T-033 Shard swarm

Threshold Institute · Case file T-033

Number

T-033 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 33, month 2, day 15

Where found

Beyond T-001, a field of glass along a crack in the void, a day and a half past the hollow's ridge on Petr Lask's bearings

Status

Uncontained

Now

In the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

None possible: no container holds it. Field guidance for the land beyond T-001: grit that moves against the wind is not grit. A team that sees a glittering cloud on glass ground or along the void's cracks keeps off the glass, faces the cloud and fires into it as it comes; it does not run, since the cloud is faster than a runner. Every surveyor on such ground wears gloves, a scarf over the face and the heavy coat, whatever the weather. When it falls, the glass it leaves is not picked up.

Description

A cloud of glass shards that moves as one thing, low over the ground, glittering. It hunts: it turns toward whoever it finds and comes on fast, with a glassy chitter, and cuts lightly and again and again, so that a surveyor caught in it bleeds from a dozen small cuts before they can raise their rifle. It can be shot like any creature. Every hit it takes knocks shards loose, and it thins as it weakens. When it dies it falls to the ground as broken glass, with a sound like a dropped window.

Discovery

The next morning the search came out onto a field of glass along one of the cracks where the void cuts into the land. A cloud of grit was blowing across it, glittering, and no one paid it any mind until it stopped blowing with the wind and turned toward them. It went over Lina Dahl first and then the surveyor beside her, and both came out of it cut across the hands and face. Halden fired into the middle of it, and the shards the round knocked loose fell as glass; he and Rehn fired until there was no cloud left, only a wide scatter of broken glass on the ground. The search had a long way to go on its bearings, and no more stores than it could spare. Rehn turned it back that evening.

Addenda

Addendum T-033-1

from Dr. H. Ek's medical log, Year 33, month 2, day 19

Surveyor L. Dahl: forty-one cuts on the hands, forearms and face, none deeper than a few millimetres, all clean, as from window glass. Surveyor K. Moen: twenty-eight, the same. Glass taken from the wounds and set beside the shards from the field: the same glass, with no maker's mark, no flaw and no edge that has been worn.

Addendum T-033-2

note by T. Rehn on the file, Year 33, month 3

I asked for a fourth search, and I turned it back myself, a day and a half past the ridge, short of any camp of Sund's. The crates that are not crates, then the glass that hunts: the further we go along Lask's bearings, the more there is that stands in the way, and none of it is anything we met nearer the anchor. I think the way Sund went is guarded. I have asked that no more long surveys be sent until we know what by. The Director has agreed, and has asked me for something we can do instead.

What followed

What lay at the end of those bearings, the thing Sund would not leave, the Institute never reached. The things its later teams did bring back are in their own files (see T-034 to T-042).

Previous fileT-032 Cache mimicPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-034 Pale LanternPart III: Going through (the objects)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Anneli Sund, Petr Lask, Erik Halden, Lina Dahl, Dr Hanna Ek and K. Moen.
• Places: The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 33, month 2, day 15. Met by the same search the next morning, on a field of glass along a crack where the void cuts into the land: we took it for blown grit, glittering, until it stopped blowing with the wind and turned toward us. It went over Lina Dahl and the surveyor beside her, and Erik Halden and Tomas Rehn fired into it until only broken glass was left; Rehn turned the search back that evening, and we sent no more long surveys.

A cloud of glass shards that moves over the land beyond T-001 as one thing. It cuts fast and lightly, again and again. Every hit it takes knocks shards loose and it thins as it weakens; when it dies it falls to the ground as broken glass.

No container holds it: it is all edges. Status: uncontained.

Today it is found in the rift.

It goes down after losing 1100 ml of its 3700 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.