The above video (Part 1) is an excerpt from a short orientation video meant to accompany the granting of a New Thelos recovery permit from the Post Rift Regional Stabilization Committee. Selected from Annex J-3636A.
The story below (Part 2) is the recovered audio diaries of Pazyk the Seeker, permitted explorer of New Thelos. Selected from Annex J-3636A.
Expedition Day 1
Location: Edge of the Exclusion Zone
Log Entry Begin:
I can’t believe I’m finally here. As I look up at the city, it still doesn’t quite feel real. Not after waiting the better part of a decade to get the permit, then waiting a whole ‘nother year to get the right group together. Thank the Sun that Rojimun was able to finally get Koza to come out of retirement – without him, I doubt we’d last a week inside. Though he doesn’t exactly seem happy to be here, I’m sure he’ll be smiling when we come out with a fortune strapped to our backs! At least, that’s what Rojimun says. It’s his old map that’s gotten us out here, something he was willed by his great grandfather, marked with the supposed location of an off-the-book Teranite processing foundry somewhere in the city’s old industrial core. Not exactly the sexiest thing to be looking for there, not when most folks associate the ruins of New Thelos with all sorts of exotic rift-crossed gear and half-magic material. But the boring things are what pay the bills, and Sun knows that Teranite is in short supply these days. Since the last of the colonial mines dried up a few years ago, we’ve been stuck using every recycled bit we can find in our ether-conductive tech-components, and the recycled stuff just doesn’t last forever. If we can bring out even a few ingots, I daresay we’ll be richer than all those old corpo bastards everyone talks about from back in the day – and supposedly, there’s a LOT more than a few ingots hiding in there.
As I look up at the towers from down here in the shadows they cast, I can’t help but wonder what else we’ll find in there. Those who come back talk about treasures lying around every corner. The city was a prosperous place back in its day, before it was abandoned, and its wonders were only made more wondrous when they became inaccessible after the rift opened just over a century ago. Apparently, the goods are only outnumbered by the dangers – but we’re prepared for that too. Koza’s let us all copy the notes he took in his standard issue bestiary over the course of his 5 previous expeditions. There’s a lot the publication board left out it would seem. Who knew that the Chatters can be pacified by the proper use of the word “alacrity” in a sentence? Koza did, but the bestiaries we have sure didn’t. Chatters account for nearly 10% of all recorded attack-related deaths that have occurred in New Thelos – why the publication board would willingly omit such an important tactic against the creatures bewilders me.
I can hear one of them howling out there right now. It’s echoing off the towers that we will walk between tomorrow. My mind cannot say if it is a welcome or a warning, but I think my heart knows.
Expedition Day 2
Location: The Perimeter Towers
Log Entry Begin:
We crossed the border just as the sun was rising. It was less than I expected – no great gate or sizzling wall of energy, just a fading line of red paint on the ground between two rotting guard stations, beyond which everything seemed to move just a little bit slower. Back in the day, in the wake of the initial evacuation, the PRRSC set up a network of guard towers to try and defend the newly formed evacuee colonies from any of the rift-crossers that might try and leave the city. That proved to be an enormous waste of time and resources, because, as everyone now knows, the rift crossers don’t leave the radius of the rift. The very edge of the time dilation effect, the “border” of the ruins, marks the edge of their range. No one quite knows why. We just know we’re grateful for it. We all study the entities in school growing up, and I can promise you that if they wandered free as we do, our world would be an even more desperate place than it already is.
Speaking of entities, we saw our first Shambler today. Much earlier than expected – we all thought they were only found close to the rift. Tayra nearly shit himself in fear, and Koza and I had to practically wrestle the bolt thrower out of his hands to keep him from shooting at it. Thankfully, we were able to calm him down quick enough to avoid disaster; disaster which may still have struck if we hadn’t had Koza’s low frequency emitter. We couldn’t even hear the sound it made, but the Shambler sure could. The damn thing was hightailing it away before we could even say goodbye!
