The sky above was merely one in name alone: there were no clouds, no sun, no moon, yet the human eye captured the landscape just the same. It was as if life’s artist neglected to use the canvas overhead. The darkened hues were reminiscent of the filling in a fig quite popular around Reinholdt Spire, but the ‘sky’ inspired no thoughts beyond that. No, it certainly wasn’t much to look at, nonetheless the experience in and of itself was enough to paint a grin on a would-be intrepid adventurer’s face. The diligent sky-watcher took out a notepad and covered the sky with it, jotting down his thoughts.
“The air is heavier than I thought it’d be; I guess that’s what makes an escort so valuable,” he said, looking up at the creature dragging him along the ground. “I’d like to be let go now, though, thanks.”
The creature didn’t respond. Perhaps it couldn’t? His mind was aflutter with theories and questions—his curiosity was the perfect distraction from the fear threatening to overtake him. He flipped through the notepad for something useful as he simultaneously noted his abductor’s features. Being snatched right from his feet and tugged along the ground wasn’t a welcomed experience, but the snail-like pace the beast trudged at did leave him with plenty of time to note his observations.
The creature was bipedal, but any comparisons between kidnapper and captive ceased there. Its arms were a congregation of meat spooled loosely as if every thread of flesh had the capacity to act independently. Rather than hands, the creature’s arms segmented into frayed ends far better suited for wrapping than gripping. The schlurrping sound that came with its rambling implied that the creature wasn’t made with treks in mind—no, its habitat had to be close.
“I don’t suppose you’re simply in need of friendly conversation?”
Again, no response. His breathing was growing a bit erratic, now; the time for lighthearted jabs at the situation to attempt to calm himself was over. The creature’s grip was tight and unyielding, even kicking at the arm with his free leg was met without so much as an utterance of acknowledgement. This thing was almost more flora than fauna, slow but uncompromising in its actions.
No, he couldn’t keep musing about the interesting creature before him. He flexed his abs and lurched forward, wiggling to slip his bag off his shoulders. He gripped it tightly; his bag provided more elevation off the ground than he’d thought, the thud of his back against the crag being the most evident correlation. There would likely be a bruise later, but the frigid feeling grazing his back was the more immediate concern: the ground was far too cold for such long-term direct contact. Another deep breath, another test of his underdeveloped abdominal muscles, and he began rifling through his bag.
There was next-to-nothing to go off regarding the offscape and its denizens, but even a brief visit had made one thing increasingly clear: there wasn’t much in the vein of light. While there was no way to be certain if this wriggling mass even had eyes, the time for hypothesizing was over and it was time to run some tests. Sitting up long enough to rummage through the contents of his bag was too much of a request of his abs, so he focused on maintaining distance between his back and the ground as his fingers searched fervently for a familiar texture. Spark seeds were so easy to overlook in caves and forests: their small, beige shells left them indistinguishable from any other detritus one might encounter on a walk through the woods. Yet a simple touch was enough to separate a spark seed from any of its contemporaries. The shell was nondescript, but the raphe was of such width that it prominently jutted outward. When a thumb took a trip around a spark seed, it would feel the lip of the raphe and have to lift over it. This made identifying one in a cluttered knapsack downright feasible.
The trickier part was going to be finding the vial of sunsight he knew was somewhere in his knapsack. The vials clinked around as he pulled them out one by one, looking for that stone-colored substance. Not that finding the color would be enough, mind. No, the only way to be unequivocally sure that it was sunsight in his hand was with a quick smell. The creature’s obliviousness to the actions around it was a token of solace. It did not react to the child-like whimpering belying the actual age of its captive as he anticipated the horrid scent of sunsight. With a retch and a recoil once the vial was near his nose, he was now certain he had everything he needed. A quick pinch of sunsight, some spit for adhesion, and the spark seed was dressed in an abundant coating of gray. One more sit-up, one more squeak of displeasure from physical exertion, and the spark seed was vigorously tossed ahead of the creature.
