Making the Best, continued
Nov. 23rd, 2005 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerExcuse the shaky writing. I’m a little disturbed. Something happened on Selenitic and it rattled me a bit. I’m back on Myst now, but it’s taken me a while to get over the shock.
I was exploring. Wandering around, getting used to being mobile again. Planning to see what was up that other ladder. I must have put a foot wrong or something, because I felt the ground under me suddenly vanish, and there I was…waist deep in the rock. I could move through it, like wading through soggy mud but without leaving any kind of trail. When I came to steps I could climb them, but every time I did I sank a little deeper.
Then my head went under, and I saw
I saw the underside of the ground. And the water underneath. I was hovering in mid-air over the water, held by something I couldn’t see or feel.
Fortunately, being a computer geek, I knew exactly what was going on. It isn’t just the Linking Book to Selenitic that’s virtual. The whole frodding Age is. It isn’t real like the other Ages. I don’t know what the frod Atrus did, or why, but those planes and polygons are unmistakable. Another game for the boys? Some kind of experiment in paperless Age Writing? Not a clue. I just knew that if I didn’t find my way back on top of the ground, if whatever was holding me up decided to let go…I probably wouldn’t stop falling when I hit the water. If ever.
The only thing I could think to do was try going down the shaft again. The change of level might give me the chance I needed. I waded up the steps, my heart going like a bullet train, till I was up to my nose in the seemingly solid stone, the little blue lights under the treads shining around me. I reached up for the lip of the shaft and pulled myself up and over—for a moment I thought I wasn’t going to make it—and then I was kneeling on bricks that bore my weight, and I was able to squirm round and put my feet on those treacherous metal rungs. I climbed down, and the floor was blessedly solid beneath me, and I didn’t even mind the fatheaded bats complaining again.
Somehow by this time I had lost my taste for exploring. I climbed the other ladder, did what needed to be done up there, my mind focussed entirely on doing what I needed to do to get the frod out of this Age. I made my way down and back up the way I had come, walked carefully down the steps and back along the causeway to the door, opened it and descended the stairs, and so by stages found my way to the Linking Book back to Myst.
SOME WARNING WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE.
Nothing. Nothing, not one word, in the whole damn journal to indicate this wasn’t an Age like any other. Of course, he wasn’t writing it for the casual explorer, it’s not meant to be a Michelin Guide, but that doesn’t stop me being futilely, irrationally angry. Which is how I’ve been for the past two or three days. I’m just calming down enough to be able to think about it.
Gods alone know what’s waiting in Channelwood. I hardly dare open the Book. I’ll have to, of course, but not just yet.
Did I mention finding Ti’ana’s grave? Well, I found it again. Actually, it was more a case of tripping over it. A little flat stone in among the trees, just where someone furiously pacing might catch his toe on the projecting corner and go base over apex. I hit my head on a tree and saw stars for a while, which you can imagine did a lot for my general bonhomie. I’m mentioning it because as I sat there rubbing my head and looking daggers at the innocent lump of stone, something crossed my mind and vanished again before I could get a clear bead on it. Something about that grave. It’s no good, it’s gone now. Hopefully it’ll come back.
Anyway, the whole Selenitic episode was a timely reminder not to get too comfortable here. This is a death-trap. The fact that I’ve managed to bring a little life back into it doesn’t make it any less trappy. I must find a way out.
I was exploring. Wandering around, getting used to being mobile again. Planning to see what was up that other ladder. I must have put a foot wrong or something, because I felt the ground under me suddenly vanish, and there I was…waist deep in the rock. I could move through it, like wading through soggy mud but without leaving any kind of trail. When I came to steps I could climb them, but every time I did I sank a little deeper.
Then my head went under, and I saw
I saw the underside of the ground. And the water underneath. I was hovering in mid-air over the water, held by something I couldn’t see or feel.
Fortunately, being a computer geek, I knew exactly what was going on. It isn’t just the Linking Book to Selenitic that’s virtual. The whole frodding Age is. It isn’t real like the other Ages. I don’t know what the frod Atrus did, or why, but those planes and polygons are unmistakable. Another game for the boys? Some kind of experiment in paperless Age Writing? Not a clue. I just knew that if I didn’t find my way back on top of the ground, if whatever was holding me up decided to let go…I probably wouldn’t stop falling when I hit the water. If ever.
The only thing I could think to do was try going down the shaft again. The change of level might give me the chance I needed. I waded up the steps, my heart going like a bullet train, till I was up to my nose in the seemingly solid stone, the little blue lights under the treads shining around me. I reached up for the lip of the shaft and pulled myself up and over—for a moment I thought I wasn’t going to make it—and then I was kneeling on bricks that bore my weight, and I was able to squirm round and put my feet on those treacherous metal rungs. I climbed down, and the floor was blessedly solid beneath me, and I didn’t even mind the fatheaded bats complaining again.
Somehow by this time I had lost my taste for exploring. I climbed the other ladder, did what needed to be done up there, my mind focussed entirely on doing what I needed to do to get the frod out of this Age. I made my way down and back up the way I had come, walked carefully down the steps and back along the causeway to the door, opened it and descended the stairs, and so by stages found my way to the Linking Book back to Myst.
SOME WARNING WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE.
Nothing. Nothing, not one word, in the whole damn journal to indicate this wasn’t an Age like any other. Of course, he wasn’t writing it for the casual explorer, it’s not meant to be a Michelin Guide, but that doesn’t stop me being futilely, irrationally angry. Which is how I’ve been for the past two or three days. I’m just calming down enough to be able to think about it.
Gods alone know what’s waiting in Channelwood. I hardly dare open the Book. I’ll have to, of course, but not just yet.
Did I mention finding Ti’ana’s grave? Well, I found it again. Actually, it was more a case of tripping over it. A little flat stone in among the trees, just where someone furiously pacing might catch his toe on the projecting corner and go base over apex. I hit my head on a tree and saw stars for a while, which you can imagine did a lot for my general bonhomie. I’m mentioning it because as I sat there rubbing my head and looking daggers at the innocent lump of stone, something crossed my mind and vanished again before I could get a clear bead on it. Something about that grave. It’s no good, it’s gone now. Hopefully it’ll come back.
Anyway, the whole Selenitic episode was a timely reminder not to get too comfortable here. This is a death-trap. The fact that I’ve managed to bring a little life back into it doesn’t make it any less trappy. I must find a way out.