We’re camped off the road that the map says will take us around the city center to the industrial zone on the other side. It’s a roundabout route and a slow one at that, but it saves us from getting slogged down in the high time-dilation areas near the rift. There’s a bit of arguing going back and forth right now between Koza and Rojimun as to whether or not it will ACTUALLY save us any time given how much longer it is, but Koza’s adamant that we want to stay as far from the central rift as possible. He says the entities only get thicker and meaner there, and that even if the route saves subjective time, any such time saved would be negated by the all the danger. I’m on Koza’s side there. Why risk more for the same reward?
The sun’s long set and I’ve retired to my tent, but they’re still out their debating. It’s gotten much too math-y for my taste. I suppose when I wake, I’ll know where our path leads.
Expedition Day 3
Location: Outer Loopway Station 9
Log Entry Begin:
Sun above, my legs hurt. Koza’s rationale won out, but what none of us knew was that the road that was supposed to take us to the foundry was destroyed by SOMETHING since the last time Koza was here. Even he was shocked – when we asked him what could have done this, all he said was “something big”. Instead of walking on a road all day, we spent our time clambering over massive stacks of rubble and picking our way through the Chatter infested ruins on either side. Do you know how hard it is to organically use “alacrity” in a sentence? It’s not exactly an easy word to make your way to in a conversation with beings whose only purpose is to speak so quickly and so nonsensically that you don’t notice how close they’re getting. Eventually, we just started shooting the damn things – which brought on a whole host of other issues. Turns out, the clap of a bolt thrower attracts more than just chatters; by the time we made camp, we’d seen over a dozen Lurkers, five Collectors, and an Amalgamate – though that one we only saw from a distance (thankfully).
Rojimun’s been insufferable, and hasn’t let us forget that his plan to cut through the city center would have saved us from all this - supposedly. Koza’s been silent as ever. I tried to emulate that attitude as well. The good news is we all made it, and we should be at the foundry by tomorrow night. If all goes well, we’ll be loaded down with ingots and on our way out of here in just 4 days time!
Expedition Day 4
Location: Inner Commerce District – Zone J
Log Entry Begin:
Koza’s dead. I can’t believe it – none of us can. It had been such a peaceful day, until Rojimun spotted the Crawler. I could see the greed in his eyes, that extra 1% just SCREAMING at him to go and get it. It was a small one, he thought it would be easy. Koza tried to warn him, tried to say that the little ones were the fastest and therefore the deadliest, but Rojimun had already fired off his bolt thrower. He missed, and the Crawler covered half the distance between us and it in the blink of an eye. Rojimun would have been dead if Koza hadn’t lanced the thing with his spear and taken it out, which would have been cause for celebration had the crawler not spent its dying moments hosing Koza down with its acidic bile. Sun above, how he screamed. We tried to help him, but what can you do when a man’s flesh is melting off his bones? Nothing at all.
We buried him beneath a tree and made camp nearby. No one’s speaking, but we’re all thinking the same thing – do we dare continue on? The answer has to be yes. We’ve already invested too much to give up now. Rojimun is sure that we can save time by getting off the road and cutting through the center of the city. Neither Tayra nor I have the map, nor the authority to argue with him, so that’s what we’re doing. He seems sure of himself, but I can’t help the feeling in my stomach telling me that this is another awful mistake.
Expedition Day 5
Location: Outer Rift Perimeter
Log Entry Begin:
We’re lost as all hell, and Tayra’s wounded. None of us even saw the Snatcher before its tentacle shot out of the pile of rubble and grabbed Tayra by the ankle. I was quick with my machete though, and severed the tendril before Tayra could be dragged into the thing’s nest. The tentacle only had him for a few seconds, but that was more than enough time to deposit its venom into his leg by way of its barbed suckers. Tayra’s leg beneath the knee looks like a corpse’s now, and he’s been unconscious for hours. Rojimun’s sure he’ll recover, but I think he’s already dead. We’ve given him all the medicine we have. I told Rojimun that we should go back, that this isn’t worth it, but he’s adamant we push on. He says he’s sure we’re close, but I haven’t seen him check his map in a while. When I asked him to take a look at it, he got angry and said it’s for his eyes only.
