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]

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.

[intricate_engineer]

She debates whether or not to continue.
She already has found water, shelter, fire, and clues about this world.
It could be a bad idea to leave that behind.
On the other hand, she can get back before nightfall if she really needs to.
She can't afford to waste time here. Her food is very very finite.
If there's nothing edible near or in the water, she needs to know that as soon as possible.

She forges ahead.

[pythbox]

Dead trees, dead trees, a small sinkhole she has to detour around, so many dead trees, a dip in the ground of unknown depth filled up almost completely with sun-bleached white bones, even more dead trees...

At last: the ocean, or possibly lake. At its edge, the dry cracked earth transitions into pale golden sand. There is nothing growing along the shoreline, at least not visibly.

The water is nastily cold, although after this long of a walk at this temperature she might very well find it refreshing. And it's much clearer and nicer-smelling than the stuff from the hill-pool and the hole-pool.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen heads to the water and dips in fingers in and touches one to her tongue.
Is the water still? Is it clear? How far in can she see?

[pythbox]

There are gentle swelling waves that mostly don't obstruct the view through the water, and it's clear enough that she can see the bottom for about thirty feet out if she stands just above the line of wet sand where the waves strike. In that interval, there is no visible sea-life of any kind.

The water is too cold to taste of much, but definitely salty.

[intricate_engineer]

This isn't good.
Glen doesn't want to go swimming, so she decides to walk along the shore, heading North.

[pythbox]

The shore curves slightly, wobbling inward and outward in long arcs.

There's not a whole lot to see except dead plants and water.

[intricate_engineer]

How dead are the dead plants?
Glenn digs up a couple, looking at their roots and seeing if they have any seedpods or dried fruits.

[pythbox]

They look pretty dead. The roots are dry and brittle; there are no obvious fruits or seeds.

[intricate_engineer]

Well, this is just wonderful.
She takes out her translator. It's not finished, though it does seem to be making progress. It had tentatively identified several common words and the basic grammatical structure.

She decides to keep walking along the shore. Maybe there's something to see, and she'd hate to make a return trip.

She'll head back to the hill later, at an angle that will intercept the odd splotch she saw from the hill.

[pythbox]

There is nothing to see along the shore except more shore.

The odd splotch, when she gets close, turns out to be a pit so deep that even with the sun high overhead she can't see the bottom. It's maybe ten feet across, irregularly shaped, and since most of the edge is made of solid stone it's even safe to walk right up to. Probably.

(The translator, meanwhile, has verified to its satisfaction that this language uses a base 16 number system. Now it understands all the numbers.)

[intricate_engineer]

Glen lays down near the edge and scoots forward so that her head hangs over empty space. She peers into the depths.

[pythbox]

It sure is dark down there.

[intricate_engineer]

Glen fumbles around until she finds a pebble and drops it into the darkness.

[pythbox]

Tink... clack...

[intricate_engineer]

Glen is not jumping down there then.
Back to the hill it is. That was a rather futile expedition. At least she knows she won't run out of water.

[pythbox]

Back at the hill, everything is (very predictably) just as she left it. And the translator has figured out a bunch more words.

Those circular diagrams are recipes of some kind.

For example, the first one in the book: 'Rich Soil'. The diagram depicts an arrangement of interlocking squares traced in green and brown ink; the legend describes the brown ink as 'Essence of Earth' and the green as 'Essence of Life'; the partly-translated blurb advises, "Draw on an 8- or 12-[unit of distance] [noun] in an open space. Produces 16-24 [unit of volume]s of soil depending on diagram size. Draw quickly to avoid unwanted [action]."

[intricate_engineer]

Magic. This world has magic.
That's unexpected, but exciting.
Maybe this won't end in disaster after all.

Fortunately, the translator has a search function.
Glen looks for any mentions of the ink, specifically how to make it.

[pythbox]

The essences appear in the chart at the end of the book, and in many diagram legends where they are associated with a consistent selection of ink colours, and in a few other places that haven't been translated well enough to do her any good.

That coloured-and-labelled sixteen-circles diagram, partly translated, now looks like this.

And the first sixteen entries in the chart look like this, with small appropriately coloured circles next to each row:

Number	Essence Name	[noun]	[noun]
0	[essence 0]	0
1	[essence 1]	0
2	[essence 2]	0
3	Light	0
4	Matter	0
5	Air	1	Matter + [essence 0]
6	Water	1	Matter + [essence 1]
7	Earth	1	Matter + [essence 2]
8	Fire	1	Matter + Light
9	[essence 9]	1	Light + [essence 0]
10	[essence 10]	1	Light + [essence 1]
11	[essence 11]	1	Light + [essence 2]
12	[essence 12]	1	[essence 2] + [essence 0]
13	Life	1	[essence 2] + [essence 1]
14	[essence 14]	1	[essence 0] + [essence 1]
15	[essence 15]	1	[essence 0] + [essence 1] + [essence 2] + Light + Matter

[intricate_engineer]

Glen is fascinated.
There is a logic here, one she hopes she can unravel.
The large outer circles might be the basic elements that make up the Universe.


Eight elements lead directly to the center. Those eight elements are formed by different intersections of the five basic elements.
There is Light and Matter. It follows that there may also be Time, Space and perhaps Energy. Would Energy be separate from Light? One element could also be Nothing.

The smaller circles seem to represent the more complex elements.
There is Water, Earth, Air, and Fire. She remembers that some philosophers also included Soul, but, depending on the society, that might not follow.
If there is Life there is likely also Death. But that is only 6. She needs eight. The two remain are likely a pair or share some common logic.

It would help if she could place her guesses.
Could Matter and Nothing make air? Perhaps. She tells the translator to input Nothing for [essence 0] and to report whether that returns logical results.

[pythbox]

Nothing for [essence 0] is a tentatively promising substitution, according to the translator.

[intricate_engineer]

Light and Nothing could be Death.
Glen tells the translator to test Death as [essence 9].

Energy and Time could make life.
White seems more like Time than green.
If green is Energy, Energy + Matter could = Earth.
Could Time + Matter = Water? She doesn't know.
She tells the translator to test [essence 2] as Energy and [essence 1] as Time anyway.

[pythbox]

[essence 9] as Death: ambiguous results. Not right, but not totally wrong either.
[essence 2] as Energy: pretty clearly negative.
[essence 1] as Time: slightly less negative, but still probably not right.