between then and know

[intricate_engineer]

It was a trap.
Glen should have seen it coming, but she'd thought the offer might be genuine. Wasn't the possibility of immortality worth the risk?
Well, not this time.
Her pendant, her way out, was broken.
She tried to use it anyway.

Comments

[pythbox]

Now there is a line of water on the floor, very precisely drawn, and the head of the paintbrush is wet and a little dusty from contact with water and floor respectively.

[intricate_engineer]

She'd been hoping some trace of color had remained in the sponge, but it seems the brushes were very well cleaned or unused.
The bowl will be useful for boiling water. She can used heated stones and the tongs.

Glen's exhausted. She can explore the surrounding area in the daylight.
She should try to sleep, if her hunger and worry will let her.

[pythbox]

Nothing is going to interrupt her if she does manage to sleep. The night will go on for a while, getting colder as it does, and then the sun will rise and the temperature trend will begin to reverse; but inside the hill she will be somewhat insulated from these fluctuations.

[intricate_engineer]

She does manage to sleep eventually.
Her computer wakes her eight hours later. She has a moment of disorientation as she tries to place her surroundings. She groans when she remembers, and sits up.

She's starving. She swallows an emergency ration tablet. It doesn't help.
She drinks some water. It doesn't help either.

She stumbles to her feet and goes to the mouth of the cave.

[pythbox]

Early morning sunlight throws long shadows from the dead trees. Nothing moves, except for the wind.

[intricate_engineer]

Well, she's not going to run out of wood.
She steps out into the sun to judge the temperature.

[pythbox]

Warmish. Likely to get warmer. The light breeze brings a bit of a chill to the air.

[intricate_engineer]

That seems mildly promising. As long as Glen stays inside at the heat of the day, she shouldn't sweat away all her water.

Glen retreats inside to grab her bag and the sealed books.
She adds in the flint, the bowl, and a few of the tools she deems useful. You never know what will happen.

She sits in the sunlight and removes one of the intact books from its bag.

[pythbox]

This is the larger of the two. It's bound in a familiar silvery brown leather, the cover engraved with a strange geometric diagram of circles linked by straight lines. Sixteen circles in total, but five are more prominent than the rest.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen opens to the first page.

[pythbox]

It has words on it. They aren't in any language she's ever heard of, of course, but they are words, written very tidily in an unfamiliar alphabet.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen isn't worried by this.
She'd have been more surprised if the words were in a language she could understand.
She takes out the translator and slowly turns the pages of the book, one by one, giving the translator information to work with.

When she's finished with this book, she'll take out the smaller one, and let the translator record it too.

[pythbox]

The first book contains quite a few diagrams and illustrations. Some entire chapters seem to consist mostly of abstract figures drawn in beautiful coloured inks and enclosed in neat circular outlines, each accompanied by one or two paragraphs of text and a legend labelling the colours used.

At the very end of the book, the final appendix begins with a copy of the sixteen-connected-circles figure from the front cover, each circle filled in with a coloured ink and labelled with a name. This is followed by a lengthy and currently indecipherable chart, of which the first sixteen entries are marked in the same coloured inks as the correspondingly labelled circles. If she thinks back to opening the chest, she might recall that these sixteen colours also match the marbles that rolled out of it.

(The second book has more of the feel of a journal, in contrast to the first book's professional tone. Whoever kept the journal had very neat handwriting most of the time, but they still can't compare to whoever wrote or printed the first one. Interestingly, although the journal-keeper wrote no charts and drew few illustrations, here and there the journal contains one of those abstract circle-enclosed diagrams.)

[intricate_engineer]

Glen finishes going through the books and sets the translator down. It could take a while, depending on the complexity of the language.

The diagrams will provide some context, but it won't be enough. The translator will need to rely partly on trial an error. It's so much easier to decode a language when native speakers are available.

If the translator doesn't make any progress in the next few hours, Glen will return to the books herself. For now, she wants to explore the surrounding area. She drops off the books first.

[pythbox]

The surrounding area continues to be just as dead and just as flat as it was yesterday. It will be very easy to find her way back to this hill, because it's the tallest thing in sight from any direction.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen decides to climb to the top of the hill.

[pythbox]

From the top of the hill, she can see:

The shorter hill off to the west, with its pool of slightly gross water.

A black blotch in a dip in the ground to the northeast, which might be a pit or a discoloration or something else, it's hard to tell at this distance.

A faint glimmer far off to the east which is either quite a lot of water or a mirage.

A dark smudge close-ish by to the south, near enough to be categorized pretty definitively as a hole in the ground.

As for the hill itself, it is much the same on top as it was around the sides: a mix of dry cracked earth and solid grey rock, with many smaller rocks distributed throughout the former.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen takes a panoramic image, and then clambers down the hill and starts walking to the hole.

[pythbox]

The hole: is a hole. Its edges are loose and crumbly, probably not safe to walk near; there is water at the bottom, taking up the last foot and a half of an approximate five-foot depth. The water looks even grungier than the stuff from the hill-sheltered pool, and there's less of it.

[intricate_engineer]

Hmm. Well, she won't die from thirst. But food looks like it's going to be a serious problem.If there isn't life around the only sources of water she's seen, there might not be life anywhere.There is oxygen in the air, which suggests plant life, but that might be long dead or hundreds of miles away.

Maybe there will be insects inside the dead trees? The bones might have edible marrow, though the idea makes her feel ill.

She circles the hole, keeping a safe distance form the edge.

[pythbox]

Under an overhang at the edge of the pool, visible only from the opposite side, there is a small pile of what are either white sticks or more bones. Apart from that, nothing interesting.

[intricate_engineer]

A rope would have been useful, as would a bottle. She can put some water in a plastic bag though.

Glen gets as close to the edge as she dares and looks for a way down.

[pythbox]

No good way to climb down there without caving in part of the edge. It probably wouldn't be too bad if she did cave in part of the edge, but there's definitely a risk of injury.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen wants to inspect the objects, but she really can't afford a broken leg.

She decides to head towards the glimmer in the east.
If there's life, it will be near water.
She'll walk for an hour, keeping an eye out for any living things, and see if the glimmer appears any closer.

[pythbox]

The ground has a gradual downward slope in this direction.

Eventually it becomes pretty clear that there is, in fact, a lot of water ahead. Either an ocean or a very large lake. But it's farther away than the hill she just came from, and at an increasing downhill slope: it could easily take her another hour and a half to walk there and then four or five hours to get back to the hill.