I’m not sure what to do. This all should have gone so differently. Not only have we effectively lost 2 of our group, but we haven’t even seen ANY of the fabled treasure of this place. All the stories say this city is overflowing with old tech and magic material, but I’ve only seen monsters and the rotting remains of a metropolis that rose too high and fell FAR as a result. If we don’t find the foundry tomorrow, I’m turning around – Rojimun be damned. There are no riches here worth my life.
Expedition Day 6
Location: Central Rift Radius
Log Entry Begin:
It came in the night. I heard it through my dream, a great slogging, wet sound, like meat hitting the ground. When I finally awoke and looked out, I thought I was hallucinating, but no – there was a wall of flesh, covered in tiny mouths on top of where Rojimun and Tayra’s tents had been, just 10 feet from my own. I was frozen by shock, a paralysis that only abated when the wall of flesh started to sprout eyes that stared at me as its tiny mouths began to scream.
I’m ashamed to say I ran, with no concern for the fates of Rojimun or Tayra. I sprinted in pure panic from the thing that had appeared, and only when I could no longer hear the screaming of its mouths did I stop and turn around. I thought it would be gone but learned quickly how foolish that notion was. The thing I turned to see was as tall as the skyscrapers that surrounded it, an Amalgamate of impossible scale. I knew they were the largest of the entities found in this place, but that large? It was something out of a nightmare. It must have been what destroyed the road – what else could have? It toppled buildings like dominos when it moved. I don’t think it cared about me or my compatriots at all, in the same way I wouldn’t care for ants whose lives ended beneath my feet. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just kept running, until exhaustion overcame me and forced me to realize where I was. I smelled it first, that distinct scent of cinnamon and acid that they tell us about in school. I realized too that everything behind me seemed to move considerably faster than that which lay ahead. And somewhere beyond my most used senses, somewhere in my SOUL, I could FEEL time slipping away, like cold air rushing past hot skin. I was near the rift, in proximity to that which had so marred our world, that which had destroyed this city, replacing it with a horror show of monsters and twisted time. It was the last place I wanted to be. I turned again then, to run the back, to try and make my way out of this accursed place, but found my path blocked. Not by the Amalgamate this time, but by a horde of Chatters that were crawling down from the towers. Sun above, I had no idea there were so many, all crawling like ants down toward me, laughing as they did. So, against my better judgement, I ran back to the rift. They followed me, chased me toward it until I was nearly upon it, then stopped. At a certain point they would go no further. They just surrounded me, waited, and watched.
I never knew Chatters could be silent. Yet they are – a hushed horde of unmoving mouths, watching me with their beady eyes, as though curious to see what I will do.
I think they know what I will do, though I’ve been putting it off for some time now. I’ve been sitting here, on the edge of the rift for nearly 8 hours – 8 days in outside time. I can’t go back, even though I want to – they’ll tear me apart before I ever get remotely close to the border. They want me to enter the rift. But why? Why don’t they follow me?
I don’t know, but I’ve decided that if I find out I’ll come back. I won’t be torn apart by the beasts. Anything but that. I’m going into the rift, but I’m leaving this diary here so that if someone finds it, they’ll know I didn’t return. If it’s possible, I’ll cross back over and amend this entry with what I find out. I never imagined I’d be a rift crosser, the most cursed beings my society can imagine. There is no worse fate in the eyes of my people than one who passes through the rift, but the truth is none know what lies on the other side. Only rumors. Only tales. I supposed I’ll find out soon enough.
If you’re reading this, if you found this entry with no additional answers, I fear you may be in a similar situation to my own. If you are, I pray you find your way out. May the Sun help you rather than abandon you, as it abandoned me.
My name is Pazyk. I came here seeking fortune and found only ruin. If you find this where I left it, here, beneath a rock beside the rift, I beg you take it back. Find your way home, when I could not – and never return to this cursed place.
END LOG
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