. Mathematicians and scholars are constantly trying to predict when and where bridges will appear, but the attempts have been fruitless. I’ve tried as well. There should be a pattern, but it seems more random than anything. Or perhaps malevolent.
Even if you think you find a pattern in the times and locations where a bridge appears, don’t trust it. They tend to betray you just when you needed them most.
Still, thornbridges are pretty much your only option for travel. It might require adding miles upon miles to your trip walking back and forth along a channel to find one, and it’s incredibly frustrating, but if you value your life please be patient. It is impossible to wade across the channels. They are deceptively deep, at least 50 meters by my tests. If you needed any more evidence that they’re unnatural, there you have it.
Unless you have no other choice, don’t swim across either. Most of the people I met are deathly afraid of the channels, and if they see someone in their waters, they’ll shun them at the best. Just don’t try it. I speak from experience. Don’t drink the water in the channels either. I’m not sure if even touching the water is healthy.
The channels appeared about several hundred years ago, and at the same time the first person from our world ended up here. Definitely not a coincidence. I’d give the exact number, if I still had that book.
Ugh, did I get blood on the paper? No-no don’t write that. Dangit!
Anyways, this building is set in an underground cavern mostly devoid of life that supposedly can only be accessed by people from Earth according to that book. The greatest concentration of channels is right outside, slicing through the rock every other meter or so. There are glowing white crystals in the ceiling, so you needn’t worry about light. Just keep walking away from the building where you arrived and you will reach a rim of rock along the edge of the cave, and from there you can find a hole that leads out. Walking east will bring you toward a village. The compass directions are the same, the sun still rises in the east and all that. It’s nestled in a valley by a forest.
Don’t say you’re from another world. Do not say you came from this place. Make up some fake backstory. I made too many enemies. I mean-errr, okay I need to phrase that better.
The geography is similar to Earth’s as far as I can tell. All the biomes seem similar, and I haven’t seen any plant or animal life that doesn’t exist on Earth. Perhaps more secondary succession and a great deal of plants growing in abandoned cities.
Nature doesn’t seem to interact much with the channels. Beyond the occasional glimpses of movement in their depths, I’ve never seen any actual life in the channels. Actually it seems that plant life avoids the channel. Trees and plants will grow right up to the edge, but not as single branch or blade of grass overhangs the actual channel. Ooh, and there’s this really cool effect where ecosystems are starkly different on different sides of a channel-
Around this building seems to be the largest concentration of these channels, but they’ve been present everywhere I travelled. Some cut through ruins of cities, hulls of buildings on either sides. The ruins are actually rather fascinating...but you should probably should avoid them. Yes, definitely avoid them. Settlements tend to avoid the channels as much as they can, although that isn’t possible most of the time. In some towns where the channels are more spread out people refuse to cross channels at all, and tend to be hostile toward outsiders.
Due to several unfortunate incidents, I haven’t spent much time in cities and can’t say much about them. Governments, technology, cultural norms-god I am so useless! Okay, calm down, just say what you do know. Languages are about the same as on Earth, so you’re set there at least.
I was lucky enough to have some wilderness survival skills coming in and just avoided cities mostly. It’s definitely doable. Pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to do that. I’m not sure I have time to really go through an entire wilderness survival guide, and frankly, it might be a good idea to stick to the cities, given-
Curse that thief! Why didn’t I read the whole book before leaving? All the information about surviving in this world from all the other people who have come here before, and I was enough of an idiot to bring it out of this place where it was safely stored and let it get stolen! All that knowledge lost!
Ugh, this is the most absurd last minute plan ever! First I lose the survival guide, then I somehow disturbed something in that one ruin, and managed to make it back here sans one arm, and now I think I can compensate for that with this pathetic attempt at a new guide. If you ever see a short woman with black hair, gold eyes, and a sneer constantly about her face, please punch her for me and tell her-
What was that?
No one should be able to get in here! I can barely stand. God, why did I have to lose my arm! Why?
