T-023 Listening field

Threshold Institute · Case file T-023

Number

T-023 in the catalogue

Kind

Place

Class

Class III: no cell holds it for long

Found

Year 26, month 11, day 2

Where found

A plain of black glass between the spires beyond T-001, and smaller fields of the same glass elsewhere

Status

Uncontained

Now

In the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

The listening field cannot be contained. The survey manual's silence rules apply on any glass ground beyond T-001: no shot is fired on glass, no one runs on glass, and every crossing is made one at a time, at a walk, with canteens and tools stowed so that they cannot knock. A survey attacked on glass does not fight there; it walks off the glass and fights from the ground beyond. Surveys keep their eyes up on glass, under the mirror rule (T-007), though no reflection on it has yet moved on its own.

Description

Ground of smooth black glass that repeats every sound made on it, a moment late and louder. A step comes back as a stamp, a dropped canteen as a bell, a shot louder than the gun, and the repeat goes on for a breath after the sound itself has ended. The repeats carry far across the land and bring every creature that hears them toward the glass. The field does not hunt and does not lure. It only listens, and tells.

Discovery

The ninth survey, under Viktor Saar, crossed the plain of black glass between the spires five months after the hanging moment's crash (T-022) had first shown what noise could bring. Saar ordered eyes up as they started across. No reflection moved on its own. The trouble was sound. When a rift stalker (T-002) came up out of the spires and a surveyor fired at it, the glass shouted the team's place across the land.

Addenda

Addendum T-023-1

incident log, Year 26, month 11, day 2. Compiled by V. Saar

Time 0. Team of five on the glass, a third of the way across. Steps on the glass come back louder; noted, team slows.

Time 4 minutes. A rift stalker comes up from the spires to the east. Surveyor J. Rask fires twice. Both shots come back from the glass all round us, louder than the rifle, and ring on after.

Time 5 minutes. Calls from the spires on three sides. Three more stalkers, then a fourth.

Time 7 minutes. A rift brute (T-003) seen coming down from the north spires behind the stalkers. I order the team off the glass to the south at a walk. Two surveyors break into a run; their steps come back like drums.

Time 12 minutes. Off the glass. We fight from the ruins at its south edge. Surveyors J. Rask and M. Kask wounded, Kask badly. Brute put down with most of our rounds.

Time 3 hours. At the anchor. Rask and Kask carried the last hour.

Addendum T-023-2

note by T. Rehn on the file

I set this beside two older files. The echo (T-005) repeated sounds to lure the night staff. The quiet room on the sealed level (T-012) swallowed a guard's shots so that no one outside heard them. The field does the opposite of the quiet room, and it does not hunt like the echo: it takes no one itself. It is ground that tells everything nearby where you are. I propose the silence rules for any glass beyond T-001.

Addendum T-023-3

from Mara Okafor's training notes, Year 27, month 1

I had the new teams cross the floor of the old firing range in socks, then in boots, then with full kit, with a man at the far end listening. Every time a canteen knocked or a buckle rang, the team went back to the start. They hated it. By the end they crossed glass without thinking about it, which is the only way they will cross it out there.

What followed

The silence rules were kept exactly the next spring, and they did not help. The next thing found did not need to hear anyone (see T-024).

Previous fileT-022 The hanging momentPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-024 The wellPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Viktor Saar, M. Kask and J. Rask.
• Places: The Institute’s site, The sealed level and The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 26, month 11, day 2. Found by the ninth survey under Viktor Saar, crossing the plain of glass between the spires five months after the hanging moment's crash had first shown what noise could bring. Saar ordered eyes up as they started across, but the trouble was sound: when a rift stalker came up out of the spires and a surveyor fired at it, the glass shouted the team's place across the land.

Discs of pale, fractured glass on the open land beyond the rift, 11 to 17 tiles across, their edges torn now and then by a faint flicker. Up to three were charted there, none near where a traveller arrives. Every sound made on the glass, a step or a shot, comes back at once from the four sides of the field, each echo carrying twice as far as the sound itself. Creatures far off turn and come to it. The field answers each sound once and is then silent until the next.

It repeats only what it hears: whoever crosses it without a sound crosses it unheard. A field that the zone of a traveller's camp touches lies quiet, ordinary glass until the camp moves elsewhere, and a bedroll can still be laid out beside it.

Status: uncontained. They stay where they are, and no map shows them.

Today it is found in the rift.

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