T-024 The well

Threshold Institute · Case file T-024

Number

T-024 in the catalogue

Kind

Place

Class

Class III: no cell holds it for long

Found

Year 27, month 5, day 14

Where found

The land's eastern arm beyond T-001, where the ground thins to a spine between two reaches of void

Status

Uncontained

Now

In the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

The well cannot be contained, filled or covered. Every hole in the land beyond T-001 that goes down into nothing is treated as a well until proved otherwise. The first team to see one marks a ring of forty paces round it, and no one enters the ring for any reason, to recover gear, a line, a body or anything else. Nothing is roped to a stone near the rim. Loss of equipment inside the ring is logged and written off.

Description

A round hole in the land beyond T-001 that goes down into the void: the same void that lies past the edge of the land, but here inland. It pulls everything toward it, people included. The pull is weak at forty paces and strong at ten, and grows steadily between. Loose grit slides toward it. Whatever crosses the rim falls without a sound, and nothing has come back up.

Discovery

The tenth survey, under Tomas Rehn, went out along the eastern arm to chart its end. It found the hole on the second day and tested it with what it could spare: a tin, a torch, a weighted line. The line was pulled out of a gloved hand. On the third day a surveyor, Oskar Nyberg, went to free a sounding line that had snagged near the rim. He was roped to two others. The rope held; the stone it was tied to did not.

Addenda

Addendum T-024-1

test log, Year 27, month 5, days 13 and 14. Supervisor: T. Rehn

Test 1. A tin rolled toward the hole from forty paces. It slowed, stopped, then began to roll toward the hole on its own. It went over the rim.

Test 2. A lit torch set down at twenty paces. It slid toward the hole, its flame bending toward the hole as it went. The light went over the rim and did not show again below.

Test 3. A sounding line, weighted, lowered from fifteen paces. Pulled taut at once. Held by surveyor O. Nyberg, gloved. The line was pulled out of his hand. Its far end snagged on the rim.

Addendum T-024-2

incident report, Year 27, month 5, day 14. Written by T. Rehn

Nyberg asked to free the line, which carried our only depth gauge. I agreed, with a rope round his waist held by surveyors L. Dahl and J. Rask and tied off to a stone. At about ten paces the pull took him off his feet. He went over the ground on his back, digging in his heels. Dahl and Rask held him for some seconds. The stone came out of the ground. Nyberg went into the well, and the rope after him, and Rask let go when it began to pull him too. I gave that order. Nyberg is the first surveyor lost beyond T-001. The decision to let him go near the rim was mine.

Addendum T-024-3

note by T. Rehn on the file, Year 27, month 6

The rings were my proposal and the Director has made them a standing order. One more note, for whoever reads this later. Everything we have found beyond T-001 until now simply is what it is: land that turns, tears that throw, bubbles that bend time. The well is the first that seems to want something. I do not think it will be the last.

What followed

It was not (see T-028). The next survey after the well went the other way, west, and found something it recognised (see T-025).

Previous fileT-023 Listening fieldPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-025 The copied campPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Lina Dahl, J. Rask and Oskar Nyberg.
• Places: The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 27, month 5, day 14. Found on the second day of the tenth survey under Tomas Rehn, sent along the land's eastern arm where the ground thins to a spine between two reaches of void. The survey tested the hole with a tin, a torch and a weighted line, and the line was pulled out of a gloved hand; on the third day the surveyor Oskar Nyberg went to free a snagged sounding line near the rim, roped to two others, and the stone the rope was tied to gave.

Round holes of the void in the open land beyond the rift, each 5 tiles across, with a pale lip that crumbles and flickers now and then. Four were charted there, none within 64 tiles of where a traveller arrives. Ash and grit stream over the ground toward each from 10 tiles out, as far as its pull reaches. The ground pulls toward the hole: faintly at the edge of the pull, and at the lip a little harder than a person walks. Whoever stands still drifts in, and from the last stride before the lip only a run gets clear. Zombies, creatures, people, a companion at heel and animals are taken alike, the slower from further out, and one that goes over the lip is gone for good, with no body and nothing to recover. A traveller who falls is taken by the void and wakes at home at the next dawn; the body, with all it carried, lies just outside the pull on the side it went in.

Shots bend toward the hole as they cross the pull, the slower and the nearer the more, and one that crosses the hole is swallowed and strikes nothing beyond it. A thrown grenade is drawn in, in the air and rolling, and one that reaches the hole never bursts. No bedroll can be laid out anywhere in a pull.

Status: uncontained. Keep moving near the lip; standing still is how they take you.

Today it is found in the rift.

Watch T-024 The well on YouTube