There’s an acrid scent upon the air.
Just pull myself up to look out the window. Okay. It seems normal. As still as always. Lights glimmer on the surface of the channels. It is rather pretty, come to think of it. Wait-is that-
Waves of black, a ribbon of red racing along their edge. Filling the channels. The thornbridges writhe. It followed me here.
Why am I even bothering writing a guide? Whatever I’ve done has changed things, of that I’m sure. I just don’t know how, and I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to figure out.
Oh lovely, there are tears on the page, too. As if the blood wasn’t enough.
This isn’t much, but I hope this account survives. Whoever you are, I’m sorry, I-
I’m not the first one to end up in this place, and I suspect I won’t be the last. Hence, this lovely survival guide. So convenient that despite the occasional dearth of technology, this world has pens that record dictations for you. I suspect my handwriting would be atrocious at the moment.
From the records I’ve found, any person from our world who is thrust into this world starts off in this place. A circular room, with stone walls and wood panelling whose patterns have been too worn by the centuries to make sense. There are a few holes in the wall that once must have been windows. It’s relatively safe, if a bit dull. I suspect it was a library, but all the books have long since left it.
Well, until recent events, all books except one.
Suffice it to say there are no books here. A few shelves still stand, but mostly there’s just a mess of splintered wood.
Why am I even making a survival guide? Unless it’s a guide how to go gallivanting about this world if you have a death wish. No. I can’t give up now. With my hard earned wisdom, I could at least make the next poor sap’s experience a little easier, just as I planned at the beginning. It just will be a more modest guide. Note to self, cross this from the transcript. Oh come on, the pen can write down what I’m saying but it can’t do that? Fine, I’ll cross it out myself. Later. Can’t have the next person completely lose faith in me and ignore my advice.
I should really begin by talking about the channels, as that is where all the differences begin. This world is scored with an immense network of them. In some places there are only a few meters between them, while in others you can walk for a couple miles before coming upon one. They’re filled with water as far as I can tell, but anyone can see that they don’t seem particularly natural. The water is too still. When you stare too long, it seems that there are wisplike forms spiraling in the depths, but they vanish after an instant.
Some say it is a grand masterpiece of the heavens, although I find it more akin to a drunken beast raking its claws through the earth. I’ve heard they form a pattern when viewed from above, but it’s rather difficult to get that vantage point. Plane travel doesn’t exist here, and I haven’t the opportunity to go and ask for a hot air balloon ride. Or pay for it. I was planning to look at the channels from a mountain range, but that...suffice it to say said plan did not work out. If I get through this, maybe I will try again. In case it wasn’t starting to be obvious, the channels render travel difficult.
The only way to cross the channels are the thornbridges. They’re not hard to miss: like a mass of twisted black roots braided together, emerging from the ground on one end and sinking back into it on the other. Some even have some additional tendrils that swirl around each other on either side of the bridge to form rails. I think they’re alive. I may have taken a sample after getting proper supplies to cut through the stone-like tendrils, but then, well...Don’t take samples.
People have tried to make their own bridges, but they have an uncanny tendency to fall apart. Boats and rafts crossing almost inevitably send their passengers into the depths. So unless you are extraordinarily talented at jumping, you’ll have to rely on the thornbridges.
I’d enclose a map of the thornbridges, but that would be rather useless. They change. A lot. Mathematicians and scholars are constantly trying to predict when and where bridges will appear, but the attempts have been fruitless. I’ve tried as well. There should be a pattern, but it seems more random than anything. Or perhaps malevolent.
Even if you think you find a pattern in the times and locations where a bridge appears, don’t trust it. They tend to betray you just when you needed them most.
Still, thornbridges are pretty much your only option for travel. It might require adding miles upon miles to your trip walking back and forth along a channel to find one, and it’s incredibly frustrating, but if you value your life please be patient. It is impossible to wade across the channels. They are deceptively deep, at least 50 meters by my tests. If you needed any more evidence that they’re unnatural, there you have it.
