T-017 Shifting land

Threshold Institute · Case file T-017

Number

T-017 in the catalogue

Kind

Place

Class

Class III: no cell holds it for long

Found

Year 24, month 3, day 9

Where found

The land beyond T-001, from the first survey's arrival

Status

Uncontained

Now

In the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

Shifting land cannot be contained. It is managed. The land beyond T-001 is cut into zones of five by five chunks, each with a survey number. Every survey sleeps in a zone it means to keep: the zone around the anchor, or the zone where one of its members last slept on a bedroll. No map of the land beyond T-001 is filed without the date of the night it was drawn, and a map more than one night old is treated as a guess. At the rumble and the shimmer that come half an hour before midnight, every surveyor leaves ground that has not been held and walks to held ground. No survey builds, digs or caches anything outside a held zone.

Description

The land beyond T-001 does not hold still. Each midnight about a quarter of its zones take a new layout, with other ground and other pieces: hills where there were flats, stone where there was a path. A shifted zone keeps nothing that was done to it, and no map of it holds. Whoever stands where the ground turns solid is pushed aside, unhurt, onto the nearest open ground. Only the ruins stay where they stand. Two kinds of zone never shift: the zone where a traveller arrives through T-001, and the zone where a traveller last slept on a bedroll.

Discovery

The first survey went through T-001 from the containment chamber: four people under Tomas Rehn, one rift charge spent for the crossing and the anchor kept ready for the way home. Rehn had spent ten years learning the rules of the rooms that turned (T-008 to T-016), and the Director chose him for that reason: he wrote a thing down before he trusted it. The team came out on cracked stone under a dead sky, among roofless ruins of buildings like those on earth, wrong in every detail, as the upside-down room (T-014) had warned. Trees stood with their roots in the air. Past the edge of the land lay a void no one could walk into. The team set its anchor where it arrived, mapped some kilometres of ground and slept beside it. At midnight the ground rumbled and a shimmer ran along lines no one had marked. By morning a quarter of the map was wrong.

Addenda

Addendum T-017-1

from the first survey's field log, written by T. Rehn

Day 1, evening. Anchor set at the arrival. Ground mapped to the ridge north and the ruin field east. Cairn built at the ruin field's edge as a marker. All four well. No contact.

Day 2, morning. Rumble heard before midnight, felt through the bedrolls. A shimmer along the ground north of camp for some minutes. At dawn the north ridge was gone. In its place a flat of grey grit, and the path to it ends in solid stone. The ruin field stands where it stood. The cairn does not; the ground under it is new. The camp's own zone is as we left it.

Day 2, evening. I no longer think the land moved. I think some of it was replaced. I have marked the ground in squares and will see which squares turn tonight.

Day 4. Of the squares I marked, about a quarter turned each night. They turn whole, along straight seams. Our camp's square has not turned once. Lina Dahl slept two nights in a ruin to the east and that square has not turned either.

Addendum T-017-2

from the survey manual, first edition, Year 24, month 6

Sleep only on held ground. Date every map. Build nothing you are not willing to lose. If you hear the land rumble, walk to held ground and do not run; you have half an hour. If the ground turns solid under you, you will be put aside. Get up and walk on.

What followed

The fourth survey's map showed a hum where nothing stood (see T-018).

Previous fileT-016 The watchersPart II: The rooms turn Next fileT-018 Twin riftsPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn and Lina Dahl.
• Places: The containment chamber and The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 24, month 3, day 9. Found by our first survey through T-001, four people under Tomas Rehn, who set their anchor where they came out on cracked stone under a dead sky, mapped some kilometres of ground and slept beside it. At midnight the ground rumbled and a shimmer ran along lines no one had marked; by morning a quarter of the map was wrong.

The land beyond T-001 does not hold still. Our surveys cut it into zones of 5 x 5 chunks; each midnight about a quarter of them take a new layout, with other ground and other pieces.

A rumble and a shimmer warn half an hour ahead. A shifted zone keeps nothing that was done to it and no map of it holds; whoever stands where the ground turns solid is pushed aside. Only its ruins stay where they stand.

Status: uncontained. The zone where a traveller arrives and the zone where they last slept on a bedroll stay as they were.

Today it is found in the rift.

Watch T-017 Shifting land on YouTube