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He closed his eyes, shielding his face from the blinding reaction with his arm, as the time to brave the cold ground came once more. An audible pop came and his leg was quickly released. He scrambled to his feet as he heard the wriggling of the creature around him. It wasn’t just strands of its ‘arms’ that seemed to operate independently—the creature was no creature at all, but a clew of worms. He hurriedly pulled his notepad out of his bag and recorded as many observations as he could while the worms all quickly scattered in different directions. He stopped to blow the loose curls away from their position in front of his right eye. His hair grew so fast: he’d need to cut it again soon. The cracks in the crag made the worms’ disappearance nigh quicker than the flash of the sunspark reaction. He let out a sigh of frustration: there were so many observations regarding the creature (creatures?) he’d yet to write down. The opportunity had passed and he found himself looking over the first page of the notepad instead.
Your name is Rowan Hightower.
Pierce the veil.
The offscape puts holes in your head.
Read this often.
Rowan was glad that he’d had the foresight to write this down because his name was indeed one of the first things he forgot. Unfortunately, he was starting to learn that past Rowan didn’t account for everything: he had no idea what ‘Pierce the veil’ meant and past Rowan didn’t exactly provide a lot of context. Maybe there were time constraints when these notes were taken? It didn’t truly matter; Rowan had far more immediate concerns.
He looked around the environment before him, trying to get his bearings. Nothing about the landscape led him to believe the ground would be as cold as it was. There was no wind, no weather at all, really. The gray cragland he walked along oozed hostility: it shuddered and groaned beneath his boots, annoyed and offended at his presence. Be it luck or foresight in preparation, the boots on Rowan’s feet hugged him close and kept the sheer cold of the crag away. Sadly, the boots were the only piece of his attire that did the job. Whenever any other part of Rowan made contact with the vicious surface beneath him, his body cried out in agony like death was a mere step away. The cragland was mostly flat, though there were hillocks, valleys, and hills of rock that added diversity to the terrain. Against the human instinct to avoid the unknown, Rowan stepped off the flat path and skidded down the elevation towards a hillock. He gripped the clasp of his cloak with one gloved hand as he touched the side of the rocky surface with the other—odd, it wasn’t nearly as cold. The ground’s numbing bite pierced through his gloves with ease, yet the rocky side of the hillock was noticeably tepid in its temperature. Rowan ran his covered fingers along the surface, treading closer and closer to the crag itself. Sure enough, it was getting colder.
“Interesting: it doesn’t seem like the ground here can retain heat at all,” he muttered to himself as he took out a small chisel from his bag. “Or maybe it just doesn’t get the chance, seeing as how there’s no sun to warm it up.”
Rowan chipped a small bit of crag from the ground and palmed it. Ouch, nope. He quickly dropped it, reaching for an empty vial from his bag. He briefly gripped the crag, wincing as he dropped it into the vial and placed it into his bag.
“Mayhap it’s just a matter of inversion. Or the ground could be producing the cold, I suppose?”
Rowan continued filling the silence with postulations as he walked along. And how could he not? Fascination abounded in his current circumstance. He was in an unrecognizable place defying convention in its existence, his mind was a muddled mess of memories and formulas; he wondered why he had no trouble remembering the significance of the contents of his knapsack but couldn’t parse out the purpose of his being in this place to begin with. He just figured he was the studious type and those were the relevant memories he held on to—he huffed at the notion as he trudged along the cragland. Had he no friends? Family? A loved one? Just rocks and notes, it seemed. Nevertheless, answers wouldn’t suddenly rise from within his sieve of a head: he had to do the legwork.
Judging the time without something in the sky proved difficult, yet the dull throbbing in Rowan’s legs whined about how long it had been since he began his trek. He wasn’t sure how evident this landmark would be until he saw it over the vista of an ornery hill. The height of the rocking pillar was daunting, yet almost overlooked when surrounded by the scree and boulder fields flanking it. Rowan pulled out a pair of binoculars and focused on the would-be target. It was certainly moving ever so slightly at this range. Rowan silenced the excitement in his heart as he collapsed the binoculars and stowed them. His legs would have to whine a bit longer; the Wandering Tower of Zchēve awaited.