Unless you have no other choice, don’t swim across either. Most of the people I met are deathly afraid of the channels, and if they see someone in their waters, they’ll shun them at the best. Just don’t try it. I speak from experience. Don’t drink the water in the channels either. I’m not sure if even touching the water is healthy.
The channels appeared about several hundred years ago, and at the same time the first person from our world ended up here. Definitely not a coincidence. I’d give the exact number, if I still had that book.
Ugh, did I get blood on the paper? No-no don’t write that. Dangit!
Anyways, this building is set in an underground cavern mostly devoid of life that supposedly can only be accessed by people from Earth according to that book. The greatest concentration of channels is right outside, slicing through the rock every other meter or so. There are glowing white crystals in the ceiling, so you needn’t worry about light. Just keep walking away from the building where you arrived and you will reach a rim of rock along the edge of the cave, and from there you can find a hole that leads out. Walking east will bring you toward a village. The compass directions are the same, the sun still rises in the east and all that. It’s nestled in a valley by a forest.
Don’t say you’re from another world. Do not say you came from this place. Make up some fake backstory. I made too many enemies. I mean-errr, okay I need to phrase that better.
The geography is similar to Earth’s as far as I can tell. All the biomes seem similar, and I haven’t seen any plant or animal life that doesn’t exist on Earth. Perhaps more secondary succession and a great deal of plants growing in abandoned cities.
Nature doesn’t seem to interact much with the channels. Beyond the occasional glimpses of movement in their depths, I’ve never seen any actual life in the channels. Actually it seems that plant life avoids the channel. Trees and plants will grow right up to the edge, but not as single branch or blade of grass overhangs the actual channel. Ooh, and there’s this really cool effect where ecosystems are starkly different on different sides of a channel-
Around this building seems to be the largest concentration of these channels, but they’ve been present everywhere I travelled. Some cut through ruins of cities, hulls of buildings on either sides. The ruins are actually rather fascinating...but you should probably should avoid them. Yes, definitely avoid them. Settlements tend to avoid the channels as much as they can, although that isn’t possible most of the time. In some towns where the channels are more spread out people refuse to cross channels at all, and tend to be hostile toward outsiders.
Due to several unfortunate incidents, I haven’t spent much time in cities and can’t say much about them. Governments, technology, cultural norms-god I am so useless! Okay, calm down, just say what you do know. Languages are about the same as on Earth, so you’re set there at least.
I was lucky enough to have some wilderness survival skills coming in and just avoided cities mostly. It’s definitely doable. Pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to do that. I’m not sure I have time to really go through an entire wilderness survival guide, and frankly, it might be a good idea to stick to the cities, given-
Curse that thief! Why didn’t I read the whole book before leaving? All the information about surviving in this world from all the other people who have come here before, and I was enough of an idiot to bring it out of this place where it was safely stored and let it get stolen! All that knowledge lost!
Ugh, this is the most absurd last minute plan ever! First I lose the survival guide, then I somehow disturbed something in that one ruin, and managed to make it back here sans one arm, and now I think I can compensate for that with this pathetic attempt at a new guide. If you ever see a short woman with black hair, gold eyes, and a sneer constantly about her face, please punch her for me and tell her-
What was that?
No one should be able to get in here! I can barely stand. God, why did I have to lose my arm! Why?
There’s an acrid scent upon the air.
Just pull myself up to look out the window. Okay. It seems normal. As still as always. Lights glimmer on the surface of the channels. It is rather pretty, come to think of it. Wait-is that-
Waves of black, a ribbon of red racing along their edge. Filling the channels. The thornbridges writhe. It followed me here.
Why am I even bothering writing a guide? Whatever I’ve done has changed things, of that I’m sure. I just don’t know how, and I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to figure out.
Oh lovely, there are tears on the page, too. As if the blood wasn’t enough.
This isn’t much, but I hope this account survives. Whoever you are, I’m sorry, I-